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- 1. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 2. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Dedicated to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (Founder Acharya- ISKCON)
- 3. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success • Various modes of acquiring knowledge • The quest for ultimate knowledge: absolute vs. relative • Aiming towards acquiring absolute knowledge Agenda
- 4. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Various modes of acquiring knowledge
- 5. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Pratyaksha pramana Direct experience
- 6. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Anumana pramana Theorizing based on observation
- 7. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Hearing from authority Shabda pramana
- 8. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Pratyaksha pramana Involves acquiring knowledge directly through our senses/ experience 1
- 9. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Generally, we consider “Seeing is believing” But is this way of acquiring knowledge perfect all the time? Let’s see this!
- 10. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 11. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Do you see the two faces?
- 12. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Or a Cup?
- 13. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Are the sides of the square bent?
- 14. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Do you see a white triangle?
- 15. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 16. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Our senses are imperfect!
- 17. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Eating orange after sugar Eating orange after lemon SOUR TASTE SWEET TASTE
- 18. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success OUR EYES ARE BLIND outside the range of 4000Å to 7000Å
- 19. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success OUR EARS ARE DEAF outside the range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz
- 20. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 21. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Activity 2
- 22. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success What is written ?
- 23. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Is this way of acquiring knowledge perfect all the time?
- 24. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success What we see is not always true!
- 25. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 26. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 27. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 28. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Railway line converging
- 29. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Many things which we believe in but we don’t see
- 30. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Air
- 31. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success AM-FM waves
- 32. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success X-rays
- 33. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Anumana praman Hypothesizing on knowledge acquired by direct sense perception 2
- 34. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Six blind men and the elephant
- 35. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Tree Rope Snake WallSpear Hand fan
- 36. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success 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
- 37. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 38. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Cut the hands first
- 39. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Anumana pramana • Speculative • Imaginative and hence • Incomplete The conclusions may or may not be true
- 40. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Shabda praman Hearing from a bona fide authority 3
- 41. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Who is your father?
- 42. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Six blind men and the elephant
- 43. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success
- 44. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Can you cite more examples?
- 45. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success New s
- 46. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success System of education
- 47. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success 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
- 48. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success The quest for perfection: Absolute Vs Relative Knowledge
- 49. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success 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
- 50. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Where is our present understanding of the world coming from?
- 51. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success MODERN SCIENCE
- 52. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Oxford dictionary defines science as the structure and behavior of the world through observation and experiment. The intellectual and systematic study of
- 53. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Scientific knowledge is therefore based on • Perception or pratyaksa • Deduction or anumana
- 54. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Evolving evolution: DARWINS THEORY OF EVOLUTION
- 55. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances,
- 56. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success 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
- 57. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Alternative theories
- 58. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Belittling the Big Bang
- 59. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success “May be it is not possible to formulate the theory of universe in a finite number of statements. Stephen Hawking, Nobel Prize winner physicist We and our models, are both part of the universe we are describing.
- 60. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Stephen Hawking, Nobel Prize winner physicist 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.”
- 61. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize winner physicist “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.
- 62. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success 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
- 63. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Dalton Atomic theory
- 64. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Why science can’t give us perfect knowledge?
- 65. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success We inhabit a HUGE UNIVERSE We inhabit a HUGE UNIVERSE
- 66. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success India with population of over one billion is...
- 67. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success ... one of the many countries on the planet Earth.
- 68. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Earth planet is one of the many planets in our solar system.
- 69. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Sun is 14,00,000 times bigger than planet earth.
- 70. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Astrophysicists point out There are 2000 billion stars like sun each of them having their own family of planets
- 71. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success ...all these billions of galaxies and trillions of stars comprise our UNIVERSE We are a small speck in this gigantic creation!
- 72. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success How can an ant living in one corner of this room know about...
- 73. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success What are the latest developments in Iraq?
- 74. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success The wars happening in the world
- 75. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success The Mumbai terror attacks
- 76. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Its too small ! Ground reality...
- 77. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Then how do we get perfect knowledge about this universe?
- 78. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success From the creator Himself!
