Modern Science and the Vedas

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Krsna Talk 92 - Modern Science and the VedasbySwami NarasinghaView online with graphics:

[ http://www.gosai.com/krishna-talk/92-modern-science-and-vedas.html ]In 1959 two American atomic scientists, Dr. Emillo Segre and Dr. Owen

Chamberlain were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of theantiproton, proving (theoretically) that matter exists in two forms — asparticles and antiparticles. According to one of the fundamental assumptions of

the new theory, there may exist another world, or an anti-world, built up ofanti-matter. This anti-material world would consist of atomic and subatomicparticles spinning in reverse orbits to those of the world we know. If these two

worlds should ever clash, they would both be annihilated in one blinding flash.That same year (1959) A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada published a smallessay Easy Journey to Other Planets. He began this work by quoting the above

information and went on to say that indeed, two worlds did exist, the materialand the spiritual, but the nature of the spiritual world was that it could neverbe annihilated.I first read Easy Journey to Other Planets in 1969 and for many years after

that I wondered why there hadn’t been further research into the concept ofantiparticles or anti-worlds. Almost 40 years later I was pleasantly surprisedto learn that the theory of anti-worlds has been a hot topic of physics research

all those years and remains so even today. In fact the anti-world theory nowoccupies a prominent place in theoretical physics as the Multiverse Hypothesis,sometimes known as Parallel Universes.Progress however in the Multiverse Hypothesis hasn’t been much to write home

about. Concepts keep changing and no one has yet to make actual contact with aMultiverse or Parallel Universe. In other words there haven’t been anytangible results in the field of Multiverse research. But of course, the

scientists (physicists) who are doing the research are worthy of respect, honor,great laudations and sizable salaries because, even though unable to actually‘prove’ their theories, they are great and deserve the perks of greatness,

because they are able to think about such lofty concepts. They are great minds.But what about the writers and commentators of Vedic literature who spoke ofthe anti-material world (Paravyoma and Vaikuntha) many centuries before the

great minds of the west even realized that the Earth wasn’t flat! Aren’tthose Vedic seers worthy of being counted as great thinkers, great minds and menof scientific fiber? If so, then why do we not give them their due and, more

importantly, why do today’s scientists, physicists and researchers not paycloser attention to their ancient achievements? I don’t have the answer forthat.Lets look at some of the Vedic concepts and achievements in addition to

Parallel Universes that have become trends in modern scientific disciplines andeven quintessential to science itself.In Kapila-deva’s system of Sankhya, the analytical study of material nature,matter develops from subtle to gross. The qualities of an element exist before

the gross manifestation of the element. That is quite different than the waymost of us think of matter. For example, aroma is the quality of earth and wetherefore think that first there is the substance earth and then the aroma. But

in the Sankhya, or Vedic way of thinking, it is just the opposite. First thereexists the quality of aroma and then earth is manifest – everything beginsfrom the subtle plane and moves toward the gross.The subtlest aspect of matter in Sankhya is ‘vibration’ – also thought

of as a sound vibration or frequency. That most subtle existence that precedesevery and all aspects of matter is a vibration or sound called tan-matra. Inlayman’s terms, in Sankhya, a vibration or sound lies at the basis of matter.

Everything springs from that original vibration — the basis of everything liesin sound.Respectively, String Theory (a developing branch of theoretical physics thatcombines quantum mechanics and general relativity into a quantum theory of

gravity) has connotations similar to the Sankhya conception of tan-matra orsound vibration being the basis of matter.Then there is the theoretical physics concerning Dark Matter or the missingmass in the universe. Physicists conclude, based on research, that as much as

80% of the mass of this universe has gone missing or is undetectable. Simplyput, to account for the amount of gravity in the universe, 80% more matter thanis visible is required. Where is it?The first person to provide evidence and infer the existence of a phenomenon

that has come to be called ‘dark matter’ was Swiss astrophysicist FritzZwicky, of the California Institute of Technology in 1933. Zwicky applied theviral theorem to the Coma cluster of galaxies and obtained evidence of unseen

mass. Zwicky estimated the cluster's total mass based on the motions of galaxiesnear its edge and compared that estimate to one based on the number of galaxiesand total brightness of the cluster. He found that there was about 400 times

more estimated mass than was visually observable. The gravity of the visiblegalaxies in the cluster would be far too small for such fast orbits, sosomething extra was required. This is known as the " missing mass problem " . Based

on these conclusions, Zwicky inferred that there must be some non-visible formof matter that would provide enough of the mass and gravity to hold the clustertogether. That was the beginning for the search for Dark Matter.

