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Vishal Mangalwadi
‘Hare Krishna’ Reincarnates as ‘Science and Spirituality’
(and the Great Evangelical Disaster)
Varanasi, February 2, 2014: Vishal Mangalwadi reporting from the 8th All-India Students Conference on Science and Spirituality being held at the Institute of Technology (IT) at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).As I write, a professor of computer science from another prestigious IIT is demonstrating yogic postures. He grabbed our attention with a powerful testimony of how surgery, chemotherapy, chanting of “Hare Krishna”, his family’s prayers, proper diet and yogic exercises (besides doctors) helped him win over brain cancer. His “spiritual” disciplines enable him now to live a professionally productive life. His punch line: In the 1990s, as a student at IIT Kanpur, he began reading the Bhagwadgita and chanting mahamantra (the great mantra) “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna; Krishna Krishna hare hare”.
The power of Mahamantra delivered one of his class fellows (sitting in the front row) from alcohol and cigarettes. The friend’s parents were professors at IIT Kanpur. His spiritual transformation enabled the wayward son to go on to earn a Ph.D. in engineering. Now he serves as an engineering professor and a Hare Krishna promoter.
This movement that defines “spirituality” as chanting “Hare Krishna” is being taken to India’s leading secular universities by IITians – graduates of highly esteemed Indian Institute(s) of Technology. Some of them lead the Bhaktivedanta Institute – the forum organizing the conference. The conference was partially sponsored by the Deemed-University, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology, and Sciences at Allahabad (UP), where I serve as an honorary professor of applied theology.
Over 700 university students, mostly Hindus, are attending this conference at BHU. These Hindu students, mostly of science and engineering, are dissatisfied with a science without soul, without a worldview that gives meaning and purpose to life, with a corporate culture controlled by the ‘bottom line’—corrupting greed of money. The Bhaktivedanta Institute is addressing a real need among students at soul-less university.
This movement, bringing “spirituality” to science students, began with Dr. T. D. Singh (1937–2006). He was an Indian scientist in the USA who became a follower of Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement or ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness). His “spiritual awakening” made Singh curious about the relationship of science and spirituality. He read about the founders of modern science and met with Nobel Laureates in science. That helped Singh discover that (a) belief in a personal God was the intellectual basis of science, and that (b) the basic assumptions of science came from the Scriptures (the Bible). Dr. Singh, author of numerous little books, is known among his followers as His Holiness Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Swami.
The sad disaster is that the 20th-century Christianity that Singh encountered in America had disassociated itself from science and university. It sent missionaries to universities, but mostly to save souls, rarely to promote science or truth leave alone with a vision to build great nations.
By and large, by the end of the 20th century theological education in the West had degenerated to such a level that even heads of seminaries had no idea that the Bible is the reason why modern science was born. Professors of theology and church history would not even look at the evidence that the pioneers of modern science were laboring for the glory of God. (The evidence, incidentally, I’ve summarized in The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization and also by Rodney Stark in his great book For the Glory of God).
Most of contemporary Christian theology has erected a foolish wall of separation between spirituality and science. Two centuries ago a British cobbler-turned-Baptist missionary, William Carey, brought modern science to India. He translated the Bible, taught botany and astronomy, founded agri-horticultural society, developed the second best botanical garden, advocated forestry and scientific agriculture. But now, the contemporary “Gospel” does little more than prepare believers for the Rapture.
This terrible shift in theology means that many American missionaries coming to India have a very different passion. They want to hasten the coming of the Lord to 2020, not waste time building “nations.” For them all the Bible translators who translated ethne as “nation” were fools. God cares for souls, not nations. Therefore, “ethne” has to mean “unreached people groups.” The Lord Jesus will come back, they believe, as soon as the last unreached people group has been “reached”. To hasten the Second Coming, these contemporary missions want us to pursue story-telling, not truth-seeking through science and scholarship.
Since theology—the mother of European science—had become useless for giving a satisfactory worldview to church-going youth in America, Singh decided to fill the worldview vacuum in India’s secular academy by re-branding Krishna as the god of science and Bhagvadgita and Bhagvat Purana as the revealed anchor for the future of science.
During this conference the Bhaktivedanta Institute has been promoting Bhagvadgita and not Srimad Bhagvatam (Bhagvat Purana), which used to be the main scripture promoted by Swami Prabhupada, the originator of the Hare Krishna movement and the founder of ISKCON. One reason for this shift is that Bhagvatgita presents Krishna as a serious teacher while Bhagvat Purana presents Krishna as a playboy.