- 79. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success The Vedas were directly imparted by the all perfect Lord to Brahma…. tene brahma hrdayadi kavaye Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.1
- 80. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success And it was passed down by aural reception through the ages by perfect personalities
- 81. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Vyasadeva put into writing 5,000 years back
- 82. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success The Vedas give us absolute and perfect knowledge about this universe
- 83. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Modern man is now realizing the importance of using all perfect Vedic knowledge Any examples?
- 84. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Ayurveda
- 85. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Yoga
- 86. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Astronomy
- 87. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success AstrologyAstrology
- 88. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Metallurgy
- 89. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success What wise men have said about the VEDAS
- 90. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Alfred North Whitehead, British Mathematician “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 than ever before.”
- 91. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success "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
- 92. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success "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
- 93. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success But don’t the Vedas also have discrepancies?
- 94. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Cow dung and cow urine
- 95. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Earth’s diameter 7,840 miles 7,926.7 miles
- 96. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Vedas give perfect answers to fundamental questions like…
- 97. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Who am I?
- 98. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Where have I come from?
- 99. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success What is the purpose of my life?
- 100. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Where will I go after death?
- 101. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Who is God?
- 102. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Since, these questions deal with very fundamental aspects of our existence,
- 103. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success we can immensely benefit by daily studying these vedic literatures & sharpening our Spiritual Intelligence ‘SQ’.
- 104. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Questions?
- 105. Perfect KnowledgeSecrets of Success Thank you
Editor's Notes
- In this session, we will discuss the following: Why do humans, as opposed to other species, have an instinctive thirst for knowledge? What are we trying to achieve by gaining knowledge? What are the various modes of acquiring knowledge? Which one of them is the best way? Through which mode(s) can we acquire perfect knowledge? Why is this knowledge perfect? How do we practically go about acquiring knowledge through this mode(s)?
- Brainstorming 3 Having established that humans use their intelligence to acquire knowledge, the next question would be how do we acquire knowledge? Throw the discussion open to the audience. Their responses can be narrowed down to three modes:
- Each of these will be discussed one by one.
- Generally, we consider “Seeing is believing”. We tend to accept whatever knowledge we acquire through the senses to be true and complete. And it has hence become established as a standard way to acquire knowledge. But is this way of acquiring knowledge perfect all the time? Let’s see this!
- We tend to accept whatever knowledge we acquire through the senses to be true and complete. And it has hence become established as a standard way to acquire knowledge.
- OUR EYES ARE BLIND outside the range of 4000Å to 7000Å The radiations with a wavelength only between 4000 Amstrong to 7000 Amstrong is detected by the human eye and perceived as visible light. The range of radiation our eyes see does not include what we call infrared radiation(IR) (longer than 7000Å) and ultraviolet (UV) (shorter than 4000Å). It is because it is just at a frequency that does not trigger human eyes. For example some animals can see at significantly lower frequencies than humans. Bugs use ultraviolet to see flowers. That is why they are attracted to bug zappers and black lights. Snakes and scorpions use infrared to see animals in the night.
- OUR EARS ARE DEAF outside the range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz Sound having frequency below 20 Hz (eg: sounds made by snakes) cannot be heard and in the same way noise whose frequency is above 20 kHz also cannot be heard. The term "ultrasonic" applied to sound refers to anything above the frequencies of audible sound, and nominally includes anything over 20,000 Hz. Sounds in the range 20-100kHz are commonly used for communication and navigation by bats, dolphins, and some other species. Much higher frequencies, in the range 1-20 MHz, are used for medical ultrasound.
- Here is a great optical illusion photo taken of a Lufthansa 747-400 and a United Airlines 757-200 that were on simultaneous approaches to runways 28L and 28R at San Francisco (SFO). The separation requirement for flying parallel and simultaneous approaches is 225 meters (738 feet). These two aircraft are at a safe distance for the approaches they are each flying. Due to the Lufthansa 747 being three times larger than the 757 plane and being slightly behind , gives us this incredible optical illusion.
