Nature of Reality

Shrinivas Gadkari sgadkari2001 at YAHOO.COM
Sun Oct 7 16:29:12 CDT 2001


Namaste,

anandhudli at HOTMAIL.COM wrote:
>If the Veda contains information that can be gained from other means
>independently, then it (Veda) becomes redundant. Also, as Shankara

If one understands, Vedas as the knowledge pertaining to all aspects of
life, Science becomes a subset of Vedic knowledge. Then the question
arises, is scientific knowledge apaurusheya ? If one reflects on this
question for a while one realizes that the answer to this question is a
yes. All that one needs to realize is, intuition is of apaurusheya
origin. And every single scientific law, is finally rooted in intuition.
(If you think this is not ture, I request the reader to contemplate,
on this issue for a while.)

>3. If there is any information that has been discovered by science
>independently of the Veda but is found to be contradicted in the Veda,
>then such contradictions will have to be reconciled according to what
>Shankara says.

As I see it, Vedic rishis very well understood that, as far as
Vyavahara is concerned, it is the mental plane that is of prime
importance. Hence their treatment of Vyavahara is primarily in the
mental plane. Modern science on the other hand, focusses almost
exclusively on the physical plane. This in my opinion is the root
cause of confusion and apparent contradictions.

>extensions of the sense organs.) Now, one can try to redefine science
>to move beyond the senses but that would not be acceptable to all
>scientists. They would object that science would then lose all
>objectivity and hence verifiability.
>

Well, we will not give these 'scientists', too much choice in this
matter. If we can, using our understanding of the vedas, device practical
applications that society finds indispensible, science will have to
be redefined to include the vedic knowledge. After all, it is the
practical utility that is the driving factor, always.

Best regards
Shrinivas



More information about the Advaita-l mailing list