Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Sadaputa das: Science and Krishna Consciousness




[PADA: Srila Prabhupada wanted us to preach to scholars, scientists and in sum "the intelligent class of people." That sort of broke down after 1977. Anyway, Sadaputa was trying to put some writings and lectures together in this regard. Here is a tape of him discussing some prominent scientific theories and how they can be dis-mantled.

I am not really sure how Sadaputa stood on the post-1977 controversies, but I am guessing he was not too happy with it. Unfortunately, Sadaputa is now deceased. Maybe some other of devotees will eventually carry on this work more than is being done now, and get this type of preaching program going more progressively in the future. Lets hope so! ys pd]

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Svarupa Damodara: That is called acintya. Inconceivable.
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes, everything is acintya. No scientist can explain anything. Even a straw. What is the constitution of the straw. They cannot do.
Svarupa Damodara: Cellulose, they’ll say. They’ll say this is cellulose.
Prabhupada: But they cannot produce. That is the difficulty. They’ll speak all nonsense, but cannot produce. No experiment. Simply theoretical observation. That’s all. So observation is not perfection of science. You must produce it by experiment. Then it is perfect. Two departments.
Hrdayananda: So if you can produce something, that means you actually understand it.
Prabhupada: Yes. You say that it is a combination of such and such chemicals… Just like these rascals say, “Life…” Now he said that “You take the chemicals. Can you produce?” He said, “That I cannot say.” You see? Avoiding the issue. This was discussed in the meeting. What is that gentleman?
Svarupa Damodara: Professor Stanley Miller. He’s from San Diego, physicist.
Prabhupada: Miller. Yes, he has got Nobel Prize. And his theory is that from chemicals, life has begun.So he (Svarupa Damodara) said in the meeting that “If I give you the chemicals, can you produce life?” He said, “That I cannot say.” Just see. And he has got Nobel Prize. He has no pure idea, still he has received the Nobel Prize.

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Māyāpur, April 4, 1975
Nitāi: "I offer my respectful obeisances unto the feet of Śrī NityānandaRāma, whose secondary part is the Viṣṇu lying in the ocean of milk. That Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu is the Supersoul of all living entities and the maintainer of all the universes. Śeṣa Nāga is His further subpart."
Prabhupāda:
yasyāṁśāṁśāṁśaḥ parātmākhilānāṁ
poṣṭā viṣṇur bhāti dugdhābdhi-śāyī
kṣauṇī-bhartā yat-kalā so 'py anantas
taṁ śrī-nityānanda-rāmaṁ prapadye
[Cc. Ādi 1.11]
So all these Viṣṇu descriptions beginning from Kāraṇodakaśāyī, Mahā-Viṣṇu, who is producing universes... Then next Viṣṇu is Garbhodakaśāyī, means the same Mahā-Viṣṇu entering in each and every universe. Then again, the same Viṣṇu, for maintenance of this material world, is lying on the kṣīrabdhi, ocean of milk. And the sameViṣṇu, Kṣīrabdhiśāyī Viṣṇu, is maintaining not only these universal affair, but also He is entering in each and every living being's heart, even within the atom. This is the expansion of Viṣṇu-tattva, Viṣṇu-tattva within this material world. So just imagine. For creating and maintaining, sustaining, the whole material world is a network of Viṣṇu's activities, and some rascal says, "There was chunk, and there was creation."
This creation is so easy? And maintain them, hold the creation? If you create some center of our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, how much strain you have to exert to maintain the standard, status quo. Similarly, there are so many universes created, maintained. And there is another phase, annihilation. That is the process of material creation.

Some Conclusions- The materialists say life came from matter or chemicals, but when asked to prove this theory, they cannot produce even a piece of straw. We say, the Vaisnava devotees, that life comes from life and we can prove it. I came from my father and he from his, and the origin of all this living business, if you could trace it all back to its origins, has to be a person, because people cannot come from nothing. Even a car which is all matter, is produced by people-Any sane man will accept this. So if a car, which is only matter,  has to have people to create it, then why dont people need a person to create them?

Accepting that reasonable proposal, the next question would be -If I came from some original person, then what is my relationship/connection with Him ? That is called bhakti yoga or devotional service.

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