CHAPTER 25 His Scientific Insight
The intellectual acumen of His Holiness was not confined to matters philosophical and religious to which He had formal exposure. His approach to any view was characterised by incisive ratiocination free from bigotry and dogma. The openness with which He considered the propositions of science, for instance, purely on their merits, merits special mention. He had a thorough grasp of the contributions of ancient India to the fields of mathematics, medicine, engineering, architecture, etc., several of which predated those popularly attributed to the western world. At the same time, He desisted from attributing western contributions to Indian origin. He never shied away from taking contentious issues head-on. He had a knack of advancing arguments at once, with punch and simplicity. He was as much at ease in conversing with those with formal scientific learning and with inquisitive youngsters as He was with traditional scholars of Nyāya and Vedānta. The catholic nature of His views was quite refreshing.
His approach to any view was characterised by incisive ratiocination free from bigotry and dogma. The openness with which He considered the propositions of science, for instance, purely on their merits, merits special mention.
Rebirth is one of the oft debated topics; it spans across both religious beliefs and scientific schools of thought. A devotee once queried, “The śāstras say that rebirth exists. Is there any rational evidence in support of this?” His Holiness responded as follows:
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Yes, there is. One person suffers much in this world, while another lives happily. What is the cause? We see such differences even in young children who have done nothing in the present birth to justify such joy or misery. In order to reconcile with such differences, one must accept the existence of rebirth. It is only reasonable to say that we suffer now as a result of sins committed by us in our previous births and that we have joy now due to the virtuous deeds of our past.
Some people have memories of their previous births. I learn that scientists are investigating this aspect. Some of the investigated persons who recalled their previous births described certain incidents and scenes that were subsequently verified. Without prior experiences, how could such memories be present? Such memories support the existence of rebirth.
Our śāstras prescribe certain prāyaścittas (expiations) to get rid of some diseases. On the performance of the ordained expiatory karmas, cures are seen. How can the remedial karmas directed to nullify the sins of a previous birth cure a disease of this birth if there were no rebirth at all? If it is said that mere faith cures the disease, it cannot be explained why, when the prāyaścittas are performed with faith but not in accordance with the prescriptions, the desired result is not obtained.
A new-born babe drinks its mother’s milk even without being taught by anyone to do so. This is because of its knowledge that satisfaction can be obtained from mother’s milk. Not even a fool would involve himself in an action if he does not find utility in it. Therefore, even the child trying to drink its mother’s milk should be aware of the satisfaction that it will be deriving thereby. Such an awareness could not have arisen in this birth prior to its suckling for the first time. Therefore, the child should have acquired that knowledge in the previous birth. This too serves to establish the existence of rebirth.
“If we do not accept rebirth, we would be forced to conclude that, ‘Īśvara is partial, for He has kept some people happy and some others unhappy. He has no mercy either, because beings experience misery.’ Nobody associates such defects with Īśvara.”
- His Holiness
Some children extraordinarily exhibit certain skills. They could not have acquired their proficiency in the few years of their present life. Their parents or grandparents may not have developed the same skills. They should, therefore, have developed their skills in an earlier life. The case of such precocious children favours the existence of rebirth.
If we do not accept rebirth, we would be forced to conclude that, “Īśvara is partial, for He has kept some people happy and some others unhappy. He has no mercy either, because beings experience misery.” Nobody associates such defects with Īśvara. Hence, it is logical to accept rebirth.
If we do not accept rebirth, it has to be said that after death a man shall dwell forever in heaven or in hell. Is this logical? Not at all. As a general rule, that which has a beginning must have an end. Therefore, the stay in heaven has to have an end since it has a beginning.
“If we do not accept rebirth, it has to be said that after death a man shall dwell forever in heaven or in hell. Is this logical? Not at all. As a general rule, that which has a beginning must have an end. Therefore, the stay in heaven has to have an end since it has a beginning.”
- His Holiness
Further, consider the case of a baby that has died prematurely. It could have acquired neither puṇya nor pāpa. Will the baby be condemned to hell, or will it make its way to heaven? If its destination is hell, it has to take up punishment for no fault on its part. If we accept the other alternative, heaven, we are led to concede that the baby experiences heavenly pleasures even though it has no puṇya to its credit. If there were a rule that one without puṇya or pāpa would be in heaven forever after death, every mother would do well to kill her baby as soon as it is born! The non-acceptance of rebirth would result in such absurd conclusions.
What I have mentioned here are just a few reasons from amongst a host of them that establish rebirth on a logical basis.