One of the earliest serious cases that began dismantling ISKCON in the West was triggered by Bhaktivedanta Narayan Goswami, a senior leader, who took Bhagvat Purana seriously and, therefore, promoted Gopi bhava (sensual love of Krishna’s cowgirls). His teachings led to the practice of debauchery.
Our Deemed-University’s (SHIATS’) department of theology is called “The Gospel and Plough School of Theology.” Our Vice Chancellor, Dr. R. B. Lal, is deeply concerned that the department should start a B.Sc. program in Science and Theology. Therefore, this afternoon my colleague, Dr. Samuel Richmond Saxena, who has an M.Sc. in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in theology, will present the only Christian paper in this conference. This conference has stimulated his desire to revive our dormant Center for Science and Theology.
The Christians from SHIATS, participating in this Science and Spirituality conference include a mathematician, a biologist, an engineer, a teacher of home science, and several theologians (teachers and students). We need your prayers that the conference will challenge our team to work diligently to recover the theology that produced modern science and can meet India’s need for a true and wholistic worldview.
As an event, I would describe the conference to be a success. The organizers have identified a real need in our universities and they are responding to it the best they know. They have turned to Hare Krishna because the Christian voice has been absent. Of course, ministries exist in universities; but they are there to “save souls,” as understood by American, individualistic, pietism.
In striking contrast to the current Christian spirituality, Hindu engineers and scientists driving this conference are not interested in an escapist spirituality. Some of them have renounced the world and become ascetics. However, it seems that they read extensively, publish books, and present papers in universities. Their goal is to train “spiritual” leaders, who will chant “Hare Krishna” and lead India with diligence and professional excellence. They believe in Krishna Consciousness, but they appear to be genuinely interested in nation-building –in realizing God’s promise that he will teach nations how to live through Abraham’s descendents.
The conference seems to be a success as an “event.” However, from a long-term perspective it is doomed to be a failure. The conference on Science and Spirituality is not even discussing truth. “Truth” is the issue over which the conflict began between science and religion: Does the sun revolve around the earth or the earth revolves around the sun? Did God create man, or did man evolve from lower animals?
Christian universities birthed Science (and William Carey taught science at Serampore near Calcutta), because they were seeking truth. Five hundred years ago Christians believed that God has written two books: the book of his words (the Bible) and the book of his works (nature and culture). They followed Jesus who said to the Sadducees (Mark 12) that in order to know truth they must read both the Scriptures as well as the works (the “power”) of God. To the Jews, the Lord said, you search the scriptures and they point to me; you sent to John the Baptist and he pointed to me; but I have greater testimony than John – it is the works that I do. Believe in me because of my works – that is, use your brains.
Reformers’ theology (whether Protestant or Roman Catholic) required the seekers of truth to use their brains because God reveals truth as well as conceals truth (Proverbs 25:2; Deuteronomy 29:29). The Bible requires research (and our university already has the second highest enrollment at doctoral level in Theology) because God conceals truth both in His words and in his works.
For example, the disciples found Jesus’ parables frustrating (Matthew 13) and asked, ‘why do you talk to the people in parables, the crowds don’t understand what you are trying to say?’ Since the disciples did not study missions in contemporary America, they knew that parables were not stories simplifying truth. Parables are powerful analogies concealing truth while giving clues. Understanding parables requires people to have enough hunger for truth that they will use their brains. Stories are designed to bypass thinking; parables are designed to stimulate the brain.
The conference is discussing science and spirituality but not truth. Therefore, it seems to me that the organizers are interested in science and spirituality for a number of pragmatic reasons, not because they have a passion for truth.
Bhaktivedanta has developed a good community of academically qualified people where “researchers” praise each other for promoting their religious agenda. But, they do not challenge each other to have intellectual integrity; to seek truth not promote scientific or scriptural (hermeneutical) nonsense.
For this reason, I think chanting Mahamantra will satisfy the emotional needs of the believers for a while. In the short run they may even succeed in replacing “good morning” with “Hare Krishna” in some faculties of science and technology. For theism is indeed the intellectual background of science.
However, without a sincere commitment to truth the movement cannot have a positive future. ISKCON and Bhaktivedanta are already disowned by the Advaita (monist, non-dualist) variety of Hinduism. The non-dualists are conspicuous by their absence, despite the fact that their monism has relatively greater intellectual consistency. However, mainstream Hinduism has no historic connection with science. Hindu monism got excited about science briefly, during the New Age movement. That was because to some interpreters quantum mechanics suggested that the universe may be mystical, not mathematical. Hare Krishna is right that historically, a personal-rational creator is the pre-supposition of science.
Vishal Mangalwadi
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