Rational "Mythology"
Can a rational person accept the stories of the Puranas as literally 
true?

A lecture by Sadaputa Dasa
Presented at the Parliament of the World's Religion, Chicago, 1993

In Vivekananda Swami's famous lecture on Hinduism at the Parliament of 
Religions in 1893, he began by outlining some of the salient features 
of traditional Hinduism. He mentioned karma, reincarnation, and the 
problem of evil in the material world. He went on to explain that the 
solution to this problem depends on seeking refuge in God. God is that 
one "by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, 
and death stalks upon the earth."1 He is the source of strength and 
the support of the universe. He is everywhere, pure, almighty, and 
all-merciful. And we are related to God as a child to a father or 
mother and as a friend to a beloved friend.

Vivekananda said that we are to worship God through unselfish love, 
and he pointed out that the way to achieving love of God was "fully 
developed and taught by Krishna, whom the Hindus believe to have been 
God incarnate on earth."2 Through love we are to perfect ourselves, 
reach God, see God, and enjoy bliss with God. On this, he said, all 
Hindus are agreed.3

But he went on to say that in the final stage of realization, God is 
seen to be impersonal Brahman. The individual then ends separate 
existence by realizing his identity with Brahman. Making an analogy 
with physical science, he said, "Physics would stop when it would be 
able to fulfill its services in discovering one energy of which all 
the others are but manifestations, and the science of religion [would] 
become perfect when it would discover - One who is the only Soul of 
which all souls are but delusive manifestations."4

The Pros and Cons of Pure Monism

Vivekananda's strictly monistic concept of God has a long history. The 
idea has always been linked with the rational, speculative approach to 
reality. For example, in the fifth century B.C., the Greek philosopher 
Parmenides concluded by speculative arguments that "only One Thing can 
possibly exist and that this One Thing is uncreated, unchangeable, 
indestructible, and immovable. Plurality, creation, change, 
destruction, and motion are mere appearances."5 

Parmenides argued that the One must have no parts distinct from one 
another, for otherwise it would be not One but many. Thus he concluded 
that the One must be a sphere of perfectly uniform substance. But even 
a sphere has an inside and an outside, and so it is marked by duality, 
not oneness. The idea of absolute oneness, or pure monism, may seem 
alluring, but it requires us to give up all conceivable attributes and 
finally give up thought itself.

Vivekananda recognized this problem, and he argued that in the Hindu 
religion specific forms of gods and goddesses serve as symbols to help 
us visualize the inconceivable. Thus he said, "The Hindus have 
discovered that the absolute can only be realized, or thought of, or 
stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents 
are simply so many symbols, so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas 
on."6

The idea of religious imagery as a symbol for the unthinkable Absolute 
sometimes turns out useful in the modern age. Vivekananda was born in 
Calcutta in 1863 as Narendranath Datta, and he grew up during the high 
noon of British dominance in India. During this period, European 
rationalism, based on the famous French Enlightenment, made a strong 
impact on India. Reformers like Rammohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore 
founded the Brahmo Samaj in an effort to revise Hinduism and make it 
compatible with modern Western thinking.7 This effort required the 
solving of two problems: (1) the problem of religious plurality and 
(2) the problem of the clash between modern science and old religious 
beliefs.

The old philosophy of pure monism, or advaita, is well suited to solve 
these problems. First of all, if religious imagery has only a symbolic 
meaning that refers to something inconceivable, then many different 
systems of symbols should work equally well. In this way, all major 
religious systems can be reconciled. This was Vivekananda's idea, and 
he greatly stressed the equality of all religions.

Likewise, if religious imagery is simply symbolic, then there is no 
question of a conflict between religion and science. A religious story 
that seems to conflict with established scientific facts can simply be 
interpreted as a symbolic clue pointing to the One beyond the grasp of 
the finite scientific mind. Vivekananda also mentioned that the stark 
simplicity of the impersonal Brahman fits with the simplicity sought 
by physicists in their hoped-for Grand Unified Theory of nature.

