By Bhakti Madhava Puri, Ph. D., & Krishna Keshava Das

Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada showed his scientist disciples that life comes from life, and matter comes from life, and Srila Prabhupada further explained that these principles support a theistic conclusion regarding the origin of life. The Bhaktivedanta Institute, founded in 1976, was established to formally present these empirically verifiable truths to the scientific community at large. This article is a humble attempt at presenting the most up-to-date information showing that life and matter come from life, and what the implications of this are.

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Life in general is the idea of an embodied activity that produces and preserves itself. Kant called life a natural purpose [Naturzwecke], an embodied intentional or deliberate activity. Its end or goal [preservation of itself] is given in its beginning, and thus it is teleological in nature. It is both cause and effect of itself, i.e. it is characterized by circular causality. It is not like matter whose movement is caused by another that is outside or different from itself.

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Idols of the Mind vs True Reality
by Bhakti Madhava Puri, Ph.D.
Bhakti Vedanta Institute, Princeton, NJ

[-excerpt-]

Atomic Theory and Quantum Theory provide imagined wonderlands that possess some observations or correspondence with true reality. To some degree each is logical, self-consistent and complete, although Godel would object to either being at the same time consistent and complete.

If we carefully consider what science is doing here, we discover that anthropocentric or egocentric conceptions of reality – reality as it is “for us” or for me – are being erected in place of true reality as it is “by itself and for itself.” In other words, a subjective conception/theory that is “for us” is being erected as a reality “in and for itself” yet is actually opposed to objective reality as it is in and for itself. It seeks and has some correspondence with true reality and if the subjective conception corresponds with the objective reality the truth is considered to have been reached. This is called the correspondence theory of truth. However, there are problems with this as we noted above, in that different theories may have some correspondence with objective observations and yet still refer to different imagined realities.

The real problem arises when these different Idols of the Mind [Man-made images/ideas/conceptions that are for us in our subjectivity] are presumed to be outwardly objective and venerated as the True Reality [Reality “as it is” or “by itself and for itself”]. Explanations consist of descriptions in terms of the chosen theories assumed as real, even though they are abstractions from the true reality. Because they are abstractions, they never comprehend the concrete reality they merely represent.

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Reality Has Its Own Purpose In and For Itself
Bhakti Madhava Puri, Ph. D.
Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute

In a recent article by Deepak Chopra, MD, “Can We Evolve Beyond Evolution? We Have To” [1] it was mentioned that

“– The reality we accept is a human construct.”
“– We should see ourselves as conscious creators who imbue reality with our own purposes.”

While many people think this way there are also those who believe reality is fixed in stone beyond whatever they may think of it. To some extent both are right. We do have the freedom to interpret what we experience, and mind does play a role in determining what the senses observe. At the same time reality doesn’t just disappear when we do not perceive it. Our house is still there when we go to work for several hours. For instance, it could burn down when we are not there. So it is not all a human construct, and as for purposes they also are not solely created by us.

A more satisfactory conception would be one that includes and harmonizes both the idealism of a mind or consciousness based creation of reality, and the realism of the inherent purposefulness of an already existing reality of which we are part and parcel.

The reality people experience is a human construct insofar as it is limited to sensuous perception of the phenomenal world of appearance, as well as the circumscribed judgments of finite understanding. However, this does not reach to the noumenal Reality in and for itself beyond or behind its apparent or phenomenal surface. In India the mayavad philosophy of Brahman Satyam, Jagat Mithyä claims that Reality is purely a product of human misconception and only Brahman as mere impersonal consciousness (an oxymoron since consciousness is the essence of personality) is the absolute reality or truth. This philosophy, also called kevaladvaita, however, does not provide an alternative to material reductionism but merely an alternative reductionism. Instead of reducing everything to matter it proposes to reduce everything to impersonal consciousness. In fact, what is needed is an alternative way of thinking that is not based solely on the judgments of a finite ego that is found, for instance, in the abstract thinking of Kantian philosophy in the West as well as in the kevaladvaita interpretations of Shankaracharya in the East.

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Dandavat pranams,

Attached is the Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute Report – November 26, 2016.

“Faith, Certainty, Truth, and Love”

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“When one is influenced by sattva guna he performs meritorious deeds like giving in charity, feeding people, building shelters, and other moral and virtuous activities,” Sripad Puri Maharaja began to answer. ”Yet although moral and virtuous acts in this world are very glorious they can only result in anitya sukriti (temporary merit) because they are not God centered and thus only produce benefits within the realm of the three worlds. Nitya sukriti is gained by acts (-kriti means act or do, su means good or glorious) in connection with the Divinity, like taking mahaprasadam, associating with and serving the devotees, hearing scriptural and devotional discourses, chanting the Holy Name, and so on. This type of sukriti may be of two types: jnata sukriti or ajnata sukriti – knowingly performed or unknowingly performed. If someone is feeding people, for instance, and he somehow feeds a suddha bhakta in the process he will get ajnata sukriti. He unknowingly will get spiritual benefit. But if one knows that by regularly chanting the Holy Name under direction of Gurudeva one can develop love of God he accumulates jnata sukriti. Still we should remember what Srila Govinda Maharaja once mentioned, even if one has an ocean of sukriti, without intense hankering or fervent desire one will never get Krishna prema.”

“Srila Sridhara Maharaja reminds us that when Mahaprabhu says,

brahmanda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija
(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrta: Madhya-lila, 19.151)

Wandering throughout the material universe, the very
fortunate living entity who receives the grace of Guru and
Krishna receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.

“The word bhagyavan or good fortune means sukriti. It is sukriti that brings us in contact with faith (sraddha) in spiritual life. But when we have faith in the devotees (sadhu sanga), who are also living a life of service in a devotional God centered community, that would give us more substantial benefit than a solitary faith in God.”

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Your humble servant
Kushum devi dasi
(New York)