Harimedia Forum

Dear Hari,

I just came upon this article on the internet "Scientists propose the kind of chemistry that led to life," and wonder how should one deal with such inquiries into the mystery of life and the spirit soul, if not from the knowledge found in some religious literature like the Bhagavad-gita. I know this is revealed knowledge, thought to be revealed from a higher source which at least in the beginning on ones spiritual journey has to be accepted on basis of pure faith. Is there or should there be any alternative to this view or to the process of becoming aware of this spiritual energy, the soul, other than what it is revealed in some religious literature and that was taught sometimes in the past?

I feel that what was taught and revealed by some persons in the past in this regard, may well require also some interpretation and adaptation to put it into perspective to the understanding and requirements of today's life. But, than again who am I to say such a thing some would say. Anyhow I think that anyone in whatever time period one may be living has to face and solve the same challenges of life in this regard individually although one may take from here and there some references to enlighten oneself more on ones journey of spiritual awakening.

Am I correct in assuming that your question indicates your discomfort with feeling you must believe something you do not really believe? If so, I think such discomfort is good. Regardless of the right or wrong of any point of view, human beings feel most natural when then are allowed to believe what they want. Therefore, governments, businesses, and even religions, work hard to present data and ideas in a form that is consciously or sub-consciously digestible to encourage people to think these things are good for them or, optimally, it is their own idea developed by their own free will. When you think it is for your benefit to believe something, you will do so, and when you think you created the idea or you embraced another's idea as your own, you truly will own it. Sometimes people find themselves in a state where they desire to have someone tell them what to do to attain liberation from the unhappy existence within which they live. In such cases, even if they were to follow a philosophy that demands faith and acceptance of ideas that are normally difficult to believe, it is ultimately their free will which allows them to believe anything. Although we can be forced to act in ways against our will by greater powers, no one can force you to believe what you do not wish to believe unless they convince you to believe it.

Considering that we all have the power to believe or not believe whatever we want, when such belief no longer fits within the scope of our intelligence we can change our belief to one more compatible with our present understanding or experience. Although this is a right we can exercise anytime, it is often not so easy to do or it is an unthinkable option! Some feel that once they have accepted something on faith, it would be blasphemy to think otherwise; contrary ideas would ultimately lead them to some kind of darker region and punishment. This fear of reprisal hinders transformation. Others do not wish to change, for although they know as well as anyone that some eccentric ideas come with the package of their belief system, there is enough good there to justify any strange position. For example, very few firmly believe that a King had hundreds of millions of wives who were all barren, or that the universe really is a bunch of flat concentric masses surrounded by tasty oceans, so they just let these topics flow by them, do not discuss them much, and rarely try to justify them. Some speak about the universe when they must, but the discussion is often either a fanatical demand that the statements are accepted as they are, or the scriptural descriptions are allegorically similar to modern observations. Difficult passages are generally read by most people in a neutral manner to avoid dealing with the subject.

There are statements by authorities within the Hindu tradition that demonstrate the complexity of the belief system and the lengths scholars go through to deal with them. Bhaktivinode, one of the most respected scholars, stated that the hells described in the 5th Canto of the Bhagavat are allegorical. If you believe him, you now have the problem of maintaining the opposing ideas that the scripture is absolute and literal, yet allegorical and obtuse at the same time. Faced with such a choice, how does one decide which model to apply when one is within the confines of a belief system? If one were to follow previous authorities and accept whatever they said, one would also have to believe they had some superior connection to the absolute source of knowledge which gave them the right to declare what was literal and what was allegorical. Troubles arise when these authorities disagree with each other on meaningful details, as one saw in the discussion on namabhasa where authorities had different opinions, or even in the major disagreements between sects within the tradition.

I bring up these points as an attempt to assist you in your struggle to decide what you believe or could/should believe considering your present intellectual development. The question then becomes: Do I want to move down this path of doubtful questioning and expose myself to the potential of perhaps having to disagree with scriptural ideals?

You have the right to do this, obviously, but do you have the will? It depends entirely on how you feel about it. If you do not feel the gain you might make by stepping out into the wide world of making up your own mind is worth the risk you have to take, then do not do it. But if you feel it makes sense to you, or that you really have no other choice since you know too much, then when and if you find the courage to do what you know is right, go for it. No one but yourself can make that decision for you for no one can change your mind but you.

The article quoted in your text refers to a mechanism whereby random events could selectively create chemical reactions that build molecules that could potentially build bodies. This is Darwinism from the molecular point of view and is nothing new. If you have dealt with Darwinism before, you can deal with this now.

Although I have personally undergone an intellectual transformation in the past years and I have no qualms whatsoever to accept any idea if it is what I feel is correct, I cannot accept the idea that life is founded on chemical combination. I have personal experience of my life being beyond the chemical body and I have experience of others' lives beyond their physical bodies. Considering my experience and my understanding of life, I am unimpressed by the attempts of scientists to prove that life arose from matter. I am also not interested in their speculative ideas or their speculative experiments that are extremely primitive, even if on the molecular level. The idea that random chemical reactions can create within a physical body the alchemical capacity to create non-physical reality might be plausible from the science fiction point of view (as in robots gaining life symptoms and taking over the world a.s.o.) but it contradicts Occom's razor for it adds layer upon layer of assumption to explain something that is easily is understood once one accepts the spiritual nature of life force and living energy.

When a plausible mechanism appears that demonstrates how living bodies came to populate this earth, we will feel better about the origin of human life on earth. Until that time, a religionist can either believe Brahma created our forefathers and put them on earth, or that our human ancestors arrived here from the stars, or our original parents were placed here in the garden of eden. And a scientist will believe life developed through a random chemical event that created something useful and the process of evolution took over from there. It is all a process of belief and we each decide how we answer our questions.

Although we can be forced to act in ways against our will by greater powers, no one can force you to believe what you do not wish to believe unless they convince you to believe it

You are completely right with what you wrote, at least in my case I got convinced about the existence of Krishna and my existence as a spirit soul by reading and hearing such somehow convincing arguments like this spoken ones by Prabhupada "God is great, I am small. From me a small quantity of earth is coming, water is coming. Why not from the gigantic body of Krsna, so huge, I mean to say, volume of water, gas, and everything as we see it is coming?"

Please dont understand me wrong I am not the kind of person who is hiding his own beliefs behind some words spoken by someone else or quoting something in order to be viewed as autorized or something like that, you may know what I mean, what is in my mind this days is if such ways of convincing someone of the existence of a higher source of existence or the existence of a Supreme being, Radha Krishna if you will is not relevant or up to date anymore, I mean Caitanya Mahaprabhu was also trying to convince people in his own incomparable way. How should one follow his example in a way which may please him and also benefit ourself?

The question then becomes: Do I want to move down this path of doubtful questioning and expose myself to the potential of perhaps having to disagree with scriptural ideals? You have the right to do this, obviously, but do you have the will? It depends entirely on how you feel about it.

My question in this regard is if I asume to have the right to question certain scriptural references than how should I proceed further, I am limited, how to understand the unlimited from my own limited view and understanding if not by accepting and interpreting if you will what was revealed to us, I will not say through someones mercy, this words are to much used nowadays to proof so called all kind of things? As far as I understand you, you are saying that one should become more individualistic in the sence that one should first convince oneself intelectually in a certain way, but like I sad before arnt we doomed to fail in this regard since we are so smal and somehow limited in trying to understand us and the Supreme by our own intelectual endeaver. I also am listening to your lectures on Saturday since I feel that I have my own limits in this regard and want to get some help in order to know more. So how to overcome this dilemma of becoming again dependant on someones superior intelectual or spiritual if you will capacities?

No one but yourself can make that decision for you for no one can change your mind but you.

All that you write and say sounds so logical and yet what you teach if I may be allowed to use this word, is a complete shift in the spiritual understanding I had before about how to view spirituality and my place in the metodology of understanding me and the Supreme God.

Although I have personally undergone an intellectual transformation in the past years and I have no qualms whatsoever to accept any idea if it is what I feel is correct, I cannot accept the idea that life is founded on chemical combination.

That I can understand, its interesting what is said here "Scientists explain that water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, but when asked where such a large quantity of hydrogen and oxygen came from and how they combined to manufacture the great oceans and seas, they cannot answer because they are atheists who will not accept that everything comes from life. Their thesis is that life comes from matter." On the other hand I would disagree with the author and his way of generalization that all scientists are somehow atheistic, because they have another aproach to find answers to the mystery of life.

I also ask myself if the way I was viewing in the past many people, devotees if you will, as being somehow spiritually more advanced was really based on the truth in the sence that this persons made really some transformation in their consciousness by following a certain way of spiritual practice or was it more due to having due to their nature a certain more advanced capacity to memorize and interpret certain heared or read information from some books? Or in the case of certain so caled gurus are they really in the position of freeing someone from the so called nescience of material existence due to their being so called spiritually so advanced or is it more that they themselves are more in the position that they belief or are somehow convinced that the certain metodology they use which they got from their predesessor guru or spiritual adviser will work in the end and deliver them and their follower at the desired spiritual destination?

So many questions are nowadays in my mind, some would consider me therefore on the mental platform, a state which was viewed by some not so long ago to be not really beneficial for ones spiritual progress or like you say evolution. I thank you very much for you taking the time to read and answer my questions in a very comprehesible way which I very much appreciate.