But in pure monism, what becomes of love of God, or indeed, love of 
anyone? If the ultimate reality is pure oneness, and personal 
existence is illusory, then love is also illusory. Love requires two, 
and not just two of anything. Two persons are needed for a 
relationship of love. If such relationships do have spiritual reality, 
then at least two spiritual persons must eternally exist. In 
traditional Hindu thought, there are, in fact, two categories of 
eternal persons: (1) the jiva souls that live in individual material 
bodies and (2) the original Supreme Personality of Godhead and His 
countless spiritual expansions. As Vivekananda pointed out, Hindus 
believe that the Supreme Being incarnated on earth as Krsna, who 
expounded on the ways of loving devotional reciprocation between 
Himself and individual jiva souls.

Unfortunately, after making this point, Vivekananda rejected both 
Krsna and the individual soul as illusory. In his monistic approach to 
religion, all conceivable features of the Absolute are ruled out. 
Beingness, knowledge, and bliss are three, and they must be discarded 
from the One as earthbound misconceptions. The same is true of the 
might and mercy of the Lord. Likewise, if the real truth is absolute 
oneness, all personal relationships of admiration, friendship, 
parental love, or conjugal love must be given up as delusions.

The Vaisnava Alternative Given by Bhaktivinoda Thakura

It is natural then to ask if some other solution is available to the 
problems posed when modern rational thought meets the multiplicity of 
religious systems. To explore this, I now turn to the life of 
Bhaktivinoda Thakura, a contemporary of Swami Vivekananda.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura was born in 1838 as Kedaranath Datta in the Nadia 
district of West Bengal. As a young man he acquired an English 
education, and he used to exchange thoughts on literary and spiritual 
topics with Devendranath Tagore, the Brahmo Samaj leader and 
Vivekananda's early teacher. In due course he studied law, and for 
many years he supported his family as a magistrate in the British 
court system.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura deeply studied the religious thought of his day. 
He scrutinized the works of European philosophers, and he was greatly 
impressed with the devotional teachings of Jesus Christ. At first, his 
Western education inclined him to look down on the Vaisnava literature 
of devotional service to Krsna. Indeed, he wrote that the Bhagavata, 
one of the main texts describing Krsna, "seemed like a repository of 
ideas scarcely adopted to the nineteenth century."8

But at a certain point he ran across a work about the great Vaisnava 
reformer Lord Caitanya, and he was able to obtain the commentary 
Caitanya had given on the Bhagavata to the advaita Vedantists of 
Benares. This created in him a great love for the devotional teachings 
of Krsna as presented by Caitanya.9 In due course he achieved an 
exalted state of spiritual realization by following Caitanya's 
teachings, and he wrote many books presenting those teachings to 
people both in India and abroad.

A Historical Interlude

Before we go into Bhaktivinoda Thakura's spiritual teachings, let me 
give an explicit idea of the intellectual climate in which he was 
operating in late nineteenth-century Bengal. To do this, I will quote 
a passage from the writings of Sir William Jones, a jurist who worked 
for the British East India company and was the first president of the 
Asiatic Society of Bengal. In an article on Hindu chronology written 
in 1788, Jones gave the following account of the close of 
Dvapara-yuga, the Third Age of the Puranas and the Mahabharata:

I cannot leave the third Indian age, in which the virtues and vices of 
mankind are said to have been equal, without observing, that even the 
close of it is manifestly fabulous and poetical, with hardly more 
appearance of historical truth, than the tale of Troy, or of the 
Argonauts; for Yudhisthira, it seems, was the son of Dherma, the 
Genius of Justice; Bhima of Pavan, or the God of Wind; Arjun of Indra, 
or the Firmament; Nacul and Sahadeva of the Cumars, the Castor and 
Pollux of India; and Bhishma, their reputed great uncle, was the child 
of Ganga, or the Ganges, by Santanu, whose brother Devapi is supposed 
to be still alive in the city of Calapa; all which fictions may be 
charming embellishments of an heroic poem, but are just as absurd in 
civil History, as the descent of two royal families from the Sun and 
the Moon.10

What Jones is referring to here is the story in the Mahabharata of 
events in India at the time of Krsna's advent. According to Hindu 
tradition, these events took place about five thousand years ago, when 
the Dvapara-yuga gave way to the present epoch, called the Kali-yuga. 
Yudhishira, Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula, and Sahadeva are the five Pandava 
brothers who figured in many of Krsna's pastimes.

