“Always think of Me and become My devotee. Worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 18.65)
“A new study shows that eating carrots can prevent cancer. A new study shows that drinking one glass of wine every day with dinner can prevent heart disease. A new study shows that eating tomatoes is really good for you. Another study shows that taking too much coffee will decrease your duration of life. Oh wait, a newer study shows that the old study was wrong. It didn’t take into account certain factors.”
Such headlines are found in the news every day. Materialistic science as a whole aims to meet the same objective: find a way to predict the future. The goal is to find a way to create certain experimental conditions that always produce the same output. As death is the thing most feared by those who are unaware of the spiritual science, naturally the most desired result from the experiments is the prevention of death.
The idea is that with enough conditions created over the critical years of development of the human being, death can be avoided. For instance, heart disease is caused by the clogging of the arteries. This is what has been ascertained through past gathered perceptions. Therefore we should find a way to prevent that clogging from happening. Cancer is the tough one. It crops up in almost every kind of circumstance. Therefore more field research is required, where the statistics of patients are studied in every possible way. Find those conditions which have the least likelihood of the cancer occurring and you suddenly have a way of preventing the disease.
There are so many flaws with this notion, and they are known immediately to those who are familiar with the spiritual science. Even without touching on the eternality of spirit at the outset, we can see that while death is the one thing feared the most, what is forgotten is that so many other forms die all the time. So many identities are lost forever, too. For instance, if we are adults, we can never be elementary school students again. We can’t go back to the first grade. There is just no way to do this. Of course we don’t think of going back to it, but the idea is the same as trying to remain in a body that is continuously decaying.
The steps taken to prevent death also don’t tackle old age. You can try to prolong the life of your car, but eventually you will have to give it up. In the process you may have to change the tires, belts and brakes many times over, but the car itself cannot continue going forever. The human body works in the same way. The cells change all the time, but the gradual degradation occurs despite whatever maintenance is applied. Eventually it will have to be discarded. Thus the intense effort to prevent death seems a little silly, especially given the fact that previous versions of that body already died. The childhood body is gone forever. There is no possible way to get it back. The same goes for the young adult body. Never again once its time has passed.
In computer science there is the concept of deterministic and nondeterministic functions. A deterministic function produces the same output when given the same input. For instance, if I have a function that doubles a number, it will always produce the same output for the same input value. If I pass the number two into it, it will give me four. This will always be the case. Thus the function is deterministic.
If I have a function that adds a number to my age, it will not always produce the same output given the same input. If I pass a number one to the function today, I will get back the number thirty, which is one plus my age of twenty-nine for this example. But in ten years’ time if I run the exact same function, with the same value of one for the input parameter, the number I will get back will be forty. This will be the total of the number one plus my age at that time, thirty-nine. Thus this second function is nondeterministic.
Due to the nature of spirit, every result in life can be considered the output to a nondeterministic function. You don’t always get the same output given the same input values. If you take two healthy adults, a male and a female, of the same race, of the same age, and have them unite in a relationship, you will not always get the same outcome. They will not always be happy. They will not always produce the same kinds of children. Just look at how children are produced now. The same parents unite multiple times, and they don’t always get the same kind of child. If you have a dark-complexioned father and a light-complexioned mother, the children aren’t always of the same complexion. In these instances the input is always the same, but the output varies.
So what does this all mean? Should we just do whatever we want? Since every output is nondeterministic, should we just throw our hands up and not try to better our condition?
The spiritual science aims to release the living force from the burden of trying to control outcomes in vain. It is a futile attempt to control such outcomes because ultimately there is nothing that can be fully controlled. You can eat the right foods, exercise the right amount, avoid dangerous situations, and still meet a tragic end. By the same token, you can do everything wrong and still live a long life.
In the spiritual science we understand that the results to action are governed by the law of karma. Karma is work. It is work with a reaction. It is distinguished from jnana, or knowledge, and yoga, or mysticism. Karma leads to the creation of another body. Jnana doesn’t necessarily, as in knowledge we can see the difference between matter and spirit and then take the necessary steps to release ourselves from the influence of matter. In mysticism we can ideally achieve a state of transcendence, where the reactions of karma are absent.
In the spiritual science there is one particular deterministic function of importance. It says that if you always think of Krishna, the Supreme Lord who is all-attractive, then you will eventually go to Him. This function does not take into consideration the quality of the inputted value. It merely requires a living entity. Thus not even the animals are excluded; though the likelihood of them taking this route is low. Any person, whether they are a child or an adult, a high-class priest or an ordinary worker, a man or a woman, a Hindu or a Christian, a pious man or a lifelong sinner, can follow this route and reach Krishna, who is the origin of all life. In His land there is variety in spiritual interaction, but the result is always the same: transcendental bliss.
In this age the best way to think of Krishna is to always chant and hear His names. This occurs simultaneously through the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Recite this mantra daily, avoid behaviors such as meat-eating, gambling, intoxication and illicit sex, which will inhibit your entry into the best nondeterministic function, and know for sure your final destination in life.
In Closing:
When always giving same values on input,
Deterministic function to get predictable output.
In godlessness life’s outcomes try the same,
Prevention of inevitable death seen as highest gain.
But despite putting in conditions always the same,
Never can predict even whether sun or rain.
Nondeterministic all except with one process to try,
Think of Krishna always and reach His spiritual sky.
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