Until that time, a religionist can either believe Brahma created our forefathers and put them on earth, or that our human ancestors arrived here from the stars, or our original parents were placed here in the garden of eden.

And yet although you write in this somehow let us say neutral way, you also speak so nicely about worshipping deities, knowledge which may be also found in a certain religion. You also installed yourself Radha Krishna and other deities in St. Petersburg which certain metodology you use or advise to worship and please them on their altar? Is it somehow diferent from the understanding one may know in the vaishnava religion and what is the background knowledge behind that worship which may be different from the known understanding of worshiping the deity?

I have distilled from your last text the essential points you have made and I will repeat them here for clarity and then address them one after another:

a) You want to convince others of the spiritual truth you believe, you want to please Lord Caitanya by doing this, you want to follow his example, and you want to get some benefit from doing this.
b) You feel limited in your knowledge and intellectual capacity to understand that which is beyond your experience and comprehension. You therefore depend on others who have a seemingly greater capacity but worry that you will simply transfer your dependence from one teacher to another.
c) What I speak about is logical, but it represents a shift from your previous training.
d) Are so-called advanced souls those who are just better at memorizing philosophy or are they souls who have convinced themselves of the ultimate attainment of following a discipline? Is your doubt about this on the mental platform and therefore bad?
e) I try to be neutral in my presentations, yet I install deities in the temple in St. Petersburg and have them in my own home. What is my method of worship and what is behind this method?

Here are my answers:

a) I question your need to convince others of what you believe. I question whether this is the best way to please Lord Caitanya. I question whether this is the best way to benefit yourself.

These ideas are ideas given to you by others. Are you 100% sure they are true without any doubt? There are other Gaudiya "authorities" who do not preach and who feel pushing their ideas on others is counter-productive. They wait for people to inquire and then they share what they know. I do not think the concept of convincing people in the manner you might consider is accepted by all.

I can understand that a person who has a good idea wants to share it with others. I do it myself all the time. But if people are not interested in it, or find it boring in some way, I back off since sharing requires mutual consent and interest. If someone wants to hear me share, I share, and when they don't, I don't. It makes life simple. And I insist they understand that what they hear from me is my understanding and not a representation of the "truth." I insist they find their own truth by seeking it out. If I can facilitate their search, fine, if not, then I do not wish to mold their minds according to my desire. And thus we get to

b) since I would feel like a total failure if you were to become dependent on me. I feel the goal of what I do is to awaken your own consciousness so you can have your own experiences and realizations specifically relevant to you. Indeed, everything I am saying depends on this taking place. If you were to replace your previous authorities and your dependence on them with me I would have failed utterly since all the principles I am presenting depend on your accepting your own power to discriminate, investigate, perceive what is within you, and grow to your greatest potential.

Considering this, why would you want to become dependent? I suspect it is a strong conditioning left over from your previous indoctrination. Be aware of this and let these ideas go for they are holding you back from expanding your awareness and experiencing all you desire. And therefore

c) this is definitely a departure from your previous training. I encourage you to depart from your previous training. I encourage you to question each and every aspect of it down to the last teeny detail and reassemble your belief system in a personalized manner which makes sense to you, which is compatible with your intelligence and your life's experiences, and which encourages you to develop further with enthusiasm.

I do not request you to reject everything and then rebuild it. Although I did that (I admit it), I have been trying to make your entrance into this world of questioning softer and less traumatic than it was for me. I also have that kind of mind which allows me to enter into new and unchartered territory without fearing the total loss of what I left behind. Not everyone can handle that. Therefore I am sharing with you the methods by which I came to my conclusions and I supply comprehensive commentaries on how this impacts belief systems and the creation of our evolutionary journeys. This is one of my services to people.

Such ideas have never been encouraged by organized hierarchical religions for they oppose the structural principles which bind their followers to their organizations. Since I have no structure, I have no structural principles, neither could I think of a way to bind people to me, neither do I want followers but rather want people to lead themselves, I represent a radical departure from the established tradition of the world religions. I do not apologize for this. I state it clearly. If you like this methodology, fine, if not, fine. Do what you feel is best for yourself. If what I say assists you, great, but if not, do something else! Just be aware of how you feel, what you might gain, what you might lose, where you are headed with all this, and whether you could lie on your deathbed and look back at your life with a satisfied smile.