We can see from Jones's comments that he does not regard the story of 
the Pandavas as true history. Why not? For many of us, the problem is 
that the story contains elements simply not credible to a person 
trained in the modern rational viewpoint. We know that people don't 
descend from demigods. All documents putting forth such nonsense are 
rejected by responsible historians, so objective historical accounts 
hold no such absurdities. Such things never happened, and our history 
books abundantly confirm this.

Sir William Jones was clearly thinking along these lines, but he was 
not exactly a modern rationalist. Jones was a Christian who believed 
fully in the Mosaic chronology of the Bible. The table on page 26 
shows how Jones at-tempted to reconstruct Hindu chronology to bring it 
in line with Christian.11 Jones, it seems, was able to scorn Hindu 
myths as absurd while at the same time accepting as true the 
supernatural events of the Bible.

It is perhaps poetic justice that the same scornful treatment Jones 
applied to the Mahabharata was soon applied to the Bible. During 
Jones's lifetime, the "higher" scientific criticism of the Bible was 
being developed in Germany, and it was unleashed in England in the 
mid-nineteenth century. In 1860, the Anglican theologians Benjamin 
Jowett and Baden Powell stole attention from Darwin's newly published 
book On the Origin of Species by a controversial essay that rejected 
miracles, on scientific grounds.12 The Darwinists and the higher 
Biblical critics quickly joined forces, and Darwin's supporter Thomas 
Huxley began quoting German Biblical scholars in his essays on the 
interpretation of Genesis.13 As the nineteenth century drew to a 
close, rational, scientific skepticism became the only acceptable path 
for a scholar or intellectual in any respectable field of study.

The Bhagavata

Bhaktivinoda Thakura was confronted with this hostile intellectual 
climate in his efforts to present spiritual knowledge to the young 
Bengali intellectuals of his day. After drinking in from their British 
teachers the ideas of William Jones and other Western orientalists, 
these young people were not at all inclined to give credence to old 
myths. How then could the teachings of Krsna on love of God be 
presented? Bhaktivinoda Thakura judiciously chose to give a partial 
picture of the truth that would introduce important spiritual ideas 
without invoking rejection due to deep-seated prejudices.

In a lecture delivered in Dinajpur, West Bengal, in 1869, he focused 
on the Bhagavata, or Bhagavata Purana, as the preeminent text on the 
nature of the Supreme and the means of realizing our relation with the 
Supreme. Rejecting pure monism as a useless idea, he held that God is 
an eternal person. Thus he said, "The Bhagavata has - a 
Transcendental, Personal, All-intelligent, Active, absolutely Free, 
Holy, Good, All-powerful, Omnipresent, Just and Merciful and supremely 
Spiritual Deity without a second, creating, preserving all that is in 
the universe."14 The highest object of the soul, he went on to say, is 
to "serve that Infinite Being for ever spiritually in the activity of 
Absolute Love."15

Bhaktivinoda described the material world as the product of maya. Here 
maya means not illusion but the eternal energy of the Supreme that He 
uses to bewilder souls who desire to live outside of harmony with Him. 
The creation of the material world through maya is actually an aspect 
of the Lord's mercy, since He thereby allows independent-minded souls 
to act in a world from which God is apparently absent.

All these ideas are taken from the Bhagavata without modification. But 
in describing what the Bhagavata says about the details of the 
material universe, Bhaktivinoda Thakura adopted an indirect approach. 
Thus he said,

In the common-place books of the Hindu religion in which the Raja and 
Tama Gunas have been described as the ways of religion, we find 
description of a local heaven and a local hell; the heaven is as 
beautiful as anything on earth and the Hell as ghastly as any picture 
of evil. - The religion of the Bhagavat is free from such a poetic 
imagination. Indeed, in some of the chapters we meet with descriptions 
of these hells and heavens, and accounts of curious tales, but we have 
been warned in some place in the book, not to accept them as real 
facts, but to treat them as inventions to overawe the wicked and to 
improve the simple and the ignorant.16