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How apt is it to view modern science as confirming what is said in ancient religious texts? What was the contribution of our ancients to mathematics, medicine, etc.? His Holiness touched upon these in a conversation He had with a professor. In 1975, He sent for me one evening. He was seated in a room in the eastern side of Sacchidananda Vilas. A person in his forties was seated in front of Him. His Holiness mentioned to me that he was a ‘Physics Professor from Bihar’; He introduced me to him as, “My disciple.” In the conversation that followed, while the professor spoke in Hindi, he did use words like ‘gravity’ and ‘matter’, rather than their equivalents in Hindi; for his convenience, His Holiness did the same.
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Professor: I am interested in showing that what was said in our ancient books is what modern science is now saying about the universe. It is now largely accepted that the universe is expanding. Its origin can be traced back to a time when it was a point. I believe that the universe will start shrinking after reaching a maximum size. This is because of the pull of gravity associated with the matter in the universe. It will return to the state in which it was when it originated. Then it will start expanding again. I think that this is exactly what is said in the Bhagavadgītā and the purāṇas.
His Holiness: You said that the universe will start shrinking because of the amount of matter in it. Has that much matter been discovered?
Professor: Not yet, but I am confident it will be.
“If your position is that the scriptures speak of infinite cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe and that that is exactly what science is arriving at, you must not only have enough matter to cause the universe to shrink but it must also be that the next expansion must match the present one. Any evidence to the contrary will be fatal to what you are trying to establish.”
- His Holiness
His Holiness: Let us suppose that it will be. Will the next cycle of expansion then be identical to the present one or bigger or smaller? If the next cycle of expansion is larger, more time will be required before universe fully shrinks than will be needed for it to do so in the present cycle. Hence, ultimately, the universe will not shrink back, no matter how long one waits. Even if the next cycle of expansion is smaller than the present one, then too there will not be infinite cycles. If your position is that the scriptures speak of infinite cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe and that that is exactly what science is arriving at, you must not only have enough matter to cause the universe to shrink but it must also be that the next expansion must match the present one. Any evidence to the contrary will be fatal to what you are trying to establish.
Professor: I do not think such a contingency will arise.
{It is strange that the Professor was unaware in 1975 when this conversation took place that by then several physicists had shown that as per the second law of thermodynamics, the universe would not go through infinite cycles; even if there were to be cycles, the expansion of one cycle would not be the same as that of the preceding cycle. Maybe, he was teaching in some college with poor library facilities and, so, was not up-to-date.}
Professor (continued): If it turns out that the cycles will not be identical, I will have to go through our texts again and see how they exactly predict what conforms to the new data.
“What guarantee is there that even after a decade or two, data will not necessitate a major rethink? For instance, what would happen if scientists were to come across data that shows that the universe is expanding faster and faster? In that case, how would even the present expansion be followed by a contraction?”
- His Holiness
His Holiness: In that case, you will be altering your interpretation of the scriptural texts to suit the scientific position of the day, whereas your aim is to start with texts and establish that that is what modern science has discovered. Let us suppose that nothing fatal to your present view is noticed now or in the near future and hence, no reinterpretation of the texts by you is needed for the present. Even then, what guarantee is there that even after a decade or two, data will not necessitate a major rethink? For instance, what would happen if scientists were to come across data that shows that the universe is expanding faster and faster? In that case, how would even the present expansion be followed by a contraction? Would you then reinterpret the texts to assert that they speak of the universe expanding faster and faster and not of it having infinite cycles of expansion and contraction?
Professor: I do not think that there is any reasonable possibility of data for an increasingly fast expansion turning up but I see the point that Your Holiness is making.
{As it turned out, the professor was wrong. Accelerated expansion of the universe was discovered in 1988 by two independent research teams and three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 2011.}
His Holiness: I fully appreciate your interest in seeing scientific findings in the light of our ancient texts. The only point I was trying to make is that if you equate an interpretation of the scripture with a popularly held scientific view, as scientific interpretations are subject to change with new data or ideas, you may, in time, have to reinterpret the scripture to conform to the new scientific position.
Professor: I value our ancient culture and accomplishments. That is why I wanted to tell my students that modern science’s universe with infinite cycles of expansion and contraction was made known very long ago, in the Bhagavadgītā and the purāṇas.
“There is much that can make us proud of our ancients in the scientific realm. The concept of zero is an instance. Our ancients were the first to understand it. Suśruta performed surgery on the eye to remove cataracts (the word His Holiness used was netra-paṭala) over 2000 years ago. If you see the Sulba-sūtras, which deal with the construction of sacrificial altars, you will find that thousands of years ago itself, our ancients had an impressive knowledge of mathematics.”
