Question 16

QUESTIONER: WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN SAYING ABOUT KRISHNA AND HIS MYRIAD VIRTUES HAS SWEPT US OFF OUR FEET, AND WE SEEM TO HAVE TURNED INTO HIS DEVOTEES. IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THERE ARE NO INADEQUACIES IN HIS LIFE? IS IT NECESSARY THAT WE JUSTIFY HIS EVERY ACTION WHETHER IT IS DANCING WITH THE GOPIS OR HIS STEALING THEIR CLOTHES OR GOADING PIOUS YUDHISTHRA TO LIE ABOUT THE DEATH OF ASHWASTHAMA? AND CAN WE CALL IT A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH?

Your question is right. It is good to know why we don't find shortcomings in Krishna's life. But do you think it is scientific to purposely go in search of shortcomings? It would be unscientific if we decided to find fault with him it would be equally unscientific if we decided not to find fault with him. Every approach with a pre-judgment or prejudice, whether for or against, is wrong and unscientific.

Then what is a scientific approach? It is scientific to see Krishna as he is. And whatever I have been saying about him here is exactly as I see him. It would, of course, be unscientific if I asked you to see him the way I see him. You ate free to see him in your own way. It is okay if you find fault with him, and it is okay if you don't find fault with him. I have no desire whatsoever for you to accept what I say about Krishna. But I am free to see him the way I see him. It would be unscientific if I tried to see him differently.

It is good to know what a scientific approach is. Is it necessary to apply what we call the scientific approach to anything and everything in the world? There are things in this world -- are there not? -- which defy the scientific approach; it would be utterly unscientific to apply this approach to them. And certainly. there are a few things that go beyond the scientific approach. For instance, we cannot think about love in a scientific manner; there is no way to do so. The very phenomenon of love seems to be unscientific. And if we try to examine love scientifically we will have to deny it altogether. We will then have to say that nothing like love exists in this world. The very existence of love is against science.

The difficulty is that either we approach love unscientifically -- and that would be really scientific -- or we deny love altogether. It would be scientific to see love as love is.

We can look at it from another angle. As I said earlier, eyes see and ears hear, and if we try to see with our ears and hear with our eyes it will be utter madness. It is madness to look at things we hear as though they have been seen. Eyes will just say that ears don't see. And it is true. And since eyes don't hear they cannot accept that ears hear. So the eyes can come to only two conclusions: one, that the ears don't see -- and that would be right -- and the other, that the ears don't hear -- and that would be wrong.

The scientific process is such that it cannot grasp anything but matter. Science is confined to the understanding of matter; it cannot go beyond the material world. As eyes are confined to seeing light and ears to hearing sound, the methodology of science is such that it can only know matter and nothing else. Then there is only one possibility left: the scientist can say that there is nothing in the universe except matter. And some scientists have really said so.

But as scientific knowledge is growing, science finds itself in deep waters, because it has reached a point where matter has ceased to be matter. In the course of the last two decades, science has had to accept there is something beyond its grasp. If scientists don't accept this, then the very basis of all they have known becomes doubtful. If they deny the existence of the electron, which seems to be beyond their grasp, then the existence of the atom, which is within their grasp, becomes suspect, because the electron is the basis of the atom. Therefore, with humility, science now accepts that there is certainly something which is eluding its understanding, but it is not yet ready to accept that anything is unknowable. Science still believes that sooner or later it is going to know it, and it will continue to press its efforts in that direction.

Maybe science will know many more things; maybe it will know the secret of the electron, but it does not seem probable it will ever know love. It is impossible to find love in a scientific lab. If it goes in search of love, it will surely come across the lungs, but it will never find the heart. That is why it believes the lungs are all there is, and there is nothing like the heart the poets talk about. But the experiences of even an ordinary person say for sure that there is something like the heart. There are many moments in our lives when we live not by the lungs alone, but by something much more than the lungs, and that is our heart. And sometimes this heart becomes so important for us that we can sacrifice everything, including the lungs, for its sake.

Someone dies for love. He dies for the sake of the heart that does not exist in the eyes of the scientist. What will you say about this man? How can you deny the fact of his death? Someone, a Majnoo, is madly in love with a Laila. He is mad to win the heart of his beloved. You can say that this madness is wrong, but in spite of what you say, it is there Majnoo exists.

He may be wrong; he may be mad, but he is what he is. He lives for Laila, he sings in her memory, he is poetic about her. An examination of his lungs will not reveal any of these things, neither the presence of a Laila or his love for her. An investigation of the lungs will only reveal the breath and blood that circulate through them, the oxygen and other substances, but it will miss the very thing for which Majnoo is ready to give up his breath and his blood, even his whole life.

So there are only two ways to solve this difficulty. Either we deny love or we refuse to look at it with the eyes of a scientist. But how can we deny the existence of love? It exists. But then we look at love in a way that is not scientific. So we accept that we cannot bring the scientific approach to bear on each and every thing in the world.

If we look at Krishna with the eyes of science, he will be nothing more than a great man with his black and his white shades. But remember, he will then completely cease to be Krishna. The Krishna that I am talking about here is not a great man; he is a phenomenon, an event. And we cannot understand this phenomenon scientifically. And you know well that I am not against science. On the contrary, I am all for science. I walk with science to the extent where it begins to falter and fall down. I drag it into spaces where even its breathing stops. I can be charged with being too much on the side of science; I will never be charged with being less on its side. I try my very best, but there is a limit beyond which science cannot go. Will it be right to stop with science, to give up my efforts and go no further?