In fact, the Bhagavata does ascribe reality to hells and heavens and 
their inhabitants. It describes in great detail the higher planetary 
systems and the various demigods who live there, including Brahma, 
Siva, and Indra. Not only does the Bhagavata say that these beings are 
real, but it gives them an important role in the creation and 
maintenance of the universe. It also gives them a role in many of 
Krsna's manifest pastimes (lilas) within the material world. For 
example, in the story of the lifting of Govardhana Hill, it is Indra 
who creates a devastating storm when Krsna insults him by interfering 
with a sacrifice in his honor.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura chose to sidestep these "mythological" aspects of 
the Bhagavata in an effort to reach an audience of intellectuals whose 
mundane education ruled out such myths as absurd fantasy. Indeed, he 
went even further. In 1880 he published a treatise entitled Sri Krsna 
Samhita in which he elaborately explained the philosophy of Krsna 
consciousness.17 In this book he also put forth a reconstruction of 
Indian history similar to the one introduced by Sir William Jones to 
bring Hindu chronology into line with the Mosaic timetable of the 
Bible. This involved converting demigods and Manus into human kings 
and reducing their total span of history to a few thousand earthly 
years.

I should point out clearly that Bhaktivinoda Thakura did not 
personally accept the modified version of the Bhagavata he presented 
to the Bengali intellectuals. He actually accepted the so-called myths 
of the Bhagavata as true, and he presented them as such in many of his 
writings. For example, in his book Jaiva Dharma, Bhaktivinoda said 
this:

I have said that the Vaishnava religion came into being as soon as the 
creatures came into existence. Brahma was the first Vaishnava. Sriman 
Mahadeva is also a Vaishnava. The ancient Prajapaties are all 
Vaishnavas. Sri Narada Goswami, who is the fancy-born child of Brahma, 
is a Vaishnava. You have seen the Vaishnava religion of the beginning 
of the creation. Then again when Gods, men, demons, etc., have been 
separately described, we get Prahlada and Dhruva from the very start. 
Manu's sons and Prahlada are all grandsons of Prajapati, Kashyapa. 
There is no doubt about it - that the pure Vaishnava religion began 
with the beginning of history. Then the kings of the solar and lunar 
dynasties and all great and famous sages and hermits became devotees 
of Vishnu.

This passage was written in response to challengers who argued that 
Vaisnava dharma is a recent development. The passage takes it for 
granted that beings such as Brahma, Mahadeva, Narada, and Prahlada 
literally exist as described in the sastras, or Vedic scriptures. Many 
similar examples can be found in Bhaktivinoda Thakura's writings.

Now, if Bhaktivinoda Thakura accepted the literal truth of the 
sastras, how could he justify making presentations in which he denied 
it? His grand-disciple Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has 
pointed out that there is a precedent for making such indirect 
presentations of sastra. An interpretation of a text that adheres 
directly to the dictionary definitions of its words is called 
mukhya-vrtti, and an imaginary or indirect interpretation is called 
laksana-vrtti or gauna-vrtti. Srila Prabhupada pointed out, "Sometimes 
- as a matter of necessity, Vedic literature is described in terms of 
the laksana-vrtti or gauna-vrtti, but one should not accept such 
explanations as permanent truths."19 In general, one should understand 
sastra in terms of mukhya-vrtti.

The Theology of Visions

One might grant that Bhaktivinoda Thakura was justified in modifying 
the sastras to reach out to intellectuals trained to scorn old myths. 
But serious questions can still be raised: What is the scope for 
making such a presentation of religion today, and to what extent can 
such a presentation be regarded as true? Is the mythological material 
in the Hindu sastras unimportant, so that one might present it as true 
to people who believe in it and false to people who disbelieve? Or 
should we accept from modern knowledge that Hindu myths really are 
false and try to formulate a philosophy that preserves the essential 
idea of love of God while dispensing with superannuated ideas?

To answer these questions, let us see how we would have to reformulate 
Vaisnava philosophy to make it readily acceptable to Western 
intellectuals in the late twentieth century. To do this we must 
deviate to some extent from the prevailing materialistic framework of 
modern science. Physical scientists tell us that the mind, with all 
its conscious experiences, is simply a product of the brain. If we 
accept this, then all religious experience, whether it be the bliss of 
Brahman or prema-bhakti, love of God, is simply hallucinatory. If this 
is true, we can forget about religionunless, of course, we like 
hallucinations.

For an alternative viewpoint, I will turn to the psychologist William 
James. Although James was a man of the nineteenth century, he was a 
Western scientist who applied the methods of empirical scientific 
research to the phenomena of religion. Thus his observations are still 
relevant today.