- His Holiness
His Holiness: There is much that can make us proud of our ancients in the scientific realm. The concept of zero is an instance. Our ancients were the first to understand it. Suśruta performed surgery on the eye to remove cataracts (the word His Holiness used was netra-paṭala) over 2000 years ago. If you see the Sulba-sūtras, which deal with the construction of sacrificial altars, you will find that thousands of years ago itself, our ancients had an impressive knowledge of mathematics. For example, a Sulba- sūtra of Bodhāyana is “dīrghacaturasrasyākṣṇayā rajjuḥ pārśvamānī tiryaṅ mānī ca yat-pṛthag-bhūte kurutas-tad-ubhayaṁ karoti (A rope stretched along the diagonal of a rectangle produces an area that the vertical and horizontal sides make together).”
When His Holiness explained the meaning of the sūtra, the professor exclaimed, “Amazing! This is the Pythagoras theorem. That means that we knew of this much before Pythagoras of the sixth-century B.C.” His Holiness proceeded to give some more examples about the discoveries in ancient India.
Professor: I did not know all this. I shall gather such information and present it to my students. I know Sanskrit and shall study the Sulba-sūtras.
After the Professor left, His Holiness told me, “He is sincere. He is, however, mistaken when he takes it that the Bhagavadgītā and the purāṇas specify that the universe endlessly expands and contracts. What they actually teach is compatible with a universe that has infinite cycles, a universe that can be traced back to a point and also with a universe that expands faster and faster.” His Holiness did not elaborate on this that day as His personal attendant entered and told Him about a group of devotees from Kerala having come for His darśana.
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It is recognised that the universe is orderly and that it functions as per the laws of nature. Are the laws of nature sufficient to account for the appearance and development of the world and various life-forms? Do the laws of nature have a foundation? If yes, what is the nature of that basis? His Holiness took up such issues and threw light on them, with complete regard to the teaching of the scripture and without discounting scientific findings in any way. In 1987, His Holiness once asked me, “What book did you read recently and like?” This was the first time He had asked me such a question and there was nothing that had happened earlier that constituted the backdrop for it. I was about to mention a scriptural text but before that He added, “Anything to do with how life, animals and humans came about.” I had read just a few days earlier, Richard Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker” and enjoyed it; it dealt with exactly what His Holiness had specified. I mentioned this book to Him. “Summarize it for me,” He directed and I did so over the course of the next ten minutes; I also used a sheet of paper that He gave me to sketch some diagrams. He said, “The author is a firm atheist. He writes well. I think he will write more such books. Read them.” William Paley had argued (Natural Theology or Evidences and Attributes of the Deity, 1802) that just as the function and complexity of a watch presupposes a watchmaker, the far greater complexity of life-forms on earth presupposes the existence of their maker (God). Dawkins argued, “All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way…Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind.” Shortly after I had summarized the book, His Holiness said as follows:
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His Holiness: The scripture makes it amply clear time and again that the universe and the laws governing it are the manifestation of God. For instance, the Chāndogya- upaniṣad teaches, “He alone is below; He is above; He is behind; He is in front; He is to the south; He is to the north; He alone is all this.” The Śvetāśvatara-upaniṣad points out, “You are the woman; You are the man; You are the boy; You are the girl; You are the old man tottering with a stick…You are the black bee; You are the green parrot… You indeed are the seasons and the seas.” The Muṇḍaka-upaniṣad instructs, “This world is nothing but Brahman, the highest.” The Lord has said in the Bhagavadgītā, “I am the moon…I am the mind…I am intelligence…I am the ocean…I am the lion…I am the wind…I am the shark…I am the letter ‘a’…I am time…I am the spring season…I am gambling…I am effort…I am silence…I am knowledge.” He has also said, “I am fire. I am the act of offering…I am the effect. I am the cause.”