- Julian Beever is an English artist who's famous for his art on the pavement of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium... Beever gives to his drawings an amazing 3D illusion
- Brainstorming 4 So is this way of acquiring knowledge perfect all the time? Open a discussion. The likely response will be no – ask the audience why it is so, and encourage them to cite examples where direct experience may not reveal the truth.
- Some such examples are:
- The case of a pencil appearing bent due to refraction when kept in a beaker of water
- Reflection in a concave/convex surface looks distorted
- A mirage in a desert. It appears that there is water at a distance. When we go near, it is not there.
- The appearance of two parallel tracks of a railway line converging at a distance So there are many things we see but don’t believe in.
- And, on the other hand, there are also many things we don’t see but believe in. Ask the audience to cite examples.
- Story 1 – first part The story of six blind men. Narrate the story of the six blind men and the elephant: “Once, six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like. They began touching different parts of the elephant’s body and began giving their opinion.” At this point, ask the audience to guess what each of the blind men must have thought and come up with. Since many may already know the story, the guesses will come fast. "Hey, the elephant is a tree," said the first man who touched his leg "Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail. "Oh, no! it is like a snake," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant. "It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant. "It is like a spear," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant. "It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant. “Since no two of them come up with the same answer, they begin to argue amongst one another, unable to realize that each of their versions is in fact true, but not complete.” <Stop the narration here. The story will be continued while explaining shabda pramana.>
- Two people fighting on television in a closed room Anyone who has lived in a flat, for instance, might have experience of this. Suppose one is passing by a flat and hears the noise of loud fighting and bickering – it is logical to assume that the residents of the house are involved in a heated argument. But it may well be a television or movie playing. Again, anumana led us to the wrong conclusion here.
- A shopkeeper overheard two people arguing amongst themselves in the adjacent shop. “I think we should cut the hands first!” said one. “What are you saying? We should first cut the neck portion – everything is easy once you do that!” “I totally disagree….the hand is the toughest part!” And so the argument went on. Scared and rather curious, the shopkeeper peered into his neighboring shop. To his surprise, he found two tailors with a piece of cloth before them, arguing about the easiest way to stitch a shirt.
- So we can conclude that knowledge acquired by anumana praman is also not always perfect and hence cannot be taken as the best way to acquire knowledge.
- Brainstorming There are many occasions in life where we acquire knowledge only through hearing. To try and figure out who our father is, we have two methods – ask the audience what the two methods are and then continue to explain. Using genetic finger printing, lets see how long it would take to determine who our father is – 1 bn… 600 yrs to find out. But it takes only one moment to find out from the bona fide authority – the mother.
- Story 1 – concluding part Now getting back to the story of the six blind men and the elephant. When the argument is going on, a wise sage passes that way and sees the blind men foolishly arguing. He intervenes and explains to them the actual situation – that all of them had drawn right conclusions about the elephant, but the elephant actually did not look like what any of them had said. He then explains to them about the actual appearance of the elephant.” In this case, the blind men drew their conclusions about the elephant by anumana, but they were not able to ascertain what the elephant looks like – nor could they ever have done so in their condition. It was only when they were enlightened by the wise man – who was perfect in his knowledge about the elephant by virtue of being able to see it – did they gain the full and correct knowledge.
- “
- Brainstorming 5 Open a discussion with the audience and encourage them to cite more such examples of authoritative hearing. Emphasize in each of these cases that the learning is based purely by the acceptance of a superior who is considered an undisputed authority.
- We often hear of the happenings of the world around us through television, news papers etc. We accept the news to be bona fide based on the authority of the news channel/paper etc, although we are not able to verify it by ourselves.
- The system of education is perhaps the most prominent example of authoritative hearing. We accept what is taught to us in school without questioning it ever, simply because we know that it is coming from an authoritative source (for example, we have never questioned why 2+2 is always 4 or why ‘a’ is pronounced as <a> and not <b> – we simply accept when it is told to us.)
- Having discussed the three modes of gathering knowledge and established that by authoritative hearing only can we get perfect knowledge, let us now delve a little into where our current perception of the world, as a whole, comes from – and if we really have a perfect vision of the world around us.
