Continuation from previous post on this blog of the conversation between Joe M and Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja

To continue reading —

excerpt –

From: Deepak Chopra
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2017 5:00 PM

Perceptions and minds are innumerable
Awareness is the common ground of all of them
Hence awareness is one
You cannot multiply or divide awareness
It differentiates into all knowers, all modes of knowing and all objects known-all sentient beings –in the same way a zygote differentiates into all the different cells and organs of a body

REPLY by BMP

Awareness or consciousness is not merely what is common to all perceptions and minds, it is what is universal essence for them. The difference between commonality and universal essence is a vitally important distinction.

The color white may be common to picket fences, clouds, and snowflakes, but it is not essential to those things. In other words fences can be any color, clouds can be gray as well as white, and snowflakes don’t really depend on their being white as far as their essence as water is concerned.

On the other hand, universal essence such as the fact that each and every cow cannot be what it is if we take away its ‘cowness’ which is shared by every cow. This kind of universality is essential to the innumerable different specimens under its species.

The fact that the universal is one does not mean that the many individuals under it are eliminated. That does not follow as a rational conclusion from the fact that many individual specimens exists quite happily within a single species.

To claim that awareness is one is also not justified by the evidence that the offspring of conscious living entities each have their own awareness quite different from one another. Experience tells us that when the mother feels hungry, for example, her offspring do not necessarily feel the same thing. So awareness is not the same for all.

Another example can be given. The flame of a candle can be used to light many other candles without losing its own luminescence. Thus many independent flames can be produced from one. IF this is true for fire, then how can an absolute of ultimate consciousness be restricted from producing many independent conscious entities from itself? How can the Absolute be restricted in this way?

-excerpt

The full article can be downloaded here:

Dandavat pranams,

Attached is the Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute Report – September 24, 2016.

“The Whole Truth: Conversation With A Scientist”

[exerpt] An organic whole is not merely the sum of its parts. All partial
analyses will only give the wrong conception because you
are taking the parts to be something substantial in and of
themselves but that cannot be the truth of what’s actually
there. As one poet wrote about the elephant and blind men,
‘Though each was partly in the right, all were in the wrong!’
In order to know the truth you need a conception of the
Whole beyond the limited knowledge of empirical
investigation for properly understanding things.
[/excerpt]

Please enjoy and share with others.

Your humble servant
Kushum devi dasi
(New York)

August 10, 2014 Sadhu-Sanga — Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja discusses philosophy and science with Sripad Bhakti Vijnana Muni Maharaja and Sripad Bhakti Niskama Shanta Maharaja.

Here is the recording of the August 15, 2014 conversation.