As a result of his studies, James reached the following conclusions:

The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an 
altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 
"understandable" world. Name it the mystical region, or the 
supernatural region, whichever you choose.- Yet the unseen region in 
question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. 
When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite 
personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the 
way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative 
change. But that which produces effects with-in another reality must 
be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic 
excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal.20

One could take this idea of a mystical or transcendent dimension and 
arrive at the following version of Vaisnava philosophy: Such a 
transcendental region does exist, and it is the eternal abode of 
Krsna. Advanced souls can perceive that realm in meditation by the 
grace of Krsna, and so they are able to enter into Krsna's eternal 
loving pastimes. But all Puranic descriptions of events within the 
material world have to be understood rationally through modern 
scientific knowledge. On the whole, the myths in the Puranas are not 
literally true. But the stories of Krsna's pastimes are not simply 
fantasy. Rather, they are spiritual transmissions into the meditative 
minds of great souls, and they refer not to this world but to the 
purely transcendental domain.

This is a philosophy that might appeal to many, and I will refer to it 
as the theology of visions. It allows one to retain the idea of love 
of God, while at the same time avoiding disturbing conflicts between 
mythological tales and modern knowledge. It also appears implicitly in 
the work of some modern scholars of religion who study the bhakti 
tradition.

To illustrate this, I will briefly consider an article, "Shrines of 
the Mind," by David Haberman, Assistant Professor of Religion at 
Williams College.21 In this article, Haberman argues that Vraja, the 
traditional place of Krsna's manifest lilas, is first and foremost a 
mental shrine, a realm that can be entered and experienced in 
meditation.

He argues that the physical Vraja, a tract of land near the North 
Indian city of Mathura, has only been a major center for the worship 
of Krsna since the sixteenth century, when the followers of Caitanya 
Mahaprabhu and other Vaisnavas "rediscovered" the lost sites of 
Krsna's pastimes. In fact, says Haberman, these sites never really 
existed before the sixteenth century, and so they weren't 
rediscovered. Rather, they were projected onto the physical landscape 
of Vraja from the transcendental landscape perceived in meditation.

Haberman gives a number of interpretations of what happens when a 
person meditates on a mental shrine. These range from the 
contemplation of imaginary scenes in the ordinary sense to entry into 
"an eternal transcendent world which is perceptible only to the mind's 
eye and is reached through meditative technique."22 Since Haberman 
seems to lean toward the latter, it could be said that he is hinting 
at a version of the theology of visions: One can enter into Krsna's 
transcendental world by meditation, but Krsna never had any actual 
pastimes in the physical world. Physical, worldly history followed the 
lines revealed by modern scholarship. This means that many centuries 
ago in Vraja there may have been various primitive tribes following 
animistic cults, but there was no Krsna literally lifting Govardhana 
Hill.

Although this religious theory allows one to avoid certain conflicts 
with modern scholarship, it does have a number of drawbacks. A few of 
these are the following:

1. This theory is contrary to Vaisnava tradition, so it calls into 
question the thinking of the many great souls who have supported the 
tradition. Since those great souls are the very meditators who have 
seen visions of Krsna, how can those visions be real? In other words, 
why should persons who see the absolute realm believe in the truth of 
myths that even worldly scholars see to be false?

2. This theory doesn't explain why the worship of Krsna should be a 
recent affair, as scholars claim. If there is an eternal realm of 
Krsna that can be accessed by meditation, why did people begin to 
access it only recently?

3. What does this theory say about the multiplicity of religions? Are 
the visions reported in other religious traditions real? If not, then 
why is it that Vaisnava visions alone are real? If so, then are there 
many transcendental realms, one for each religion? Or is it that 
people see in one transcendental realm whatever they are looking for?

4. This theory greatly limits the power of God. If God only appears in 
visions, what becomes of His role as the creator and controller of the 
universe? If we let modern science explain the material world, God's 
role is whittled down to practically nothing.

5. The theology of visions can easily be transformed into a purely 
psychological theory of religious experience. After all, this is the 
view that will be overwhelmingly favored by psychologists, 
neuroscientists, and physical scientists of all varieties.