d) I cannot comment on the advancement of others. I have my personal opinion of others but this is subject to change when I become more aware. One jazz singer once said, "You know you are creating God in your own image when God hates the same people you do." Perhaps this sums up the difficulty I am having with many religionists for I feel they are creating God in their own image. I know many persons who have mastered the art of memorization, who have become eloquent speakers, who have so convinced themselves of the truth of what they are saying that they can inspire vast crowds of people, yet their depth of evolution is not impressive. I know that some people gain power by being totally convinced they will attain the kingdom of God when they die. There are many TV preachers in the US who know their books perfectly, who are incredibly eloquent, and who are totally convinced. Can I vouch for their evolutionary state because of this? No. I do not know who they are simply by examining their presentation to me. I cannot say they are great or they are not great. I can listen to what they say, I can feel what they are sending to me, and I can decide for myself if I like it or not. I can take from it what I can and gain from it. I can also walk away and leave it as irrelevant for me. I can also respect their intelligence, their genius, their innovative capacity, and their power of presentation. I still would not be able to know for sure their level of advancement. The most important factor to me would be how relevant they are to me in my struggle to evolve.

The worst thing would be to have to accept someone and all they say or do simply because they held a position. Perhaps it is even worse to believe someone to be great because they are good at what they do. One really never knows truthfully about another. Therefore, my method is to accept everyone for what they are without insisting they be something I want. It is more fun that way for me. I am interested in people as people. As much as they wish to share with me personally, I more or less accept and if it benefits me, all the better!

Is this mental? No, why would it be? I think it is mental to simply accept others without questioning. Such acceptance would be a mental adjustment to fit some expectation. Questioning is intelligence. Are you intelligent? If so, what could be wrong with questioning? What is the fault in asking? And when an answer comes, is it wrong to consider it?

e) I try to be neutral in my presentations and to a large extent I am neutral in my consciousness. Regardless, there are things I like, things I believe, things I know, things I wish to be, and so on. I am a personality with likes and dislikes, inclinations, desires, and above all, my own nature. These aspects to my life have come from my birth and my experience. My behavior has been modified by the responses of the world around me. I have been affected by all that I have previously experienced and my present situation is a product of my past. I do not live in a time vacuum.

Considering this and considering my experiences with deities and specifically those deities whom I have experienced a personal contact, communication and connection, I will always be of service to them in whatever way they desire according to my capacity. I know they only desire of me that which is compatible with me, so I do not worry when I say that. Further, I also know they do not want me to do something I do not want to do. I know they care about me and want my life to be a positive experience that brings me to where I want to go and where they want me to be.

Therefore, I like it when they are in my home and in the temple in St Petersburg. But how do I worship them and what is behind it?

I worship them by bathing and dressing them weekly and sometimes offering food. I come before them every morning and evening. I discuss my life with them. I meditate in front of them and do healing work on others with their assistance. Because of them, I better understand the world around me. In other words, they are the most important personalities in my life and they shall remain so. I worship them with my heart.

It is my experience that when we feel connected to the deities we can understand what to do with them. Following rituals and rites handed down through time does not necessarily create a connection to the deities. I feel the most powerful method is to create the connection first and then the details follow as they would in any intense personal relationship. I cannot get into further details in this text as it is a very big subject I have addressed in various lectures.

Here are some other comments which may be useful to you:

Either you trust someone else fully and surrender to them, or you have to decide for yourself what is right. The first method demands that you accept everything you have heard. You must seek out someone to fully accept, and then decide to accept them fully. Ultimately, it was your decision to simply accept. Do you really accept everything without any question from then on or do you sometimes have doubts you have to cover over to avoid questioning since you have already decided to stop questioning?

Those who accept authority like this say you can question, but when you get the answers you must accept them. In other words, questioning is only meant for clarification of the information given to you, not that it can be used to reject or deny that information.

Is it even possible to decide to accept something and never question it again? I doubt it. This would mean you either had to park your awareness at the door when you entered an institution, or that you were continuously convincing yourself that it is the best thing for you to do to accept.

Why must one understand the unlimited nature of the supreme? By definition, one cannot. Why not understand according to your capacity, according to the manner in which your relationship with the supreme has manifested and share that? What do you feel is better, to tell someone something you do not personally understand or to tell someone something you understand? Does it really help to repeat something you have little realization of to someone who has less realization? Is this a transmission of knowledge or is this a transmission of words?

You might say that although you do not have realization of what you have heard, you like the concepts. In that case, you could share these concepts with others by saying, "I have heard these concepts and like them. What do you think about it?" Share with others what you know and be honest about what you know. There can be no fault in admitting your limitations and most people will respect you more for it.

Find out what you don't know with whatever means available. You can hear from others as you like, you can experiment, you can experience, you can do whatever you need to do. But if you are restricted in what you should realize and how you should realize it, you run the danger of the discipline being incompatible with yourself or perhaps insufficient in some way. You may have wasted a lot of time before you realized this.

Therefore it is good to make a good plan. Planning is 90% of an endeavor, some great soul once said!