Scientific Meditation

To forward the rendering of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Vyasadeva is meditating in this way. He meditates upon Lord Krsna as the cause of all causes from whom everything springs. This is an analytical definition of God: He is the cause of all causes. God cannot be caused by anything else; rather, everything must be caused by Him. Furthermore, if God causes everything and brings everything into existence, He must also be the maintainer; it is by His energy that creation is maintained. Similarly, He is also the destroyer. Thus the total import of janmady asya yataḥ is "He from whom everything emanates and by whom everything is created, maintained and destroyed."

With this scientific information, one can meditate upon Krsna as the Supreme Lord from whom everything comes. Thinking in this way, we can consider that everything comes from Him, including birds, flowers, air, water, body, mind, the universe, the sun, the stars and everything else. All is created by Him. Furthermore, all is maintained by Him. One may think himself the maintainer of his family, his body or his dog, but that is relative maintenance. Actually there is a higher maintainer than us. We are relative maintainers. For example, I may go to a job, earn a salary and go to the store to buy some food to maintain myself, but who has created the food? The farmer may say that he has produced the food, since he planted the seed and watered it, yet he is not the absolute producer but only a functionary in that production. By nature's way the seed grows into a grown plant. Science cannot duplicate this process. Thus the food is produced by nature, which is under the direction of the Supreme Lord.

We cannot claim that we can create or maintain anything; rather, we act as functionaries. When someone builds a house, he brings lumber, nails, plaster and labor and thus assembles it. He cannot actually say, therefore, that he is the creator of the house, but rather he is a functionary in that creation. He has not created the wood nor the metal, but he has only arranged these materials in a certain way after nature produces the raw ingredients.

Thus we are neither the creators nor maintainers. We utilize that which is provided for us. For example, we are maintained by the air and the sun, which are supplied without effort on our part. Similarly, although we know that everything that comes into existence in the material world, including our bodies, our minds and even our planet, is eventually destroyed by the influence of time, we are not the controllers of all this. One body is destroyed and another created under the direction of a higher order, a higher force-a creator, maintainer and destroyer. This is not a religious sentiment, but these are scientific facts that we have to accept. Therefore Vyasadeva meditates in this way: "I am thinking, I am worshiping, I am pondering about and meditating upon He from whom everything emanates, by whom everything is maintained, and by whom everything is destroyed."