Shabda Media

In this episode we talk about the problem of incompleteness in science and how this problem is not limited to physical theories but goes way deeper into mathematics and logic itself. The root cause of this problem is traced to the fact that nature has duality and opposites, but inducting opposites creates contradictions in science. The problem is also caused by the existence of figures of speech in ordinary language which are missing in mathematics and logic. Finally, the problem is also related to the existence of choice by which the same world can be described scientifically in new ways, so there is an explicit for the observer in observing nature. The episode discusses how these problems manifest in many areas of modern science in different forms and possible strategies for overcoming them.

This episode discusses how space and time are treated as trees of three kinds of meanings in Vedic philosophy. The idea of tree of meaning has been described at various places in Vedic texts, as well as in other religions such as Christianity and Judaism. The relation between this tree and ideas of form and substance in Greek philosophy are relevant to this coversation. The episode also talks about how the higher level branches and trunks are visible from the level of the leaves, but cutting down the leaves doesn’t cut those branches and trunks. In the same way, the higher level realities such as the mind, intellect, ego, and the soul are manifest in the body, but the death of the body doesn’t destroy the deeper realities.

This episode discusses the relation between religion and science from the perspective of Vedic philosophy, and how an original meaning embodied by God expands into symbols which include both the soul and their material experiences. This relation between meaning and symbols requires us to treat the material world as a representation of meaning. The podcast discusses how this ideology about matter provides the incremental steps through which the study of pure matter transforms into the study of God.

The tripartite nature of the soul, how the soul's three aspects create inner conflicts, how the resolution of these conflicts requires choices about what to compromise, how these choices must be balanced over time, and how each situation requires the right kind compromise, these constitute the Vedic philosophical description of the soul.

This episode discusses how the world exists as a possibility, from which a reality is manifest. This manifest reality can then be known or experienced. But the manifest reality can be true, right, and good, or false, wrong, and bad. We then discuss how the difference between true, right, and good vs. the false, wrong, and bad is its incompleteness. When claims are incomplete, then to complete them, the opposite claims are incorporated, and these opposites then create cyclical change, as each opposite becomes dominant or subordinate. However, in the spiritual world, when the claims are complete, then the opposites are not required, and then the changes stop. Nevertheless, there is still "motion" which is different from "change". By understanding the difference between motion and change, we can grasp how the spiritual world is eternally active, and yet, it is different from the material world of changes.

Religion, Philosophy

In this episode we talk about the nature of God. In Vedic texts, God is described as paramam-satyam, or the highest truth. He is also described as jnanam-advayam, or non-dual knowledge. What is duality, and what is non-duality? And do these ideas about the nature of daulity influence the definition of non-duality? How both duality and non-duality exist in this world? And what are the differnet kinds of non-duality, which lead to differnet conceptions of God? These are all interesting questions discussed in this episode.

The three aspects of God in Vedic philosophy, and how they encompass the basis on which everything else is understood in the world.

Philosophy, Religion