Dr. Bhakti Vijnana Muni is a disciple of Sripad Bhaktisvarupa Damodar Swami and Sripad Bhakti Madhav Puri Maharaja. He is a PhD from IIT Kharagpur in Chemical Engineering. Due to the pioneering work of his spiritual masters in the field of Origin and Nature of Life and Matter, and their desire he is engaged in this important work of synthesis of science and religion for lasting peace, knowledge and happiness. On that scenario, Muni, General Secretary of Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute of Spiritual Culture & Science-Siliguri, West Bangal India are organized “Science and Scientist-2015” in Nepal. Meanwhile, Laxman Dangol, Editor and Kiran Adhikari, Reporter from RevoScience Monthly recorded an exclusive interview with him.
What is the purpose of life?
Muni: Our main goal of life is to know God and develop the attitude of becoming His humble servants. To go back home, back to Shri Krishna. That is the real goal of life. Reality is a dynamic process. E.g. a cloud is formed from water that comes from the sea. When that water falls on the river, it may again enter the ocean. In the same way we all have come from the marginal energy of God, and by utilizing the spiritual process coming from Him, we can again go back to Him and serve Him in the dynamic activity of service in love and affection. So, we have come from God, and now we are embarrassed by material life. Therefore, our aim should be to get out this materialistic world and go back home, back to Krishna. This is the real goal of life.
But why is there violence in our world. Why is life so miserable?
This is because of the imperfect knowledge. Perfect knowledge is taught in Gita as it is. That is Krishna consciousness. There are three gunas: passion, ignorance and goodness and these combine in so many ways to produce innumerable material conditions for the living beings. But atleast in the beginning, encouragement is given to come to the platform of goodness. Here one may learn ethics and gradually bring the senses in control and lead to some knowledge. It leads to detachment gradually. When the spiritual process is introduced to such people in mode of goodness, they can quickly understand the spiritual goodness, or the plane that is called nirguna, or pure goodness. You can know that there is God, that this world was created by Him. If one has some such knowledge, even though it may not be perfectly expressed by him it is his real wealth. In the mode of passion, one identifies with his material body and mind and tries to gratify his senses. That is passion. And ignorance is animal life. In ignorance, one does not know what is God, how to become happy, why are we in this world. For example, if you take an animal to the slaughterhouse, it will go. This is ignorance. Humans are now getting ignorant about these particular three gunas.
Can you please tell us about material life and spiritual life.
When you desire to gratify your senses, that is material life. And when you desire to serve God, that is spiritual life. That is the difference between material life and spiritual life. Now we are trying to serve our senses. But, instead of serving our senses, we should utilize all our senses and mind to serve God; that is spiritual life. Spiritual satisfaction come when you desire to please Krishna and all the senses and mind becomes peaceful. This is possible by saranagati, or surrender by the help and guidance of pure devotees of Shri Krishna.
How does praying works?
Praying is a process. When we can know our finiteness and the Infinity of Reality, we will become humble. We can know that our finite and meager efforts are insufficient to do real welfare of ourselves. We can realize then that we are dependent beings. We depend for our being to God. Then we will feel the necessity of higher help. In that stage real praying is possible. But even otherwise we can see every human being prays when in a temple or when in some distress. Thus when we pray we acknowledge our gratitude and dependent position. Krishna says in the Gita, He is situated in everyone’s heart. God is also within every atom. So everyone can feel the presence of God inside by prayer. We have to create a history of surrender and prayer to Him. We have to know sastras to reach God. So this is the first information. And then by yogic process we have to realize it. Even though, there are different yogic processes, chanting in the association of suddha bhaktas is the highest and nicest one. You will understand everything of God- how God is inside, how God is outside, how God is working. Everything will be revealed. By this attitude of service, God will reveal Himself. We cannot understand only by our own endeavor. But we can realize when we are pleasing God and getting His mercy.
By what kind of actions can a person earn good virtue?
For that we need to learn Vedas from the pure devotees of Lord Hari. Good Karman means what is prescribed in Vedas. By the fruit we can know what seed was sown. We need to do actions for the satisfaction of our spiritual mind. A good law abiding-citizen is the one whose actions satisfy government. Similarly a virtuous soul is non-envious and does good to himself and others. Unfortunately, modern people do not know what the Supreme Personality of God is. They are simply busy with materialistic activities. Therefore, all of them are leading to bad Karma. A person who does not know what is God, or one who does not try to understand God- he is an animal. To become ignorant is not a very good qualification. Intelligence means to know what one is, what this world is, what God is, and what their interrelations are. Animal thinks that he is the body, but in fact life is coming from soul by the mercy of God. The soul is actually a lover of God and he can realize it when he follows the guidance of the great Acharyas who came to this world to help all of us. Once this loving service is awakened all virtues will naturally come to him.
