On Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:23:23 +0200, J�rgen Jensen <
atei...@733.dk>
wrote:
>Det ville da v�re bedre om Jahnu kommer frem med, hvorledes han med
>baggrund i vedaerne kan p�vise Jordens alder til at v�re 4 milliarder
>�r. Det er jo ikke nok at det st�r skrevet. De metoder, man har anvendt,
>skal selvf�lgelig ogs� beskrives.
Selvf�lgelig er det nok, at det st�r skrevet.. Men man har brugt
Shabda metoden.
>Den moderne videnskab bruger forskellige metoder til at fastsl� Jordens
>alder. Den jeg kender bedst handler om geologi og indholdet af
>forskellige radioisotoper i forskellige lag af sediment og klippe. Flere
>fysikb�ger har udm�rkede redeg�relser for det sidste. Jeg vil ogs� tro
>at man i naturfagene h�rer om geologi og pladetektonik.
In the modern culture children are brought up to believe that the
world has evolved from a heap of chemicals to the complicated world we
know today. In school children are taught that this present western
civilization is the epitome of all human learning, knowledge, progress
and understanding. In school, I remember learning about the ancients -
the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, Mesopotamia - never once did we
hear so much as a squeak about the Vedic culture, the most ancient,
advanced, glorious culture to ever grace the planet.
Our teachers neglected to tell us, that at the time when people in
Europe carried clubs and lived in caves, or in the middle-ages when
people were burned for saying that the earth is round - in the Vedic
culture they had already described advanced mathematics, and the
universe and its planets in minute detail.
Instead, children are taught to believe that before the advent of
modern science, people lived in caves in darkness and ignorance - a
disease riddled bunch who believed in myths and fairy-tales, had weird
values , who didn't know about proper cleanliness, etc. etc.. Modern
people in general think that the only legitimate way to view and
understand the world is through science.
In essence, science means empirical knowledge, ie. knowledge based on
sensory perception. But who decided that this is the best way to
gather knowledge? We get knowledge from many other sources, like
learning from authorities. That's why children go to school - to learn
from authorities. In fact, we wouldn't know much at all, if someone
hadn't taught us to begin with. We wouldn't even know that 2 and 2 is
four, hadn't somebody taught us. We might know that 4 apples is double
as many as 2 apples, but If someone hadn't taught us, we wouldn't even
know the language and the concepts to express mathematics.
Thus it is a direct observable fact that knowledge from authority is
the most important way of learning anything - exactly as predicted by
the Vedic sages, who hold that of the different methods of gathering
knowledge - pratyaksha, anumana, shabda - shabda (by sound) is the
most important. And it holds true whether the subject is spiritual or
material.
Direct sensory perception would be more or less useless if we hadn't
learned from someone how to process and make sense of the sensory
input. Even the idea, that language evolved from some ape-like
grunting to reciting Shakespeare is so ludicrous, that it's amazing
they've gotten the majority of people in the global culture to believe
in it. I mean, how do you make a whole world believe in nonsense? A
very effective propaganda-machine, indeed�
Take Einstein, for instance. If you had given Einstein a pen-drive and
told him - there are 3000 books on this stick, and pictures of your
mother as well - he would have been left completely flabbergasted and
mystified. In fact, he would have had no way of understanding the
working principles behind the pen-drive. He would be in complete
darkness, because he would have had no reference to judge his sensory
experience by. This goes to show that even the most intelligent person
in the world would be foolish to rely only on empirical knowledge.
Atheists, with their limited mental and intellectual faculties, are in
the same position as Einstein in front of a disc-drive, when trying to
understand Krishna . Now, if you give the same pen-drive to a modern
teenager - he can tell you all about what makes a pen-drive work.
Similarly, Hare Krishna can tell you everything about how God, the
body, the mind, and the world work. The reason for this is, that in
Hare Krishna the right framework for understanding the world is given.
This process of knowledge has descended into the world via the
disciplic succession going back to Krishna Himself 5000 years ago,
when He spoke Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna.
Jiva Goswami, a Hare Krsna from the 1500s, had this to say about
understanding God - the first thing you have to understand, to know
God - Krishna, is to understand that He is inconceivable.
Krishna is as far away from the materially conditioned mind of modern
man, as a computer is from, say, George Washington. You don't have the
slightest way of understanding God before and unless you accept that
God is inconceivable, that He can act in mysterious, inconceivable
ways. To maintain that every experience - the sum total of reality,
can be expressed entirely in physical, scientific terms is so
amazingly dumb that it shows the efficiency of the modern propaganda
machine.
The propaganda-machine conditions and indoctrinates everyone into
thinking that they are the enjoyers, and that they can be happy by
gratifying the bodily senses. In fact, there are no other goals in the
Coca-cola culture except growing up, getting an education, so you can
get a job in order to make money so you can spend it. There is nothing
beyond that. How hopeless is that? It may seem ok for the successful
people, who, due to their good karma, are getting their desires
fulfilled, but for the scores of people who live in poverty and
suffering, how is it beneficial to tell them that this life is the
only chance you'll ever get to have your desires fulfilled? After that
- nothing.
Or like the Church tells you - too bad, God cast you down into a life
of poverty and misery, while He casts another person down into a life
in fame and glory. It's a sick world-view, whichever way you look at
it, and it conditions people to a life of misery and disappointment.
Krishna says:
Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire
from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized
souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth.
(Bg 4.34)
My dear Arjuna, because you are never envious of Me, I shall impart to
you this most confidential knowledge and realization, knowing which
you shall be relieved of the miseries of material existence. (Bg. 9.1)
This knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all
secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct
perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of
religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed. (Bg. 9.2)
O learned Uddhava, those who fix their consciousness on Me, giving up
all material desires, share with Me a happiness that cannot possibly
be experienced by those engaged in sense gratification.
--Srimad Bhagavatam 11.14.12