Vedas vs Science (The Intriguing Vedic Universe, ch.4)
Modern science is flawed in many ways, but when it comes to measuring and testing things, the information given by them can't be easily dismissed. How do we relate it to the Vedas?
'The Intriguing Vedic Universe' was my first book on Vedic cosmology, explaining the mysterious universe described in the Srimad Bhagavatam. It describes not just the physical aspects, in a level of detail that rivals modern science, but also the metaphysical aspects, the missing aspect that is missing in the modern perspective.
Chapter 4: Vedas vs Science
Once, I was speaking with a very senior person, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada who has been practicing Krsna Consciousness since before most of us were even born. She was explaining to me how this point of the cosmology of the 5th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam is a difficult point for many of his early disciples. In the 1970s, when the fifth canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam came, she explained, some left after not being able to reconcile the view of the Universe given in the Srimad Bhagavatam with the modern view.
Modern science is flawed in many ways because often physicists and paleontologists want to be over their heads, explaining things that are above their experimental knowledge, like the existence of God and the origin of life. However, when it comes to measuring and testing things, the information given by modern science can't be easily dismissed. We can presume that most of the data we get in terms of distances, measurements, and time periods that come from modern science is correct. What is incorrect is the interpretations many give out of them.
Paleontology, for example, gives us information that there were lifeforms living on our planet billions of years ago and that they looked different from the forms we have now based on fossils and other findings, which is perfectly reasonable. The problem is when people try to use this to sustain the idea that life appears by chance, which is a huge leap of faith.
Science is good at explaining things one can measure using sense perception. The point is, as Srila Prabhupada mentions on several occasions, the view of reality we have by measuring things with our gross senses and imperfect intelligence is not the most accurate.
One may correctly measure the dimensions of one's body and even understand how the internal organs work, the flow of the blood, and so on. However, without information about the soul, this study may lead one to conclude that the body works by itself and there is no superior cause behind it. The anatomical study of the body may thus be used to support the wrong conclusion that human beings are just a combination of material elements and that life has no higher purpose. We can see that in this case, the problem is not the data gathered by measuring and studying the body, but the wrong conclusion derived from it.
When we read in the Vedas that the soul resides in the heart and the energy of the soul is what sustains the body, we may at first think that this contradicts the scientific knowledge that attests that the body is maintained by the nutrients carried by blood circulation, but it's not difficult to understand how the two ideas fit together. The soul is inside the heart and the subtle energy of the soul maintains the whole body. Blood circulation is just a feature of this process.
If however, one would argue that there is no blood circulation and that the nutrients are mystically distributed throughout the body due to the presence of the soul, it would be a problem since this idea could be easily disproved by experimental knowledge. Once it is proved that there is indeed blood circulation, people may be inclined to distrust him in other areas. This is an important point to consider when we speak about Vedic Cosmology.
For example, the Srimad Bhagavatam mentions that the moon is 800,000 miles above the sun over the plane of Bhu-Mandala. This doesn't necessarily means that the moon is more distant than the sun (for this we would need to also calculate the horizontal distance) but in any case, it means that the distance to the moon is not less than 2,368,948 km, much more than the figure of 384,000 km obtained by modern methods.
The problem is that this is very easy to disprove experimentally. One can measure the distance to the moon using light, and that's exactly how it's done in recent times. Astronomers send laser beams that are reflected back by mirrors installed on the rocky moon by astronauts on the Apollo missions. The time is measured and quite an accurate measurement of the distance is given. One can also measure the distance by sending rockets and probes, which was also done several times. Other experiments give similar results, therefore it's difficult to dispute that, according to experimental knowledge, the moon is approximately 384,000 km from the earth and not 2,368,948 km or more as described in the Bhagavatam.
At this point, one has three options.
One option is to accept that the information given in the Srimad Bhagavatam is incorrect. The implication is that if the Bhagavatam is wrong about astronomy, maybe it's also wrong about other things. Maybe everything is wrong. That's the conclusion some came to in the 1970s and after that, and that's the reason some left.
The second option is to accept that the Bhagavatam is correct and science is wrong. To accept it, one is required to switch off his intelligence and accept fanatically that the earth is flat, the moon is 800,000 miles higher than the sun, and so on, things that can be easily disproved experimentally. This can make one look quite silly.
To say, 50 years ago, that NASA never went to the Moon, and everything was staged in some desert made reasonable sense at the time. However, later more missions were sent, then the Japanese sent a probe, and then Chinese and Indian agencies joined the list. Now it sounds very silly to try to prove that the Moon is 800,000 miles higher than the sun and men never went there when everyone is sending probes and confirming the same information.
