What does the Bhaktivedanta Institute Do?

By Rasaraja dasa M.E. Ph. D Director, Bhaktivedanta Institute, Mumbai  Berkeley

Just the other day, one person visited the Bhaktivedanta Institute situated in the Berkeley temple. He is a physics teacher at a local community college. He asked me: “What does the Bhaktivedanta Institute do?”

I was surprised to hear him ask this question since he has been coming to the Berkeley temple for at least 20 years. He can be considered a congregation member of the temple. He has an M.S. in physics from the University of New Mexico. In the past, whenever I have run into him in the past in the temple lobby, I had suggested to him a few times that he get involved with our Institute’s scientific work in some manner, but he hadn’t evinced any interest. Today, he followed up his initial questions with another, which made it clear why he had not previously gotten involved.

“In fact I wonder”, he continued, “Why anyone would want to try to prove God’s existence through science. Isn’t that tantamount to reducing God to something material?”

I asked him, “Why do you think we are in the business of trying to prove the existence of God through science?” He was silent for a while, and then said, “Well, I have asked some devotees in the temple, and that is what they told me.” I then proceeded to respond to his questions. What follows is only with respect to the vision and projects of the Bhaktivedanta Institute at Mumbai and Berkeley ( www.bvinst.edu ).

I started by saying, “God or Krishna cannot be known except through love.” He said heartily, “yes, that is the process of Bhakti”.

“Yes”, I agreed. “However”, I said, “Everything is connected to God. By our own powers of logic we cannot hope to prove God’s existence, just as the atheists cannot disprove His existence. However, just as Lord Krishna has allowed them to defend atheism using material science, if He wishes He can enable us to establish theism using material science. But to accomplish it, Srila Prabhupada indicates that the first task is change material science itself based on Srimad Bhagavatam. Not merely argue that material science cannot explain creation and life, and one should turn to scriptures for that.”

“Furthermore, trying to know God by studying matter need not necessarily mean we are reducing God to the material realm”, I continued. “For example”, I said, “I can try to know what kind of sweets you like. That doesn’t mean I am in any way reducing you to just a sweet-consuming machine. Sure, I am studying just a limited aspect of you. But I am studying you, and the limited nature of this study need not mean I am imposing any kind of reduction.” “Thus, a proper study of matter can also be a study of God, without reducing Him to be a material principle.

Nor should we think that the study of matter is a material pursuit. If we link that study in relation to presenting Sri Krishna then it is spiritual. That is why a good part of Canto III in Srimad Bhagavatam, describes matter in great detail. It is called Sankhya philosophy.” If, on the other hand, matter is studied and presented in a way not connected to or connectible to Sri Krishna, then it is a material, and hence illusory activity.

The physics teacher nodded his agreement thoughtfully.

“However, a question might arise”, I said. “It might be argued, science studies matter independent of God. So, even if there be a study of matter to approach to God in the Bhagavatam, how can it be connected to science?”

Well, “Krishna Consciousness is a science”, Srila Prabhupada said. Could it be a different kind of science, a “spiritual science”? Srila Prabhupada made a number of statements in this regard. While giving a sub-line for a science journal to be published by the institute, he himself first suggested “spiritual science”, and then he added, “No. Scientists won’t take it seriously.” (Conv., 6/20/77, Vrn.)

Undoubtedly, Srila Prabhupada referred to Krishna Consciousness as a science in the sense of it being, like modern science, universal. “Science is for everyone. There is no such thing as Communist science. “Two plus two equal to four,” that is both for the Communists and capitalists. That’s a fact. Because I am Communist, I cannot say “Two plus two equal to five.” It is four.” (Conv., 4/2/77, Mumbai)

He went on to explain that likewise, regardless of whether one is a Christian, Hindu or Muslim, the principles of Krishna Consciousness, such as the body changing from childhood to youth to old age, and the notion of “I” not changing, are universally true. Krishna Consciousness is therefore a science in this sense of being universal.

However, explaining why he has set up the B.I., he also said, “Apart from Vedas and Puranas, according to their [contemporary scientists’] way we can prove” (Conv., 3/31/77; Mumbai). In fact, he specifically wrote in a Srimad Bhagavatam purport, “this verse is the potential basis of great modern scientific research”. (SB, III.26.34) This verse pertains to the nature of matter; not soul or God. For more citations from Srila Prabhupada on the importance of study of matter for Vaishnavas, see http://rasaraja.org/our-acharya/quotes- on-matter/

These statements suggest that His Divine Grace saw Krishna Consciousness as a ‘science” in the sense material scientists define science too. Thus, there is a place within our siddhanta for a scientific study of matter to be in the contemporary sense of the word, as pointed out by Srila Prabhupada. We have taken it that the Bhaktivedanta Institute has to fulfil this instruction. This point needs to be fully grasped to adequately understand the work of Bhaktivedanta Institute as a truly scientific institute, presenting the scientific basis of Krishna Consciousness in a rigorous manner, as Srila Prabhupada wanted.

One might now ask, what exactly is that “proper study” of matter?

Sometimes there is a “value laden” sense in which what is proper and not proper science is discussed. For example, right toward the end of the Second World War, the question arose “is it proper for scientists to make an atomic bomb”. Of course, the issue of how to make an atomic bomb is a strictly scientific issue. However, whether scientists should try to make a bomb is essentially a value-based question, not a scientific question.

It is estimated that only 10% of the world’s medical research is devoted to conditions that account for 90% of the global disease burden, diseases that are largely confined to the developing countries. This is known as the 10/90 gap. Thus there have been arguments that putting more money into researching a cure for the neglected 90% of the diseases would be a more proper or equitable use of money. Finding cures for diseases is scientific research, but for which diseases cures should be attempted first is a value- based question.

Another example is that of the project to build a Superconducting-Super Collider in Texas, to be the largest in the world. The project was approved around 1987 for a cost of $ 4.4 billion. By 1993, the project had a severe budget overrun and the U.S. congress eventually cancelled the project, after $2 billion was already spent. One of the major reasons was the belief that a more “proper” use of the further money to be pumped in would be to fund many smaller scientific experiments of equal value.

When talking about a “proper study of matter” to relate science to God, we are not talking about such value-based instances. There is a strictly scientific sense in which the discourse about a “proper” study of matter is emerging within science. One particularly good example can be found in quantum mechanics (QM). Science has two parts: theory and experiment. Theory is always described using mathematical formalism. Results of experiments are always described, in the first instance, using ordinary language, no matter how deeply matter is probed, or how abstract the physical theory is.

Without going into too many technical details, one can say that it is now accepted that our current ways of thinking about the material world using ordinary language is not a “proper” way to think of matter at the quantum level.

To quote the Nobel-prize winning quantum physicist, Richard Feynman:

“Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to get used to, and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone–both to the novice and to the experienced physicist. Even the experts do not understand it the way they would like to, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should not, because all of direct, human experience and of human intuition applies to large objects. We know how large objects will act, but things on a small scale just do not act that way. So we have to learn about them in a sort of abstract or imaginative fashion and not by connection with our direct experience.”

[Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, & Mathew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. III, p. 1-1, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1965; italics added]

However, the problem is that, in principle, quantum mechanics is applicable not only to atomic behavior, but also to everyday objects- such as rocks, apples and planets. Thus, quantum physics is a more fundamental theory for the macroscopic world too, i.e. more fundamental than Newton’s theory. From this viewpoint, ordinary language based thinking is required to be quantum-compatible even with respect to observations since our observations have to be always pertaining to states of macroscopic objects. It is a point that Feynman failed to note.

Could there be an alternate range of usage of ordinary language in everyday thinking that is a more “proper” way to visualize quantum processes?

This is a very deep unresolved issue at the very foundations of quantum mechanics, one that has plagued scientists for nearly a century. Niels Bohr, another Nobel Laureate in quantum physics, and a founding father of the field, opined: “all our experience must appear only within customary points of view and perception.” In other words, he rejected the possibility for new forms of perception at the everyday sensory level.

Indeed, the so-called received-view of quantum theory is that either we make do with the existing “improper” range of ordinary language (using such contra-intuitive combinations as wave-particle duality) or treat the theory entirely as only a mathematical set of predictive rules with no ontological content.

But many serious quantum physicists are still trying to “understand” the theory in a way that accords in an intuitively compatible manner with our present common sense, but so far they have had no success.

We are moving to demonstrate that there is a conception of ordinary matter based on ordinary language that is quantum-compatible, and which can yield new testable predictions. If and when successful, this would constitute a rigorous demonstration of a more proper way of conceiving matter and doing science, compared to the present.

It is important to mention that this view of matter at the macroscopic or directly perceptible level which is radically new and quantum compatible is from the Srimad Bhagavatam. It is this “proper” study of matter based on Srimad Bhagavatam that the Bhaktivedanta Institute is bringing within science. Therefore while being rigorously scientific, it can also move science toward a greater study of God.

It is also relevant at this point to say that the present Dalai Lama in the 1980s studied these issues in quantum theory with the help of two world-famous quantum physicists, David Bohm and C.F. F. von Weizsäcker. The Dalai Lama was undoubtedly looking for connections with Buddhist philosophy. He eventually published a book in 2005 on this topic, titled The Universe in a Single Atom ? The Convergence of Science and Spirituality. He asks there, rather plaintively:

“How, from the point of view of physics, do we reconcile our commonsense notions of an everyday world of objects on the one hand and the bizarre world of quantum mechanics on the other? Can these two perspectives be reconciled at all?

Are we condemned to live with what is apparently a schizophrenic view of the world?”

The question suggests that he couldn’t find resources in the Buddhist tradition to reconcile quantum theory with ordinary language thinking. Thus, it is of considerable interest that we are able to demonstrate the contemporary scientific relevance of Gaudiya Vaishnava Vedanta by offering a new range of ordinary language conceptions about matter based on Srimad Bhagavatam.

“What kind of new testable predictions your institute’s work will have in this regard”, our alert scientist asked, focusing on the immediate topic at hand.

“One specific aspect of this work”, I told him, “is that we can give a non-probabilistic interpretation of the wave function.”

Hearing this, the physics teacher looked nonplussed. “That is amazing. That kind of work can revolutionize science”, he said. “Nobody in quantum physics has ever thought of avoiding the probabilistic predictions altogether while using the psi function.”

Undoubtedly, more needs to be said for a non-scientist on the significance of a non- probabilistic interpretation, especially in presenting Srimad Bhagavatam to the larger public. This will have to come in a separate piece. However, this physics trained person was able to grasp the immense significance of the point.

So I told him, “See, because you are trained in science, specifically physics in this case, with one sentence I could convince you that this work within science is potentially earth- shaking work from B.I. But persons who do not have the necessary scientific background or do not take the time to understand our work, either by talking to us or reading our published papers, generally do not understand our work. So, at this point the work is meant for high-grade, inquisitive scientists. However, its results will impact all of human society, as science always does. Thus, in time, we will also produce popular accounts of our work. But that should wait. In science, popularization cannot precede establishing the scientific work amidst scientists.

I then showed him an example of a Nobel-prize winning quantum physicist coming in touch with our work at a scientific conference, and expressed instant appreciation thus:

“I was very interested in the talk by Dr. Ravi Gomatam last night. He showed, by some nice arguments, that the proper way to think of quantum

mechanics is in terms of relationships. This is a new way of thinking, which is perhaps how we can get out of the confusions we seems to be in at present moment. It may be that this how we should be doing science”.

I then told him, “We have similar scientific projects of immense significance, not only in quantum physics, but also in mathematics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, medicine, engineering, computer science, communication engineering, psychology, sociology, philosophy and theology too. [See www.bvinst.edu/notices/projects.docx ] Whenever we meet people who are actually qualified in this fields and are open minded, they have invariably showed interest, and after reading our paper, have appreciated our work in writing.” I then showed him then a whole range of other quotes from scientists in various other fields. ( http://www.bvinst.edu/Citations/RG-Appreciations.htm )  

He responded, “Yes, it is all very clear now. The work of Bhaktivedanta Institute within science is amazing. I wish I had learnt about this ten or 20 years ago. I would have paid more attention to B.I.’s work. Nobody in the temple even hinted to me about the real work of this institute, and I also didn’t bother to ask you”, he lamented.

I told him, “It is not late even now. You can still try to get involved.” I gave him some of our recent scientific papers, encouraged him to read them and be in regular touch with us. He agreed, and left very happy.

Readers with comments or questions are invited to write to BIbombay@bvinst.edu or BIberkeley@bvinst.edu