His Holiness (continuing): A person, who came to see me, had an objection to Lord Kṛṣṇa’s statement, “Taking the form of the gastric fire and residing in bodies of all beings, I digest, in association with prāṇa and apāna, the four types of food (the foods that are ingested by masticating, by swallowing, by sucking and by licking).” He said there is no fire in the stomach; there is only acid. I asked him, “How do you specify the energy of an item of food?” He said, “In calories.” I told him, “One method of determining the calories in an item of food involves putting the item in a container surrounded by water, burning it and noting how much hotter the water becomes than before.” “I did not know this,” he responded. I continued, “The stomach serves to digest food, the body receives energy from the food digested and this energy can be associated with the burning of the item of food. Hence, is it wrong to speak, at least figuratively, of a fire in the stomach, the gastric fire?” “No,” he conceded. I then told Him, “When you say that the acid in the stomach digests the food and the Lord says that, being in the stomach, He digests the food in the form of fire, is it not discernible from the Lord’s words that He digests food by taking the form of gastric acid and the digestive processes? It is worth bearing in mind that our ancients were not such ignoramuses that they thought that some actual fire, like in the kitchen, burns in the stomach. They did know what the stomach contains.” What is relevant now is that from the Lord’s words, we can discern that it is He who is even the acid in the stomach and the process of digestion.
His Holiness (continuing): In the Śrī-rudra, we have, “Salutations to You who stretch the bowstring; Salutations to You who release the arrow; Salutations to You who are the cause of the arrow moving towards the target; Salutations to You who are the cause of the arrow piercing the target.” A bowman’s role ends with pulling the bowstring, taking aim and releasing the arrow. The movement of the arrow to its target is dependent on its velocity (‘vega’ was the word used by His Holiness), the laws of motion (‘calana-niyama’ is what His Holiness said), the wind, the pull of the earth (‘bhūmyākarṣaṇa’, said His Holiness) etc.; all these are the Lord. To penetrate the target, the sharpness of the tip of the arrow, the density of the target and such other factors play a role; all these are the Lord. The crux of all that I have been saying is that according the scripture, God is everything in the universe and is every law governing its functioning.
Illustrative sketches
At this point, His Holiness took a sheet of paper and quickly sketched two pictures on it; this was the first time, I saw His Holiness drawing a picture. He pointed to the first and asked me, “What do you see?” I said, “Two faces close to and facing one another, or a wine glass.” “Can you see both together?” He queried. “No,” I replied. He then asked me to look at the second picture and tell Him what I could see. I responded, “Either a duck with its beak to my left or a rabbit facing right, with its long ears pointing backwards.” “Do you see both together,” He asked. I answered in the negative.
His Holiness : Each of these images is apprehended non-simultaneously in two different ways by a person. If two persons were to see either of the images at the same time, one may apprehend the image in one way and the other in the second way. Likewise, what is apprehended by a person as just the material world may be apprehended by him later, after spiritual discipline, as a manifestation of God; simultaneously too, what a materialist perceives as the material world, is seen by a saint as a manifestation of God.
He who holds that God is a creator distinct from nature and its laws may have a problem if it be said that the bodies of the animals we see and humans came to their present state through changes over millions of years by the operation of the laws of nature; a true vedāntin would be fine with it. If someone were to say that gradual evolution of animals and humans is wrong, he would be fine with that too. To a vedāntin, a small irregularly shaped stone rolling in the river and becoming a round pebble, the formation of the sun and the earth, the development of a human child from a sperm and egg are all equally attributable to God.
His Holiness (continued): The scripture does not stop with presenting God as just being in the form of the universe and its laws. It goes further and says that the operation of every law of nature depends on God. The Śvetāśvatara- upaniṣad teaches, “He, the basis of the cosmos, is the one who manifests the nature of things (such as the heat of fire) and transforms what is mutable.” Thus, He is the universe and its laws; He is the one who gives life to the laws; He is the one who transforms things according to the laws of nature.
The Śvetāśvatara-upaniṣad teaches, “He, the basis of the cosmos, is the one who manifests the nature of things (such as the heat of fire) and transforms what is mutable.” Thus, He is the universe and its laws; He is the one who gives life to the laws; He is the one who transforms things according to the laws of nature.
He is, importantly, not only immanent but also transcendent. The materialist may be unwilling to concede this and argue against it but a true vedāntin is not put off by any of this because, to him, the materialist is a manifestation of God and his temperament is also manifested by God. What is primary to the vedāntin is the essential nature of the Supreme, pure consciousness. It is in this that the universe with its laws appears, like a mirage in a desert or as a snake so misapprehended in a rope. There is, thus, no real cause and effect relationship between the Supreme of the nature of consciousness and the world, unlike between, say, a seed and a tree or say, between energy (the word used by His Holiness was ‘śakti’) and the appearance (‘āvirbhāva’) of an electron (He used the word ‘electron’ itself). The Kaṭha-upaniṣad clearly states, “The Self of the nature of consciousness is not born; It does not perish; It did not originate from anything; nothing originated from It.” There is, therefore, no way any measurement made on the universe or any understanding of its laws can call into question the scriptural teaching about the true nature of the Supreme Brahman. The Supreme Brahman is decidedly beyond the scope of science. The aim of the Upaniṣads is to make a sādhaka realize his true nature of being Brahman and become liberated. Therefore, all the descriptions of creation in them are only meant to establish that there is nothing whatsoever that is other than the Supreme; the confirmation or falsification of any such description is immaterial.