- Ask the audience as to where their understanding of the world at present is coming from. They will most likely answer science. The following section analyses the extent of perfection of scientific knowledge. <Although the following section contains a lot of scientific content, it has not been included with the intent of completely discussing. The speaker should discuss each section briefly. The additional information is for his information, so that he can tackle any questions with a fair degree of scientific expertise.>
- But we just concluded that both ways are imperfect!! Does this mean that science itself is imperfect?! To check whether science is imperfect, let’s try and see if we can find any examples of scientists making a theory based on perception and deduction, then again changing it…maybe changing it over and over again based on their different observations. (Draw the consensus of the audience that this would adequately prove the fallacy of science). The number of such examples in every sphere of science may surprise you…
- Main postulates of Darwinism: life comes from matter, natural selection, survival of the fittest However, close examination of a whole raft of scientific data reveals the absence of virtually any empirical scientific evidence in support of the theory, either regarding the alleged spontaneous generation of life in first place, let alone the evolution of life forms from one species into another. If anything, the fossil evidence to date indicates the spontaneous appearance, without the existence of any earlier related life forms, of a vast number of life forms around 600 million years ago known as the 'Cambrian explosion', followed by very long periods (tens of millions of years) of minor changes occurring within species (a process known as Stasis) and the absence of any examples of possible evolutionary links between species prior to, during, or after this period. But, as biochemist Michael Behe points out in his book, 'Darwin's Black Box', the most serious flaw in Darwin's Theory is that due to the 'irreducible complexity' associated with the biochemistry at a molecular and cellular level, the theory cannot be applied to the evolution of life at this fundamental level, which implies other factors must be operating in the evolutionary process. 4 There are two places to look for verification of Darwin's theory: the fossil record and breeding experiments with animals. If Darwin's theory is correct, the fossil record should show innumerable slight gradations between earlier species and later ones. Darwin was aware, however, that the fossil record of his day showed nothing of the sort. Enormous discontinuities exist between major animal and plant groups. He entitled his chapter on the subject, "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record." He hoped future digging would fill in the gaps, which he admitted to be "the gravest objection to my theory." Enormous quantities of fossils have been dug up since, and, if anything, they make more glaring the gaps which troubled Darwin. Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard biologist, calls this lack of gradual change in the fossil record the "trade secret" of modern paleontology. The fossil record shows exactly what it showed in Darwin's day - that species appear suddenly in a fully developed state and change little or not at all before disappearing (99 out of 100 species are extinct). About 550 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian era, there was an explosion of complex life forms - mollusks, jellyfish, trilobites - for which not a single ancestral form can be found in earlier rocks. A man from Mars looking at the fossil record would say that species are replaced by other species, rather than evolve into them. Paleontologist Stephen Stanley writes that "the fossil record does not convincingly demonstrate a single transition from one species to another." There are other serious problems with classical Darwinian theory. Among them are the fact that scientists see very little "struggle for survival" in nature (many species tend to cooperate and occupy ecological niches which do not compete); the fact that all the major body plans we see today in animals and insects appeared at once in the Cambrian era, a fact which does not fit Darwin's model; and that many species like the lungfish have not changed at all in over 300 million years despite important shifts in their environment, which flatly contradicts the constant fine-tuning Darwin attributed to natural selection. The shortcomings of Darwin’s theory are forcing scientists to doubt its correctness. Darwin himself often conceded the faults in his theory. Following is excerpt from his letter
- The shortcomings of Darwin’s theory are forcing scientists to doubt its correctness. Darwin himself often conceded the faults in his theory. Following is excerpt from his letter
- There are many alternative theories to Darwin’s today, proving that it is far from perfect.
