Perect knowledge v 12 feb09

Secrets of Success Perfect Knowledge

Dedicated to His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
(Founder Acharya- ISKCON)

Agenda

• Various modes of acquiring knowledge

• The quest for ultimate knowledge:
absolute vs. relative

• Aiming towards acquiring absolute
knowledge


Various modes of
acquiring
knowledge


Pratyaksha pramana
Direct experience

Anumana pramana
Theorizing based on
observation

Shabda pramana
Hearing from authority


1

Pratyaksha pramana
Involves acquiring knowledge directly
through our senses/ experience

Generally, we consider
“Seeing is believing”
But is this way of acquiring knowledge
perfect all the time?

Let’s see this!


Do you see the two faces?


Or a Cup?


Are the
sides of the
square
bent?


Do you see a white triangle?


Our senses are
imperfect!


Eating orange after
sugar
SOUR
TASTE
Eating orange after lemon
SWEET
TASTE

OUR EYES ARE BLIND
outside the range of
4000Å to 7000Å


OUR EARS ARE DEAF
outside the range of
20 Hz to 20 kHz


Activity 2


What is
written
?


Is this way of acquiring knowledge
perfect all the time?


What we see is not
always true!

Railway line converging


Many things which we believe
in but we don’t see


Air


AM-FM waves


X-rays

2

Anumana praman
Hypothesizing on knowledge acquired
by direct sense perception

Six blind men and the
elephant


Wall Rope
Spear Snake Hand fan Tree

Anumana praman involves theorizing based on

• Information directly perceived by the senses

• Knowledge already acquired by us through
experience

• Applying reason and logic to the above two


ut the
C
an ds
h
fi rst


Anumana pramana

• Speculative

• Imaginative and hence

• Incomplete
The conclusions may or may not be true

3

Shabda praman
Hearing from a bona fide authority

Who is your father?


Six blind men and
the elephant


Can you cite more examples?


New
s


System of education


Shabda praman is therefore

• Passed on by aural reception in toto

• Is not speculative or deductive

• Is complete if received from an
authoritative source

Therefore, it can be rendered as perfect

The quest for perfection:
Absolute Vs Relative Knowledge


So we said

• Direct perception can cheat you

• Deduction can lead you to incorrect
or incomplete solutions

• Authoritative hearing can help you learn the
truth

Where is our present understanding
of the world coming from?


MODERN SCIENCE


Oxford dictionary
defines science as
The intellectual and
systematic study of
the structure and behavior
of the world
through observation and
experiment.

Scientific knowledge is therefore based on

• Perception or pratyaksa

• Deduction or anumana

Evolving evolution:

DARWINS
THEORY OF
EVOLUTION


“To suppose that
the eye with all
its inimitable
contrivances for
adjusting
the focus to
different
distances,


for admitting different
amounts of light…
could have been formed by
natural selection,
seems, I freely confess,
absurd in the
highest degree.”

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

Alternative theories


Belittling the Big Bang


Stephen Hawking, Nobel
Prize winner physicist

“May be it is not possible to formulate the
theory of universe in a finite number
of statements.
We and our models, are
both part of the universe we are
describing.

Stephen Hawking, Nobel

Thus a physical theory, is self-
referencing. One might therefore
expect it to be either inconsistent or
incomplete.
The theories we have so far formulated, are
both inconsistent and incomplete.”

Eugene Wigner, Nobel

“Even if we photograph stars
eventually we have to take in by
our
senses what the photo shows.
Even if the knowledge is amplified or refined b
instruments, the knowledge
is no more perfect than our imperfect senses.

Dr. R.L. Gregory, director of the Brain and
Perception Laboratory at the University of
Bristol, England

"Science, with all its dramatic successes,
has from its beginnings also generated
wildly incorrect accounts:
electricity and heat as fluids, the brain as
an organ to cool the blood. . . .
These are dramatic deviations
from

Dalton Atomic theory


Why science can’t give
us perfect knowledge?

We inhabit a
HUGE UNIVERSE

India with
population of over
one billion is...


... one of the many countries
on the planet Earth.

Earth planet is one of the
many planets in our solar
system.

Sun is 14,00,000 times bigger
than planet earth.

Astrophysicists
point out
There are 2000
billion stars like
sun each of
them having
their own family
of planets


...all these billions of galaxies
and trillions of stars comprise
our UNIVERSE

We are a small speck in this
gigantic creation!


How can an ant living in one
corner of this room know
about...


What are the latest
developments in Iraq?


The wars happening in
the world


The Mumbai terror attacks


Ground reality...

Its too small !


Then how do we get
perfect knowledge about
this universe?


From the creator
Himself!


The Vedas were
directly imparted by
the all perfect Lord
to Brahma….
tene brahma
hrdayadi kavaye
Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.1


And it was passed down
by aural reception
through
the ages by perfect
personalities


Vyasadeva
put into writing
5,000
years back


The Vedas give us
absolute and perfect
knowledge about this universe

Modern man is now realizing the
importance of using
all perfect Vedic knowledge

Any examples?


Ayurveda


Yoga


Astronomy


Astrology

Metallurgy


What wise men have
said about the VEDAS


“The vastest knowledge of today
cannot transcend the buddhi of
the Rishis in ancient India; and
science, in its most advanced
stage now, is closer to Vedanta
thanMathematician
ever before.”
Alfred North Whitehead, British


"In the history of the world, the
Vedas fill a gap which no literary
work in any other language could
fill. I maintain that to everybody
who cares for himself, for his
ancestors, for his intellectual
development, a study of Vedic
literatures is indeed
indispensable."
Professor F. Max Muller , German philosopher and philologist


"In the morning I bathe my
intellect in the cosmogonal
philosophy of the Bhagavad
Gita in comparison with
which our modern world
and its literature seems
puny."
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American Philosopher


But don’t the Vedas
also have discrepancies?


Cow dung
and cow urine


Earth’s diameter
7,840 miles
7,926.7 miles


Vedas give perfect answers to
fundamental questions like…


Who am I?


Where have
I come
from?


What is the
purpose
of my life?


Where will I go after death?

Who is God?


Since, these
questions deal
with very
fundamental
aspects of our
existence,

we can immensely
benefit by daily
studying these vedic
literatures &
sharpening our
Spiritual Intelligence
‘SQ’.

Questions?


Thank you


Perect knowledge v 12 feb09

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