“What is primary to the vedāntin is the essential nature of the Supreme, pure consciousness. It is in this that the universe with its laws appears, like a mirage in a desert or as a snake so misapprehended in a rope. There is, thus, no real cause and effect relationship between the Supreme of the nature of consciousness and the world.”
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To what extent can one breathe meanings into imageries found in the scriptures? Gods are described as having specific forms that may seem to some as far-fetched. Do they have any basis? Even the pristine curiosity of children can throw up such tricky questions. His Holiness refrained from using the arcane word of the scriptures to brush them aside. One day, as He was distributing tīrtha-prasāda, a boy asked Him, “What does Candramaulīśvara mean?” His Holiness said, “He who has the moon in His crest. It is a name of Śiva.” The boy’s father tried to get the boy to move on but he stood where he was and objected, “How can Śiva have the moon on His head? The moon is in the sky.” His Holiness broke into a smile and said, “A name of Śiva is ‘vyoma-keśa, He whose locks are the sky.’ The moon is in the sky and Śiva’s locks are the sky. Any problem?” “No problem now,” said the boy and moved on.
Whenever appropriate, His Holiness proffered simple illustrations on the spot, often with an added touch of humour, to explain matters, philosophical, religious or scientific.
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Whenever appropriate, His Holiness proffered simple illustrations on the spot, often with an added touch of humour, to explain matters, philosophical, religious or scientific. Vaidyasubramanya Iyer told me of the following conversation that he had witnessed.
An old lady started sobbing when she came to Him for darśana at Chennai in 1986. He asked her what her problem was. Amidst sobs, she managed to say, “I heard that Your Holiness had a heart-problem. Though I do not know what the problem was, I am unable to bear the suffering of Your Holiness.” His Holiness asked, “Have you seen a big tanker transporting diesel?” “Yes,” she replied. “While the tanker is able to transport much diesel, it too needs diesel to run. Likewise, the heart pumps much blood but it too needs blood for its functioning. If the tube supplying diesel to the engine of the tanker gets partially clogged, the engine will not be able to run properly. In the same way, if a tube supplying blood to the heart gets partially clogged, there is a problem, pain. That is all that happened in my case. I am alright now. Do not worry.” She largely calmed down. “How could such a thing have happened to Your Holiness?” she asked, perhaps rhetorically. “Āñjaneya is fond of me. May be that is why He sent His mother, Añjanā, to be with me for some time. Thus, I had Añjanā,” remarked His Holiness, punning on the word ‘angina (chest pain or discomfort caused by reduced flow of oxygenated blood to the heart muscle).’ She broke into a laughter. He blessed her with a fruit and she moved on.
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The foregoing provides but a key-hole view of His take on matters not exclusively traditional. The numerous questions taken up and answered by Him on different occasions included the following: “An earthworm that is cut into two regenerates into two full earthworms. As rebirth as a worm is recognised in the scripture, the initial earthworm ought to have had a jīva (transmigrating soul). If so, what happens to it after the split? Does it simultaneously inhabit the two new earthworms or just one of them or neither? In the first case, how is it able to be in two distinct bodies? In the second and third cases, how is the contingency of soullessness of one or both of the new earthworms averted? Is it that the initial earthworm has a stock of jīvas? These questions arise not only in the case of earthworms but also humans. After all, a fertilised human egg divides into multiple cells and develops into a single human but if, while dividing, it splits into two units, twins develop. It is stated that a jīva is associated with a mind that too passes from one body to the next. If so, how is it that thoughts, emotions, perceptions, volition, memory, awareness and states of consciousness are all found to be dependent on the brain, which is a part of the body and does not transmigrate?” Singularly striking was His uncanny ability to comprehensively answer, without compromising on the teaching of the scripture, the questions of not only believers but also those of non-traditionalists and even iconoclasts.
Singularly striking was His uncanny ability to comprehensively answer, without compromising on the teaching of the scripture, the questions of not only believers but also those of non-traditionalists and even iconoclasts.