- Shortcomings of the “Standard” Cosmology / Big Bang Despite the self-consistency and remarkable success of the standard Hot Big Bang model in describing the evolution of the universe back to only one hundredth of a second, a number of unanswered questions remain regarding the initial state of the universe. The table below lists some of the key concerns or shortcomings: 1. The flatness problem Why is the matter density of the universe so close to the unstable critical value between perpetual expansion and re-collapse into a Big Crunch? 2. The horizon problem Why does the universe look the same in all directions when it arises out of causally disconnected regions? This problem is most acute for the very smooth cosmic microwave background radiation. 3. The density fluctuation problem The perturbations, which caused gravitational collapse and the formation of galaxies, must have been primordial in origin; from whence did they arise? 4. The dark matter problem Of what stuff is the Universe predominantly made? Nucleosynthesis calculations suggest that the dark matter of the Universe does not consist of ordinary matter - neutrons and protons? 5. The exotic relics problem Phase transitions in the early universe inevitably give rise to topological defects, such as Magnetic monopoles, and exotic particles. Why don't we see them today? 6. The thermal state problem Why should the universe begin in thermal equilibrium when there is no mechanism by which it can be maintained at very high temperatures? 7. The cosmological constant problem Why is the cosmological constant 120 orders of magnitude smaller than naively expected from quantum gravity? 8. The singularity problem The cosmological singularity at t=0 is an infinite energy density state, so general relativity predicts its own breakdown. 9. The timescale problem Are independent measurements of the age of the Universe consistent using Hubble's constant and stellar lifetimes? Source: Cambridge Cosmology Hot Big Bang page, “Shortcomings of the Standard Cosmology” http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/bb_problems.html
- Dalton proposed that atoms are the smallest particles. To account for motion of these atoms he proposed DALTON ATOMIC THEORY. Later on scientists found sub atomic particles like electrons, protons, neutrons etc. DALTON atomic theory was discarded and replaced with QUANTUM THEORY.
- Well, that’s easy! Modern man is being helped by the Vedas in many ways.
- Well, that’s easy! Modern man is being helped by the Vedas in many ways.
- For this reason, the Vedas have also been called ‘apaurusheya’ – not composed by an ordinary human being. They were written by the Lord, and were meant to serve as a guide to living in our world – analogy of the printer and manual
- Vedas are shrutis and was passed through aural reception. Hower people in Kali Yuga have short lives and less intelligent. For the benefit of people in Kali Yuga Vyasadeva, a literary incarnation of God, recorded all the Vedas in writing 5,000 years back
- Well, that’s easy! Modern man is being helped by the Vedas in many ways.
- Brainstorming 6 Open a discussion and ask the audience as to where all they can see vedic knowledge being used. Some likely responses will be: Ayurveda – being used to cure many diseases, including leprosy, cancer, etc. to which modern science has no cure Yoga Meditation Astronomy – prediction of eclipses, stellar positions with great accuracy Astrology – how the science of match making provided perfect matches Metallurgy – the Sarnath Pillar which never rusts, NASA used vedic science to make some metals. Vaastu So Vedas provide a storehouse of knowledge, which are being used for centuries by the Indians. It not just provides information on material sciences, but also on the spiritual science of the self, which has not even been discovered by modern science yet.
- Ayurveda – being used to cure many diseases, including leprosy, cancer, etc.to which modern science has no cure
- Astronomy – prediction of eclipses, stellar positions with great accuracy
- Astrology – how the science of match making provided perfect matches
- the Sarnath Pillar which never rusts, NASA used vedic science to make some metals
- There are many instances where the Vedas seem to be self-contradictory or completely opposing our modern understanding – so can they be relied upon? The Vedas do not have any self-contradictions although it may appear so. In many instances, it seems like the Vedas say something that is far fetched or too ridiculous to accept based on our current understanding, but time and again they have only proved correct even according to modern science at a later point.
- Cow dung and cow urine are mentioned in the Vedas as having purifying and antiseptic properties. For a long time, this understanding was rejected by modern science. It has now been found that cow dung and cow urine actually have antiseptic properties, as the Vedas have always asserted. Hence, there is no discrepancy in this.
- The Vedas have long asserted that the Earth is a sphere of diameter is 7,840 miles. For a long time, modern man thought the world to be flat, not round. Now, modern measurements show the earth’s diameter to be 7,926.7 miles – turns out that the Vedic figure is pretty accurate!
- And so on. Since authoritative hearing is the basis of receiving knowledge through shabda pramana, the next question would naturally be – who is an authority? Or rather, how does one find such an authority? The characteristics of a bona fide authority are also mentioned in the scriptures