parlea@jolt.mpx.com.au (Andrew Parle) wrote:
>Madhudvisa dasa (madhudvisa@krishna.org) wrote:
>: cjon@news-server.engin.umich.edu (cullen j o'neill) wrote:
><snip>
>: Life cannot be produced from matter. It is something completely different
>: from matter. Life, the "soul" enters matter when the right conditions are
>: there... So you can never produce life from matter...
>Unfortunately, we cannot detect the 'soul', only 'life' (byt whatever
>definition). Tell us, does the ovum carry the soul? the spermatazoa?
>Or does it come from the outside? At what point during pregnancy?
>If it is not in the Book, how do you answer such questions?
No. It's in the books, don't worry about that! [The Vedas is not just one
book, it is a huge library of books covering all fields of knowledge both
material and spiritual.] The soul takes shelter within the semen of the
man and is transferred to the women during intercourse.
>: Accepting Knowledge from someone who knows is a perfectly scientific way
>: of acquiring knowledge. You do it all the time. The Libraries are full of
>: books written by people with a little knowledge on something. When you
>: want to find out something in science the first thing you do is to find an
>: authority in the field and see what he says.
>Not exactly. The information in a scientific publication carries not only
>the reported facts and interpretations, but _how you know they are true_.
>In principle, given _any_ scientific fact, you can go back and find out
>exactly how it was discovered and why it is believed to be true. This is
>not the case with 'knowledge' handed down from a master.
You haven't read the Srimad Bhagavatam obviously. It explains everything
clearly and scientifically. There is nothing mysterious that you can't
understand with your logic. But there is knowledge that you can never find
with science. Science is limited to what you can observe and test with
your senses. You can say, of course, "If I can't see it I don't believe it
and therefore it is not science and it doesn't exist." This is more or
less what the scientists say, but that is childish.
The knowledge coming from a bona fide spiritual master also comes with a
process to find out how it is true. If you follow the instructions, the
method of the scientific process of Krishna consciousness, then the
results will come. This is a scientific process, it makes predictions and
the predictions are realized by anyone who seriously takes to it. There
are many things but as one follows the path of bhakti-yoga he develops
knowledge of Krishna and the spiritual world and detachment from the
material world. To understand it you have to be prepared to consider at
least theoretically that God may exist...
>: So Krishna is the perfect
>: authority. If you accept knowledge forom Him it will be correct. It is a
>: completely scientific process providing the Absolute Truth, not just
>: models that may or may not be correct.
>No, that is not at all scientific... unless Krishna publishes in a
>peer-reviewed journal :-)
Of course it's scientific. What do you do when you want to find out
something? Say you want to know the distance to the moon... What do you
do? You look it up in a book of course. You accept the authority. We are
all accepting some sort of authority so we accept Krishna's authority and
He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and He is correct. You may jump
up and down and say you don't believe in God but that doesn't change the
logic here. If God exists and we take knowledge from Him then that
knowledge is perfect.
>Swami, with your method, you are always going to run into the usual
>infinite regression problem: how do you know your Book is accurate,
>how do you know who is a spiritual master? Science has methods around
>these, and only makes minimal assumptions about the world.
No. It is a practical thing. You read the book, develop a little faith,
and put the instructions into practice in your life. Then you see the
results. If you are very hungry and I feed you very nice food you can tell
your hunger is being satisfied. No one has to tell you from outside. There
are so many difficulties in material life and when one comes to Krishna
consciousness (with a little faith) and sees as he practices the process
of bhakti-yoga all those difficulties are solved, he becomes detached from
the material desires he had before, he develops spiritual knowledge and
experiences transcendental pleasure, there is no difficulty in confirming
that Krishna, the spiritual master and the books are correct.
>More importantly, how do you know that I am not a spiritual master?
There are qualifications for a spiritual master. Firstly the knowledge
comes in the disciplic succession from one self-realized soul to his
disciple so a bona fide spiritual master is a perfect servant of his bona
fide spiritual master, that is the process. Of course you have to be
acharya, it means teach by your own activities, you have to be a pundit, a
learned scholar of the scriptures and so on.
>: What Krishna has said 5,000 years ago in the Bhagavad-gita has stood the
>: test of time. You can read it today and it is still perfectly valid. Your
>: scientific theories will come and go but the Absolute Truth will not
>: change.
>How would the world be different if your Book was wrong?
This question is not applicable to absolute knowledge. Krishna, and His
book, the Bhagavad-gita are absolute. You can read it, you will not be
able to find anything wrong there. That is the special quality of
transcendental literature.
> And has it
>'stood the test of time' or has it not been tested at all?
It has been tested by the unlimited number of devotees who have followed
the path of Krishna consciousness in the past and it has been proven a
truly sublime and ecstatic transcendental experience.
Thank you. Hare Krishna!
Madhudvisa dasa
(madhudvisa@krishna.org) /sudarsana
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!
Sudarsana Home madhudvisa@krishna.org