In view of objections (1) through (4), objection (5) is almost 
unavoidable. We are left with a totally mundane theory that explains 
religion away. In the case of Krsna's lilas, this line of thinking 
leads us to especially unpleasant conclusions. Thus Haberman describes 
meditation on Krsna lila as follows: "The desired end is a religious 
voyeurism and vicarious enjoyment said to produce infinite bliss."23 
Such sad conclusions are avoided in the more balanced approach taken 
by traditional Vaisnavas, who stress Krsna's roles as the supreme 
creator and the performer of humanly impossible pastimes on earth.

Shifting the Boundary Between Myth and Science

Yet if we start from the theology of visions and proceed in the 
inductive manner of scholars, we can see how it could serve as a 
steppingstone toward a more satisfactory theory. A starting point for 
developing such a theory can be a story related by Haberman about the 
Vaisnava saint Narottama Dasa Thakura.24

It seems that Narottama was once meditating on boiling milk for Radha 
and Krsna. When the milk boiled over in his meditation, he took the 
vessel off the fire with his bare hands and got burned in the process. 
When Narottama awoke from his meditation, he discovered that his hands 
were actually burned.

There are many stories like this, and I will briefly mention two more. 
In the second story, Srinivasa Acarya, a contemporary of Narottama 
Dasa Thakura, was meditating on fanning Lord Caitanya. In Srinivasa's 
meditation, Lord Caitanya placed His garland around Srinivasa's neck. 
When Srinivasa awoke from meditation, the unusually fragrant garland 
was actually there, around his neck.25

In the third story a Vaisnava saint named Duhkhi Krsna Dasa was 
sweeping the site of Krsna's rasa dance in Vraja. He found a 
remarkable golden anklet and hid it, since he thought that it was very 
important. Later, an old lady came to him and asked for the anklet. It 
turned out that the old lady was really Lalita, one of the 
transcendental maidservants of Radha and Krsna. The lady finally 
revealed that the anklet belonged to Radha Herself, and then she 
disclosed her true form as Lalita.26

What are we to make of such stories? The story of the burned hands 
might be accepted by many scholars. After all, it is well known that 
Catholics meditating on the crucifixion of Christ sometimes develop 
stigmata, in which the wounds of Christ appear on their hands and 
feet. If meditation can somehow cause bleeding wounds, then maybe it 
can also cause burns.

The story of the miraculous garland goes one step further. Here a 
tangible object is said to materialize. This may seem fantastic, but 
it turns out that there is an extensive literature on materialization. 
For example, Stephen Braude, a professor of philosophy at the 
University of Maryland, has argued that many cases of alleged 
materializations produced by spirit mediums are backed up by solid 
empirical evidence that deserves serious study.27 If materializations 
by spiritualists might be factual, why not materializations of 
beautiful garlands by saintly persons?

This brings us to the third story. Although this story seems "far 
out," there are many similar stories in which a transcendent person 
seems to step into our material continuum, perform some action, and 
then disappear. Another example would be the story from 
Caitanya-caritamrta in which Krsna, as a small boy, approached the 
saint Madhavendra Puri, gave him a pot of milk, and then mysteriously 
disappeared. Madhavendra Puri drank the milk, thus showing that it was 
tangible. Later that night he had a dream in which Krsna revealed the 
location of the Gopala Deity, which had originally been installed by 
Krsna's grandson Vajra and had been hidden during a Muslim attack.28

The stories of the burned hand, the miraculous garland, and the 
transcendental visits are progressively harder and harder to accept 
from a conventional scientific standpoint. But it is hard to see how 
to draw a line between such stories that might possibly be true and 
ones that definitely cannot. And all the stories seem to hint at 
energetic exchanges between spiritual and material energy that might 
add an important new chapter to our scientific knowledge, if only they 
could be properly studied.

When we study a body of empirical evidence, we always evaluate it with 
our limiting assumptions. In the end, the conclusions we derive from 
the evidence may reflect our limiting assumptions as much as they 
reflect the evidence itself. If the assumptions change, the 
conclusions will also change, even though the evidence stays the same.

Consider what might happen if all the available evidence about the 
history of human experience were to be studied not through 
nineteenth-century rationalism but through a new science in which 
spiritual transformations of matter were considered a real 
possibility. The result might be a completely different picture of the 
past from the one now accepted by scholars.

For one thing, the objections that Sir William Jones expressed about 
the story of the Pandava brothers might not seem so weighty. If higher 
beings can step into our continuum from another realm, then humans 
might well descend from such beings. The new picture of the past might 
prove much more compatible with traditional spiritual teachings than 
the one that now prevails.

In the late twentieth century there are signs that a broader approach 
to science may be developing. In the days of Vivekananda and 
Bhaktivinoda Thakura, mechanistic, reductionistic science appeared to 
be marching unimpeded from triumph to triumph, and many people 
believed that it would soon find explanations for everything. But in 
the late twentieth century this triumphant march has been checked on 
many different fronts.

For example, physics in the 1890s looked like a closed subject, but in 
the early decades of the twentieth century it entered a phase of 
paradox and mystery with the development of relativity theory and 
quantum mechanics. The mysteries of quantum mechanics continue to 
inspire scientists to contemplate ideas that would have seemed 
outrageously mystical at the turn of the century.29, 30, 31

But now physics has encountered an even more serious obstacle. The 
bold architects of universal physical theories are now realizing that 
these theories can never be adequately tested by experiment.32 Thus 
the Harvard physicist Howard Georgi characterized modern theoretical 
physics as "recreational mathematical theology."33 

In the mid-twentieth century, computer scientists believed they were 
on the verge of proving that thought is mechanical, thereby fulfilling 
La Mettrie's eighteenth-century dream of man as a machine. But in more 
recent years, even though computers have become more and more 
powerful, the dream of simulating human intelligence has seemed to 
recede further and further into the future.

With the discovery of the DNA spiral helix by Watson and Crick in 
1953, many scientists thought that the ultimate secret of life had 
been revealed. Since then, molecular biologists have had tremendous 
success in shedding light on the mechanisms of living cells. But as 
molecular biology unveils the incredible complexity of these 
high-precision mechanisms, the goal of explaining the origin of life 
seems progressively more difficult to attain.34

These are just a few of the many areas in which the program of 
mechanistic reductionism seems to be reaching ultimate limits as the 
twentieth century draws to a close. Perhaps as a result of these 
developments, many professional scientists are now showing a 
willingness to consider theoretical ideas and areas of research that 
have traditionally been taboo.

For example, we now find organizations of professional scientists who 
openly study phenomena lying on the edge between physical science and 
the realms of mysticism and the paranormal. Examples are the 
International Association for New Science (IANS), the Society for 
Scientific Exploration (SSE), the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), 
and the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and 
Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM). These all sponsor regular scientific 
conferences.

Some of the phenomena these groups study seem similar to the 
"mythical" phenomena so often reported in old religious texts and in 
recent accounts of religious experiences. A synergistic interaction 
between scholars of religion and these new scientific organizations 
might prove to be a valuable source of new insights for both groups of 
researchers.

The Direct Presentation Of Vaisnava Teachings

We have discussed how Bhaktivinoda Thakura found it necessary to 
present a modified version of the Vaisnava teachings to young Bengali 
intellectuals at the high noon of British political and ideological 
imperialism. But as the sun began to set on the British empire, his 
son and successor Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati began a vigorous 
program of directly presenting the Vaisnava conclusions throughout 
India. This program was taken abroad by his disciple Srila A.C. 
Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who boldly celebrated the ancient 
Rathayatra festival of Jagannatha Puri in London's Trafalgar Square.

In the changing climate of scientific opinion in the late twentieth 
century, the time may have come to openly introduce the traditional 
teachings of bhakti to the world's intellectual communities. The once 
jarring conflicts between rationalism and traditional religion may 
progressively fade as science matures and becomes open to the study of 
mystical phenomena. This opens up the possibility of an approach to 
religion that is intellectually acceptable and at the same time 
satisfies the soul's inner desire for love in a transcendental 
relationship.

This leaves us with one possible objection. Could it be that the 
Vaisnava teachings, with their specific emphasis on Krsna as the 
Supreme, are guilty of sectarian disregard for other religious 
traditions? The answer is that, of course, any doctrine can be put 
forward in a narrow, sectarian way. But as Bhaktivinoda Thakura 
pointed out in his essay on the Bhagavata, the Vaisnava teachings are 
inherently broad-minded and acknowledge the value of all religious 
systems.

The following prayer shows the approach to other religions taken in 
the Bhagavata:

O my Lord, Your devotees can see You through the ears by the process 
of bona fide hearing, and thus their hearts become cleansed, and You 
take Your seat there. You are so merciful to Your devotees that You 
manifest Yourself in the particular eternal form of transcendence in 
which they always think of You.35

This verse states that God appears to His devoted worshipers in many 
different forms, depending on their desires. These forms include the 
avataras of Krsna described in traditional Vaisnava texts, but are not 
limited to those forms. Indeed, it is said that the expansions of the 
Supreme Personality of Godhead are uncountable, and they cannot be 
fully described in the finite scriptures of any one religious 
community.

The following verse gives some idea of the different religious 
communities in the universe, as described by the Bhagavata:

From the forefathers headed by Bhrgu Muni and other sons of Brahma 
appeared many children and descendants, who assumed different forms as 
demigods, demons, human beings, Guhyakas, Siddhas, Gandharvas, 
Vidyadharas, Caranas, Kindevas, Kinnaras, Nagas, Kimpurusas, and so 
on. All of the many universal species, along with their respective 
leaders, appeared with different natures and desires generated from 
the three modes of material nature. Therefore, because of the 
different characteristics of the living entities within the universe, 
there are a great many Vedic rituals, mantras, and rewards.36

This statement is explicitly "mythological," and one can well imagine 
how Sir William Jones might have reacted to it. But it offers a grand 
picture of countless races and societies within the universe, all 
given religious methods suitable for their particular natures. Here 
the word "Vedic" cannot be limited to particular Sanskrit texts that 
now exist in India. Rather, it refers to the sum total of religious 
systems revealed by the infinite Supreme God for the sake of elevating 
countless societies of divinely created beings.

As always, the distinguishing feature of the Vaisnava teachings is 
that God is a real person and His variegated creation is also real. 
Thus the Vaisnava approach to religious liberality is to regard all 
genuine religions as real divine revelations. Likewise, the Vaisnava 
teachings of love of God aim to set in place a relationship of loving 
service between the real individual soul and the Supreme Personality 
of Godhead, the performer of real transcendental pastimes.

Notes

1. Vivekananda, 1963, pp. 10-11.
2. Vivekananda, 1963, p. 11.
3. Vivekananda, 1963, p. 13.
4. Vivekananda, 1963, p. 14.
5. Jordan, 1987, p. 27.
6. Vivekananda, 1963, p. 17.
7. Majumdar, 1965.
8. Thakur Bhaktivinod, 1986, p. 5.
9. Thakur Bhaktivinod, 1986, p. 6.
10. Jones, 1799, p. 302.
11. Jones, 1799, p. 313.
12. Moore, 1986, p. 334.
13. Moore, 1986, p. 344.
14. Thakur Bhaktivinod, 1986, p. 30.
15. Thakur Bhaktivinod, 1986, p. 30.
16. Thakur Bhaktivinod, 1986, pp. 24-25.
17. Rupa-vilasa dasa, 1989, pp. 138-39.
18. Thakur Bhakti Vinod, 1975, pp. 155-56.
19. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, 1975, Adi-lila, Vol. 2, p. 95.
20. James, 1982, pp. 515-16.
21. Haberman, 1993.
22. Haberman, 1993, p. 31.
23. Haberman, 1993, p. 26.
24. Haberman, 1993, p. 33.
25. Rosen, 1991, pp. 63-64.
26. Rosen, 1991, pp. 119-39.
27. Braude, 1986.
28. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, 1975, Madhya-lila, Vol. 2, pp. 
    12-19.
29. Bohm, 1980.
30. Penrose, 1989.
31. Jahn and Dunne, 1987.
32. Weinberg, 1992.
33. Crease and Mann, 1986, p. 414.
34. Horgan, 1991.
35. Srimad-Bhagavatam, 3.9.11.
36. Srimad-Bhagavatam, 11.14.5-7.

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1992.


Sadaputa Dasa (Richard L. Thompson) earned his Ph.D. in mathematics 
from Cornell University. He is the author of several books, of which 
the most recent is Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the 
Human Race.

