Haribol!!!
Its been a while since I've posted on here so I just wanted to start by saying hello and thank you to everyone for your always insightful entries and photos!
I would love to hear your opinions on a certain subject. In the Bhagavatam there are subjects which bring up immediate flags for the most of us who are brought up in and or living in the grossest material science state of mind. These are the things that seem to contradict material science and can be tough to swallow at first. One subject in particular that I was wrestling with recently was Yugas. In the Gita and Bhagavatam it lists the time frames for the yugas which would seem to mesh with materialists view until you get further back to say the time of the dinosaurs and what not. Obviously the material point of view is that there were no people or cows during the time of the dinosaurs, while the vedic version says that it would be Satya Yuga where the inhabitants live for 100,000 years and our the most god conscious people of any yuga. Personally to cope with this issue I will use examples from Sastra for instance when Prabhupad references the frog in the well, where the frog tries to relate everything to the extremely limited knowledge, thinking it to see and know all and all when in fact it knows nothing of the overall picture. Similarly with our material science we think we know so much about time and space and the universe, when really, all the so called answers material science have given us is just the smallest fraction of the infinite knowledge contained in just the material aspect of the lord. That being said if I were confronted by someone asking how I would explain the issue of the yugas (and they didn’t except the material science being flawed reasoning, as most people are not ready to accept right away) I wouldn’t quite now how to respond. What I do personally to appease my mind when it wants to be satisfied with the How and Whys of these matters, is think of ways (supported by sastra best I can) that would make it seem possible for the yugas to take place as told without contradicting what we see in the fossil record etc. For example I would say "well maybe sense the inhabitants of Satya Yuga are so much purer and have such a long life span, they are actually in a subtler body then that of the ultra gross Kali Yuga, and there for, the hard, gross, fossil evidence that would seem to be missing simply wouldn’t exist. Or maybe when Satya Yuga take place, Earth (ie where the inhabitants actually are living) is in a different place or realm then the gross material earth we think of where the dinosaurs roamed.
So I guess my question is Does anyone else have similar methods to dealing with these questions where a clear answer in comparison to our material view of history is not given in sastra. And is it ok to build personal faith by thinking of ways that The Sastra version could happen in relation to our material understanding as I gave examples of above, Or should one simply build faith on word for word what Sastra says and just deny material evidence that would seem to disagree.
Thanks so much in advance for any advice that you might be able to offer!!!!
Abhay Krsna
Haribol!!!
Its been a while since I've posted on here so I just wanted to start by saying hello and thank you to everyone for your always insightful entries and photos!
I would love to hear your opinions on a certain subject. In the Bhagavatam there are subjects which bring up immediate flags for the most of us who are brought up in and or living in the grossest material science state of mind. These are the things that seem to contradict material science and can be tough to swallow at first. One subject in particular that I was wrestling with recently was Yugas. In the Gita and Bhagavatam it lists the time frames for the yugas which would seem to mesh with materialists view until you get further back to say the time of the dinosaurs and what not. Obviously the material point of view is that there were no people or cows during the time of the dinosaurs, while the vedic version says that it would be Satya Yuga where the inhabitants live for 100,000 years and our the most god conscious people of any yuga. Personally to cope with this issue I will use examples from Sastra for instance when Prabhupad references the frog in the well, where the frog tries to relate everything to the extremely limited knowledge, thinking it to see and know all and all when in fact it knows nothing of the overall picture. Similarly with our material science we think we know so much about time and space and the universe, when really, all the so called answers material science have given us is just the smallest fraction of the infinite knowledge contained in just the material aspect of the lord. That being said if I were confronted by someone asking how I would explain the issue of the yugas (and they didn’t except the material science being flawed reasoning, as most people are not ready to accept right away) I wouldn’t quite now how to respond. What I do personally to appease my mind when it wants to be satisfied with the How and Whys of these matters, is think of ways (supported by sastra best I can) that would make it seem possible for the yugas to take place as told without contradicting what we see in the fossil record etc. For example I would say "well maybe sense the inhabitants of Satya Yuga are so much purer and have such a long life span, they are actually in a subtler body then that of the ultra gross Kali Yuga, and there for, the hard, gross, fossil evidence that would seem to be missing simply wouldn’t exist. Or maybe when Satya Yuga take place, Earth (ie where the inhabitants actually are living) is in a different place or realm then the gross material earth we think of where the dinosaurs roamed.
So I guess my question is Does anyone else have similar methods to dealing with these questions where a clear answer in comparison to our material view of history is not given in sastra. And is it ok to build personal faith by thinking of ways that The Sastra version could happen in relation to our material understanding as I gave examples of above, Or should one simply build faith on word for word what Sastra says and just deny material evidence that would seem to disagree.
Thanks so much in advance for any advice that you might be able to offer!!!!
Abhay Krsna
One thing to draw from the Vedic idea of yugas is the concept of cyclical time as opposed to linear time, which has merit in scientific circles these days. Otherwise the timing of the yugas is determined by particular astronomical/astrological occurrences over predictable time periods that reoccur in the heavens again and again. And furthermore the entire universe expands and contract again and again. However, I have heard differing timings for these cycles, some relatively short and others quite long. Some debate on the length of their duration and timing exists among Vedic adherents. Along these lines Pujyapada Sridhara Maharaj once said that in satya yuga people are said to live 100,000 years but that they were considered to be alive as long as their bones remained—yogis living in their bones in meditation. So looking at saya yuga in this way seems to shorten it. In this way he tried to adjust the idea to better fit with modern scientific findings while embracing the essence of the concept: cyclical time and evaluation of the quality of time in terms of the moral/karmic atmosphere corresponding with stellar configurations.
Here is the quote from Sridhara Maharaja:
"It is described in the sastras that in Satya-yuga, as long as a man's bones exist, that is how long he will live. Along with the longevity of the bones, the life will be there. In Treta-yuga, life may be maintained by the nervous system; but it is stated that in Kali-yuga, kalav annagatah pranah - one's longevity depends on food."