We then come to the third possibility, which is to accept that there are higher levels of reality, different from the gross reality we can perceive with our senses. There is a gross moon, a piece of rock that orbits our planet, where we can send our small probes and measure using our small lasers, and there is a celestial moon, where people drink soma rasa and live for 10,000 celestial years. If we accept this possibility, then we need to accept that there are many things in the Universe that we can't observe or experiment upon. There is the gross reality we can study using our telescopes, and there is a subtle reality we can study only through the Vedic scriptures. One just needs to decide what's more interesting to him.
Many very intelligent persons who researched this subject for many years came to this third explanation. This is an explanation that doesn't require one to doubt the scriptures, nor to shut down his brain. If we accept this idea, then many things explained in the Srimad Bhagavatam and other books of the Vedas make perfect sense. Since we accept the existence of the soul (that is by definition also impossible to measure experimentally) then why is it so difficult to accept that our whole concept of reality is limited and that there are higher levels of reality?
We can see that Srila Prabhupada never claimed to be a specialist in astronomy. What he did was uphold the principle that the knowledge given in the scriptures is correct and that when it conflicts with experimental, sensorial knowledge it means that there must be some subtler point being missed. Srila Prabhupada at first categorically dismissed that men could go to the Moon, upholding the principle that the moon is a celestial planet, and that it's impossible for modern human beings to go there. Later, however, as more information came, Srila Prabhupada raised other possibilities, like the idea that maybe they landed on Rahu, that maybe they went to the moon but were not able to meet the inhabitants due to not having sufficient qualifications or proper senses, and so on.
Modern men can go to this piece of rock that orbits our planet. This piece of rock may be a gross representation of the moon in our gross dimension, or it may even be Rahu, as Srila Prabhupada suggested on occasion. The point is that this is an exercise of futility since there is nothing interesting for us there. As Srila Prabhupada wrote:
"It may be remarked in this connection that even the modern so-called scientists who are going to the Moon are not able to stay there, but are returning to their laboratories." (SB 7.15.50-51)
"Though the modern astronauts go to the Moon with the help of spaceships, they undergo many difficulties, whereas a person with mystic perfection can extend his hand and touch the Moon with his finger." (NOD)
One may plant a flag and collect a few rocks, or one may even try to build a small colony there and maintain -- at an exorbitant cost -- a few astronauts living in cramped conditions, but they are missing the point. What the Vedas explain is that there is another moon, a celestial moon, that is bigger and more distant from the earth, where the inhabitants live for 10,000 celestial years, drinking soma rasa in the company of celestial apsaras. This moon however can't be reached by mechanical means.
It's just like a computer or phone where there are two users: an admin who has complete access, and a limited user who has access to only certain features. The environment they see can be completely different. Even if they open the same folder, the contents they see can be distinct. If the restricted user and the admin would start describing what they can see and the resources they can use, their descriptions would be different. It's not that one is right and the other is wrong, it's just that they are describing different environments.
In Los Angeles, on December 26, 1968, Srila Prabhupada had a long conversation with a reporter about moon landings. There Srila Prabhupada made the point that one can only go to the moon by achieving a suitable body. If science could produce such a body one could go to the moon, otherwise not. The reporter raised the point about space suits, and Prabhupada countered that this is not a suitable body, and therefore an astronaut in a spacesuit would not be able to visit the moon. A few months later, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, Srila Prabhupada was watching the footage on TV with a few disciples. When the images were shown, Srila Prabhupada exclaimed: "I told you they would not go! See!". Neil Armstrong reached the rocky satellite that orbits our planet, but he was never able to reach the celestial moon Srila Prabhupada was talking about.
In conclusion, if we systematically study what the Vedas explain about the structure of the Universe, we can see that the knowledge we find can be divided into three groups:
a) A set that is more or less in harmony with modern science (like the figures given in the Surya Siddhanta)
b) A set that is completely different from modern science (like the cosmological knowledge given in the Srimad Bhagavatam), that describes the reality of higher beings.
c) Knowledge about a spiritual reality that is completely beyond our sense perception and experimental knowledge.
We can see that these three portions of knowledge describe exactly these three levels of reality:
a) The gross reality we can experiment with.
b) The subtle reality of the demigods and other evolved beings.
c) The spiritual reality of the spiritual plane.
A and C are pretty straightforward to understand, but B is more tricky. If we don't understand the difference between A and B, we can become seriously confused.