Seventy-six years later, science is still looking for Dark Matter. They know itis literally everywhere, but it escapes detection and thus they are unable toobserve it. Millions of taxpayer’s dollars are spent every year by western

super powers in the search for Dark Matter. Nothing has turned up yet.On a parallel platform, Sankhya identifies a material element that among itsother qualities is, for the most part, elusive (emphasis on elusive). It is

everywhere (all-pervading) but at the same time undetectable (ethereal). Thatelement in Sankhya is called nabhas, or as mentioned in Bhagavad-gita, kham.The activities/qualities and characteristics of the kham element in Sankhya can

be observed as accommodating space/room for existence. Space itself, bothinternal and external, is the element kham. This then, if taken notice of byphysicists, may very well fit nicely into the ‘missing mass problem’. Kham,

being a material element, could theoretically be assigned a numerical code inthe periodic table of elements like everything else – then they might findwhat they are looking for.In the Vedic way of thinking the physical element is secondary to its qualities

— when the qualities of a particular thing are understood, it is as good as orbetter than having the grosser subject at hand. In that sense modern science hasalready discovered Dark Matter, because they have understood something of its

qualities… they just haven’t realized it yet.In the Srimad Bhagavatam we find the following verse:bhutanam chidra-datrtvam bahir antaram eva capranendriyatma-dhisnyatvam nabhaso vrtti-laksanam " The activities and characteristics of the ethereal element can be observed as

accommodation for the room for the external and internal existences of allliving entities, namely the field of activities of the vital air, the senses andthe mind. " (Bhag. 3.26.34)In his purport to this verse, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada says that the

Sankhya understanding of nabhas or kham (that he has called in English ‘theethereal element’) is the basis for great scientific research: " This verse is the potential basis of great scientific research work, for it

explains how subtle forms are generated from the ethereal element (nabhah), whattheir characteristics and actions are, and how the tangible elements, namelyair, fire, water and earth, are manifested from the subtle form. "

Sankhya does not simply list the basic material elements, but it explains quitescientifically how those elements evolve from the subtlest plane of existence upto the divisions of the universe — this is quite elaborate and scientific

indeed.Yet for science to take full advantage of the Sankhya understanding of matterand to discover how the universe came into being, they will have to do more thanjust add kham/nabhas to their list of elements, they will have to add ahankara

(ego), mana (the mind) and buddhi (intelligence) to their table of elements for,indeed, Sankhya lists these as material elements. However, these elementsahankara, mana and buddhi are categorized as even more subtle than kham, because

they are closer in character to atma, consciousness.Beyond the gross and subtle material elements being added to the scientifictable of elements, Sankhya says that a complete understanding of existence, of

reality, is not possible without adding two transcendental, anti-materialconcepts – namely atma and Paramatma (consciousness and super-consciousness).This, it seems, science struggles with even more than Dark Matter. We have

dubbed it ‘Light Matter’.The most intriguing physics discovery by far has to be the theory of the WarpDrive or the Alcubierre Drive, named after its inventor, the Mexican theoreticalphysicist Miguel Alcubierre Moya. Most of us know about the Warp Drive from

science fiction movies like Star Trek and Contact, but Moya had the real deal.In his 1994 physics paper Moya proposed a method of stretching space in a wavethat would in theory cause the fabric of space ahead of a spacecraft to contract

and the space behind it to expand. The ship would ride this wave inside a regionknown as a warp bubble of flat space. Since the ship is not moving within thisbubble, but carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic

effects such as time dilation do not apply in the way they would in the case ofa ship moving at high velocity through flat space-time. Also, this method oftravel does not actually involve moving faster than light in a local sense,

since a light beam within the bubble would still always move faster than theship; it is only ‘faster than light’ in the sense that, thanks to thecontraction of the space in front of it, the ship could reach its destination

faster than a light beam restricted to traveling outside the warp bubble. Thus,the Alcubierre drive does not contradict the conventional claim that relativityforbids a slower-than-light object to accelerate to faster-than-light speeds.

Pretty neat stuff – and NASA certainly thought so, mounting their ‘TimeWarp’ program at a cost of many millions of dollars for more than a decadebefore they finally gave it up. “Yes, Time Warp is possible.” they said,

“We just can’t do it!” Shucks!But we are not surprised to find this same theory mentioned many thousands ofyears ago in the Vedic literature as a siddhi, or mystic perfection, by whichone can travel to another planet or another galaxy without conventional

propulsion and in zero time.One may argue that although this is mentioned in the Vedas, it is doubtful thatthey were able to do it. That argument could be applied, but first one shouldrealize that they could think about it thousands of years before NASA. Whether

they could do it or not is irrelevant. After all, NASA was only thinking aboutit – they never actually did it either.See the fun – the Vedic knowledge is easily dismissed or not recognized atall. These are simply stories and myths they say, but theoretical

physics/science — now that’s something you can believe in!It might be fair to ask, “Who writes this stuff?” Have the intelligentpeople in this world forgotten how to think for themselves? Have we simplybecome the faithful followers of whatever ‘science’ has to say?  Have we

lost our reason and logic? Apparently some have!If we were to list all the scientific discoveries that Vedic civilization hasgiven to the world, some in common use today like the one, the zero, the binarysystem, calculations regarding astronomical phenomena and more yet to be

discovered or understood like the Warp Drive theory, then this article wouldbecome a book. So here we stop.-- At the present moment our minds are polluted with the dirt accumulated over millions and millions of lifetimes of sense gratification. Even though our original pure nature is eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss, due to our mental contamination we are presently suffering in the realm of temporality, ignorance, and misery. By the purificatory process of chanting the holy names of God we can revive our original, pure nature and thus relish the sweetest happiness at every minute.

Chant:Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare HareHare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare