Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

Discussions with Syamasundara dasa
Charles Darwin



Prabhupāda: Yes. Explain what is nature. That means insufficient knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: He simply observed there are mutations in nature. For instance, he thinks that perhaps at one time...


Prabhupāda: That means nature is working.


Śyāmasundara: Yes.


Prabhupāda: Nature is working, but he cannot explain how nature is working.


Śyāmasundara: At one time he says the one ape developed an opposing thumb so he was able to use tools, grasp things, so he became superior and passed that quality on to his offspring and that developed into man. Simply by...


Prabhupāda: Then when there is offspring, then the same question comes: "Why the monkey does not produce offspring—a man?" What is this nonsense?


Karandhara: Scientists often take the shelter of this premise, that it's not..., we don't..., we're not trying to find out. Whenever they're asked what is the original source, they say, "We're not concerned with that. We're concerned with just examining the phenomenon of that source."


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is childish. That is childish. Just like I have seen the phenomena, without man there cannot be singing. In the box there must be one man there. This is childish calculation, that's all. Phenomenal study means childish. A fan, in our childhood we will think that a fan is running, there must be some ghost who is running it. So this sort of phenomenal study is not scientific study. It is not scientific. (If) we don't find the original cause, that is not scientific.


Karandhara: That's what they're looking for. But because they can't produce a satisfactory answer, they have to say, "Well, we're not looking for that." They can't come forward with an answer.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is, what it is called? Participia principeology, or something like that, that is called.


Śyāmasundara: (indistinct) in question.


Prabhupāda: That is not perfect knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: You must admit, though, being a scientist, that supposing you go down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, you see so many layers of earth going up thousands of feet, that the layers at the bottom are very, very old. You must admit, because the earth takes so many years to deposit soil. Even if it's only one million years, it's still very old. And in that lowest layer we find only evidences of simple...


Prabhupāda: So where is the lowest layer, he has gone? Where is it? Wherefrom it begins?


Śyāmasundara: The Grand Canyon is an example. That's a very deep canyon in the ground in Arizona.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: What happens if there was no human beings in that area so that they don't find any...?


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Human beings aside, we still find...


Prabhupāda: Just like desert. Desert there is no human beings. If you dig the desert, what you will find?


Śyāmasundara: That's all right. It doesn't matter if it was ocean; still we find gradually the forms become more and more complex toward the...


Prabhupāda: But you cannot say where is the beginning and where is the end.


Śyāmasundara: No. That we can't say.


Prabhupāda: Therefore his knowledge is imperfect.


Śyāmasundara: He said that if we say the origin of species is the simplest form, one-celled...


Prabhupāda: How the species living force came in? What is the cause? How it is coming? Wherefrom the life begins?


Karandhara: It still evades the principal question of who is the creator. I can build a big house or I can build a small box. The point is, who is the builder? So it's evading the question of who... Even if everything started with a one-celled animal, what started the one-celled animal?


Prabhupāda: Yes. Wherefrom the one cell came?


Śyāmasundara: That they say. He says (it) comes from four different chemicals: oxygen, hydrogen...


Prabhupāda: Well, wherefrom the chemical came? They're not questioning. Who supplied the chemical?


Śyāmasundara: We still may be able to discover some day...


Prabhupāda: That means you are fool, that you are granted. As soon as you say "still," then you are fool number one. That is our...


Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's what the modern scientists are doing. They're trying to make life in a test tube. What they are trying to do, these so-called biochemists, at the present time, their goal is to make life in a test tube. So what they do is they are going to put so-called big molecules—they say DNA, dioxynucleic acid. This molecule is a necessary molecule for..., it's a lively thing. So they're going to make certain combinations of these molecules and put in the test tube and find out whether there is life coming out from the test tube, and then trying to prove how life was formed. But it's such a foolish idea that they will never be able to make the...


Prabhupāda: They are a set of fools. And going on under the name of scientists. Set of fools.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: On the other hand, the so-called physicist... His name was Heisenberg. He produced the concept of the theory of uncertainty, and he found out that certain physical rules that govern certain parts of the so-called universal system of rules—why the planets are moving around the sun, and why they have a repeated course and so on. But he did not know what was the answer. So he named the title of the theory, the Theory of Uncertainty. Based on that, there are so many groups coming up, but they found uncertainty itself, that implies that there is some...


Prabhupāda: Basic principle is uncertainty, and they're building on big, big buildings.


Śyāmasundara: Darwin calls it the missing link.


Prabhupāda: That missing link, let them learn from us. We can give him the missing link.


Karandhara: But ultimately they'll say it'll come down to we propose that Kṛṣṇa is the creator or that God is the creator, then they'll say "That must be proved to me." In other words, they want to fit God within their own empiric gaze. That will be their only satisfaction when they actually become able to circumvent God's existence and create a power by their own intelligence.


Prabhupāda: He has to admit that the theory of uncertainty is bogus, but everything is there, and that masking behind all these things there must be big brain. That one has to accept. Simply uncertainty, that is not a science. The certainty is that behind all these things there is a big brain. I do not know Him—that is a different thing—but there is a big brain.


Śyāmasundara: Darwin, he was not so much interested in those questions of origin and those things, but he was a botanist and a biologist, and he simply wanted to investigate how things evolved from one simple form to a more complex form...


Prabhupāda: That he cannot say, how the evolved. He captured something out of his imagination, but he cannot explain scientifically.


Śyāmasundara: From simple forms to more complex forms.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Well, he says that this happens through mutation.


Prabhupāda: But you do it in the laboratory by mutation, by combination.


Śyāmasundara: They can do that.


Prabhupāda: No. But he said that that is not possible.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, they find that just like I said already, the basic elements of life—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen...


Śyāmasundara: You know the theory, not theory but practical proof, that the genes can be mutated by bombarding with cosmic rays.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. That they prove by so-called... That's why the cancer... The example of that mutation is the cancer cell. They try to find out how cancer is caused in the body. They say that somehow the cell has been changed, and they say that it has been done by mutation, so they try to prove it in the laboratory by changing the structure of the cell, and that is called mutation. So they say why the cancer is formed because cancer is an abnormal cell, this is a normal cell. In answering why these elements are formed from these basic four chemicals-carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen—they try, they say that somehow this nitrogen and hydrogen, they combine forming ammonia. That is called ammonia, from nitrogen and hydrogen. They say somehow this has formed, and somehow, by combination of hydrogen and oxygen, water is formed. And somehow by combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, these so-called carbohydrates, or these are formed. But they say somehow these are formed, but they do not know how it is formed.


Śyāmasundara: But all that Darwin is interested in is in the evolution of species: how one type of body evolves to the other type due to the changing conditions, and that because he has evolved a certain body he is best adapted to survive in that condition so that his species survives. So the scientists have shown that by bombarding the cosmic radiation or radioactive elements, that a gene or cell can change, mutate, so a different kind of animal comes out. From one kind of mother a different kind of animal comes out.


Prabhupāda: But we say that different kind of animal is not beyond these 8,400,000 species.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually this is not completely different animal. Some of these properties...


Śyāmasundara: A variation.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Just a little change. But another point in that connection is that nature makes its own equilibrium, balance of all the species, and it could have been all a balance. That is why, when nature is balancing all the species, there is no question of making another species fresh or something. This has been already made. It has already been done by nature. What is that nature, you have to ask by going to the real nature, not this false nature.


Śyāmasundara: Just like Darwin first investigated some islands off of Peru, Galapagos Islands, and he found different species of life that exist there that don't exist anywhere else, so that they must have evolved...


Prabhupāda: That means that he has not seen all the species, because he has not traveled all over the universe.


Karandhara: Deductive. It's a deductive conclusion.


Prabhupāda: Yes. He has seen one island but he has not seen the whole creation.


Syamasundara: No.


Prabhupāda: Then? How he can fix up. There may be many others he has not seen.


Śyāmasundara: But the only thing that I want to get at is...


Prabhupāda: The only thing he has has studied, this earthly planet...


Śyāmasundara: ...how the bodies change.


Prabhupāda: ...but there are many other millions of planets, he has not seen all of them. He has not excavated, dug the depth of all the planets, so how he can conclude that this is all? He has not seen everything, neither it is possible for him.


Śyāmasundara: But according to the conditions, different conditions on this planet, natural conditions, certain animals...


Prabhupāda: Yes. But he has not seen different conditions in different planets. Suppose the sun planet, the condition is fire. So how life can exist in the fire, he has no knowledge.


Karandhara: You point out in the introduction to Śrī Īśopaniṣad that deductive conclusions are always imperfect because you have to be able to deduce everything in order to come out to the right conclusion. Just like if you live in a village where everyone is only five feet tall, you may deduct that everyone in existence is only five feet tall; but if you go to the next village you may find someone six feet tall. So you have to search out every village and see every person before you...


Prabhupāda: That is not possible for you. How many millions of villages are there?


Śyāmasundara: No, but see, we're talking about two different things now. He is talking about the doctrine of natural selection or survival of the fittest...


Prabhupāda: But natural selection, that means that is not his selection. Natural selection.


Śyāmasundara: Natural selection.


Prabhupāda: So nature is more powerful than him. So he has not studied nature.


Śyāmasundara: He studies how the bodies change in nature.


Prabhupāda: No. He has not studied. He has studied in a particular place only. But nature means, when you speak of nature, suppose you have studied within this planet, but in nature means there is millions of universes, but he has not studied them.


Śyāmasundara: So you say the doctrine of natural selection is not...


Prabhupāda: Natural selection is there, but how the natural selection is working, he does not know that.


Karandhara: In a sense we know from Vedic information that the species from one end from the smallest germ up to the highest demigod, they are progressively more advanced. So anyone can come along and take out a small eclipsed portion of that sequence and propose the theory that the species is advancing, but that gamut, that range, perspective of higher and lower is existing, but not that it's evolving...


Prabhupāda: It is already there. I am simply changing place, transmigration. That is our theory-transmigration.


Śyāmasundara: But you still haven't answered satisfactorily...


Prabhupāda: Just like you are traveling in a train. There is first class, second class—that is already existing. But if you pay more, you come to the first class. You cannot say, "Now the first class is now created." It was already existing. So their defect is that they have no information of the soul. The soul is transmigrating. The forms are already there. The soul is transmigrating from one apartment to another apartment. That they do not know.


Śyāmasundara: But still I'm not convinced that if we make geologic investigations all over the world, not just the Grand Canyon or here or there, but in many parts of the world we always find the same thing, that the...


Prabhupāda: But if you say that you have studied all over the world, I say you have not studied all over the planet. That is still defective.


Śyāmasundara: Let's just confine it to this planet.


Prabhupāda: No. Why should you confine it? Nature is not only within this planet.


Śyāmasundara: Because you said that millions of years ago there were many complex forms of life existing on this planet.


Prabhupāda: No. Not on this planet; maybe anywhere. It is when you say nature, nature is not confined—what is called—limited within this planet. That you cannot say. When you say nature, this material nature, there are millions of universes and millions of planets in each and every universe. If you have studied... Suppose you have studied this planet; that is not sufficient knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: So, but you said before that millions of years ago there were complex forms of life on this planet: men, horses, animals, elephants...


Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.


Śyāmasundara: But from hundreds of different sources of this...


Prabhupāda: But I say, I say that it is still existing. The man is existing, the horse is existing, the snake is existing, the insect is existing, the trees are existing; why not millions of years ago?


Śyāmasundara: Because there's no evidence.


Prabhupāda: This is the evidence. This is the evidence. You cannot give the history of this planet. Now suppose the existence of sun, you cannot give history. The sun is existing millions of years ago. It is not that sun is created now. The sun is existing now, the moon is existing now, so why should not they come from millions of years also? The sun existing, and within the sun everything is existing. So if the sun is existing, then other things must be existing. That is my conclusion.


Śyāmasundara: They may be existing, but on this planet we have no evidence...


Prabhupāda: That doesn't mean... That means you limit your study in one planet. That is not full knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: I just want to find out for the time being about...


Prabhupāda: Why time being? If you are not perfect in your knowledge, then why should I accept your theory? That is my point.


Śyāmasundara: Well, if you make claims that millions of years ago there were complex forms of life on this planet...


Prabhupāda: Why you are... I never said on this planet. By nature's way everything is existing.


Śyāmasundara: So on this planet there were not complex forms of life millions of years ago...


Prabhupāda: So maybe; may not be. That is not of the point. The point is that everything is existing in the nature's way. The species, as we say from Vedic language, 8,400,000, fixed-up. So maybe in your neighborhood, in my neighborhood, it is, they have got..., they are fixed up. But you simply, if you study your neighborhood, that is not perfect knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: I accept that. But I want to understand that the theory of evolution is that...


Prabhupāda: Theory of evolution we accept.


Śyāmasundara: ...from simple forms of life, more complex forms evolve.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That's all right. But they are all existing still. They are not extinct. That is the point.


Śyāmasundara: All right. But on this planet, now if we could examine this planet...


Prabhupāda: Again you come to this planet. Why you are sticking to this planet?


Karandhara: Lord Brahmā, the most complex... From the Vedic information we find that the most complex living entity was first, and from him, he created all the variations. So from the most complex the most simple was evolved. Then if you have the wrong information, you could look at it and say it was the opposite, that from the most simple the most complex evolved. The sequence is there, and if you observe it in the wrong way, you may conclude it's going in the opposite direction.


Śyāmasundara: But in the Vedic scriptures...


Prabhupāda: The first creature is Brahmā, the most intelligent, the most learned.


Śyāmasundara: ...and he said, and you say that on this planet there were pastimes, for instance, of Lord Rāmacandra millions of years ago, with His men, His animals, His horses, deers, so many things. But in all of our evidences we find only at that time the most simple forms of life...


Prabhupāda: Your evidence... You will be satisfied with your evidence, but I have got my own evidence. Why shall I accept your evidence? You cannot force your evidence, your so-called evidence upon me. What is evidence? First of all you have to select, what is that evidence.


Śyāmasundara: Terrestrial, archaeological findings...


Prabhupāda: No. No. That is not evidence. That is not evidence.


Karandhara: If you find a bone, how do you know it's not...


Prabhupāda: That is imperfect. You have studied one portion of the creation. That is not evidence. In other portion of the creation there is different. But that is not evidence. Your study, your limited study is not evidence.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the evidence posed by Darwin's theory is not enough to explain...


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Yes. I agree with that. It doesn't explain there is an evolution...


Prabhupāda: Evolution we accept. There is no quarrel about that point. But we say there are 8,400,000 species of life, evolution is coming through that. But you cannot give us any list that so many... We give real evolution, that there are 8,400,000 species of life, and the living entity coming through that. [break] ...evolution is taking from here to here, and how many there are? You cannot say. You simply say "missing," "something missing," "something is added," all vague.


Śyāmasundara: That admitted, but...


Prabhupāda: If you admit that you are imperfect in knowledge, then it is no use citing scripture. There will...


Śyāmasundara: But what I want to know is that...


Prabhupāda: ...evolution we admit. But your evolution theory is not perfect. Our evolutionary theory is perfect.


Śyāmasundara: But it appears that the evolution is from simple to complex.


Prabhupāda: That we admit, simple. That we admit. There is no difference. But you cannot say what is the simple and what is the complex, and what are the... You say something missing. That is evasive. Why you should be missing if you are in knowledge? You must say this thing is missing, that you have no knowledge.


Karandhara: It's just an axiom, that if any part of the knowledge is perfect, then the whole knowledge is perfect. If you have any part of the truth, you have to have the whole truth in the highest sense. So if their theory is at all correct, and any of the premises are solid, then why it doesn't conclude itself by its own logical deduction? Why it would always have to allude to something missing, some missing factor?


Prabhupāda: Jīva jātiṣu. The Padma Purāṇa says jīva jātiṣu, so different species of life. And they give: from this, this; from this, this; from this, this. Then, just like it is said that from bird's life the beast's life comes. Now the beasts, this category is of three millions types of beasts.


Śyāmasundara: Just like they find evidence of large bird, pterodactyl, which has beastlike properties. It has legs also, and they say from that kind of bird evolved a more beastlike, like you say, beasts.


Prabhupāda: Just like we say that kṛmayo rudra-saṅkhyakāḥ pakṣiṇāṁ daśa-lakṣaṇam. From the insect life the bird's life developed. That we see practically. One have becomes flies, butterflies. In the grass, worm becomes a butterfly. That is, there is evidence.


Śyāmasundara: But at that time were there only insects existing?


Prabhupāda: No. Everything was existing.


Karandhara: That's not evolution of the species, it's evolution of the soul through the existing species.


Prabhupāda: Transmigration from one body to another. The bodies are already existing.


Śyāmasundara: For instance, they say that during the Ice Age, when there were..., the earth became very cold, and there were great ice formations in Europe and America, that this animal they call the mammoth-it's an elephantlike animal but it had long, very long hair for warmth-suddenly this species appears. Does it mean that that body existed always somewhere else, but it just suddenly appeared in order...


Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.


Śyāmasundara: ...to live here in that environment?


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Karandhara: What if it is indeed a different species? What do they qualify as a difference in species? I mean, like one man has lots of hair on his body and one man doesn't. That doesn't make him a different species necessarily.


Śyāmasundara: Yes. But in this case, elephants always lived in tropical. They were living in hot climates, and suddenly they had to adapt to the cold.


Prabhupāda: No. Again, just like we have got experience with the change of season, different animals are also produced, with the change of season. But it is not that they are coming new. They are already existing.


Śyāmasundara: They're appearing.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Karandhara: Appearing and disappearing according to the seasons.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like this Los Angeles City, there is a havoc of flood from the ocean and all men die. That does not mean extinct; the men are there somewhere else. You cannot say that human species is now extinct, because your study is limited.


Śyāmasundara: Supposing one man is particularly adapted, and he is smart, intelligent, and he survives when everything else is killed...


Prabhupāda: That he may survive, that we don't disagree.


Śyāmasundara: But he would say that that man passes on his superior traits to his children, and it's another species.


Prabhupāda: No. He survives, but many other men like him, they are existing somewhere. He may survive of this catastrophe, but that does not mean that other men are all extinct. You cannot say that. In these circumstances this man may survive or may not survive, but man is existing somewhere else.


Śyāmasundara: And another example, for instance there is a dog called the Pekinese dog. It was made by man, it was developed by men. They took a certain type of dog and crushed it's jaws in so many instances until eventually that trait was passed on naturally to its children...


Prabhupāda: But he is still, it belongs to the dog species. We are speaking of dog species.


Śyāmasundara: But it's a new type of dog. New type. Never existed before that, here.


Prabhupāda: New type, that will not exist also. Because it has been artificially made, it is existing now; now it will not exist again.


Karandhara: There's a kind of Indians, when the babies are young they put a board on their head so that (indistinct) like that.


Śyāmasundara: But now this dog is produced naturally, with its face like that.


Karandhara: But it's still a dog.


Prabhupāda: The dog species.


Śyāmasundara: But it's a new species of dog.


Karandhara: Well, they may call it a new species, but according to Vedic definition it isn't a new species.


Śyāmasundara: What did you just define by species? You mean different types of men, you say...


Prabhupāda: The species, definition of species according to biology is different. We say species means jāti, human race.


Śyāmasundara: So four hundred thousand species of humans.


Karandhara: Different levels of consciousness?


Prabhupāda: Yes. Different levels of consciousness.


Śyāmasundara: I see.


Karandhara: And within any species there can an infinite variety of variations of that one species. Just like...


Prabhupāda: Just like the scientists, their species is different. Just like we are making division that 400,000 different types of men. They will say this is one species.


Śyāmasundara: So would you say, for instance, someone who is less intelligent or more intelligent than I am is in a different species?


Prabhupāda: Less intelligent or more intelligent does not make any species, because suppose you have got five children, one is less intelligent, more intelligent.


Śyāmasundara: He was just saying levels of consciousness determine the species.


Prabhupāda: Yes. This is levels of consciousness, that just like we divide the human society: some men are brāhmaṇas, some men are kṣatriyas, some men are vaiśyas, that can be found at any time.


Śyāmasundara: Those are species?


Prabhupāda: They are not species, according to their...


Śyāmasundara: They are types of men.


Prabhupāda: Yes. We said varieties.


Śyāmasundara: Then what is the different species of man, separate from me; for instance, what is another species that is different than I am?


Prabhupāda: I do not know exactly the species, but when we, [break] ...means jāti, manuṣya jāti.


Śyāmasundara: I mean what is an example of different species of man. What are they, for example, several species of men?


Prabhupāda: I say that species, this word is not applicable in that sense. In that sense, according to the scientists' species. But when we say species, class you can say. Classes.


Śyāmasundara: Classes. But what, give me an example.


Prabhupāda: Again, just like we are a class—Hare Kṛṣṇa class. Our mentality is different from others.


Śyāmasundara: Oh.


Prabhupāda: Therefore we are a class.


Śyāmasundara: So tribes, more like tribal distinctions?


Prabhupāda: We are not exactly tribal. Culture, by culture.


Śyāmasundara: By interest and culture. I see.


Prabhupāda: By differentiation of culture.


Śyāmasundara: Those are species.


Prabhupāda: Those who are Aryan, non-Aryan; just like I say, they are all human beings, but why you say one Aryan and another non-Aryan? It is difference of culture, that's all.


Devotee: Say, for example, there is the Caucasian race, the Negroid race, different races like that. If they are all living in the same... Say they all join Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, then they are all the same...


Prabhupāda: But Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is not on the basic principle of this body. It is basically on the soul; therefore you will find everyone same.


Śyāmasundara: But otherwise it goes...


Prabhupāda: Because it is culture. When one comes to the spiritual platform, there is no question. Even animal you can accept. Just like we worship Vajrāṅgajī, Hanumān. He's animal, but because he is devotee of Lord Rāmacandra, we worship him. But that doesn't mean we are worshiping animals.


Śyāmasundara: You mean like Bengalis are a different species than Gujaratis? Something like that?


Prabhupāda: No, no. Why do you mix, we have already explained? Our jāti means of the same culture. He may be Gujarati, he may be Bengali, he may be American.


Śyāmasundara: So, for instance, carpenters are different than field workers-like that, different interests?


Prabhupāda: Why different interest? The interest is to earn money. So you may earn money in some way, I may earn money in some way, he may earn money in some way.


Karandhara: So is the primary factor of the variation is how much advanced they are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and how least advanced they are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness?


Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160796&page=2

Discussions with Syamasundara dasa
Charles Darwin



Śyāmasundara: So there are only two species.


Karandhara: The demons and the devas.


Prabhupāda: This consciousness is coming through so many species, animals, then they're trees, they have no consciousness, but there is living..., the soul is there.


Śyāmasundara: I'm still trying to understand what you mean by the species of human life. It's not clear to me. I don't understand what you mean by the different species of human life.


Prabhupāda: By culture.


Śyāmasundara: By culture.


Prabhupāda: Yes. One class of human being...


Śyāmasundara: But everyone is looking for money. You said the field worker is not the same as, or is the same as the carpenter, because they're both looking for money.


Prabhupāda: Yes. But one who knows how to earn money very easily, and one may not know. That is culture. That is culture. One man is sitting in one place earning daily one lakhs of rupees.


Śyāmasundara: So big industrialists and field workers are two different species of men.


Prabhupāda: Not species, class. Jāti.


Śyāmasundara: Jāti. So when you say 400,000 species of human life...


Prabhupāda: It is difference of culture.


Śyāmasundara: It's different from what we think of as species.


Prabhupāda: Culture.


Devotee: It's not species in the bodily...


Karandhara: So the angle of vision is not from the bodily, it's from the closeness of the soul to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, as far as they're able...


Prabhupāda: Unless you accept soul and consciousness, there cannot be question of culture.


Śyāmasundara: But when the scientists say "species," they mean different types of bodies.


Prabhupāda: Yes. We say 400,000 different forms of body, so human body, just like Negroes, they are also human beings, and you are also human beings. So this, scientists will say they are all one species, human being. But we say that Negro culture and the Āryan culture is different.


Śyāmasundara: They also say their bodies are different, Negroid bodies or Caucasian bodies, or Oriental bodies...


Prabhupāda: Then you can say species. Species and the different bodies.


Śyāmasundara: Species means different bodies. too


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Karandhara: So the consciousness, the body, or my form, it's pertaining to my consciousness, the development of my consciousness.


Prabhupāda: Yes. You and your brother may be of the same type of body; there may not be a different, same type of consciousness.


Śyāmasundara: But you just said, for instance, the industrialist and farmers are two different species of men, but there could be a Negro industrialist...


Prabhupāda: I already said that. Why don't you listen? Species, definition of the scientists is different from ours. We say class.


Śyāmasundara: I'm trying to understand, because you said class but then you also said bodies. Negro bodies are different from white Caucasian bodies.


Prabhupāda: Maybe difference of bodies. But that does not...; therefore our classification on the basis of soul. The soul is equal. In spite of different types of body, the soul is one. There is no change of the soul. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that he does not see the species or the class or definition. He sees one: paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ [Bg. 5.18]. Paṇḍita, one who sees to the (indistinct), the soul, he does not find any difference of these species or (indistinct). This is our point.


Karandhara: So Darwin and similar material scientists, they have no information of the soul, but yet they're...


Prabhupāda: There they're missing the whole point.


Karandhara: But they're trying to find out information for themselves, and for others around them, but not knowing who they are, they're drawing on a material platform which is infinite, or at least infinite as far as their capacity to understand. So not only will they never be able to understand the material, the construction of the material arrangement, but at ultimate issue it has no pertinence, anyway. It doesn't mean anything.


Śyāmasundara: No. It does mean something if you accept that forms are evolving from simple to complex. That means that we can expect in the future that mankind will even be of a more superior nature than they are now.


Prabhupāda: Forms are... One form is superior than the other form. (indistinct) you said.


Karandhara: That possibility is also there. We know that by performances of certain types of sacrifices you can become, and go to the demigod planet...


Prabhupāda: That difference is that one apartment is better than the other apartment. Material.


Śyāmasundara: They would say that from the lowest apartments we are evolving to the better apartments.


Prabhupāda: Yes. So according to your position. Just like if you... There are different apartments: first-class apartments, second-class apartments, third-class apartment. But as you are fit to pay the rent or price, then you are allowed to enter in the apartment. The apartments are already there—first-class, second-class, third-class. They are not evolving.


Śyāmasundara: They say all living things on this earth are evolving in that way, from lower to higher. In the history of the earth...


Prabhupāda: That also may be accepted, because just like at certain period, people are constructing a certain type of apartment, next stage they construct a different type of apartment. That can be accepted. But the apartment itself is not evolving; the evolution is taking, of the apartment, on the desire of something else.


Śyāmasundara: On the desire of something else.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: So just like...


Prabhupāda: That they do not know.


Śyāmasundara: Oh, I see. Just like...


Prabhupāda: They say simply the apartment is changing.


Śyāmasundara: Just like if it suddenly got cold, the spirit soul would desire to be warm so he would evolve a body with hair.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That we say. That is our..., according to the mentality at the time of death you get another apartment. But the apartment is already there.


Śyāmasundara: I see. So if conditions suddenly change...


Prabhupāda: Change of mind.


Śyāmasundara: ...a new apartment would arrive on the scene because the...


Prabhupāda: Not will arrive, it is already there.


Karandhara: Simply awarded.


Prabhupāda: It is already there.


Karandhara: The material nature has it in its closet...


Prabhupāda: Yes. "If you want this, come on, here."


Karandhara: ...that, that dress...


Prabhupāda: "If you want this, come on here." It is already there.


Śyāmasundara: And then all the others will die out and that new one will begin, because the...


Prabhupāda: Everyone will die. Everyone will die means change his apartment. Now at the time of changing apartments... Suppose I am here, I have to change another, so I can select my apartment, what kind of apartment I shall have. But that apartment is already there. I'll have to simply make arrangement, that's all. It is not that I am creating that apartment.


Śyāmasundara: The elements, material elements, ingredients are already there.


Prabhupāda: Already there.


Karandhara: The possibilities are unlimited so it's not possible to make such a close...


Prabhupāda: And that apartment is fixed up 8,400,000. Now you can enter into any apartment. Or it is to be ascertained that you cannot think beyond this. Just like a hotel owner, he has got different types of apartments, and he knows the customer cannot think beyond it. So any customer wants, "I'll give this apartment." So by nature's way there are 8,400,000's of apartments. You simply change according to your mentality: "I want this," "All right. Come on."


Karandhara: There's a range. To go back to the...


Prabhupāda: It is, apartment is not evolving. I am evolving in this sense that I am changing one apartment to a better apartment. The better apartment is already there.


Śyāmasundara: To go back to this survival of the fittest theory, supposing we are all here and the water comes, like you said. Supposing one of these persons in Los Angeles has the ability to breathe in water, somehow or other he can breathe under water...


Prabhupāda: So we have no objection.


Śyāmasundara: So he survives; everyone else...


Prabhupāda: He survives means... He survives means that even if he's dead, that does not mean that the species is dead. There is another human being in another part of the world.


Śyāmasundara: I accept that, but I mean I want to...


Prabhupāda: So you say that because he does not survive, the whole species is extinct.


Śyāmasundara: No. But he survives..., one man survives because he is able to breathe in the water.


Karandhara: But how is he able to breathe in the water?


Śyāmasundara: Because he's adapted, he's mutated somehow.


Karandhara: But what has been that selective principle that he's adapted?


Śyāmasundara: According to you, you say it's his desire.


Karandhara: But the selective, active principle...


Prabhupāda: But the fact is that you do not find anyone that one can breathe within the water.


Śyāmasundara: No. That's only an example.


Prabhupāda: But you should give example which is proper.


Śyāmasundara: All right. There is a fish called a lungfish, which... Most fish have gills, they breathe underwater with their gills, they extract oxygen from water. But there's one fish in Africa that has developed lungs, so that, because it lives in an area where the water sometimes goes away, so it must be able to breathe oxygen from the air. So they say out of millions of fish in that water, one happened to have a pair of lungs, so he survived.


Prabhupāda: So we say that means he was already existing. We say there are 900,000 of species of fishes. He may be one of them, that's all.


Śyāmasundara: So the selective principle is there, but all species are already there.


Prabhupāda: Already there, existing.


Karandhara: The selection will simply be dictated by... The so-called observance of selection is just the circumstance. The water's going away, so...


Prabhupāda: The selection of the species of life. I can select. From fish, I can become man; from man I can become fish.


Śyāmasundara: So that fish desired to survive in that condition.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: I see.


Prabhupāda: Therefore there is a greater law. Just like the hotel people, he has got experience. The customers come and they want this sort of facilities. So he has made all the facilities here to receive all kinds of customers. Similarly, this is God's creation. He knows how much a living entity can think of, so He has made all these species. If he thinks like this, "Come on, here," nature will, "Yes." Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi [Bg. 3.27]. Nature is offering facility, "Yes, come on." God, Kṛṣṇa as Paramātmā within the heart, He knows, He wants this. He wants this, immediately nature, "Give him this apartment," and nature offers, "Yes. Come on. Here is apartment." This is real explanation.


Śyāmasundara: So I understand that, and I'll accept that, but the one thing I'm still puzzled on is that there's no geological evidence that in former times on this planet there were more complex forms...


Prabhupāda: Why you are taking geological evidence as final? Why you are taking that? That is final?


Śyāmasundara: But it's logical...


Prabhupāda: What logic? Science is progressing. You cannot say that this is final.


Karandhara: Scientists couldn't deny; they could just say that we haven't found any evidence.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: But until there's something that disproves it to me, then I must accept it, because it..., because it's logical.


Karandhara: But that's a false platform. I'll conclude on the basis of my limited knowledge because I don't have the perfect knowledge. That's an abortion of the whole scientific...


Śyāmasundara: Yes. All right. You can say that I've never seen a purple man, so there must be no such thing as a purple man. You can say that, but as far as I can operate within my practicality, there are no purple men. I've never seen one; no one has ever seen purple men. So isn't this logical?


Prabhupāda: Purple men?


Śyāmasundara: I'm just using it as an example.


Prabhupāda: What is that purple men? But you have not also seen, why you are speaking like that?


Śyāmasundara: I'm using it as an example of an exception.


Prabhupāda: No, no. What, you are scientist, what you have never seen, why you are thinking of like that? That is my point.


Śyāmasundara: I'm using it as an example of an exception...


Prabhupāda: Why example? Why you give a fictitious example which you have no experience?


Śyāmasundara: All right. So let's say no one has ever seen a...


Prabhupāda: No, no. That is another thing. You cannot say which you have never seen, at least. Because yours is experimental, I may say, but you at least, cannot say like that.


Śyāmasundara: I have excavated in all parts of the world, and every time I go to the...


Prabhupāda: No. You have not excavated all parts of the world. That is another nonsense. You have not done this.


Śyāmasundara: Well, on seven continents I have excavated...


Prabhupāda: But that seven continents is not the whole world. That is our charge. That you are claiming that you have excavated all. We say no, not even an insignificant portion. So your knowledge is limited. (indistinct) they say the same (indistinct), Dr. Frog. Dr. Frog is limited within the three-feet well. If he says "I have seen everything," that is not acceptable.


Śyāmasundara: But at least in thousands of places they have bored into the earth or dug into the earth, and they've found...


Prabhupāda: Yes. Thousands of places is not this finishing, the whole planet.


Karandhara: They're always coming up with something new. They're having to revise their theory. Just like that pamphlet. They had to revise the whole theory about Carbon 14 because they found a new factor in the deterioration in the element which they never before considered...


Prabhupāda: This experimental knowledge is always imperfect. Because they are experimenting with imperfect senses, therefore they must be imperfect. Our source of knowledge is different. We do not depend on experimental knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: Let us say that the remains of every animal, every living entity that has ever been found in the ground...


Prabhupāda: That is also a limited space. You cannot say you have excavated a portion of the earth and that is all. You cannot say.


Śyāmasundara: So far, anyway.


Prabhupāda: So far means that is not all. That is, so far, as soon as it is so far, that is not all.


Śyāmasundara: But, so surely we must be practical and say that every...


Prabhupāda: Practical means...


Karandhara: We can only operate on things that we have...


Prabhupāda: Practical means which is beyond your knowledge, beyond your capacity, that is impractical. So nothing is practical.


Śyāmasundara: How can I theorize there were other or higher forms...


Prabhupāda: You theorize partially, as far as. That is not perfect(?).


Śyāmasundara: If I accept your knowledge, how can I theorize that there were higher forms of life millions of years ago if I have never found any evidence and I have searched...


Prabhupāda: This is the evidence. This is the evidence. You have to see through the evidence, because there are, in the evolution there are so many species of life, say 8,400,000, they are all existing now. They are all existing now. Therefore why should I conclude that millions of years they did not exist?


Śyāmasundara: You say they are all existing now, but I don't see the dinosaur. There are no dinosaurs on this planet.


Prabhupāda: That is not the denied. Dinosaur you may not have seen, it may be existing some other... Neither I have seen the 8,400,000 different species of, different forms of life. But my source of knowledge is different. Your source of knowledge is different. You are experimenter with imperfect senses. I am taking from the perfect who has seen, who knows things. Therefore my knowledge is perfect. Just the same example: I am receiving knowledge from my mother, "Here is your father," and you are trying to search out where is your father. You don't go to the mother, but you are searching out. So therefore, however you may search, your knowledge always will be imperfect.


Śyāmasundara: And your knowledge says that millions of years ago there were higher forms of living entities on this planet.


Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Because our Vedic information is that the first creation is the most intellect, that is the most intellectual personality within this universe, Brahmā. So how we can say..., how we can accept your theory that intellect develops? We are receiving Vedic knowledge from Brahmā, so perfect. So that is the evidence. The first creature was so perfect.


Karandhara: You are accepting authority anyway. We are accepting Darwin's authority that he went to these islands and found these animals. How do we know he went to the islands and found the animals?


Śyāmasundara: Because you can go there now and find them; they are still there.


Karandhara: But you have to go there to make, to make your point and deduct it. [break]


Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...when it will be cause of all his existence, survival for the fittest, but he is not going into the, who posed this, how it has been done, how it is going to that theory, so his theories are not complete.


Prabhupāda: His theory, it is not science. It is suggestion, guess.


Śyāmasundara: They call it "doctrine of natural selection," not theory.


Prabhupāda: Doctrine. So doctrine, doctrine should be fact, but Darwin's theory, so far... It is called Darwin's theory...


Śyāmasundara: It's not called theory, it's doctrine. It should be doctrine.


Karandhara: What they mean by doctrine is that they can't agree on it and say it's fact. That there's so many short-comings that they will call it a doctrine but they won't call it fact. That's practically the whole story in scientific research: the real scientists, they never call anything a solid fact; it's always a theory or a doctrine because they never find a perfect enough conclusion which takes into account everything and perfectly reconciles...


Prabhupāda: What is that uncertainty? What do you call that?


Śyāmasundara: It's called Theory of Uncertainty. Heisenberg's Theory of Uncertainty.


Prabhupāda: That is also theory.


Śyāmasundara: Yes. That has to do with atomic particles.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Accepting the (indistinct), early in 1900 when they find out the smallest particle in the atom, it was a theory; it was accepted for about ten, twenty years.


Śyāmasundara: That was long before, in Greek times, Democritus.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the real theory started by Darwin, that was accepted for several years, but later on, with new advancement, his theory changed. His theory became disproved, that "What you are saying, it is not right, it is not final." So theories can change. So same thing, Darwin's theory is also changing.


Śyāmasundara: But his impact upon the thinking of the world so completely changed the whole conception of...


Prabhupāda: That is now changing again. So what is the use of that, such change?


Śyāmasundara: Well, you have to investigate, because he is important for our...


Prabhupāda: No. That's all right. We will investigate; and a theory which changes, it will change, that's all. It is not a fact. The sun rising is a fact. It cannot change.


Śyāmasundara: Still, you say if there were high forms of, say Brahmā, in Brahmā's time or millions of years ago, there were also other high animals besides men?


Prabhupāda: All I say is that all kinds of different classes of forms were existing, since the creation.


Śyāmasundara: On this planet there were higher forms?


Prabhupāda: Why are you taking this planet? We are talking of the whole creation. In the creation everything is there.


Śyāmasundara: If you expect me to understand this, I have to see it on this planet.


Prabhupāda: That is not knowledge.


Karandhara: Possibly there were and possibly there weren't.


Śyāmasundara: You tell me that Rāma and some other higher creatures lived on this planet so many millions of years ago, so I can expect some day to find evidence of that?


Prabhupāda: The evidence is the authority, Vedic literature.


Karandhara: What other authority will you accept? If you dig up a bone and make a test with your own senses and accept that as an authority...


Prabhupāda: Bone authority. So you will be satisfied with your own authority. We have got our different... If you don't accept my authority, then I don't accept your authority.


Śyāmasundara: It would just seem if there were bones surviving for millions of years, why not cities, why not chariots, why not...?


Prabhupāda: Yes. During Rāmacandra's time there were chariots. Everything was there.


Karandhara: They have found pieces of chariots and pieces of cities.


Śyāmasundara: Not millions of years ago.


Karandhara: How do they know it's not millions of years ago? What is their test for proving?


Prabhupāda: That millions, that is also bogus. You see? In the human history there is no history more than three thousand years. They are talking of millions of years. Why?


Śyāmasundara: You are a scientist. What other ways do they date geological findings? How do they date them?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Now it is Carbon 14 is the most reliable technique.


Śyāmasundara: Before they discovered that, how did they do it? They knew the Pleistocene, the Iocene, all these different ages. How did they date them?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: I do know how....


Karandhara: They all remain their own postulation according to their own sense impressions, and because the initial format is imperfect, the conclusion has to be imperfect. So knowledge always remains fallible and mutable, whatever basis they put it on. It is what they have derived out of their own sense impressions, imperfect.


Śyāmasundara: Yes, admitted, but I say that...


Karandhara: So dealing on a whole range of imperfection and deduction...


Śyāmasundara: Anyone can argue on that level and say anything, but what I want to know are the facts.


Karandhara: The facts are there, but you can accept the facts as Darwin presents them or as the Vedas present them or as anyone presents them.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: These are all controlled by the force of nature. For example, we do not find evidence, scientific evidence, so-called they've got from eight hundred thousand years ago. That does not mean anything. It is all subject to the course of nature. So maybe it just changed with the earth turning. (indistinct) That does not mean that it did not exist.


Śyāmasundara: If I'm a Darwinist; I'm still not convinced. Because you still haven't proven to me that the layers of earth that are far, far below are not millions of years old. You say that they may be newly formed, but...


Karandhara: They haven't proven that they are millions of years old.


Śyāmasundara: Well, I'm not a geologist...


Prabhupāda: My charge is that you cannot give history of human society more than three thousand years; how you speak of millions of years? That is my charge.


Śyāmasundara: Written history...


Prabhupāda: No. Suppose a child says that "Millions of years ago it happened like this," but I will say (to) the child, "You were born three years ago. How you speak of millions of years?" That is my charge.


Śyāmasundara: I don't know how geologists date earth layers...


Prabhupāda: They bluff everything.


Śyāmasundara: But even if, let's say the deepest layer is only five hundred years old, but still the ones on top are newer. So in the lowest layer, there are no chariots, cities...


Prabhupāda: We can rather believe the Bhagavad-gītā, who gives a description of one, twelve hours duration of life, millions of years. So we can believe such authority. You can actually gain...


Śyāmasundara: Just like when you are dreaming, you may think it's millions of years, and it's only five minutes. You wake up and you've only been asleep five minutes. even though it seems like millions of years.


Prabhupāda: And actually, according to modern scientists, the law of relativity, so everyone speaks with his relative knowledge. It is not perfect. Everyone speaks to his relative knowledge, that's all. Therefore we should accept knowledge from a person who is not within this relativity.


Śyāmasundara: There is also some scientific evidence that where there is land now, it was once water, and where there is water now, it was once land. That the oceans reversed...


Prabhupāda: Yes. That we accept.


Śyāmasundara: ...so it's quite possible that if there were great civilizations existing, that they are all, all remains are swallowed. There's no trace.


Prabhupāda: That is, everyday you see. One day we walk on the beaches, and the next day it is covered with water. That is not very difficult to understand. But when the covered with water portion you cannot experiment, how you can say what is there within? Has Darwin gone within the sea, layers, studied the bottom of the sea?


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Where it has become land. And you find that there are sea shells, sea animals, in the layer, in the next layer up more complex forms, in the next layer more complex forms...


Prabhupāda: I mean to say, but there is already sea. Has he gone down the sea and excavated the level of the sea, gone down?


Karandhara: Even if they discount...


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160796&page=3

Discussions with Syamasundara dasa
Charles Darwin



Prabhupāda: That you do not know. That you do not know. Not that he knows. Because we cannot accept that. Nobody has said that they have excavated down the bottom of the sea. But you also said that bottom may be opened at one, some time. So unless it is opened, your experiment is insufficient.


Karandhara: Even if you were to grant that the first life forms on this planet were simple one-celled life, that does not mean that more complex life did not begin earlier on other planets. The theory is not aborted. It may be you can discount the possibility of...


Prabhupāda: The whole thing is that Dr. Frog, famous story. He comes to this country, Dr. Frog's understanding. He has studied the three-feet-wide well, and he says he is satisfied with that. He has nothing to do with the Atlantic Ocean. But Atlantic Ocean is also a reservoir of water, and that well is also a reservoir of water. But (there is a) vast difference. So we take knowledge of who has created Atlantic Ocean. Therefore our knowledge is perfect. What do you say?


Śyāmasundara: I just want to try to cover this from every angle so that Darwinists will not be able to argue. Today I'd like to find out how they date earth layers, how geologists find...


Prabhupāda: No. Your geologists have given, "It may be millions of years ago." They say like that.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: They estimate.


Prabhupāda: Estimate.


Śyāmasundara: They estimate, but there must be some basis for their estimation.


Karandhara: They don't even agree amongst one another. They argue. I attended college with scientists, and they argue amongst one another. They don't agree on their own scientific evidence.


Śyāmasundara: But at least they all agree that there is several million years old, many millions of years old, at least.


Karandhara: No. Not necessarily.


Śyāmasundara: The Pleistocene two hundred million years...


Karandhara: Just an assembly of fools. You can get all the fools to agree on the same thing. It doesn't make anyone...


Śyāmasundara: Well I still want to find out how they...


Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa nāma koro bhai ar sab niche, parai gab pap nahi yoni ache piche (?). Our real problem is birth, death. All these scientist, they could not solve any of these problems, neither they could answer. Maybe Darwin's cam(?) has died. They could not stop death. Kata choto dayana na mari meri jao (?).


Śyāmasundara: Tomorrow we can discuss ethical evolution, how ethics evolved. That is also part of his doctrine.


Prabhupāda: Ethic morality?


Śyāmasundara: How morality is also a product of evolution.


Prabhupāda: We change morality within six months. The most immoral man, you can make the most moral man within six months. This is practically happening.


Śyāmasundara: It also helps the fittest to survive.


Prabhupāda: You may not be fit, but we can make you fit.


Śyāmasundara: That's what I mean. If you become moral you become fittest to survive. That is also his theory, doctrine.


Prabhupāda: Yes. So that we can do within six months.


Śyāmasundara: He says that at some point a man who had developed sympathy for others, he was able to survive because he would cooperate with them to survive when others were killing each other, like that. So gradually morality also evolved. Tomorrow maybe we should finish Darwin. [break]


Prabhupāda: An animal is put in some certain atmosphere, he adjusts. But there are different types animals. Just like we see while walking (in) severe cold, we try to adjust by covering. Others, the birds, the skylark, the so on, they do not adjust.


Śyāmasundara: His finding is that new types of species will come out, which will be better adapted. The swans, if it becomes too cold, they will die.


Prabhupāda: They are better than us, than human being?


Atreya Ṛṣi: What the theory is Prabhupāda is that, for example, if there are many, many swans living in one place, those who cannot adjust will be extinct after many, many years, and those who can adjust will live. In effect, what he tried to prove was that Kṛṣṇa's law, nature's law, is perfect. But he was missing Kṛṣṇa. In other words, what the proof is very scientific, but it is lacking.


Prabhupāda: Yes. He is adding zero, without one.


Atreya Ṛṣi: That's right, Prabhupāda.


Prabhupāda: Therefore the value remains zero. He couldn't find the one, so that the value of the zeroes at once increases.


Atreya Ṛṣi: But there are some great scientists like Newton who studied many, many, many years and made many, many theories and then they gave it up when they realized that they couldn't go further. Newton, at a very early age, like forty-three I think, went to a monastery.


Śyāmasundara: We discussed Newton's philosophy.


Prabhupāda: Sir Isaac Newton?


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Long ago, in Africa.


Prabhupāda: No, he was Englishman.


Śyāmasundara: No, but in Africa we discussed his philosophy.


Prabhupāda: He died at the age of twenty-three. His picture is there in Westminster Abbey.


Śyāmasundara: His tomb, his grave. He is buried there.


Prabhupāda: Westminster Abbey has become now a museum.


Śyāmasundara: Graveyard and museum.


Prabhupāda: People go to see, tourist.


Śyāmasundara: I think it cost us sixteen shillings for us to see. Remember we saw King (indistinct). So they're making some money.


Prabhupāda: Yes. For some period, Elizabeth to Queen Victoria, the English nation advanced in so many ways. They wanted to record it that they are the greatest nation in the world. But the basic principle was how to get money from outside in London. That was the basic thing. By advertising there... Actually by nature they are very impoverished. They have no sufficient food, even; their nature. And they wanted to be greatest nation. By nature they are not very much favored. Now they are coming again in the lap of nature.


Śyāmasundara: Darwin's theory about them would be that because their environment was not very suitable for farming or mining, no natural resources, therefore their brains developed and they were able to survive.


Prabhupāda: That we accept. That we accept, that we have to adjust things according to circumstances. That is acceptable. But finally, if God does not approve of it, it does not happen. Pratividhi. Pratividhi, counteraction. Tavat tanu-bhrtāṁ tvad-upekṣitānām. Pratividhi. We make counteractivities for adjusting things, but unless it is approved by the Supreme Lord, that adjustment also will not be very much helpful. Bālasya neha pitarau nṛsiṁha. Just like a small child, the nature's way is the parent has got affection to take care. At that time, if the parents do not take care, the child cannot live. But the parents' taking care is not all. If the child is condemned by the Supreme Lord, in spite of the parents taking care, it will not be happy, or it will not exist. Parents' care is natural. Generally it so happens by the parents' care the child is happy, but in spite of parents' care the child is unhappy, then you have to go to the Lord. Is it not? Just like when a man is diseased, the counteraction is physician, medicine. Generally it is expected by attendance of good physician or using good medicine, diet, the patient becomes cured. But it is also seen that in spite of all careful attention, scientific medicine, he dies. Then what is that?


Śyāmasundara: Darwin would say he wasn't well enough equipped to survive.


Prabhupāda: That is the deficiency, that you will not be well equipped if Kṛṣṇa doesn't wish you to survive. That means you will not be able to counteract with all the counteractions. You cannot.


Atreya Ṛṣi: In other words, Prabhupāda, nature's arrangements, you are saying is Kṛṣṇa's arrangement. In other words, when Kṛṣṇa wishes something it happens in a natural way.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Atreya Ṛṣi: Not in an unnatural way, but in a natural way. But it is still Kṛṣṇa's desire.


Prabhupāda: Yes. This is all just like a child is protected by the parents, that is also natural. But in spite of his taking care, the child dies, suffers, that is also natural.


Śyāmasundara: Just like some children are born with blood disease or some incurable disease; the parents take all care, but they still have to die young.


Prabhupāda: Yes. So then it is to be understood that different natural laws are working, and they are working under one controller, and that is God. Just like we are taking so many services from this electricity current, but all this electricity current are working under one leader in the powerhouse, the resident engineer. From him, the original electricity current is coming, is generated. And we are utilizing the same current in different varieties, purposes. So then, just like electric current, the same electric current working in this machine, in a way; another machine another way. It may be contradiction, but the power is the same. According to the machine, the same example: one machine is cooler, one machine is heater, although the current is the same. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport]. Everywhere God's energy is working as if natural.


Śyāmasundara: Just like a tiger's body and a deer's body—the tiger kills the deer, but the same current is working in both. One survives, one does not survive.


Prabhupāda: Nobody will survive. (laughter) This is called karma. This is activity. The body is the field of activity. You are given license to act with this body for some time. That's all. No question of survival. Nobody will survive. You can act for some time.


Śyāmasundara: By survival he means species. The species will survive.


Prabhupāda: Any species. Nobody will survive. That is also false theory. Nobody will survive. Where is the species that is surviving?


Śyāmasundara: Just like horses. Horses, they have found in the fossils and millions of years ago, they say millions of years ago horses were there. Slightly different forms, but still they were horses.


Prabhupāda: So different forms, just like human beings, formerly they were very tall, and they are reducing their stature, and at the end of Kali-yuga they will be stature like this. So this is not change of the species. This is changing, just like your father is taller than you, is he not? Is he not taller?


Śyāmasundara: No. I'm taller than he is. But they say because our generation got better foodstuffs than our parents.


Prabhupāda: So therefore, according to circumstances, the stature is changing. It is not the species. It is the same human, but formerly the human being was taller, stouter; now they are reducing in strength, in stature, in memory, in duration of life, span of life, in mercy. That is stated in Bhāgavatam. They do not change every species.


Atreya Ṛṣi: This changing of human size also may be a scientific thing, scientifically because of our conditions, because of our state of consciousness and because of the conditions...


Prabhupāda: Yes. Under certain conditions, changing.


Atreya Ṛṣi: And we will be changing, and this change will... [break]


Śyāmasundara: ...research. They found that atomic particles vibrate at a certain frequency, a certain rate of vibration, and that elements such as lead, iron, all the different chemical elements, disintegrate gradually. The atomic particles vibrate out of the element and change the structure of the element gradually, and this is a constant—what they call—life of the element, and the constant number of years before it disintegrates into some other element. So this life they have measured, and they have a table or a chart, and by this half-life formula they can determine how old a rock is by how quickly the isotopes are disintegrating. So according to their calculation, the layers of the earth go down for many millions of years; and in those lower layers, millions of years old, there is either no form of life or very, very simple forms of life only. There is no evidence of any complex forms.


Prabhupāda: Bolo... (Bengali—to Svarūpa Dāmodara)


Svarūpa Dāmodara: The age of the rocks, by determining by scientific techniques, find how old the rock (indistinct) is, and how correct it is. So I asked (indistinct) of this department, Professor Roland, and he told me that (indistinct) such and such, I mean the rocks coming from the moon, brought by astronauts. They calculate that by this (indistinct) technique, they find that they are about three to fourteen million years old, these rocks from the moon, the moon samples. But that does not give the real age of the rocks. He told me that what you call the age means how long that crystal... For example they tried to find out the crystals like iridium and strontium crystals, that the method that they use is strontium iridium technique and so he told me that the age, this age, about three times three billion years old, that means that crystal containing that iridium model has crystallized for that long year, that gives the age. They do not know how long it has been there


Śyāmasundara: The rock is at least three billion years; maybe it's older.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, maybe older, but it does not give the exact age. We do not know.


Śyāmasundara: But the point is that they have determined that there are rock structures in the earth very, very, very, very old and that these contain no evidence of any complex forms of life. So that if there is a statement that there were higher forms of life millions of years ago existing on this planet, there has been no evidence ever found of that.


Prabhupāda: So why they're trying to find out evidence from the rocks, not from any other source?


Śyāmasundara: Well as civilizations come and go, they leave remains, evidence behind of their...


Prabhupāda: "Civilization goes" means? Where goes?


Śyāmasundara: Well, if people come and they...


Prabhupāda: Do they come, and they are still living? They are still there? Just like my great-grand..., great-grandfather was living. So I am his descendant.


Śyāmasundara: But where is he?


Prabhupāda: Where is he? You want to see him? Therefore you (indistinct).


Śyāmasundara: No. I want to find his remains.


Prabhupāda: You want to see my great-great-great-great-grandfather?


Śyāmasundara: But he must have left some remains.


Prabhupāda: I am the remaining. I am his descendant.


Śyāmasundara: But he made no tools, or he had no house?


Prabhupāda: Who said? You said. You said that there may not, but because my fore... I can make tools; naturally, my grandfather, he can make too. And what is there making tools?


Śyāmasundara: No. But why weren't there any tools left behind for us to find, remnants?


Prabhupāda: What?


Śyāmasundara: Why no remains of tools or other evidence of other men.


Prabhupāda: What is the use of tools? Tools are used for the carpenters, and we are not carpenters.


Śyāmasundara: But if there were high forms of men living...


Prabhupāda: Then he's (indistinct) with the carpenters, not the philosophers.


Śyāmasundara: ...they must have lived in cities.


Prabhupāda: My forefathers were philosophers. They did not require any tools.


Śyāmasundara: They required no houses?


Prabhupāda: No. Even they required, they called some carpenter and they did it.


Śyāmasundara: Yes. My point is that there...


Prabhupāda:Because there is no tools, therefore there is no civilization?


Śyāmasundara: But tools, not... Houses or anything that men have to use, there should be some remains left behind when their civilization...


Prabhupāda: What is remains? Remains means just like the coal, that is the remains.


Śyāmasundara: Coal.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Coal is the remains of trees, plants...


Prabhupāda: Yes. This is the remains.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Coal, oil, petroleum.


Śyāmasundara: That means there was some evidence that there were... If we look in coal beds we find remains of trees that were very simple, no complex forms of trees. Now trees are much more complex.


Prabhupāda: Complex or simple, it doesn't matter. There were trees.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, the coal doesn't say whether the tree was complex or not.


Śyāmasundara: No, but they find impressions from leaves and the carboniferous age, they find that the remains of trees, plants, twigs, all very simple forms like our (indistinct). Today they're more...


Prabhupāda: Our evidence is intelligence, not with tools and (indistinct). Our evidence is intelligence. We find, we get Vedic information by disciplic succession-highly intelligent. So that is our evidence. Not the tools.


Śyāmasundara: The Scripture. The evidence which is written and spoken in...


Prabhupāda: Yes. And that is coming by śruti, by hearing. Just like Vyāsadeva heard from Nārada, Nārada heard from Brahmā, millions and millions of years ago. If you take, according to our calculation, Brahmā's age, Brahmā's one day we cannot calculate. It is now some, so many millions of years past, and still it is not even Brahmā's one day. So many millions of years. Because in Brahmā's one day seventy-two..., fourteen, fourteen Manus come and go. And each Manu's age is seventy-two millennium. One millennium means 4,300,000's of years. So such seventy-two millennium makes complete one Manu's life, and there are fourteen Manus in Brahmā's one day. So millions and trillions and billions of years, that is not very astonishing to us, because it is not even one day of Brahmā. That Brahmā was born, and intelligent philosophy is still existing from the date of Brahmā's birth. Brahmā was first educated by God. That is our calculation. So we get in the Vedas such intelligent information; therefore we understand that our forefather was very, very learned(?).


Śyāmasundara: For instance, the Sanskrit language was so perfect...


Prabhupāda: Yes, Sanskrit language, everything, wonderful. So we are not carpenters, that we have to find out tools. We are brāhmaṇas.


Śyāmasundara: So if the earth is so old, for instance, it could have undergone many transformations...


Prabhupāda: Yes. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. After one day of Brahmā there is devastation. So Brahmā lives for one hundred years according to his calculation. So each day there is devastation. So so many devastation passes in one month of Brahmā, then such twelve months makes one year, and such hundred years will be. So there is no calculation of devastation, how many devastations. In Brahmā's one day it is calculated 5,400 Manus are born in one month of Brahmā. So our calculation is like that. We are not very much amazed of hearing millions and trillions. It is nothing. In our historical reference is billions and trillions of years. They are nothing.


Śyāmasundara: So even though several million years ago they find no evidence in the rocks...


Prabhupāda: That does not mean that there is no civilization. That is their imperfect knowledge.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, our so-called modern scientific stories, knowledge is so empiric it's now (indistinct) on complete proof. It is always stands to have objectionable work, sides; so it is not perfect at all. Just like from Śrīla Prabhupāda's book on the Easy Journey to Other Planets, Śrīla Prabhupāda mentioned the discovery of the anti-proton, by the scientists who got the Nobel Prizes in 1959, and Prabhupāda gives all information from Bhagavad-gītā, anything, is already there; Prabhupāda has said it. They say anti-proton... They just discovered the anti-proton, but they still think it is some matter, that is not..., they say anti-proton but still they think that it is connected with matter. But Prabhupāda said it is not matter, it is spirit. Differentiation between matter and anti-matter. Matter is material thing; anti-matter is spirit or (indistinct). So Prabhupāda comments so nicely about the so-called modern scientists to do further research on this concept of anti-matter. Perhaps they will come to an understanding about the spirit, they come to a point. Our knowledge is what you call a modern scientific findings or evidences always subject to changes also...


Prabhupāda: This must be changing because the instruments by which we acquire knowledge, they are imperfect. So by our so-called research and sensuous acceptance of knowledge, that is never perfect. It cannot be perfect.


Śyāmasundara: Just like they say that the rate of disintegration of the atomic particles of an element is constant. But it may not be constant; perhaps in earlier times it was faster or slower, there are so many possibilities.


Prabhupāda: Yes. So the so-called scientists and philosophers who do not follow the system of (sic:) ascending knowledge, knowledge received from higher authorities, they are not perfect. They cannot have any perfect knowledge, either research work with the blunt imperfect senses. They will not... So whatever they say, we take it as imperfect-dream. And when Kṛṣṇa says that "I enter into the universes," viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthito jagat [Bg. 10.42]. Now the weightlessness of the planets, the scientists describe in so many ways, but that is not very perfect. What is the cause of weightlessness? I have, what is called, (indistinct).


Śyāmasundara: That because of the orbits, different orbits of the planets cause weightlessness.


Karandhara: Centrifugal force.


Prabhupāda: Centrifugal.


Śyāmasundara: When planets go around the sun they go in such a speed, that there is no mass.


Prabhupāda: So, but who has set on the speed? How the speed is going on? That is not explained. But we have got our explanation. Kṛṣṇa says that "I enter into each and every universe and planet, and I keep them floating." That is understandable. Just like we have, in our childhood we used to, I mean to say, fly paper balloon by forcing into it some camphor smoke. Did you do it? We did this in our childhood. Such a big paper balloon, and then you take camphor, so much, and we struck up and burn it, and camphor is burning, it is producing too much—what is called—black smoke; and it becomes big, big smoke, it goes, very nice. So if the camphor smoke entered into the paper balloon can fly it, then God cannot fly all the universes by entering into it?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Another example is lot of these astronauts going to the moon, and sometimes they are afraid, they call the transition from the earth's gravitational force and the moon's gravitational force, there is a layer, this transition from one to another it is very critical. So they said that when the, these rockets or these Apollo instruments either go up or go down, they have to go to a certain angle, very specific, and if the angle is slightly changed, so they'll be either circulating the moon or either they'll be circulating the earth. They'll never be able to come down or go up, but they'll be floating like... There's no control.


Prabhupāda: Without any control.


Śyāmasundara: Because where the two gravitational pulls meet, there is a certain force. If you don't pass through it at the right angle, then you are caught in it.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: If you are not going right in the angle, say for example he has to go..., he's coming down so he has to go at 45-degree angles, slanting; he has to go 45-degree angle, but it changed by mistake, say 47 degree angles, then it will never come down. He'll be just circulating around, floating.


Prabhupāda: So, in the (indistinct) stage, we are dependent on the laws of nature, and we still, we are declaring we are free from any control. We are making our own proposition and theories.


Karandhara: They're always saying their conquest over nature.


Prabhupāda: But where is the conquest of nature? Now if there is a mistake of two degrees, you have to go round forever. What is the independence? Vikathante. The exact word used in this connection in the Bhāgavata, that these people talks all nonsense, vikatha. Under the influence of illusory energy they have become mad, and they are talking all nonsense.


Śyāmasundara: I didn't know we were going to have a class today, but for the next class I wanted to read that article about heredity, genetics, how they think that they might be able to reproduce life in the future.


Prabhupāda: Again "in future."


Śyāmasundara: I have that article, I want to read it and study it first. I wasn't prepared for today.


Prabhupāda: The future... Any fool can say "In future I shall prove." Then what is the difference between scientists and the fool? "Trust no future, however pleasant."


Śyāmasundara: But Darwin is the one who introduced this whole concept that we are evolving towards something better.


Prabhupāda: That we accept. That we accept. Just like we are now in human form of life. Now we can go, can make our position better. Either we go in so many higher planetary systems or we go to Vaikuṇṭha.


Śyāmasundara: In terms of species actually living on this planet, he thinks that we have come up from apes, now we may go up to higher forms of men or species.


Prabhupāda: That is already... The apes are already there. You are also there.


Karandhara: Their idea is that if they can sufficiently understand this process of evolution and know its principles then they can control it, they can manipulate it to their own ends.


Prabhupāda: There is information.


Karandhara: They can produce their own eternal superhuman being. They know how...


Prabhupāda: Superhuman... Kṛṣṇa conscious people, they are superhuman being. They are (indistinct).


Karandhara: They had a big meeting recently in Europe of the foremost scientists, chemists, physicists and researchers, and they predicted that by the year 2050, the scientists will be able to make the superhuman eternal human being. Then they started asking themselves, "Well, who will decide? Who will play God? If we can make an eternal person or manipulate, who will decide?" What if they make a hundred Hitlers or some demoniac scientists who knows how to do this makes a hundred Hitlers. So even if their whole thing is (indistinct), they'll misuse whatever power they acquire by understanding the laws of nature. They've misused the atomic energy.


Prabhupāda: They can produce for human being, many (indistinct)?


Śyāmasundara: They call it the genetical xerox machine.


Karandhara: They can analyze someone's genes. Say they take my genes and analyze their chemical structure. They can reproduce that structure and make a hundred me's, just like me—the same brain, the same body, the same mentality, everything.


Prabhupāda: That's all right. But who made you? Just like I have written one letter; you can make a hundred copies. But I have written the letter. Similarly, there may be hundreds of copies of your personality, but who made you?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: (indistinct) about the genetic code (indistinct) concerned persons taking our material (indistinct) some people are more intelligent than others, like scientists, Einstein said he had a different brain than other people.


Prabhupāda: Our explanation is that from previous life he is modeled. That is coming. It's continuation.


Śyāmasundara: So Darwin said that also, that one's superior traits are passed on to his children, like that. And then the superior traits survive over the inferior traits, and so on.


Prabhupāda: And where he goes? After transferring to the children, where Mr. Darwin goes?


Śyāmasundara: He disintegrates into matter.


Karandhara: It's total materialism because there's no spirit, just a combination of material elements.


Prabhupāda: Then if you are going again to be mixed with the elements, then why you are bothering your head about your children?


Śyāmasundara: He's concerned on a social level...


Prabhupāda: In the beginning, in the beginning you are in the matter. By evolution you have come to, again you are going to the matter. So why you bother in the middle so much. After all, you are matter. In the beginning you are matter and at the end you're going to be matter.


Śyāmasundara: He's concerned that the society can be made better by this understanding.


Prabhupāda: So why do you concern with the society? You are going to be (indistinct). It may be better or no, but it doesn't matter.


Śyāmasundara: He had a vague idea that societies or species would evolve toward something better, so he wanted to help that evolution.


Prabhupāda: That is a fact, but not that Mr. Darwin's foolish theory that he is going to be matter. He'll remain spirit but another species of life, another form of life. That another form of life will decide whether you are degraded or elevated.


Śyāmasundara: Darwin passed on his traits to his son, Charles Darwin, and his son's great contribution to the world was that the moon was moving away from the earth at the rate of five inches per year. So what good is that knowledge?


Prabhupāda: What kind..., in what way you give such an evolution? It may be ten inches or five inches or (indistinct). That conclusion anyone can give. Any rascal can say anything, and what is the contribution? Just like modern day art. You just make your brush like this and it becomes art. You see?


Śyāmasundara: Relative values.


Prabhupāda: Relative values. Now you imagine what is there. This is the mentality.


Śyāmasundara: There's no absolute scale of value in the material world.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: They're speculating that the genes of these supposedly very intelligent people...


Prabhupāda: The superhuman being is already there in what we call demigods. Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Maheśvara, Indra, Candra, they are superhuman beings, already there. What he will make? Let him make one ant first of all. Let me see that you have made one ant; then talk of superhuman. You have not been able to create even an ant, so how do you dare to say superhuman. It is all foolishness.


Karandhara: According to modern information, man now is living longer, is more healthy and is more well off than ever before.


Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense. I have seen my grandmother lived ninety-six years, but I don't expect I shall live ninety-six years. My father did not live more than eighty-one years; so gradually the span of life is decreasing. They are not healthy enough. Decreasing means they are not getting proper food or proper bodily comforts; therefore they're decreasing their life.


Śyāmasundara: Their statistics are so open to error there's no way they can say...


Karandhara: They baffle the population. Everyone believes "Now I'm living longer. I have more chances to live a healthy life than ever before." They think this is what this modern society gives him, a chance to live longer.


Śyāmasundara: By discovering new medicines and new techniques to improve our health.


Prabhupāda: So where is the medicine which stops disease? You are discovering medicine, and many new diseases are coming out, so where is the stopper?


Karandhara: That's supposed to come. That is the promise.


Prabhupāda: Promise, a fool can promise anything. And...


Śyāmasundara: And instead all they do is...


Prabhupāda: That is a different thing.


Śyāmasundara: ...add more wars.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: President Nixon has made a promise that very shortly this cancer disease should be cured. So he has allotted a lot of money for the coming few years and he is giving to all scientists (indistinct). He is saying he is going to stop this death from cancer, but...


Prabhupāda: Suppose he stops death from cancer. Can he stop death at all?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Not at all.


Prabhupāda: Well then? What is it? He'll direct some other disease come?


Śyāmasundara: If Darwin's theory is correct, some new form of cancer will evolve which will survive...


Prabhupāda: Why? Any disease will be (indistinct). You can check the disease. Therefore our conclusion is that however scientifically you advanced you make, you cannot stop birth, death, old age and disease. That is our conclusion. So why should we waste our time for that purpose? We are utilizing our time, and after giving up this body we may go back to home, back to Godhead. That is our business. But everyone has to give up his body. Mr. Darwin and his company will give up this body like cats and dog. We shall give up this body for higher elevation of life. Therefore our philosophy is better, far better than all these things.


Śyāmasundara: There's a corollary to his theory of evolution that our standards of morality have also evolved from primitive stages. For instance, in a group, within a group of apelike creatures who were normally fighting with each other for dominance, one may develop the quality of sympathy for someone else. So by that sympathy he cooperates with the other person and together they survive when the others die. So that evolution of sympathy, morality, love, compassion—the good qualities of the human being—have evolved due to necessity, evolution, survival of the fittest.


Karandhara: The thing is this whole perspective of evolution... There doesn't have to be a sequence, that one came before the other. They all were there.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Karandhara: Just like you take a ray of the sunshine that's in this room. It's come from the sun, but simultaneously it's occurring with the sun. It's not there as a sequential evolution of that particle...


Prabhupāda: The sunshine, sunshine... Just like sunshine. You can collect time according to the sunshine. The morning sun shining is called 6 a.m., and then 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., like that. The shine. But this 6 a.m. shining will be somewhere else also, although here it is 8 a.m.


Śyāmasundara: That's a relative measurement.


Prabhupāda: So the sunshine is existing always the same. It is relatively understood by others. Otherwise sun is fixed up in his position and is shining all over the world.


Śyāmasundara: The speed of light is constant also, it is said.


Prabhupāda: Yes. It does not change as it reaches. When it may reach, it is already there.


Śyāmasundara: It takes one particle of sunlight eight minutes to travel from the sun to here.


Prabhupāda: That may be, but the sun's...


Svarūpa Dāmodara: This constant can be taken (indistinct) astronomy (indistinct).


Prabhupāda: Anyway, the sunbeam, the sunshine, is always (indistinct). How it is constantly coming? Just like heat and the fire. The heat is always coming out of the fire, always.


Karandhara: According to a point of observation, there may appear to be a sequence, or a beginning or an end or an evolution...


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160796&page=4

Charles Darwin



Śyāmasundara: If we look back-say our written history goes back three thousand years—if we look back within that span, according to Darwin, our levels of consciousness are getting increasingly higher.


Prabhupāda: No. We say lower. We say lower. Degraded.


Karandhara: They're basing their quality on whether there's a better level of consciousness and what is more (indistinct) sense gratification.


Śyāmasundara: Technical advancements, scientific. Actually, morality...


Prabhupāda: ...is degrading.


Śyāmasundara: ...hasn't evolved. The ancient Greeks had a much higher standard of morality than the British or Darwin's time.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: (indistinct) degrading (indistinct). We see every day, every moment.


Prabhupāda: So we have seen in our childhood, they're also. No voucher or receipt. I'll tell you one little story. My father was dealing in cloth. So supposing he has come, my customer, he wants so many things. So I haven't got stock all of these things, but I wrote down his order, that you are market broker, I say just get these things immediately from the market. You go to the particular person who has got the stock and you order him to my shop, "Such and such you send me." So you have ordered for say twenty, fifty men. So their men are coming with a load of cloth, and he'll simply ask the firm's name: "This is Rajaram (indistinct)?" And someone declares, "Yes, yes, yes." But no voucher. He simply asks whether this firm is Rajaram (indistinct), and somebody nods, "Yes, yes." So he drops the bundle of cloth. It may be five hundred, or thousand rupees' worth or more than that. So similarly, many porters drop, because I require so many things. Now, you are my broker, you come, you see the stack of cloth, you ask my clerk, "Just credit this from such and such firm." But firm has sent without any voucher, without any (indistinct), and the porter simply asks whether this is the same firm, and somebody nods and we (makes noise like stamping something), that's all. Then you come, you pick up so many bundles, "Just note down, 'This has come from such and such firm.' " You note down. Then my clerk notes it. This is transaction. And out of many such bundles, you find that you did not order this, "Wherefrom it came? It is not mine." So we set aside. Three days after, one (indistinct) comes, "Sir, on such and such date I dropped a bundle here which did not belong to you, so please give me this back." "Oh, you will see there are so many. What is yours you can take back." And he picks up, "Sir, this is my bundle," "All right, take it." He's unknown, but simply he comes and says that "I dropped one bundle here which does not belong to you. By mistake I dropped it," and I say, "Yes. So many bundles there are, you can take whatever is yours." This was the transaction. Then on the due payment day, those who supplied the cloths, they come to take payment and they say, "Sir, on such and such day, such and such cloth was supplied to you." No voucher, nothing. I open my book: "Yes, yes. That's all right." So he says that "This is the price and so much money is due payment." So he calculates, "Yes." So he pays the money and then, when taking money, he puts a stamp and he signs on the book. Now in the meantime, so many transactions we'll see, how much faithfully it was going on. So how much we have now became degraded: we supply something to somebody, we take three copies of voucher; one he takes, one we keep on book, one he gives (indistinct); then also he will try also, cheat, again. So much morally we have improved. I am speaking, say within, when I am child's age, now I am seventy-six. I may be fourteen, fifteen years old, like that. Fifty years ago these things were going on. Fifty or sixty. Sixty years ago the business dealings was so easy and plain.


Śyāmasundara: So to become increasingly complex—now we have computers and all—doesn't necessarily mean we are becoming more and more superior.


Prabhupāda: No. They are becoming more inferior. There is no necessity of computer machine.


Śyāmasundara: So even though there may be an evolution from simple to more complex, there's no evolution from inferior to superior.


Prabhupāda: That is not improvement. No. Now human society has become very complex. I don't trust you, you don't trust me. I keep my dog so that you may not come in my house—"Beware of Dogs"—and if you enter I can fire you, there is law. So what is this (indistinct)? Therefore we get from our śāstra that even you will receive your enemy at home, you will receive him so friendly way that he'll forget that you are his enemy. Gṛhaṁ satram api prāptaṁ visvastham akuto 'bhayam. He should feel himself so confidential that he's not near his enemy. His dealing and behavior are so nice. The morality is that "Whatever you may be, you have come to my house, you are my guest, so I must offer you all kinds of hospitality, never mind you are my enemy. Now you are my guest." So how much ethically improved the society was. "Yes. We are enemy, so when we fight we shall fight like enemies. But now we have come to my home, you are my guest, honorary guest, I must receive you with honor." That was being done Mahābhārata time.


Śyāmasundara: In the ancient times, the Neanderthal man, the Cro-Magnon man—they always are saying that these people were killers and hunters; they had to kill to survive.


Prabhupāda: That is Darwin's philosophy, not my philosophy.


Śyāmasundara: But there is no difference between the oldest cavemen and the men today. We're still killing, still hunting, still fighting. Same things.


Prabhupāda: No. Suppose just like Jesus Christ instructed his disciples, "Thou shall not kill." Say two thousand years ago in the Western countries, the men were killers, that's all. But we'll see Bhagavad-gītā, five thousand years ago, Kṛṣṇa is arguing that "If our women become widows then they'll be polluted. There will be varṇa-saṅkara, unwanted children, the society will go to hell." How much elevated society. Five thousand years ago. It is a question of place. It is a question of place. If Darwin says... Here in the Bible it is said that "Thou shall not kill," so that means two thousand years ago they were simply killers. That does not mean five thousand years there were no highly elevated personalities. That is his lack of studying. He is too much localized. He has no broadened knowledge, neither he has studied all the books, contemporary books; therefore he has poor fund of knowledge. He's very poor in his knowledge. Just like, still, there are many Americans... You Americans are completely different from others. You cannot say that all the Americans are drunkards and irresponsible; therefore, they are also. Side by side some moral is still there. You don't drink; you don't take meat; you are all God conscious; side by side there is. So how you can write history that "Such and such, 1971, '72, all Americans were LSD"? How you can conclude like that?


Śyāmasundara: They may find three or four bodies...


Prabhupāda: Even they may find one, they cannot conclude.


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Right. That's all. They can't tell from three or four samples what everything was like.


Prabhupāda: That's not possible.


Karandhara: Just like if five thousand years from now some archeologists came to Los Angeles, which is all covered over, who knows what they may dig up? They may dig up a monkey who lived in a zoo, they may dig up the mayor of Los Angeles, they may dig up anything. What will they conclude from their findings? That all of Los Angeles was made up of monkeys?


Prabhupāda: It is simply poor fund of knowledge. He is going to give us knowledge, but he is very, very poor in his knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: Actually, most of the men that they've dug up from ancient times were dumb hunters who died in some hunting accident anyway. They were a lower nature man. But I am still not clear about why they have never found out any remains of cities or ancient civilizations that were highly...


Prabhupāda: That is no reason. Suppose...


Karandhara: Actually they have. There are a number of archaeologists who have made findings like, particularly one, I can't remember his name, but he did an elaborate investigation on the Egyptian culture. And his thesis was that their culture was far more advanced than ours. They had mathematical techniques, they had...


Prabhupāda: Ajanta Caves. Ajanta Caves. Why that is? So artistic. He's unfortunate, he's simply excavated caves...


Śyāmasundara: I read about the paint in that cave. They don't know how it's still preserved. There's no chemical that they have today that will preserve paint so long.


Prabhupāda: So he's unfortunate. He could not find out Ajanta Cave; he found out some monkey's cave, that's all.


Karandhara: The Egyptians had geometric techniques that they're even..., they don't understand. They discount them...


Śyāmasundara: Prabhupāda said that they took that from the Indians, geometry.


Karandhara: But this one archaeologist wrote a book saying that this community in Egypt three thousand years ago was far superior, and no one accepted. No one believed him.


Śyāmasundara: Even in Mexico there are so many highly advanced...


Prabhupāda: Mexico is Indian civilization. They were showing to (indistinct). The Rāvaṇa had subway to Brazil. It can be seen from here where you can make subway...


Śyāmasundara: Yes, straight through.


Prabhupāda: Straight through. And therefore Rāvaṇa had so much gold; he took it from his brother's kingdom. Partly it was all one kingdom, and one part was being managed by his brother (indistinct) and one by himself. And in the Rāmāyaṇa it is said that Rāma-Lakṣmaṇa was taken to a subway to (indistinct) Rāvaṇa's place; that means Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa was taken to Brazil through subway. So now if you can make subways now—in Russia there is subway for five hundred miles—then why not five thousand miles? What is the difficulty? If it is possible to make subway up to five hundred, why not five thousand? It will require so many things.


Śyāmasundara: They say that the center of the earth is molten fire, fiery. It is liquid. Liquid fire.


Karandhara: (indistinct) insulated tube, insulated tube through the fire.


Prabhupāda: No. That portion may be avoided.


Śyāmasundara: Oh. Go around the crust.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore "I am going in subway, now here is the hard column, so I go this way." What is, what is that?


Śyāmasundara: If the worms can do it, why we can't?


Prabhupāda: Rats can do it. Snake can do it. Not snake. Snakes cannot. Rats can do. [break]


Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...the knowledge that we get from the so-called scientific theories of...


Prabhupāda: Poor fund of knowledge.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...consciousness, and the theory of...


Śyāmasundara: Are scientists beginning to understand that fact, or are they still...?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: They never think about that. That's why they are trying to find out so many things, because they think that when somebody tries to make something medicine or some compound, they try so many ways and means, and sometimes, when they are at a loss, they say, "O God, please give me (indistinct)." They do not know where it comes from, how this can be made. They try so many ways in making a compound. Sometimes they have to take a hundred or two hundred mistakes, and sometimes they will never get the compound. Ultimately when they are all disappointed, they say, "O God, please help me." So ordinarily the final conclusion is everybody (indistinct) supreme being.


Prabhupāda: And that is natural because, after all, God gives him his intelligence. It is stated in Bhagavad-gītā: mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca: [Bg. 15.15] "It is from Me." Apohanaṁ ca. He was forgetting. That was also..., God was not giving the chance, and he prays to God, then God is kind: "All right, do it like that." That is the statement in Bhagavad-gītā.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: But as soon as they get a compound, then they forget God.


Śyāmasundara: Darwin did that. He made the appearance and disappearance of animals' bodies seem so mechanically arranged that God was removed from the picture, and it appeared as if combinations of ingredients created animals and they evolved from each other.


Prabhupāda: That is another foolishness. Combination means God. He is combining. Combination does not take automatically. Suppose I am cooking. There are so many ingredients for cooking—they are not combined together. I am the cooker; I am cooking, first of all oil, and the spices, then the rice, then the dahl, then the water. In this way nice foodstuff is coming out. So this combination means God. Otherwise where is the instant the combination is taking place? I place all the ingredients in the kitchen room, and after one hour if I go, "Oh, where is my food?" (laughing) You nonsense, who is cooking your food? You starve. Just take help of a living being, then he'll cook and then you can eat. This is our experience. So why does he say combination? Wherefrom the combination comes? He is such a fool he does not know how combination takes place.


Śyāmasundara: There are several theories in that book of yours. Where is that book about the origin of life? There are several theories how everything began. They are quite interesting.


Prabhupāda: That is theory, but we see practically that material things, material elements, ingredients, they cannot be combined automatically. There must be a living entity who will combine them.


Śyāmasundara: One of the theories is that everything comes out of energy.


Prabhupāda: Energy means somebody's energy. I am sitting here, I am pushing one button, the energy is immediately created, and it goes. Just like this telex machine. So somebody is pushing the button.


Karandhara: The energetic.


Prabhupāda: And then energy, immediately produced. Computer machine, the machine is doing nothing out of his own accord. Somebody is going and pushing the button. Then it will..., the energy is created. Similarly, according to our Vedic knowledge, as soon as God wishes, immediately the energy is set off, set into action, and then other things come automatically.


Karandhara: In the trend of the scientists is that by their scientific research and their limited success which they enjoy, they are becoming more and more convinced that there is no God. They say everything is due to physical law.


Prabhupāda: No. That is the proof that they are saying there is no God, because as soon as God would withdraw the speaking power, he would not be able to speak—there is no power.


Śyāmasundara: This book is called The Creation of the Universe.


Prabhupāda: It is a scientific book?


Śyāmasundara: Oh, yes.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is written by a scientist from Colorado(?) University.


Prabhupāda: So he does not agree God created?


Śyāmasundara: Oh, no.


Prabhupāda: So there was a chunk.


Śyāmasundara: "The hierarchy of condensations." There are two theories: one is that everything was originally gas, and the other is that everything was originally turbulence or energy.


Prabhupāda: Originally gas. Now, so far we have got our experience, gas is produced from some liquid, is it not?


Śyāmasundara: They say that the liquid is produced from the gas.


Prabhupāda: That is also taught by us.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: (indistinct)


Prabhupāda: Yes. Anything, what was there in the beginning, that was matter.


Śyāmasundara: This says, "After the first complement of the atomic species had been formed during the first hour of expansion, nothing of particular interest happened for the next thirty million years." This is the... They have it all...


Prabhupāda: Where is the evidence that he is speaking the truth?


Śyāmasundara: The making of atoms.


Karandhara: They say that something came out of nothing, that originally there was nothing, at a point in history there was nothing, and at a point in history something began.


Śyāmasundara: Well, it says that there was a "frozen equilibrium and a spontaneous break-up of primordial nuclear fluid. The original state of matter is assumed to be a hot nuclear gas, ylen, y-l-e-n."


Prabhupāda: So first thing is that whatever he is speaking, what is the evidence for his word is to be accepted by us?


Karandhara: For most people it is just his word. Whatever his contemporary scientists conclude, he offers some insignificant evidence.


Prabhupāda: If words are to be accepted as true, why not accept the words of Kṛṣṇa? Who can be greater authority than Kṛṣṇa? If your word does not require any evidence, you are a renowned scientist, your words are sufficient, then greater scientist, greater personality is Kṛṣṇa. Then why should we not accept His words? We do not know what it is, but you are presenting there in bombastic words and we have to accept your word. Is it not? So I will say that instead of accepting your words, why not accept Kṛṣṇa's word? He's greater personality.


Karandhara: Someone will come along in a year or a few years and refute everything that this scientist says.


Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. That we say.


Śyāmasundara: There are three different theories, each one different. They all start with an original situation of like a chunk, a hot gas measured in billions of degrees of temperature, and out of that hot gas things condense.


Karandhara: That's not starting from the beginning...


Śyāmasundara: It was called a frozen equilibrium.


Karandhara: If there's an equilibrium, there has to be some principle, or energetic.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: I think the book is written just so that the (indistinct) looks like, funny things broken down. He himself says whether the universe is finite or infinite (indistinct) modern telescopic experiments can (indistinct) but beyond that he said maybe the universe is finite (indistinct) that is beyond our knowledge, beyond our capacity.


Śyāmasundara: This is a diagram of four different possibilities of what the universe looks like.


Prabhupāda: This is very nice-horse saddle.


Śyāmasundara:The round one?


Prabhupāda: No, no the next.


Śyāmasundara:This one?


Prabhupāda: This one.


Śyāmasundara: Yes, they call it a saddle.


Prabhupāda: It is convenient to ride over.


Śyāmasundara: Masters of the universe.


Karandhara: They could make a thousand different drawings.


Śyāmasundara: These are all based on mathematical principles. Because they have observed that the universe is expanding, so they are trying to figure out what shape it is expanding into.


Karandhara: That information is also in the Vedas: as Mahā-Viṣṇu breathes out, the universes expand, and as Mahā-Viṣṇu breathes in, the universes contract.


Śyāmasundara: It says, "It can be shown that a closed Einsteinian universe can expand only to a certain limit, beyond which the expansion will go over into contraction." So they also agree that the universe expands and contracts.


Prabhupāda: Expand means it was not in its present state. Original state was in seed.


Śyāmasundara: That seed they say was a hot gas.


Prabhupāda: So the seed is so powerful that it has become a universe. So who made that seed, wonderful seed? And wherefrom it came? What is the tree? What is the fruit? Wherefrom seed comes? So many questions are there.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: The so-called modern increased living taught by people who have the ideas of these things. The result is they are always led by people who think like that. Because like Śrīla Prabhupāda said on some of the letters, "The blind men leading the blind."


Prabhupāda: They accept blind men leading them.


Karandhara: They say the empiric mind just, you cannot accept revelation, that revelation isn't experimental to our limited knowledge, or to our knowledge. The hard-core scientist doesn't want to listen to revelation or what he considers theoretical spiritual knowledge, because he can't examine it or experiment with it himself; therefore he considers it a waste of time. If he can't see it or understand it with his mind, he doesn't think that it has any bearing or importance.


Prabhupāda: So scientific brain means ultimately becoming a fool. He'll talk all nonsense. Once he is recognized scientist, then he can talk all nonsense, and the people accept it as scientific truth.


Śyāmasundara: They say that our planet, along with all of the other stars and bodies in this universe, is about five billion years old. They have calculated in several ways. One of the ways they have calculated the age of our oceans to be five billion, and the age of our oldest rocks, along with the way that the stars are distributing themselves, that they must be five billion years old. [break] Could you repeat that, Śrīla Prabhupāda? I want to record it.


Prabhupāda: The Western philosophers and historians, in order to support Darwin's theory of anthropology, has never agreed to accept that the Vedic literatures written long, long years ago, but these less intelligent philosophers and theologists, their theory has been also dismantled by the discovery of this Ajanta Cave. From that cave it was very, very intelligent; as they are excavating other part, simply studying the bones. But there is other side also, this is also excavation; and it can be proved that very intelligent persons were there.


Śyāmasundara: I read about a column near Delhi that they found, made of some metal, that has been there for many, many thousands of years.


Prabhupāda: Many such things have been discovered, and besides that, they are searching after dead bones, and we are searching after living brains. So which should we consider better? Now this Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, it was written at least eight hundred, five thousands of years ago.


Śyāmasundara: Eight hundred times five thousand?


Prabhupāda: No. Eight hundred thousand and five thousand.


Śyāmasundara: 850,000 years.


Prabhupāda: Eight hundred thousands of years and five thousands of years.


Śyāmasundara: 805,000 years.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Long, long ago the Vedic knowledge was there. The Brahma-saṁhitā, it is to be understood, written by Brahmā millions and millions of years ago.


Śyāmasundara: In all of our Western history they never once referred to the Indian civilization.


Prabhupāda: Because they will be defeated. Because they will be defeated. They never recognize. That was British policy. Britishers wanted to... That is the cause of degradation of Indian culture. They manufactured such a... Even Dr. Radhakrishnan is a victim of that policy. They wanted to impress upon the Indians that before the arrival of the Britishers we were almost uncivilized: "We have made you civilized." And these rascal leaders, they accepted. That was their policy. Because they are very intelligent people. Lord Macauley (said): "If you keep them as they are, you will never be able to rule over them." And later on also, when Gandhi started that "Noncooperate with these rascals, they will go away. They are by force getting our cooperation and killing us." So noncooperate. Therefore he established the noncooperation movement. And Sir (indistinct), one of the greatest diplomats, statesmen of India, he said that "This is a very dangerous movement. Try to cut down this movement. Otherwise, if one percent of the Indian people noncooperate, it will not be possible for us to rule over this country." So in order to get our cooperation they are simply impressing that before the arrival of the Britishers, Indians were uncivilized. So many books they published. One American prostitute wrote Mother India.


Devotee: I saw that book


Prabhupāda: Yes, simply blaspheming Indian temples, culture, priest, like that. Gandhi remarked on that book, "Drain Inspector's Report." And he has simply picked up the bad side. Sometimes these priests in the temple, they make some bad behavior with woman; she has picked up this, not the better side.


Śyāmasundara: Practically, until now, no one except you has brought Indian culture out.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: No one has known before that they had high culture.


Prabhupāda: No. Because regular propaganda. And all the swamis and yogis, they also rascals, they brought some yoga system, exercises, like that.


Śyāmasundara: No philosophy...


Prabhupāda: No philosophy, no culture. As we are touching now everything: sociology, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, everything, completely. Just like we are discussing now this Pṛthu Mahārāja's kingdom, how nice it is.


Śyāmasundara: Today when we were looking at the Sanskrit ślokas, I suddenly realized that this very strict form of śloka made it easy to memorize for the people.


Prabhupāda: Yes, oh yes.


Śyāmasundara: Therefore they were always...


Prabhupāda: Yes. That Sanskrit śloka is so made that if you repeatedly chant five, six times, it will be memorized. And once it is memorized, you will never forget it.


Śyāmasundara: Then you can pass it down and you don't have to write it.


Prabhupāda: No. That requires only memory. That was the system, śruti. Once hears from the spiritual master, it is memorized for good. The memory was so sharp, and the memory was prepared by this brahmācārya.


Śyāmasundara: And the grammatical rules are so arranged to make it easy to memorize-natural rhythm.


Prabhupāda: Natural, quite natural, natural rhythm. It's not artificial.


Śyāmasundara: Whereas our Western poems are all so many different lines, lengths, rhythms, you can't remember them.


Prabhupāda: There is no standard. There is Trayita Darpana(?), there is a book, you can... So many words, the first pronunciation five, second pronunciation seven, like that. There's different kinds of (indistinct), sandhi.


Śyāmasundara: So it's meant for hearing and memorizing.


Prabhupāda: Yes. You can sing also very nicely, sing also, like songs, with tamboura. It is very nice. (sings:) Cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa, like that, it is very nice. In every temple there should be, one man should play on tamboura and chant. It requires nice pronunciation, and with the sound of tamboura it will be (indistinct). People are coming, offering darśana, and the singing is going on. That is the system in Indian temples. It immediately vibrates.


Śyāmasundara: Do you suppose that the British supported Darwin so that that would also help their political ambitions, by introducing...


Prabhupāda: Yes. These British wanted that all the big men born in their nation—all big scientists, all big philosophers, all big politicians—they are God's selected persons; therefore they must rule over the world. That was their program.


Śyāmasundara: And by putting out this book, The Origin of Species, they at once did away with God to be able to... After that Nietzsche, another philosopher who said, "God is dead," he made that statement first, right after Darwin's book came out: "God is dead."


Prabhupāda: So we have to fight against all these nonsense philosophers.


Śyāmasundara: That boy Svarūpa Dāmodara is going to move into the temple for a few days, and each day we will discuss a different scientific topic. Tomorrow genetics, and something else.


Prabhupāda: Yes. He is a scientist. He will talk technical words.


Śyāmasundara: He is going to bring all of his books. And I also studied science for many years, so if I refresh, and if all of the students become armed with these arguments, they can defeat any scientist.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Oh yes.


Śyāmasundara: Normally they are unable to answer scientists. It is difficult to answer scientists for some devotees, because they have such strong arguments.


Prabhupāda: This point should be stressed, that he is dealing with dead bones, and we are dealing with living brains.


Śyāmasundara: Just like Bhagavad-gītā is so perfectly written, so perfectly conceived.


Prabhupāda: Yes. And also there is Bhāgavata, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, everything, everything; every, Purāṇas.


Śyāmasundara: No barbarian could have ever conceived...


Prabhupāda: They have presented all these books as—what is called—allegory.


Śyāmasundara: Fiction, allegory.


Prabhupāda: Story. And the so-called swamis, they have also accepted like this. Therefore you can interpret in your own way. If it is a fact, how you can interpret it? But we are presenting as it is, fact. That is our business.


Śyāmasundara: They present so many newspapers every day and say this is fact, but it's lies, so many lies.


Prabhupāda: Even Dr. Radhakrishnan has said mental speculation is a big thing, of the Western propaganda.


Śyāmasundara: I think he said it is the crowning achievement of speculative thought.


Prabhupāda: He has said like that?


Śyāmasundara: "Bhagavad-gītā is the crowning achievement of speculative thought," as if some sages thought it up.


Prabhupāda: Now what is there? Finished. [break] ...fact. It is known to the Vedic culture millions of years ago. (indistinct) I was reading, aśitiṁ caturaś caiva, this is Brahmā-vaivarta Purāṇa and this Brahmā-vaivarta Purāṇa was written by Vyāsadeva five thousand years ago. And it was known long, long years ago. It was written in the Purāṇas, but it was coming by tradition long, long ago. So (indistinct). He has stolen this theory, this idea, from Brahmā-vaivarta Purāṇa, and he has tried to prove it in a different way. Otherwise this evolutionary theory is already there.


aśitiṁ caturaś caiva
lakṣāṁs tāñ jīva-jātiṣu
bhramadbhiḥ (puruṣaiḥ prāpyaṁ
mānuṣyaṁ janma-paryayāt)


Śyāmasundara: But Darwin doesn't have any conception of the jīva.


Prabhupāda: He's a nonsense. That's all.


Śyāmasundara: He sees only the bodies are changing.


Prabhupāda: Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke, sa eva go-kharaḥ [SB 10.84.13]. Anyone, that is also mentioned there. Teṣām ātma vimanuna (indistinct). Foolish. Child. Child thinks "I am this body." (indistinct) means fools. Ātma vimanu: "I am this body." Animal thinks that "I am this body." Virakara (indistinct) ātmā vinanena anāśrita. They do not know what is my position. Misleading.


Śyāmasundara: There is a scientific subject which has become very popular now, called genetics, which has to do with the origins of life.


Prabhupāda: Well these so-called scientific theories are popular now and unpopular after few years. That's all. Again something popular. They are not science. Science cannot be popular now and unpopular after some days.


Śyāmasundara: But it's only because they have just discovered it.


Prabhupāda: Discovering, partial, that's like... They cannot discover. The things are there passing on, so many things, passing on.


Śyāmasundara: What it means in essence is that they have analyzed the individual cell of the living entity and they have found in each cell a set of genes, forty-six in each cell. These genes contain the blueprint for the whole body, like the seed of a tree contains the whole tree. So it is possible, they say, by rearranging these genes or changing them slightly that a new type of person can come out, or a new type of living entity, from the original.


Prabhupāda: Definitely. What we call the jīva, they might be talking of the jīva or genes. The genes, the jīva, they can have any nice type of body.


Atreya Ṛṣi: Can the scientists control that, the type of genes, the kinds of body, the child will get? The theory is...


Prabhupāda: Not theory... Just like we give dimension of the soul, so that statement is given by some man. Just like one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair, we get information from the Purāṇas. So this statement is also given by a man, but he is not ordinary. He is not ordinary. So any extraordinary man can give it.


Śyāmasundara: These genes are visible through a microscope, so they are not...


Prabhupāda: This is also visible. When I say that one ten-thousandth part of the hair, it is visible. Otherwise how I say? But it may not be visible to you. (indistinct)


Śyāmasundara: I mean these genes are not the same as the jīva in this case.


Prabhupāda: That is different thing. But jīva can be given any type of body. That is not difficult.


Śyāmasundara: So they say that each person is different from every other person because the arrangement of the genes in his cell is uniquely his, but the same genes will be passed on...


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) That depends on the father and the mother.


Śyāmasundara: The same genes will be passed on to their children, so they will have characteristics like their parents in that way.


Prabhupāda: That is the body—this body.


Śyāmasundara: So they are considering that by altering these genes in certain ways, they can make very highly intelligent persons come out or very low-bred persons come out.


Prabhupāda: But that is already there. What is their credit?


Atreya Ṛṣi: They want to control more.


Prabhupāda: What is the control? It is already there. It is not under your control.


Śyāmasundara: Their idea is that they can make xerox copies of whatever type of personality they like.


Prabhupāda: That's right; xerox copy means the original sample is already there. So what is the credit there?


Devotee: There may be only one very, very intelligent person, but by their method they may think that they may create a whole society.


Śyāmasundara: I'll read you some of their predictions. They're very frightening. They say by 1980—that's eight years from now—that they will be able to create synthetic life in the form of artificial viruses which will be used to cure some forms of genetic diseases. Artificial life. In eight years they say they will have artificial life.


Prabhupāda: And that artificial life?


Śyāmasundara: Small viruses or living organisms, very small. But by the year 2000 they say they will be able to keep...


Prabhupāda: 2000!


Śyāmasundara: Yes. That's twenty-eight years from now. They say that they will be able to deep-freeze embryos, that means unborn babies, as insurance against nuclear holocaust and for interplanetary colonization. In other words, they can send these unborn babies in frozen form to other planets and have an arrangement for them to be born and grow in the spaceship and then go out.


Prabhupāda: Don't waste your time with these rascals.


Śyāmasundara: They'll have an artificial and mechanical baby factory, effective control of most human defects. Single-celled life will be created from chemicals off the shelf. They can make intelligent animals to do menial work. And then in seventy-eight years they say that they will be able to regenerate...


Prabhupāda: Just like there was Pan American, they were selling tickets for going to Candraloka. Reservation.


Atreya Ṛṣi: Prabhupāda, is it possible that man could ever make even a one-celled living being?


Prabhupāda: Even if he makes, what is credit there? Cells are already there. What is the question of making?


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160796&page=5

Discussions with Syamasundara dasa
Sigmund Freud







Sigmund Freud


Śyāmasundara: Today we are discussing the philosopher and psychologist Sigmund Freud. His thesis was that certain unconscious states must be repressed by a special mental mechanism which serves as a defense for the ego against painful or fragmental memories, emotions and desires.


Prabhupāda: That is our brahmācārya system. The psychology is that everyone has a sex appetite, everyone has a tendency for intoxication, and everyone had a tendency for meat-eating. Vyavāya āmiṣa madya sevā. These tendencies are already there. There is injunction in the śāstras that one can have sexual intercourse by marriage, legal sex. We are prohibiting illicit sex, but we are not prohibiting legal sex. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says, dharmāviruddho' bhūteṣu kāmo 'smi bharatarṣabha, sex indulgence which is not against religious principles. That is (indistinct). So religious principle means regulated sex life. People have a tendency... Just like those who are not regulated by the Vedic injunctions are also having sex. So what is the meaning of this legal sex? Legal sex means it is restricted, that is all. Where there is no set injunction. Just like in Western countries, they are having sex without any restrictions. But according to the Vedic system, there are restrictions. Just like eating meat, that is also restricted. You cannot eat meat from the slaughterhouse, but the injunction is that you can take a goat and in the presence of goddess Kali you can offer it, and then you can eat it. In the śāstras this is called (indistinct). Amisa means meat which is not sacrificed. There are so many rules and regulations. Similarly, there is also injunction for drinking. By worshiping (sandamani) you can drink. So when the śāstras deal with meat-eating, drinking and sex, which is already there... Psychologically everyone has this tendency. Then why is it mentioned in the śāstras in this way? The whole thing is to restrict. Just like ordinarily in the state drinking liquor is also controlled by the excise department of the government. The government opens drinking shops, but the price is enhanced. I know because I was dealing in rectified spirits, so because we are preparing medicine we are getting opium, rectified spirits, gañja, very cheaply. One smuggler came to me and said that "You give me your license, you take one thousand rupees. I will manage." So I told him that when I would be arrested, because after I would be arrested, then the government would ask me that "We have given you the license as a respectable gentleman, and you are doing this," then what shall I reply? So this restriction is that liquor... Wine is made from rectified spirits, brandy, whiskey, everything; I know all the formulas, how to make them. The cost price of the rectified spirits is about Rs. 1/59 per gallon, and the government is selling at 60 rupees. For us it was five rupees, because we were manufacturers. So why (indistinct)? Restriction. Because unless the government takes this matter in their hands, people will distill... It is not very difficult. There are many illicit distillers also. That's why it is the duty of the excise department to arrest them. My point is that why is the government increasing the price? So that restricting, that people may not pay so much price, they may not drink (indistinct). When the government opens a liquor shop, it does not mean that all of you become drunkards. It is not an advertisement. Similarly, when śāstras give the permission that "You can have sex life by marriage," or "You can eat meat by offering the goat to goddess Kālī," or "You can drink by offering worship to Caṇḍī," it is restricted. Nobody can worship Caṇḍī daily. Nobody can worship Kālī daily. There is also fixed date... Kālī worship can be performed on (indistinct). The (indistinct) comes once a month. So that means restricted. One can eat meat once in a month. But the restriction is not there for eating rice, dahl, ghee, fruit or milk. There is no such restriction. But whenever there is a question of liquor, meat-eating and sex, immediately there is śāstra injunction that "You can do this under certain conditions." That means the whole idea is to restrict. That is, psychology is already there, but śāstras (indistinct), because they know if people become implicated with all these nonsense things, then his duration of materialistic way of life will increase, and we will have to accept material bodies birth after birth. So by restriction, gradually just like we are restricting all these things, gradually, the Western students, they are coming to the point of becoming a pure devotee. But these things are already there. Everyone know it. Mr. Freud does not require to study. It is already there. We know in the Vedic śāstras. But they should be restricted.


Śyāmasundara: His idea is that certain memories or painful experiences or frustrations or desires are sometimes repressed by forgetfulness. We forget them. They lie deep in our unconscious, but we cannot even remember them because they cause pain by their memory. This mechanism is called defense mechanism, forgetfulness.


Prabhupāda: No. That is not possible. There is the system that is yogic process, mechanical system to control the senses. Yoga (indistinct). Yoga means to control the senses. Yoga indriya saṁyama. So by this mechanical process of yogic exercises, one can (indistinct). One may artificially check, suppress, these tendencies, but we have many instances that even the greatest yogis like (indistinct) also failed. Our process is as it is recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā, paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartante. You give him a better thing, he will forget it.


Śyāmasundara: Sometimes people forget experiences which cause them pain. For instance, a child may have had a very frightening experience which he does not like to recall, so that he forgets it. But the cause of his forgetting is that it causes an unhealthy state.


Prabhupāda: Yes. So therefore we do not recommend such artificial means.


Śyāmasundara: But it's not artificial; naturally the...


Prabhupāda: Not natural. The child forgets... Our formula is bhayaṁ dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syāt. This fearfulness is created when one is not Kṛṣṇa conscious. This is a quality of the conditioned soul. Īśād apetasya viparyayo 'smṛtiḥ. So as soon as one becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious, these things become almost nil. Nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve na kutaścana bibhyati [SB 6.17.28]. One who is God conscious doesn't fear anything. Just like Prahlāda Mahārāja. Such a giant, his giant father, is threatening him. He is calm and (indistinct). He doesn't care for his father's (indistinct). His father is asking, "Prahlāda, how is it that you are so proud and fearless when I am trying to chastise you?" But he replied, "The person who has given me this power is protecting me." That was his answer. "You have power because it is gifted by Kṛṣṇa. So that same personality is giving me protection." He replied that.


Śyāmasundara: You say it's artificial to forget anything?


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Forgetfulness is artificial?


Prabhupāda: Artificial.


Śyāmasundara: So why don't we remember everything?


Prabhupāda: Because you are not trained. Forgetful I do not understand. What do you mean?


Śyāmasundara: Forgetfulness means loss of memory. I can't remember what happened when I was four or five years old.


Prabhupāda: You might explain in your past life you had so many fearful incidents even, but you are not afraid of now. Why should you try to forget? There is no use of forgetting. Even if I remember I am not afraid, rather I thank Kṛṣṇa, that "Kṛṣṇa, you are so kind that You have saved me from so many misgivings. Now (indistinct) I am pure (indistinct)." So one should not be frightened by these past incidents. He rather (indistinct) afraid of all these things... (indistinct)


Śyāmasundara: What he is talking about is the natural instinct of people to forget painful experiences.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) forget. Just like you were in the womb of your mother. It was a very painful situation. But you have forgotten. That is natural.


Śyāmasundara: So it's not artificial?


Prabhupāda: No. But when you were in the womb of your mother, that's a fact. Now when you think of it you can understand how horrible condition was that. Therefore śāstra says that even if you have forgotten, it does not mean that you have escaped the incidents. It is that you are waiting for another painful situation like that.


Śyāmasundara: His idea is that many of our present unconscious wishes and conflicts have their origin in infantile or childhood experiences.


Prabhupāda: You are going to be again (indistinct). Why you forget Kṛṣṇa? After this life, you will be put in another womb of mother, so that the same thing will again happen. You are not finishing your business, so therefore it is the duty of guru and father and mother to save him from that situation again. Pitā na sa syāt, gurur na sa syāt, na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum. So that is the opportunity of this human life. They should know that I had such-and-such bad experience. (indistinct), I will also experience the same thing again at the time of death, horrible situation. Again after, again enter, bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate [Bg. 8.19]. You have to again take birth in the womb. The same situation is repeating. You may forget. That is another thing. Just like you had some surgical operation in your body. That was very painful. So even if you have forgotten, that does not guarantee that there will be no more (indistinct) and no more surgical operation. That is not (indistinct). It will be put again. What is the use of forgetting? Even if you do forget, what is the benefit of thereof?


Śyāmasundara: He says there is no benefit of forgetting, but it is a natural tendency.


Prabhupāda: That is natural, and everyone knows that's not a very (indistinct).


Śyāmasundara: So he says that the cure for many of our present conflicts is to try to recall these painful experiences and analyze them and try to correct them.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Just like for instance a person may have a hatred toward a member of the opposite sex. Why is this hatred? By tracing back in his childhood we may find that there was some horrible experience with his father or with his mother which caused him to hate that particular sex.


Prabhupāda: Just like if some woman does not like to give birth to a child...


Śyāmasundara: Because she was repressed when she was a child, or beaten by her father...


Prabhupāda: Not only that. A person does not like to bear children; therefore this contraceptive method is there. It is botheration, painful. It is called pain. (indistinct) (indistinct) means pain. So nature is prohibiting that, (indistinct), child delivery, so the man is also given so much trouble. The woman is also given so much trouble. So why is the trouble there? The (indistinct) for everything is don't be implicated in this sex life. If you simply tolerating a little itching sensation, then you will not have so much pain. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham [SB 7.9.45]. These ordinary men who are attached to the materialistic way of life, their only happiness is this sexual intercourse. So śāstra says this happiness derived from sexual intercourse is very, very insignificant. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham. This is not happiness. It is very (indistinct) third class or even lower than happiness. But because we have no idea of other happiness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the materialistic way of life, that is the happiness. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham. That is a very insignificant happiness. Then how is this happiness experienced? Kaṇḍūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham. You have got itching, and if you scratch like this, so you get some happiness, but aftereffects of that happiness is very abominable. So even if you have legal sex, the mother has to undergo the labor pains and the father has to take responsibility for raising the children nicely, give them education. Of course, one who is irresponsible like cats and dogs, that is another thing. But those who are actually gentlemen, for them it is not painful. Therefore they are avoiding children by contraceptive methods, because they know to raise children is a very difficult job. So śāstra's injunction is simply to try to tolerate this itching sensation and you save so much pain. This is real psychology. That itching sensation can be tolerated if one practices this Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then you will not be very much attracted by this sex life.


Śyāmasundara: I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I haven't made clear, perhaps, what is his philosophy.


Prabhupāda: What is his philosophy?


Śyāmasundara: His philosophy is that people have neuroses or disorders of their total personality, that there is conflict, there is anxiety, there is frustration, and that all of these have origin.


Prabhupāda: But I am telling you that all these are due to sex.


Śyāmasundara: That's what Freud is also saying.


Prabhupāda: That we also say. Freud is encouraging, and our process is to stop. That is the difference. Freud says that when there is sex impulse, enjoy. (indistinct) care what it is.


Śyāmasundara: No. He doesn't say one way or the other. He is merely trying to analyze the sex impulse. He says that due to repressed childhood sex desires that these neuroses arise in a person's personality, and that by analyzing...


Prabhupāda: Our process is not repression. We don't repress. Therefore we give facility, that "You have got sex impulse. All right, you have it, but with your wife, legalized wife."


Śyāmasundara: He thinks more in terms from the very beginning of birth there is sex impulse.


Prabhupāda: That is admitted. We say that as soon as there is an embodied living being, he must have hunger, he must have sex impulse. (indistinct), we find in the animals these impulses are there, so why so much philosophy? They are already there. What is the use of philosophizing?


Śyāmasundara: He analyzes that besides the id, or these sex impulses, there is the ego, which is the moral self, which tries to adjust these impulses, these sexual impulses, and tries to...


Prabhupāda: That we have already discussed, that because just like that the sex impulse you are giving him some facility that "You have sex life with your married wife." This is real (indistinct). Not (indistinct) because I have sex impulse, I can (indistinct) anyone, never mind mother or sister, and have sexual intercourse. That is not very nice.


Śyāmasundara: No. He doesn't enjoin that. He is a scientist. He doesn't make any recommendations one way or the other. He is merely trying to analyze what is cause...


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) our solution is this: Your materialistic life is painful. That's a fact. This materialistic life is painful. (indistinct). As soon as you have this material body, then you must suffer these three kinds of miserable condition of life. So our whole program is to stop. Everyone is looking after happiness. We say that unless you stop your materialistic way of life, repeated birth and death, there is no question of happiness. So the whole Vedic civilization is based on this, how one can get out of this disease. This is a disease, the repetition of birth and death. We are trying to cure this disease. Then all other symptoms will automatically vanquish. If you are a diseased fellow, you are getting sometimes a headache, sometimes leg ache, sometimes some pain in the stomach. But if your disease is cured, then that there are no more symptoms. That is our position.


Śyāmasundara: He says that these neuroses or disorders of the personality are due to repressed sex impulses in childhood, and that these cause traumatic and shock experiences. For instance, he says that at a certain age, around four or five, the son becomes jealous of the father, and he...


Prabhupāda: These are all right, but what is the remedy that he is suggesting? That the child should be allowed to have sex life?


Śyāmasundara: No. The tension that is created by repressing the sex desire...


Prabhupāda: There are so many (indistinct), we established some of them. There are so many problems. But our program is that threefold miseries, everyone who has accepted this body has to undergo the threefold miseries. You may describe in...


Śyāmasundara: [break] ...psychoanalysis that by releasing these emotions, which have been built up due to tension, frustration, then the original shock can be released through admitting, confessing, remembering, like that.


Prabhupāda: What is the guarantee that he will not get another shock? He is getting shock after shock. You (indistinct) one and another is present.


Śyāmasundara: He attributes all of our personality conflicts to this...


Prabhupāda: But the thing is that he is trying to cure one kind of shock, but there is no guarantee that he will not have shock. So our program is total cure: no more shock. That is our program. No more shock of any kind. His treatment is useless because he cannot guarantee another shock. Ours is (indistinct). If you are situated in real Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the (indistinct) type of misery which is (indistinct) will not (indistinct). No shock at all. We are giving that in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And he is trying to cure the resultant action of one kind of shock, but there is no guarantee that another shock will not come. You will get them, one after another, one after another. That is called (indistinct). You are trying to solve one problem; another problem is there, immediately. You solve that problem, another problem is there. So how can you change them? So long as you are under condition by the material nature, shock after shock will come. (indistinct). If one is Kṛṣṇa conscious, no more shock. That we are...


Śyāmasundara: His idea is that the one basic instinct which is the most important to the human personality is the drive to procreate, or sexual energy.


Prabhupāda: That we have already discussed, that everyone has got. The animal has got this sexual proclivity.


Śyāmasundara: So he says that the present state of the personality has grown about because of childhood or incomplete uses of this libido or sexual energy, and if it has been misused then there is a disorder in the personality. But by healing that original shock in childhood, then the future will all be healed. There will be not more fluctuation in the personality. Because by healing this original shock, there won't be any more fluctuations or neuroses.


Prabhupāda: That we have prescribed. We are trying to make boys brahmacārīs. So of course there is tendency, but by practicing the brahmācārya system, by diverting one's attention to Kṛṣṇa consciousness for Kṛṣṇa's service, there will be very little chance for this shock.


Śyāmasundara: He says that our sexual instincts are often thwarted by social constraints, so in a society which does not have a brahmācārya system, this would be...


Prabhupāda: Therefore this Vedic system is so scientific, varṇāśrama-dharma. When these things are automatically adjusted and checked, our life becomes very peaceful and we make progress in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then these things will not come.


Śyāmasundara: This sexual energy, or the libido energy, he sees as not only sexual intercourse but is associated with a wide variety of pleasurable sensations relating to bodily activities, such as pleasure of the mouth, of the different organs. He says it's all sexual energy-eating, sucking.


Prabhupāda: That is already stated, that the only happiness in this material world, maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukham. Ādi means the basic principle is maithuna, sexual intercourse. And now there are some maithuna-ādi. Or you can take it that one is very happy—just like one gentleman proposed to (indistinct), "Give me a son." But that is also maithuna-ādi, by sexual intercourse. He is thinking that "I will have a son and I will get him married; he will also begin maithuna-ādi—and a grandson." So the whole system, this materialistic way of life, just like Bhāgavata is saying, yan maithuna gṛhamedhi sukham. This is happiness. (indistinct). Suta means son and āpta means friend. (indistinct) wife, mother, sister, they are enjoying this life. (indistinct), that's in the desert, one drop of water. The desert requires an ocean of water, but in the whole desert if there is one drop of water, you can say, "Here is water." But what is the value of water? What is the value of this water? You can say, "Here is water." Similarly, this sexual pleasure society, there is some pleasure, but what is the value of that pleasure? That is compared with one drop in the desert. You are seeking after unlimited pleasure. (indistinct) You are seeking that pleasure. What this will pacify you? Therefore nobody is satisfied. He is having sex in different ways, placing the woman in different ways. Now these young girls are almost naked. They are attractive. But this is not (indistinct) how society is degrading. Now the woman population is greater everywhere. So how to solve? As soon as there is woman population, they say, "Where is a man?" The (indistinct) desire (is) that every woman, every girl is trying to attract a man. But where is the man? And the man will take advantage, that "Milk is available on the market. What is the use of keeping a cow?" So they will decline to keep a cow, because milk is so cheap. So this is social desertion. And the more the man will become attached to woman, the woman population will increase. It is psychological. The whole world is increasing woman population. So therefore there is desire, especially in (indistinct).


Devotee: How is that?


Prabhupāda: The same principle—if milk is available in the market, what is the use of keeping a cow?


Devotee: How does that result in more women?


Prabhupāda: When you have more sex, then you have no power to beget a male child. When the man is less powerful, a girl is born. When the man is powerful, a boy is born. That is Vedic system. In our country, in (indistinct), there are fewer woman because there the men are very stout and strong. When there is discharge, if the man's discharge is larger, then there is a male child; if the woman's discharge is larger, then there is a female child. So when women will be very easily available, the men will be weak. So what will he beget? He will beget female child, because he has lost his power. Sometimes he becomes impotent. So many desertions. If you don't restrict sex life, there will be so many desertions. And that is happening-impotency, no marriage, woman population more. But they did not know how things are happening, how human psychology can be controlled. The perfect system is the Vedic system.


Śyāmasundara: He says that all pleasures, all bodily pleasures have a sexual origin.


Prabhupāda: That we have already discussed, maithunādi. Ādi means in the beginning, sex impulse. That is already there.


Śyāmasundara: Even he says satisfaction of the eating and sucking tendency.


Prabhupāda: That is maithunādi. The central point is sex. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham [SB 7.9.45].


Śyāmasundara: He says that after a period of childhood indulgence in these sexual appetites, he begins to learn that by giving up satisfaction he can please and influence others so as to gain more adult favors, just like (indistinct) and (indistinct) you were talking about. So the pleasure principle becomes replaced by the reality principle.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, (indistinct). If your consciousness is changed, if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then there is a verse by Yamunācārya, he says,


yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde
nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt
tad-avadhi bata nārī-saṅgame smaryamāne
bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṁ ca


(indistinct), he was emperor. So he said, "Since I am taking pleasure in the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa, nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt, since I have engaged my life to enjoy the transcendental bliss by serving the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa, yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde. (indistinct), "I am getting newer and newer pleasures. And because," he said, "and at that time when I think of sex pleasure," bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṁ ca. He was king. He had under his command (indistinct), but he said, "when I think of that sex pleasure, my mouth becomes deformed and I spit." That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (indistinct)


Devotee: Freud would analyze that as...


Prabhupāda: Why nonsense Freud would analyze it? He is not Kṛṣṇa. What does he know? What rascal (indistinct). He is a big man among the rascals. A big rascal, that is all. He is a rascal, but a big rascal, that's all.


Śyāmasundara: What is the purpose of discussing him?


Prabhupāda: Just to prove that he is a big rascal. He may be a very big man amongst the other rascals, small rascals. Jīva Gosvāmī—this is Jīva Gosvāmī's language. I think I have mentioned somewhere in my Bhāgavata, (indistinct), big rascal, that is all. The analysis of (indistinct), how can we approach that with little knowledge? What improvement has (indistinct); after his philosophy in the Western countries? He has degraded more.


Devotee: He has put their attention more on sex.


Prabhupāda: That's all. What actual benefit is derived from him?


Śyāmasundara: He has made the impression that all of our troubles are due to frustrated sex life in our childhood, and that by analyzing these activities of childhood we can rectify our situation.


Prabhupāda: That is (indistinct).


Devotee: That is why young boys and girls have increased sex life.


Prabhupāda: They are becoming hippies. What benefit is there? He has degraded the whole nation.


Śyāmasundara: I think we have many clothes out on the line.


Devotee: I don't think that in this discussion that we can convince in any way the (indistinct). I think the invalid aspects of Freud (indistinct) called irrational.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct)


Śyāmasundara: We have scientific reasons


Devotee: But there are aspects of Freud's philosophy and psychology which they feel have proven beneficial for mankind. So many cases of, say, someone is paralyzed and they can't find any direct physical reason why a person can't walk, and through analysis they are able to trace down that it is due to some repressed trauma, what they call trauma.


Prabhupāda: What is?


Śyāmasundara: Shock.


Devotee: And therefore the person reacts on a physical level and they can't (indistinct) psychoanalyzing him and having him recall that event, then he is free...


Prabhupāda: Therefore our prescription is that in the beginning of life, teach him brahmācārya restraint, and when he is grown up, he is above twenty, get him married. In the beginning he will learn how to restrain. If you teach your child to become saintly, he retains his semina, his brain becomes strong, he can understand things, because wasting your semina means less intelligence. So from the beginning, if he is brahmacārī, if he stops misuse of semina, then he becomes intelligent and strong and fully grown. For want of education, everything is being stunted-brain, bodily growth, and everything. So after he is trained as a brahmacārī, if he thinks that still he will have sex enjoyment, all right, he can be married. But because he will have strength of body and brain, he will beget a child, immediately there will be male child. This is practical remedy. And because he has been trained from boyhood to renounce this material way of enjoyment, when he is fifty years old, naturally his first-born child must be twenty-five years old, so he can retire from sex life. (indistinct), because household life means a license for sex life. That is all. It is not required. But one who cannot restrain, he is given a license, "All right, you have sex life by marriage," as I explained in the beginning. So that is real program. That will save the society. Not by (indistinct) or some (indistinct) and this and that. They cannot find out the root disease. But if you give him all indulgence, then he will study the (indistinct). You should take information from the standard knowledge. That's what we have discussed (indistinct) sex impulse is already there. So from the very beginning you have to restrain. Otherwise you will be implicated.


Devotee: Is doing it from the beginning necessarily always going to work? For instance in Nairobi, (indistinct) he came with his wife and two children, and his son was so frightened, he never liked to leave the house at night because he thought when he left the house at night, when he returned the house wouldn't be there, and you were saying that that was recalled from his previous life, that he was bringing that... [break] ...simple desires?


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is continued from the previous birth. As soon as the seed is there, we are getting so many impressions, there are seeds, so many impressions. So therefore Lord Caitanya said that we are getting so many seeds, every moment, so one who is fortunate, he gets the seed of bhakti by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa and guru. Guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja [Cc. Madhya 19.151]. The bīja is there, that seed, and if he nourishes that seed by watering, (indistinct), then it grows, he becomes a devotee. Everything is seed. Either bhakti or sinful life or anything—it grows (indistinct). So brahmacārī means from the very beginning sowing the seed of goodness, and if one becomes a devotee, then automatically other things are lost.


Śyāmasundara: So the Western system of bring up children is artificial, because they allow the child unrestrained freedom either to repress or to enjoy his sex desire.


Prabhupāda: No. That is not predictable.


Śyāmasundara: The Vedic program is a social program.


Prabhupāda: Social, yes. Just like Cāṇakya says. He is an experienced moralist, his ethical laws. He says, (indistinct), if you indulge in freedom, (indistinct) and if you restrict and restrain, that is very, very (indistinct). Therefore one should take care of his disciple and serve by chastising them, not giving them independence.


Śyāmasundara: Freud would say that this system of repression, by saying "Don't do this," is harmful to the child.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) repression of course—his idea of repression is different. Our idea is different. Our repression is you must rise early in the morning, you must attend maṅgala ārati.


Śyāmasundara: It's with knowledge.


Prabhupāda: Knowledge will come later on. But in the beginning, "must"; otherwise he will not (indistinct). Even if there is no knowledge, if by the order of the spiritual master or superior, you must do it.


Śyāmasundara: Freud's idea, being as he came from the Victorian age, when there was straight restraint of sex desire by the social structure, was that if you tell a child, "Don't look at a woman. Don't look at a woman," that this will...


Prabhupāda: We don't say like that—"Don't look at a woman." Here is a woman sitting, I am looking. Does this mean immediately you become polluted?


Śyāmasundara: What they say is that there is a conflict between a man's natural desire to enjoy women...


Prabhupāda: Therefore I use that strong word mūḍha, that they are actually fools. They do not know how to do things. Therefore I say they are actually big fools.


Devotee: The Freudian method would be to think back to those seeds and rectify them-think back and back and back and try to remember those seeds.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) he is already grown up. Where is the seed? That is nonsense. Seed means those already grown up, fructified. Where do you find the seed? That is nonsense. Just like as example you have got arrow and bow. So long as it is in your hand, it is all right, but when it is thrown, you cannot control it. It is out of your hand. Another example is this (indistinct). You have seen bamboo. When it is green, you can bend it, but when it is yellow, it will break.


Śyāmasundara: It is proven in practical experience of psychoanalysis that by remembering some traumatic or shocking experience in the person's life it relieves the emotional tension which has caused the disorder in his personality, and he becomes healthy again.


Prabhupāda: That may be, but if you sow a seed, the seed, when fructified, grown into a tree, then it is no more...


Śyāmasundara: He doesn't call it a seed; he calls it a shocking experience which we repress because it causes pain, and this repression makes a tension. For instance, a person grows up with a great hatred of woman: "Oh, I hate all woman."


Prabhupāda: That is particular (indistinct) for a particular person.


Devotee: Otherwise, let's say when the child was very young, the mother became angry and locked him in a room for too long, and he was crying, locked up. So then that person for the rest of his life, as soon as the windows are closed, he will be afraid, because he remembers, even if he has forgotten the original experience. He is always afraid of. That's claustrophobia.


Śyāmasundara: Freud says by remembering this experience you can explain...


Prabhupāda: Suppose the child is locked up, and his brain becomes deranged. Then how can (indistinct)?


Devotee: So let's say he's grown, he still has that fear, and Freud or one of his doctors will start to think back, "What do you remember from your childhood?" And then the doctor will see, "Oh, that is (indistinct)."


Prabhupāda: That's all right. He can find out what is the cause, but what is the cure?


Śyāmasundara: By remembering and explaining to him, "You were only a child. It wasn't really a bad situation," like this, and then the patient loses the tension which has caused the disorder, and he becomes healthy again.


Prabhupāda: That is psychoanalysis?


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Psychoanalysis, psychotherapy.


Devotee: Actually the idea is that a child is sometimes unable to adjust to certain very extremes. It is called trauma, very shocking, and the child can't understand; he is simply very much stunned. So through his life he is affected by that. He can't remember exactly what it is, because he wants to forget it, it is so painful, but it manifests in some aberrant symptom later on, as he is afraid when the windows are closed. But by finding out what is the root of his fear,... (indistinct)


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) ...I become afraid. Just like in that hospital, it was so nice, everything was so nice, but because I was thinking, "Oh, I cannot go out, I cannot walk," it was giving me too much trouble—that very thought that I cannot go out.


Devotee: (indistinct) sometimes they can't trace out the history of a particular case. The idea is that if they can find out from this person remembering back when they were young that he had been locked in a room, then (indistinct) the person was able to understand the significance of that incident, that it was really very small. Then it loses its importance in his life. He has been unable to resolve it because he has repressed it.


Prabhupāda: But I don't think when a man's brain is already deranged he can be rectified by finding out the cause.


Devotee: It's not that the trauma makes him crazy so that he cannot function in society. He could be a business executive who has claustrophobia; he can't stand getting in an elevator. He is leading a normal life in society but he has a problem which causes him a great deal...


Prabhupāda: So why not divert his attention to Kṛṣṇa consciousness?


Śyāmasundara: Ah, by a higher type of knowledge, if one realizes that he is not this body, then all those things will be...


Prabhupāda: Yes, that is...


Devotee: That is why we are doing social service.


Prabhupāda: To divert his attention. (indistinct) That is understanding, and nicer thing (indistinct), that is our formula, (indistinct). Actually, as one increases his Kṛṣṇa consciousness he becomes (indistinct) all this material (indistinct). That is the prime remedy-panacea for all diseases.


Devotee: This Freudian philosophy is an offshoot from Darwin philosophy. Freud also thinks that man is a biological organism only; therefore his biological functioning should measure up to certain norms of biological behavior. If it doesn't, then there is something wrong. If it does, then everything is all right. So he makes some animal behavior good and other animal behavior substandard, and you want to bring everybody to a certain standard of animal behavior. But he has no conception of spiritual life.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct)


Śyāmasundara: We know he's a great fool, but we have to convince the students.


Prabhupāda: We have to convince them as I am convincing you. That is your business.


Śyāmasundara: Later on, Freud began to accept that certain nonsexual factors might produce these unconscious conflicts, also, and he divided the personality into three separate systems, called the ego, the super-ego and the id. The id is the unconscious instinctive drive to enjoy-sex desire, everything animalistic. The ego is that part of the mind concerned with adjusting efficiently to external reality. In other words, it's a moral segment of the personality which tries to adjust or protect.


Prabhupāda: We are trying to create (indistinct) these falsity. Everyone has got some false egoism. That is our (indistinct). Just like Freud is thinking that he is American or (indistinct). This is false ego. We are giving everyone the intelligence that this identification with this material body, that is (indistinct). Due to ignorance I am thinking that "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am Hindu," "I am (indistinct)." This is false ego-ahaṅkāra, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. This is inferior quality of egoism. The superior quality of egoism is Brahman: "I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa." So if he is taught to the superior engagement, then automatically this false egoism becomes stopped.


Śyāmasundara: He says that ego is concerned with self-preservation—by organizing and controlling against neurotic conflicts and the demands of the id. In other words, if the id sees something, like foodstuffs, it automatically has the urge to eat it, kill it, eat it. The ego is concerned with controlling that desire in order to preserve the individual. For instance, this becomes restrained. Voluntary restraint, control, by personalities and the superego are the authoritarian values of the society, or the parents which say "No, you do not kill like that. You do not eat this, like that." So these three systems are functioning in the personality, and they are always in conflict with a person as he progresses.


Prabhupāda: But the basic principle is called, as Vivekananda says, that he is following the principles of (indistinct), he has no conception of the soul that is existing beyond the body. So they are taking consideration of the body. So according to our philosophy, Bhāgavata, anyone who is in the concept of this body is no better than an ass. Sa eva go-kharaḥ [SB 10.84.13]. Yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke [SB 10.84.13]. One who is identifying this body of three elements as the self, he is no better than an ass.


Śyāmasundara: These three types of reaction to anything—the id reaction, the ego reaction and the superego reaction—these are all bodily reactions.


Prabhupāda: Yes. They are all bodily—subtle reactions.


Śyāmasundara: Each one is more subtle than the other.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: The id is the most gross,


Prabhupāda: Yes. Mind is the beginning of subtle. Just like my senses are gross, but my senses are being controlled by the mind. The mind is the subtle element, but mind is controlled by intelligence, and intelligence is controlled by ego. So if the ego is false, then the whole thing is false. If I am thinking I am this body, this false identification, ego, then all other things which are coming out of this false ego, they are also false. Therefore it is called māyā, or illusion, because they are standing on false platform. Therefore the whole Vedic education is that you be relieved from this false platform and come to the real platform. That is called brahma-jñāna, real platform. And in Bhagavad-gītā it is stated, (indistinct). When one comes to that knowledge that I am spirit soul, than immediately he becomes happy. All this trouble is due to this false ego. Immediately he comes back. (indistinct) What does this mean? The blazing fire of material existence is immediately extinguished. These philosophers are simply describing the blazing fire of material existence. We are trying to get him out of the prison. That's all. Immediately he feels relief: "Oh, I am out of the fire." And within the fire, however you try to make him happy, how will he be happy? The fire is already there. Save him from the fire. Then he is happy. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu, (indistinct). And in Bhagavad-gītā also it is stated, (indistinct).


Devotee: Twelfth Chapter.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Devotee: (indistinct).


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) Kṛṣṇa says, (indistinct), we are getting out. So our (indistinct).


Śyāmasundara: We have more to discuss.


Prabhupāda: He is identifying the body with the soul. And our preaching is different—that we are not this body. Our first principle of understanding is to know that we are not this body. I am different from this body and I am transmigrating from one body to another. That they cannot express. They are explaining that the body is evolving from this body to that body. That is the basic misunderstanding.


Devotee: Freud's case is interesting, that he formed all of his conclusions by his observations of what he calls neurotic and psychotic patients. He observed mentally ill people, neurosis and psychosis, and he drew his conclusions about both sick and normal psychology from his observation of abnormal. He observed the normal behavior of neurotic people, psychotic people, crazy people, and from their behavior he tried to infer all about human psychology. So not only was he on bodily platform, but his only subject matter was the insane. So how can he draw valid conclusions about behavior?


Prabhupāda: So what is your answer?


Devotee: Yes, his observation is correct, but at the same time it doesn't invalidate Freud's use of psychology for supposedly normal people.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) psychology.


Śyāmasundara: He didn't analyze only crazy people; he also analyzed his friends, his mother, his wife, other people also, healthy people.


Devotee: The point is in Revatīnandana Mahārāja's argument is that we have to define, then, what is crazy and what is sane.


Prabhupāda: He is saying that he had studied only some crazy people.


Śyāmasundara: No.


Prabhupāda: But that is not the fact. He analyzed some sane people also. But one psychiatrist's opinion is that (indistinct) was a civil servant, he was called to give evidence in a case where the criminal was pleading (indistinct) became insane while he committed the murder. So the civil servant was called to test him, whether actually he was insane or (indistinct) insanity. So he gave evidence that "I have tested so many persons, so I have seen that more or less everyone is insane. More or less. They are bewildered. So in that case, if insanity is the only plea that he should be excused, he can be excused. But so far as I know, everyone is more or less insane." And that is our conclusion. We say (indistinct), anyone who is infected with this material nature is more or less insane, crazy. He is crazy, not more or less. Anyone who has got this material body must be crazy. And therefore everyone is speaking in a different way.


Devotee: As a result of Freud's philosophy he prescribed, and many of his students prescribed, certain activities. This is one thing we forget to mention—that they prescribed certain activities to help relieve the patient of the trauma, and that is called therapy. Actually there is a higher therapy. Actually one of Freud's students would say that we are all involved in therapy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which we are, and that therapy is chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Therapy is a certain kind of activity which will relieve the anxieties and stresses of the mind.


Prabhupāda: That is recommended by Freud?


Śyāmasundara: No. He wasn't a therapeutical psychologist.


Devotee: No, but as a result of his...


Śyāmasundara: Later on they devised that theory of therapy.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) in support of our movement.


Devotee: According to our philosophy, everyone in this material world is under the spell of the material nature, māyā, "that which is not." So Freud observed that not only in crazy people, but in so-called normal people, everybody's lives are based on some types of illusion. So his psychoanalytic therapy is to trace out how I have come to this illusion or that illusion, that due to some childhood experience with my mother and father or my mouth or my genitals, something like that, all of these experiences are contributing to my unreal perception of the world. But the point which you made is that although he may have worked out what is one particular illusion, who is to prevent that there will not be another illusion? So our process is not to bother tracing out each and every illusion that we have, but to become free from the whole process of being controlled by illusory energy.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our position: not to be affected by any more illusion.


Devotee: He was analyzing the details of the particular illusion, but we are becoming free from the whole influence of māyā.


Devotee (2): (indistinct) the fire is extinguished.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) taken him out of the fire, then he is ...


Devotee: But his one point is that Freud's theory underwent many changes. In the beginning...


Prabhupāda: Then (indistinct) because that is imperfect.


Devotee: His first doctrine was that we should indulge the senses, that this would help, but later he reformed that idea, that instead of indulging the gross senses we should sublimate our natural instincts to some higher cause. So his idea was that instead of actually indulging in gross sex life, we should channel this sexual impulse to some higher cause, such as for developing the culture.


Prabhupāda: That we have explained by quoting Śrī Yamunācārya's verse, that "Since I have taken to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, whenever I think of sexual intercourse, my mouth becomes deformed and I want to spit."


Devotee: Freud would say that whatever talents you have, use them in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But Freud says if somebody has the impulse to kill, he should become a surgeon. If somebody has the impulse to stab someone, then he should be directed to become a doctor and a surgeon, and then by that same cutting...


Devotee (2): This is still a limited conception of what...


Prabhupāda: Then all murderers should be sent to medical college to become surgeons instead of condemning them. Why not?


Devotee: Or put them in the army.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct)


Devotee: They do not like that now. They recruit for the army from the prison.


Devotee (2): (indistinct)


Devotee: But we have the higher...


Prabhupāda: To some extent that is all right, because therefore the kṣatriya race is there, the fighting spirit.


Śyāmasundara: Another part of Freud's theory is that there is a life instinct and a death instinct, that we all have these two instincts, and that the death instinct is the impulse toward aggression and destruction, whereas the life instinct is the impulse towards self-preservation and sex and procreation. He said that people have these two impulses, and those who have the death impulse to extreme often direct it against the self, so that you have people who have accidents and diseases, that is all self-inflicted; that because I get some disease or have some accident, that is my death instinct directed against myself. So he saw that...


Prabhupāda: That is suicidal policy.


Śyāmasundara: If someone gets sick, it's because they want to get sick. Or if there is some accident, it is due to my own desire that that accident takes place. This is his theory.


Prabhupāda: How is this theory?


Devotee: We see practically. I think most of us have experienced this, and you have told us that if we overeat we will get sick, and we have all experienced that if we overeat we get sick.


Devotee: But my reason for eating more is not my tendency to get sick. (indistinct) is different. He says that this is the (indistinct).


Devotee: Yes. So therefore one should not overeat, but still even though we have all gotten sick, we will still go ahead and overeat and get sick.


Śyāmasundara: Sometimes he analyzes that if there is a problem facing someone, that he will get sick, and that will resolve the problem. Psychosomatic sickness. And he saw that accidents happen in the same way.


Devotee: It sounds like to me that what he calls life instinct is what we call logical, and what he calls death instinct is what we call tamoguṇa. If some people... Let's say Freud never came across people who have the urge for mukti. People have the urge to go...


Prabhupāda: Neither death nor life...


Devotee: They haven't touch...


Śyāmasundara: That would be part of the life instinct, self-preservation—if you want to live forever.


Prabhupāda: There are others also: to want to die forever.


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Death instinct.


Devotee: Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura writes that "Vaiṣṇavas die to live," so when we die to live, that is another instinct.


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160820

Discussions with Syamasundara dasa
Sigmund Freud



Prabhupāda: The Bhagavad-gītā says, (indistinct), by giving up this body, that is death, (indistinct).


Śyāmasundara: Do you attribute accidents and disease to a desire for self-destruction?


Prabhupāda: No. Ultimately we say there is no such thing as accident. Nothing can take place without God's sanction. So there is no question of accidents.


Devotee: If they would have some information of the three kinds of miseries, ādhyātmika, ādibhautika, ādi-daivika, they should stop circulating all these kinds of instincts, because they understand all these different things are categorizing...


Śyāmasundara: I thought I heard you say before that some sicknesses and accidents are caused by the person's desire—the person desires to be sick; the person desires to have accident.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) person desires to be sick.


Devotee: Suppose somebody says, "Well, I want to be happy." So we say, "You just chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and join us, then you will be happy." So he is saying, "No. I want to keep my job. I want to do this or that." So when we can say that actually he is not serious about becoming happy. If he really were serious about becoming happy, he would join us. So in a sense he actually doesn't want to be happy. That's what he would say.


Prabhupāda: He wants to be happy but he is miserable. That is (indistinct). He wants to be happy but he is misguided in search of happiness. Everyone wants happiness, but when one is misguided, that is called illusion. He is searching happiness without any basis. (break—continues next day)


Śyāmasundara: We are discussing Freud still. It was his idea that every person has certain aggressive and destructive tendencies within them, and sometimes these are directed upon the self, so that one will have accidents or sicknesses which are self-inflicted. Does this happen?


Prabhupāda: When one commits suicide, that is not in sane condition. He is crazy. In sane condition nobody commits suicide.


Śyāmasundara: He observed, for instance, when someone came up against a massive task, that sometimes they got sick in order to escape the task—these kinds of things. He investigated slips of the tongue and different accidents. He said that a lot of times they are caused by the self, the psychic.


Prabhupāda: Yes, that is intention, not insanity.


Śyāmasundara: Another area of his investigation was the problem of anxiety. He says that the source of anxiety is the id, or the primitive instincts, which are always forcing us to do this and do that. In other words, desire. These impulses threaten to overpower the rational or the moral self. So there is always a tension or an anxiety produced.


Prabhupāda: Anxiety shall continue so long as you are in material condition. You cannot be free from anxiety in your conditioned life.


Śyāmasundara: It is because we desired something and we were always frustrated by that desire?


Prabhupāda: Frustration must be there, because you do not desire the right thing.


Śyāmasundara: So that is the basic cause of anxiety-desire?


Prabhupāda: Yes. Desiring something which is not permanent. That we call (indistinct). Suppose that I wish to live forever, but if I have accepted this material body, therefore there is no question of living forever. So I am always anxious when death should come. I am afraid of death, when the body will be destroyed. This is (indistinct). So therefore the conclusion is that anxiety is due to our acceptance of something which does not exist. This is the right definition of anxiety.


Śyāmasundara: He says that the ego develops strategies of defense against this anxiety which is entering from the id, and one of the strategies it develops is repression. Whenever there is some strong animalistic desire, the ego represses that desire in order to preserve itself.


Prabhupāda: Repression is always there. We make plans in so many ways, but by nature it is frustrated. That is repression.


Śyāmasundara: Is conscious repression advisable?


Prabhupāda: Conscious repression?


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Of my basic instincts, my desires. Should I consciously strive to repress these desires?


Prabhupāda: Just like if you are in a diseased condition and you desire to eat something which is forbidden by the physician. So consciously you have to repress in order to cure. That is the way.


Śyāmasundara: I heard you say once that we cannot really repress desire but we have to channel it, control it, into other objects.


Prabhupāda: Repression means, suppose you have a disease, you are suffering from typhoid fever, and the doctor says that you don't take any solid food. Now if you desire to take a paratha, you have to repress it: "No, I cannot take paratha." Suppose there is looseness of your bile(?), and if you want to take some condensed milk, you have to repress it. (indistinct) go against you, you have to repress. Repress means repressing something which is going against my welfare. So in this brahmacārī system also there is repression. He should not see young woman, he should not sit down with young woman. But he desires. The desire is that "I shall see young woman." He has to repress. So this is called tapasya, voluntary repression.


Śyāmasundara: Aren't these desires given outlet in other ways? Do we channel the desires to some other field? Instead of seeing a beautiful woman, we see the beautiful form of Kṛṣṇa, like that?


Prabhupāda: That is our process. From this (indistinct) if you have got better engagement, you give up inferior engagement. When you are captivated by seeing the beautiful form of Kṛṣṇa, naturally you have no more desire to see the beautiful form of a young woman.


Śyāmasundara: The Buddhists also say repress desires, but they mean total repression.


Prabhupāda: Yes. We don't say that. We just say that sometimes there is strong desire, we have to repress it. Just like my Guru Mahārāja used to say that while you get up from bed, you beat your mind a hundred times with your shoe, and when you go to bed, you beat your mind a hundred times with a broomstick. Then you will be able to control your mind. Sometimes, just like wild tiger, they have got him to control by repression. The circus players, they do that. Because it is wild tiger, repression is required. But when it is under control, there is no question of repression. You can play with the tiger; he becomes your friend. So repression is not always bad.


Śyāmasundara: Another field of investigation for Freud was the idea of projection. He said this is a technique for attributing one's own unconscious attitudes onto other people. In other words, X called Y a name, but actually Y is the object of that. In other words, for instance, X may regard Y as being jealous, but in fact X is jealous and he projects that attitude onto someone else.


Prabhupāda: That is accepted. (indistinct) Everyone thinks others like himself.


Śyāmasundara: So he says that this desire to accuse someone else of being the same is sometimes repressed and replaced by the opposite expression. In other words, someone may dislike someone, but they will inhibit that dislike and show overt symptoms of friendliness, where in fact there is no friendliness there but it is only a mock friendliness. This is one of the psychological attitudes he was studying. Sometimes someone who may have dislike for someone, instead of expressing dislike, may express just the opposite, extreme fondness, where in fact he dislikes the person.


Prabhupāda: That is called (indistinct), silliness. What is the meaning of silly?


Śyāmasundara: Silly means frivolous or superficial.


Prabhupāda: (indistinct) If the other party is silly, then you also become silly. That is human nature.


Devotee: Freud would give an example like this: The child three or four years old, and then a younger child is born in the family. The four-year-old child sees the younger child as a source of competition for affection, and he doesn't like the younger child, but then if he expresses dislike for the child he will be chastised by the parents, so he makes as if he likes the child very much in order to get approbation, but factually he dislikes the child. That is another mechanism that...


Prabhupāda: I don't think the older child dislikes the younger child. Sometimes.


Devotee: Yes. But he would say this sometimes occurs.


Śyāmasundara: You don't notice it very much in Indian families because they are so well-adjusted, but in Western families this quite often happens—the older child becomes jealous of the younger child's favors, but in order to gain the favor of the parents, he expresses overt love for the younger child, or...


Prabhupāda: I don't think children are so clever, that in order to win the love of parents they will treat like that.


Devotee: Freud put so much emphasis on children and the mentality and emotions of children—what one is experiencing, youth and so on—and it is all concocted, don't you think?


Prabhupāda: Children can be trained in a different way. As you train them, they become like that.


Devotee: Freud says that all children experience this if there is a younger child born in the family.


Prabhupāda: They imitate. Children's position is imitation. I have seen in other children, one child was two years old and another child was three years old, and they were imitating just like they had seen sexual intercourse of their father. I have seen it. They are playing, lying down, and the male child is laying upon her. I saw it. Imitation. They do not know what is sex, but they will imitate it. That's all.


Śyāmasundara: Freud analyzes that there are different defense mechanisms by which the ego protects itself.


Prabhupāda: The conclusion is that children generally imitate. They do not know what is the value, but they imitate.


Śyāmasundara: He would say there are instinctive defense mechanisms in the psychological make-up of everyone, such as repression, projection, excessive overt reactions of an opposite kind, different mechanisms which the ego employs to cover up, to protect itself from the impulses of the id, primitive impulses.


Devotee: Just like he says that from the social standards of conduct and moral codes, a person develops an ideal conception of himself. He wants to think himself ideal, and this ideal conception fits the standard of the society and his environment. Then from inside, from his more animal desires, sex desire, etc., he gets impulses which don't fit that standard, that he feels some sex love, but it should not be there, so he wants to say, "I don't really have that." So he tries to repress that desire either by repressing it or by saying, "I don't desire that. Somebody else desires like that," or in so many ways he tries to cover the fact that his own psychological make-up doesn't fit his standard. Therefore he calls it defense mechanism, a way to pretend as if I still am ideal, although I don't really have ideal desires and thoughts, like that. That's the (indistinct). So he postulated all these different mechanisms for defending the ego against the desires of the id or... [break]


Prabhupāda: You have seen that play?


Śyāmasundara: Tarzan?


Prabhupāda: Tarzan. Yes. He was brought up by monkeys. He was brought on... He has got the monkey habits. Children, if you keep them in good association, then they will come out very good. They will have psychological development in good way. And if you keep them in bad association, they will come out bad. Just like in Boston the priest regretted that these our American boys, they were so much after God, but they could not lead(?) them. Actually you American boys, before coming to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, there was no God consciousness; there was hippie consciousness. And now this has changed, due to association. So you are all grown-up, but even small children, if you keep them in good association, they come out nice. Demigods they come out. And if you put them in the demon association, they come out demons. So they are blank slate. As you write, it is written. That is real psychology. You can mold children as you like. They have got the capacity to... Therefore children are sent to a school for taking education, not old men.


Śyāmasundara: So there is no fixed pattern of development of children's personalities?


Prabhupāda: No. This is nonpsychology. You can mold them in any way. As you put them into the mold, they will come out. Just like you take a soft dough, and you can mold it-like parathas or capatis, kacaurīs.


Śyāmasundara: So actually Freud was speaking only of a certain set of children in a certain society, Western society, where they were all brought up a certain way.


Prabhupāda: That's all right. He has a got a one-sided experience.


Devotee: Yes. He has been criticized like that.


Śyāmasundara: You don't find these neuroses in Indian families.


Prabhupāda: No.


Devotee (2): They have studied subsequently primitive tribes and they have found that these neuroses were not there. They only existed in the social structure of Victorian Europe.


Prabhupāda: Therefore this is the conclusion—that if you put children in right association, they will go rightly, and if you put them in wrong association, they will go wrongly. They have no independent psychology.


Śyāmasundara: Perhaps his one contribution was that he said that behavior must be understood in terms of a person's whole life history, in the total...


Prabhupāda: That is why in our Vedic system it is forbidden that even a small child, before that small child, the husband and wife should not joking. They should not talk jokingly.


Śyāmasundara: To the child?


Prabhupāda: Before the child.


Śyāmasundara: Before the child.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Devotee: To each other.


Prabhupāda: Yes. It is not that "It is a small child. They will not understand." But they can understand. So what to speak of having sex intercourse before the child? They will learn it. I've seen it. They do not know what is sex intercourse, but they have learned it from their rascal father and mother.


Śyāmasundara: So Freud, actually his psychology depended upon a rather pessimistic view of human nature—that we are all beset with these uncontrollable impulses...


Prabhupāda: This in not only pessimism, but due to poor fund of knowledge. He has no perfect knowledge, neither is he trained up by any perfect man. So he is talking all nonsense.


Śyāmasundara: His conclusion was that it was impossible to be happy in this material world, but we can alleviate some of the conflicts through this psychoanalysis. You can try and make the path as smooth as possible, but it is always...


Prabhupāda: That is one (indistinct) that you cannot be happy in this material world, but if you are spiritually elevated, spiritually trained up, then you will be happy. The same example. Just like iron is not fire, but you put it in the fire, it will act like fire. Similarly, although there is no possibility of happiness in this material world, if you are spiritually trained up, if your consciousness is changed into Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you will be happy. (end)


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160820&page=2

Discussions with Hayagriva dasa
Aristotle







Aristotle


Hayagrīva: ...quotations on Aristotle. Aristotle believes that God expresses Himself through matter, although he also believes that God is transcendent and separate from the universe.


Prabhupāda: He believes some way and other believes some way, so which is..., which one is correct?


Hayagrīva: He does not follow Plato's dualism of the "here" and the "there." Plato made a sharp distinction between the material universe and the spiritual universe, but Aristotle believes there is no sharp distinction because God expresses Himself in matter. Since matter is simply one of God's energies, the finite reflects the infinite.


Prabhupāda: So what is the other energy? Does he know?


Hayagrīva: He doesn't concern himself with that. He says that by knowing something of the world about us, we can know something about God.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: So his, his...


Prabhupāda: It may be that you know something about God. Then you have to admit that you do not know everything about God. So their knowledge is imperfect. Our point is that we know everything of God from God. So that knowledge is perfect. As Kṛṣṇa said in the Seventh Chapter, that mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ. "If you concentrate your mind on your attachment to Me, and if you execute yoga meditation, always thinking of Kṛṣṇa, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then you understand Me fully and without any doubt." So instead of speculating in God, if we simply think of God, that will help us. To escape from darkness, if you speculate about the sun by some suggestion, by some concoction, this is one kind of knowledge. But if you actually come out of the darkness and see the sun, then it is complete (indistinct).


Hayagrīva: Now...


Prabhupāda: These Western philosophers, mostly they are contemplating about the sunshine in darkness. But that is not the way of understanding the sun. Best thing is to come in the sunshine, see yourself, see the sunshine, see the sun. There is (indistinct).


Hayagrīva: Here's another point. Aristotle says that it is not material objects that are trying to realize God, like as Plato says, but God realizing Himself through material objects. God does this in a variegated way and in an infinite way. So God realizes the potentiality of a rose or of a man by creating a rose, a flower, a man that is perceivable by the material senses. So the world is more real to Aristotle than it is to Plato.


Prabhupāda: If God has created the material world and material variety, so means He is in full awareness how to do things nicely. That is perfectness of God. He knows everything how to do it perfectly, naturally. Just like even a child, we get daily experience, when we offer some cake in the Deity room, the child immediately takes it and puts in the mouth. Although she is very small baby, (s)he doesn't require any education about taking the cake and what to do with it. Immediately puts in the mouth. So this natural, what is called, knowledge, that is God's knowledge. He knows everything perfectly well, and when He produces a rose flower, it is all-perfect. That is God's... God is not..., He has to get the knowledge through some source. He is already in awareness of everything. That is God. So He hasn't got to know His capacity through matter.


Hayagrīva: Now Aristotle would say that the flower is real because it has its basis in the ultimate reality, God.


Prabhupāda: That..., how God can be not in knowledge? He is full in knowledge. That is God.


Hayagrīva: Plato would say that the flower is a shadow of reality, a perverted reflection of reality. So which point of view would be...?


Prabhupāda: Yes, it is... When the flower is in the material world..., material world is perverted reflection of the spiritual world. That's a fact. We have got experience that material things are created, but in the spiritual world things are not created; they are already there, everlasting. So it appears Aristotle has no knowledge of the spiritual world.


Hayagrīva: Aristotle defines God as pure form and pure act and purely nonmaterial. He is absolute spirit and is the unmoved mover.


Prabhupāda: Yes. He is absolute spirit, there is no doubt upon it, but why He should come to know Himself through material world? That is defective.


Hayagrīva: Aristotle's God contemplates Himself. He does not have any knowledge of the world...


Prabhupāda: Who?


Hayagrīva: ...as such.


Prabhupāda: Who has no knowledge?


Hayagrīva: God.


Prabhupāda: What kind of God is that?


Hayagrīva: I don't know.


Prabhupāda: (chuckles) This is Aristotle's ignorance, that he does not know what is God and he is speaking about God. That is his ignorance.


Hayagrīva: Nor, he says, nor can God return the love that He receives. He doesn't love or care for mankind.


Prabhupāda: So He is in perfect knowledge, then why He should not reciprocate? So God reciprocates. It is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham [Bg. 4.11]. As much as we offer our love to God, He, what is called, cooperates, cooperative response. When we fully surrender and fully in loving service, then we can understand God, what He is actually.


Hayagrīva: Aristotle sees the love going one way. He says that God is loved by everything in the universe and that He attracts all objects in the universe because everything is striving toward Him and longing for Him.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: But there is no mention of God as a person, although he says He's pure form. Is this an imagined form like the Māyāvādīs may imagine a form?


Prabhupāda: Yes. He has got the tilt of Māyāvāda. That is his imperfect knowledge of God. Because he does not receive knowledge from God, he speculates; therefore his knowledge is imperfect.


Hayagrīva: Aristotle's belief in the soul changed. He has three conceptions of the soul. One is that the soul is a separate substance, another is that the body is the instrument of the soul, and the third is the soul is the form of the body.


Prabhupāda: Yes, this can be explained. The body is just like the dress of the soul. So our dress is made according to our body. The tailor takes the measurement of the body and makes the coat accordingly. So the coat appears with the hand because we have got hand. Coat, pant appears as a leg because we have got leg. So this body is simply a, what is called, coating or shirting of the soul. Actually the soul has got form, shape, form, and therefore the cloth, which will generally have no shape, is, when it comes in contact with the soul, it becomes a shape.


Hayagrīva: Now for both Plato and Aristotle, God is known by reason, not by revelation or by religious experience, not by mystical experience...


Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. You cannot... God is unlimited. You have got limited power to see or to smell or to touch. You have got all limited, and God is unlimited. So you cannot understand God by your limited power of sensual activities. Therefore God is revelation. We say that ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ [Cc. Madhya 17.136]. You cannot understand by speculating your senses. That is not possible. When you engage yourself in His service, then He reveals. Nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ [Bg. 7.25]. God says that "I am not exposed to everyone. I am covered by the yoga-māyā." That is fact. So unless God reveals Himself... So God not only reveals, He appears, and great authorities, they are searching. Just like Kṛṣṇa appeared, and great authorities like Vyāsadeva, Nārada, Śukadeva Gosvāmī and then the ācāryas, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya and Caitanya Mahāprabhu-big, big stalwart scholars and transcendentalists—they accepted Kṛṣṇa. All the śāstras accept Kṛṣṇa. Long, long years, five thousand years, when there was no philosophy in the Western world, God revealed Himself, face to face. Arjuna saw Him and he accepted Him. And similarly other great persons accepted Him. So God is not to be speculated, but by one's service, when He is pleased, He reveals Himself.


Hayagrīva: There is a great deal of emphasis in Aristotle on reason. He says happiness depends on man's acting in a rational way. The rational way is the virtuous way. The virtuous way is the way of intellectual insight. There is a suggestion of sense control but no bhakti. So is it possible to obtain happiness simply by controlling the senses by the mind?


Prabhupāda: Yes. So that is the process of becoming a human being. The lower beings, animals, they do not know this process. Just like they are busy only for sense gratification-eating, sleeping, mating and defense, their only business. But a human being can be engaged by proper guidance in contemplation. Just like Aristotle is contemplating or Plato is con..., this is human being's business. But such contemplation should be guided by authorities. Otherwise one can contemplate with his limited senses for many, many millions of years, it will be impossible to understand what is God.


Hayagrīva: But for happiness, or ānanda, isn't bhakti essential, love, or ānanda?


Prabhupāda: Ānanda means... God is full ānanda, sac-cid-ānanda. He is eternal, sat; He is spiritual; and He is ānanda, bliss. So unless one comes in contact with God, there is no question of ānanda. (Sanskrit). In the Vedic literatures we understand that God is reservoir of all pleasure, unlimited. So when you come in contact with God, then you will taste what is pleasure. So material pleasure is only perverted reflection of the real pleasure. Real pleasure is possible when we come in contact with God.


Hayagrīva: In his Ethics, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes, "Moral excellence is concerned with pleasure and pain. It is pleasure that makes us do base or ignoble action, and pain that prevents us from doing noble actions. For that reason," as Plato says, "men must be brought up from childhood to feel pleasure and pain at the proper things, for this is correct education." So how does this correspond to the Vedic view of education?


Prabhupāda: Vedic view of education is, actually there is no pleasure in this material world, because we may arrange for all pleasure artificially in the material world, but all of sudden one has to die. So where is the pleasure? If you make arrangement of all pleasure and all of a sudden death comes upon you, then where is pleasure? So first of all they must, if they are intelligent, they must make arrangement that they will be able to enjoy the pleasures they have created. Otherwise, where is pleasure? It is disappointment. That is going on. They are trying to become pleased by inventing so many things, but because they are controlled by some superior element, so at any moment they will be kicked out of the pleasure platform. Then where is pleasure? Therefore the conclusion should be: there is no pleasure in this material world. If one is searching after pleasure in the material world, then it is the same thing as the animal is searching water in the desert. There is no water in the desert; it is simply illusion, and he is preparing for death. Because he is thirsty, he is searching after water, and in the wrong way he is searching water. The ultimate result will be he will die of thirst.


Hayagrīva: One last statement from Aristotle. He states, in his Politics, he says, "The beauty of the body is seen, whereas the beauty of the soul is not seen." Is this true?


Prabhupāda: Beauty of the soul is real beauty, and beauty of the body is superficial. Not every body is beautiful. There are so many bodies very ugly, and there are so many bodies very beautiful. So the material sense, this ugliness and beautifulness, they are all artificial. But the beauty of the soul is real; that is not artificial. So unless we see the beauty of the Supersoul, Kṛṣṇa, we have no idea what is actually beauty. Therefore devotees, they want to see the beauty of Kṛṣṇa, not any artificial beauty of this material world.


Hayagrīva: There's no correspondence there. That is to say, a beautiful body does not necessarily house a beautiful soul. There's no correspondence.


Prabhupāda: No, there is correspondence, because we say this material world is perverted reflection. So originally the soul is beauty, but here the beauty is covered. But we can simply have a glimpse of the real beauty from the material covering, but we have to wait to see the beauty of the soul. That is real point.


Hayagrīva: I read that Socrates was a very ugly man but that he had a very beautiful soul, and people were attracted to his soul. That was the, supposedly...


Prabhupāda: Yes. The example can be given that the quail, it is called kokil, it is very black, just like crow. But when you vibrates the voice, it is so beautiful that people are attracted. So the beauty of the body is secondary. The beauty of the soul is primary. So just like a mūḍha, a illiterate man, nicely dressed—he is beautiful so long he does not speak. And as soon as he speaks, we can understand what is his position. So dhavaca so vate mūḍha yavad kiñcid na vasa (?). A ugly, illiterate rascal, fool, is beautiful so long he does not speak, and as soon as he speaks we can understand what is his position. So this external beauty is no beauty. If an ugly man, if he speaks very nicely, he will attract so many people, and if a beautiful man, if he speaks nonsense, nobody cares for him. So real attraction is different and artificial is different.


Hayagrīva: I think that concludes Aristotle. (end)


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160842

Discussions with Hayagriva dasa
Karl Marx







Karl Marx


Hayagrīva: ...and Śyāmasundara discussed the politics of Karl Marx with you but not the religious attitudes of Marx.


Prabhupāda: He has any religious attitude?


Hayagrīva: Well, he, his father was a Jew, but he became converted to Christianity.


Prabhupāda: His father?


Hayagrīva: His father, Marx's father. And Marx's mother, however, remained Jewish, and Marx was raised a Christian. But at the age of twenty-three, after having studied some philosophy at the university, Marx became an avowed atheist. And Hegel, it was Hegel who wrote, "Because the accidental is not God or the Absolute is," and Marx commented on this, "Obviously the reverse can also be said." That is because God is not, the accidental is.


Prabhupāda: God is not?


Hayagrīva: Yes.


Prabhupāda: What, what does...?


Hayagrīva: So everything is accidental.


Prabhupāda: Accidental.


Hayagrīva: Hegel said, "Because the accidental is not,..." because nothing is accidental, "God exists." Marx says you can say it the other way around.


Prabhupāda: How, how we, any sensible man can accept accidental?


Hayagrīva: He thought that...


Prabhupāda: Accidental... Just like a child takes birth, is it accidental? Beginning from the child, so it is not accidental. That there is a father-mother unity, and then, when the child is born, then how you can say accidental? Nothing is accidental.


Hayagrīva: He felt that man..., it is only man who gives reality to God, or, he said, "the gods."


Prabhupāda: Reality must be there. That we... Just like Mr. Marx, he certainly did not like to die, but he was forced to die. Why it takes place unless there is some superior force? We do not wish to have some accident but there is accident; so how you can check it? So in this way, the conception of God, there is always some superior, and there are many other things, common sense, we discuss daily that the, as the nature, things are going on so nicely, they are not accidentally. There are so many planets in the sky. Accidentally they are not colliding but they are remaining in their position. The sun is rising in due course of time, in the morning exactly in time. So there is nothing accidental. And because things are going on very systematically, so there must be some brain behind it, and that supreme brain is God. How you can deny it?


Hayagrīva: Marx felt that true philosophy would say, "In simple truth I bear hate for any and every God is its own avowal, its own judgment against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the supreme divinity. There must be no other on a level with it."


Prabhupāda: Human intelligence, unless he comes to the point of the Absolute Truth and the original cause of everything, then how his intellect is perfect? One must make progress. Progress means to go to the ultimate goal. If the human being does not know what is the ultimate cause, ultimate goal, then what is the value of his intelligence?


Hayagrīva: Marx felt that religion is a symptom of a degraded man. He wrote, "Religion is the sigh of a distressed creature, the soul of a heartless world, as it is also the spirit of a spiritless condition. It is the opium of the people. The more a man puts into God, the less he retains in himself."


Prabhupāda: But practically we see that the Communist are also equally failure, even without God. Now these Chinese and Russians, they are not in agreement. So same thing—that those who believed in God and those who did not believe in God the difference existed. And now amongst the Communist there are coming out so many section. So the difference of opinion is still there even denying God, without God. So that is not improvement. The real purpose is to understand what is really God is. That is required both by the Communist or the capitalist. Denying God and acting independently, that has not brought any peaceful condition of the human society.


Hayagrīva: He felt, like Comte, that the proletariat, the worker, would eventually eliminate religion, and he wrote, "The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, the religious man in general is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, and from religion generally." So that the worker would become the savior of mankind in emancipating or freeing man from a religion that worshiped a supernatural being.


Prabhupāda: So that has not actually happened. Marx is dead and gone. The Communist theory is already there, but they are not in agreement. The Russians are not in agreement with the Chinese men. Why it has happened? The God is not there; the working class is there. Then why there is dissension and disagreement?


Hayagrīva: Marx felt that religion stood between man and happiness. He said, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. The demand to abandon the illusions about their condition is the demand to give up a condition that requires illusion. Hence criticism of religion is an embryo, or a beginning of a criticism of this vale of tears whose halo is religion." So religion was like a millstone around the neck of man, and that man must free himself of this illusion.


Prabhupāda: Religious system deteriorates, and without any understanding on philosophical basis. Then, if he is apt to, rejects that religion. But we understand that is fact that there is God on the top of all cosmic manifestation activities, and the law given by the supreme head of the cosmic manifestation, that is religion. And if we create our religious system on sentiments only, that will create troubles only and there will be misunderstandings. But actually it is a fact that there is some brain behind all this cosmic manifestation, and if we know what is that brain, how it is working, that is scientific understanding, and the law given by God is religion. That is our simple definition. Religion cannot be manufactured as law cannot be manufactured. So if we do not know what is God, how He is acting, what..., what are His words, how we have to follow that, that kind of religion will be failure.


Hayagrīva: He felt... Marx writes, "The alien being to whom labor and the produce of labor belong, and whose service labor is done, and for whose benefit the produce of labor is provided can only be man himself." And he felt that throughout history that the working man has labored so hard for the construction of temples to God, and this should be changed, that man should work not to build temples to God but for the benefit of man.


Prabhupāda: So unless one understands that abide by the orders of God is the benefit of man... If there is any, any organization... Even in communistic country there are many men working, but there is one director. In the state also there is one dictator, either Stalin or Lenin. A leader is wanted. So the supreme leader is called God. So the Communist cannot do without leader. Even Karl Marx, he is giving leadership. So, so leadership is wanted. There you cannot change. A person, a society is working under the leadership of God or Kṛṣṇa, and a society is working under the leadership of Marx... What is this? Marx?


Hayagrīva: Marx and Engels and Lenin, they were...


Prabhupāda: And Lenin. So that leadership wanted. Now the question is who will be the leader—Kṛṣṇa or Lenin? That is to be understood. Without leader, either the Communist or the theist cannot work. So, so far accepting leadership, the philosophy is one. Now the question will remain, "Whose leadership is perfect?" That is to be decided. But the Communist cannot avoid leadership.


Hayagrīva: Like Comte, Marx believed that atheism was unnecessary because it was negative denial. He felt that socialism is positive assertion. He says, "Atheism no longer has any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God and postulates the existence of man through this negation. But socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the practically and theoretically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature the essence. Socialism is man's positive self-consciousness no longer mediated throught the annulment of religion, just as real life is man's positive reality through Communism." So that Communism really has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.


Prabhupāda: No. Our point is that religion is not sentiment. Leadership has to be accepted, either by the Communist or the theist or atheist. There is leadership. So when the leadership is selected and the direction given by the leader, you can take it as some "ism." So religion is the same thing. When we accept the leadership of God and His direction, that is religion. I don't think on principle the Communist can change this idea. The same leader is Lenin or Stalin, and he is giving his direction, and people must follow it. So where is the difference of philosophy? Similarly, Kṛṣṇa is there, His instruction is there, and we are following. So where is the difference in fact?


Hayagrīva: In either case there is authority.


Prabhupāda: Authority. So where is the difference in principle? There is no difference, but everyone will say that "I am the best leader." But who will select the best leader? What is the criterion of best leader?


Hayagrīva: Well the basic difference is that Marx believes that there's nothing spiritual; everything is material. He says, "An incorporeal substance is just as much a contradiction as an incorporeal body."


Prabhupāda: That is his ignorance, because this body is dead. That what is the difference between the dead body and the... The same Marx and same Lenin was lying, but because there is no spirit sould it was considered as dead. This is imperfect understanding of the man, of the body. Otherwise, I mean to say, man of sense studies there must be a spiritualism and materialism. Spiritualism..., spirit means the force behind the matter. It can be understood very easily that matter as it is, it is inactive. A machine may be very well made, but without a person, a living being, the machine is useless. So that is the difference between spirit and matter. Matter can be active only in touch with the spirit. Similarly, the body is active when there is soul within the body. This can be easily understood, unless one is very dull. Spirit cannot be denied. [break]


Hayagrīva: He says, "Since only what is material is perceptible, knowable, nothing is known of the existence of God. I am sure only of my own existence." He feels that material life precedes consciousness and gives rise to consciousness. He says li...


Prabhupāda: But he does not believe in spirit soul, is that not? Hayagrīva: He says, "Life is not determined by consciousness but consciousness by life."


Prabhupāda: So what is that life? When the life is absent why this body, the used body, is dead stone only? Has he got any understanding of that, what is that life?


Hayagrīva: He felt that consciousness is basically social. He says, "Consciousness is from the very beginning a social product and remains so as long as man exists at all."


Prabhupāda: Why? Why he finishes? Why does he not exist? What is his answer to this?


Hayagrīva: What's that?


Prabhupāda: So long man exists, but why he ceases to exist? Why he stops his existence, he becomes dead matter, his body?


Hayagrīva: Marx had very little to say about death. He felt...


Prabhupāda: But death is a fact.


Hayagrīva: ...in the continuance...


Prabhupāda: Death is a fact. He is talking so loudly, but as soon as he is dead he cannot speak any more.


Hayagrīva: Well he would say...


Prabhupāda: What is the difference? Why he becomes completely dumb? If somebody kicks on his face he cannot say anything.


Hayagrīva: Well if life..., if consciousness is dependent on life, when life ceases, consciousness also ceases.


Prabhupāda: That's all right, what is that life? Does he know anything? Without life you cannot speak. But he has not established what is that life.


Hayagrīva: Marx opposed Comte's view of the worship of women, and he also opposed the worship of God in nature. He writes, "There is no question of modern sciences which alone, along with modern industry, have revolutionized the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude toward nature as well as to other forms of childishness. The position as regards to the worship of female is the same as nature worship."


Prabhupāda: But how the science or the scientific brain has surpassed the laws of nature? Has man stopped the nature's action—birth, death, old age, and disease? So how the scientist has conquered over nature? What is the meaning of this conquering? The nature's law is going on. Before Marx, his father died, his mother died, and he also died. So how he has conquered over the nature? The death is continuing.


Hayagrīva: He felt...


Prabhupāda: What is the improvement?


Hayagrīva: Yes.


Prabhupāda: What is the improvement?


Hayagrīva: He felt that there has been no improvement because religion has kept man...


Prabhupāda: It has nothing to do with religion. It is the work of nature...


Hayagrīva: Yes.


Prabhupāda: ...that the man takes birth and he dies. So what the science has revolutionized in this matter? Has the science stopped birth and death and old age and disease? Then what improvement has done? The work is going on. In spite of talking all theories by Marx or anybody, nature's law is still superseding them. So how the science and others, they have surpassed the laws of nature?


Hayagrīva: Well, he felt that modern industry had made men...


Prabhupāda: Industry, whatever you take, industry. Does it means when a man takes to industry he does not die? How he has conquered over the laws of nature?


Hayagrīva: He couldn't say. How can he say?


Prabhupāda: Yes, go on.


Hayagrīva: He felt that industry or science could make man happier by emancipating man from...


Prabhupāda: We don't think so because in the industry the worker are not satisfied. They are, they are observing strike. Why? If there is happiness, why there is strike?


Hayagrīva: He felt... Well this... Of course Marx wrote before Communism came into actual existence as a, as a political institution, so he's simply theorizing.


Prabhupāda: Still, his theory, he...


Hayagrīva: He's never, he's never, he never saw Communist Russia for instance, or any Communist state. He, he felt that religion has..., was the cause of antagonism between men. He says, "The most persistent form of antagonism between the Jew and the Christian is religious antagonism." How has one solved an antagonism by...


Prabhupāda: No.


Hayagrīva: ...by making it impossible?


Prabhupāda: There is not the question of antagonism. If we actually know who is God and what He desires... I give always this example: if we know the government and the government laws, then there is no antagonism. The government says that "Keep to the right," so there is no question of antagonism; anyone must keep to the right. So there is no question of antagonism. But the antagonism is there when the so-called religious system does not know what is God and what is actually the desire of God. Then there cannot be any antagonism. That perfectness of understanding God and God's regulation or order is clearly described in the Bhagavad-gītā. We are therefore advocating Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that "Here is God and here is God's instructions." So if we deliver it, and the proposal in the Bhagavad-gītā, they are all practical. Just like God says that you divide the society in four division—not only worker, but also the good brain, good administrator, and good producer of food. That is the actually the divisions of the society. So without division of the society, if you simply keep worker, who will give them instruction to work? These are all imperfect ideas. But the perfect ideas are given in the Bhagavad-gītā. If we follow that, then the human society, humanity will be in perfect order. So either you call it religion or a system to..., following which one can become peaceful. Religion means, to understand God means, a system. A system is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā in three principles. God says that He is the proprietor of everything, sarva-loka-maheśvaram [Bg. 5.29]. So we see this planet, and there is different proprietors-individual proprietor of the land or the state proprietor, the king. So there is a proprietor of this earth, either you divide it nationally or you take it wholly. So similarly there are many, many millions of others, so they are called sarva-loka. So there must be a proprietor. So if we know who is that proprietor and how He is working... That is also stated, that the supreme proprietor is the supreme friend of everyone. So if we find out the supreme proprietor, supreme friend, and if we understand the proprietor is the enjoyer of everything, that is real religion. Then peace will prevail. But if we do not know who is the proprietor, what is His function, what is our relationship with Him, that we create antagonism. Somebody will say, "My religion is better," somebody will say, "My religion is better." But we most of all first, first of all know what is religion. Religion, we say, that the order given by the supreme proprietor and to live according to, according to that order, that is religion. If you do not know what is religion, what is the use of criticizing religion or creating antagonism?


Hayagrīva: Well, evidently Marx never got over the antagonism between his father and his mother—his mother who was Jewish and his father who was a Christian convert. He says, "As soon as Jew and Christian recognize their respective religions, there is nothing more than different stages of evolution of the human spirit, as different snakeskins shed by history, and recognize man as the snake who wore them. They will no longer find themselves in religious antagonism but only in a critical scientific and human relationship. Science constitutes their unity. Contradictions in science, however, are resolved by science itself." So that, in other words, science, material science, is to replace this religion, and religion is to be shed by mankind just as a snake sheds its skin. And in this way the antagonisms created between Jew and Christian or, or Hindu and Muslim are reconciled.


Prabhupāda: Reconciled can be only when you actually know what is God. Simply by stamping oneself Christian, Jewish, or Hindu and Muslim, without knowing who is God and what is his desire, that will naturally create antagonism. Therefore the conclusion is, as Mr. Marx giving stress on science, so we should understand scientifically what is religion, what is God. Then this antagonism will stop.


Hayagrīva: He felt that the state should eventually assume the role of Christ. He said, "As Christ is the mediator on whom man unburdens all his own divinity and his whole religious burden, so also the state is the mediator on which man places all his unholiness and his whole human burden." So, in other words, that Christ, of course, relieves man of all his burdens and his sins through his message of salvation, and instead of Christ it would be the state that would assume this role.


Prabhupāda: So Christ gives the knowledge how one can be relieved of the material burden. That is the business of all religious preacher. The religious preacher should give information to the people in general the exact position of God or idea of God, and when people will learn scientifically about God's existence and his relationship with God, then everything will be adjusted. That is wanted. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to give people exact idea of God, exact definition of God, and exact instruction of God. If we take that, take to that, then our religious life will be perfect.


Hayagrīva: The last point is... And this is a point that most Marxists tend to ignore because Communism, when Communism comes to power, they, oh, like in Tibet, I believe when the Communists came in they abolished...


Prabhupāda: All religious system.


Hayagrīva: The Dalai Lama had to flee to India, I believe, and the Tibetan Buddhists had to...


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: They had a temple in Delhi.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: Well, he says, Marx says, "The incompatibility with religion with the rights of man is so little implied in the concept of the rights of man that the right to be religious according to one's liking and to practice one's own particular religion is explicitly included among the rights of man. The privilege of religion is a universal human right."


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: So he felt that man should at least be allowed to practice his religion, although he felt that the state should encourage the abolition of religion. That it is an inherent human right for man to be able to practice religion...


Prabhupāda: That, that I explain always, that state duty is the freedom of religion, but the state must see that a person advocating particular type of religion, whether he is acting according to that religion...


Hayagrīva: But he felt that if this religion should be allowed, it should be individual and not communal. He says, "Liberty as a right of man is not based on the association of man with man but rather on a separation of man from man. It is the right of separation..."


Prabhupāda: No, there is no question of separation, that if we accept God as the supreme father. Now the Christian religion believes God as the supreme father. So if the supreme father is there, and if we become obedient to the supreme father, then why, where is the difference of opinion? But we do not know the supreme father and we do not obey the supreme father. That is the cause of dissension. The son's duty is to become obedient to the father and enjoy father's property. So if we know the supreme father, and if we live according to the father's order, so there is question of antagonism, dissension. It is all our own, father being the center. That, the difficulty is that we call supreme father but we do not accept the father's order or what is the order of the supreme father. That is the defect.


Hayagrīva: Well he felt that if man, if man is going to worship God, if man must worship God, he should do so privately, individually, and not communally.


Prabhupāda: No, if God is a fact, and man must worship God, then why not communally? That he, he is pleading that every individual man shall manufacture his own God and worship.


Hayagrīva: Well he would rather do..., do away with the whole thing.


Prabhupāda: No, that is impossible. God means, as I have explained, the supreme father. He is the father of every man or every living entity. So how the father can be different? If man manufactures a different... There are ten sons in the family; the father is one. It is not that one son say, "No, I shall select my own father." So what kind of father he is? So that is imperfectness of understanding the father. Nobody can say that "I can select my own father." How it is possible? Father is one. Similarly God is one, and if one is actually religious and obeying the same one father's order, then where is dissension? That the difficulty is nobody knows who is that supreme father, neither they are prepared to obey the orders of the father. That is the difficulty. In one family there cannot be two father. The one father. Similarly, when you speak of the supreme father, "O father, give us our daily bread," He is father of everyone. So why one should select one father, another man will select another father? That means he does not know who is father. That is the defect.


Hayagrīva: Well he was hoping that this process would eventually lead to the total dissolution of religion.


Prabhupāda: No.


Hayagrīva: That if everyone worships..., well not everybody, but if you must worship God, worship Him in your own way, in your own home.


Prabhupāda: So dissolution of religion means animalism. That has happened actually, because one does not know what is God, soon there is misunderstanding of religion. Therefore if he, actually anyone is serious about religion, then they should sit down together, that "We call God as supreme father, then why should we fight ourselves? Let us obey the order of the supreme father." Then there is no dissension. But they do not do that, neither they know who is the supreme father. That is the defect.


Hayagrīva: You have been to Communist Russia, and was there any church worship? The Eastern Orthodox church used to be the standard Russian religion. Is there any church worship in Russia today?


Prabhupāda: I, I, I did not see, but I saw some mosquelike building in the, what is called, Red Square. I saw that building, but that is vacant. They are worshiping Stalin, no, Lenin. Yes. They are worshiping Lenin's tomb. That I have seen in the Red Square. And there was a church or mosque, I do not know. The building is, can be called a church or mosque...


Hayagrīva: Church.


Prabhupāda: That was vacant.


Hayagrīva: It's more like a museum.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: They keep it as a museum.


Prabhupāda: Yes, that I have seen. I don't think there is any worship of church.


Hayagrīva: But there must be some... There must be some people in Russia, since God is...


Prabhupāda: They may be doing private, privately. Or I did not see.


Hayagrīva: Well at least now some people are interested in purchasing your books in Russia.


Prabhupāda: Yes, that is...


Hayagrīva: What does this mean?


Prabhupāda: It may be because it is Indian culture, and we have quoted from Vedic literature, the original Sanskrit. So they are little after the Indian culture, so when they find that here is the original version in original letters, they may be interested in that.


Hari-śauri: But actually it's a fect that in Russia there aren't many people who still believe in God.


Prabhupāda: No, no. Believe in God, why? Eighty percent, ninety percent, they believe in God. That cannot be avoided.


Hayagrīva: But don't the... The young people are Communists, are very enthusiastic about Communism, but as a person grows older and sees death as inevitable, don't the, don't the older people worship...?


Prabhupāda: No, even the young men, in Russia I have seen, they are after also God. They are unhappy because they are not allowed to go out of Russia. They want to see the world, but they are not allowed. Their independence is suppressed. So they are not happy.


Hayagrīva: That's the end of...


Prabhupāda: Hm. (end)


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160888

Discussions with Hayagriva dasa
Sigmund Freud







Sigmund Freud


Hayagrīva: ...and on Sigmund Freud, you discussed with Śyāmasundara Prabhu the sexual aspects, but not the theological aspects. Freud wrote two basic books on religion, Future of an Illusion, and there was a great deal in Leonardo da Vinci, A Study in Psycho-sexuality. He writes, "Psychoanalysis, which has taught us the intimate connection between the father complex and belief in God, has shown us that the personal God is psychologically nothing but an exalted father. Youthful persons lose their religious belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down." So he sees God as basically a father complex arising out of the need of help of the little child.


Prabhupāda: That little child, how he can give up the idea of father? And how Mr. Freud can give up the idea? Was he not born by a father?


Hayagrīva: He feels that...


Prabhupāda: He dropped from the sky? Huh? Did, did he?


Hayagrīva: He feels that this is childish.


Prabhupāda: That childish, what is that childish? He had no father?


Hayagrīva: He had a father, but he believed in ultimate emancipation.


Prabhupāda: No, no, ultimate we shall go later on. First of all, he has to think whether he had his father or not. Or his father's father was not there, and go on searching out. So without father, how can one exist or one can come into being? So that if he cannot understand this simple philosophy, what kind of philosopher he is? He had his father. His father had his father. So this is fact. Even though he might not have seen his dead grandfather, but he was there. That is a fact. So if you go on searching, father's father's father, where you will come there is no father? Which..., which is that point when you can say, "Now here there is no father"? And if you actually come to that point that "Here is a person of whom there is no father," that is God.


Hayagrīva: He says, "After all, is not the destiny of childishness to be overcome? Man cannot remain a child forever."


Prabhupāda: No. What is his definition of childish? Whether he is childish, or he is condemning others?


Hayagrīva: One who needs...


Prabhupāda: Unless you can deny that you have born, you are born without father, then you are a child. You do not have conception how you are in existence without father. What is this argument? That everything must be argued, a sane man. So this is simple logic I am putting forward. Who can refute it, that you have father, your father had father, his father had father, father's father's, all? This is a disciplic succession of fathers. How can you deny the father? Therefore the ultimate father, the supreme father, He is also father but He is supreme father. That is the difference. So father conception of God is very practical, and it is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā [Bg. 14.4]. So how he can defy it if he is a sane man? Who can defy it? Is there any person to defy it?


Hayagrīva: Well, he says, "Man's helplessness remains, and with it his father-longing and the gods."


Prabhupāda: Hopelessness or no hopelessness...


Hayagrīva: Helplessness.


Prabhupāda: Ah. But suppose he is philosophizing. So how he can avoid the conception of father? That is insanity. This is very simple thing. Father's father's, his father, his father... When you go to the supreme father, that is God.


Hayagrīva: Well, he felt that the idea of God arose out of man's helplessness, and the gods...


Prabhupāda: That hopelessness is already there, that's a fact. That is the same logic, that we are finding difficulties in this materialistic way of life. Threefold miseries-miserable condition of this body, this mind, miseries offered by other living entities, and the natural disturbances. So how can you say there is very smooth life? That is not possible. And above these, there is old age, birth, death. So hopelessness is already there. But if one is very rascal, he is hoping against hope and planning that "We shall overcome all these difficulties by this plan, that plan, that plan." That, that is not possible. The nature is so strong, whatever plan you imagine, that will smash into pieces by simply kicking over your face. So you are hopeless but you are so shameless, inspite of becoming hopeless in every step, you are hoping against hope to make adjustment with these material things. You are so rascal and foolish. Hopelessness is always there in every step, and still, out of insanity, you are trying to adjust with another hopeless plan.


Hayagrīva: He felt that the father God is an infantile wish. He says, "The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that one whose attitudes..."


Prabhupāda: So what is his reality? Infantile conception of God, but what he is, except the child? Huh? He is also planning something. That is also childish. So how he becomes more than a child? He cannot give us any definite program by which everyone will be hopeful.


Hayagrīva: Well, he felt psychoanalysis was the answer.


Prabhupāda: That is jugglery of word. Psychoanalysis, nobody will, can understand, a common man. Psychoanalysis, if there is meaning, that there is supreme controller, that is psychoanalysis. We see everywhere controller, so it is natural. This is psychoanalysis, that there is a supreme controller. That is natural. Why defying this fact?


Hayagrīva: He says, "If one attempts to assign religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition as a parallel to the neuroses which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity."


Prabhupāda: Evidently he is frustrated, without any knowledge of religion. He had no idea. He has seen that so many sentimental religious system, and he has concluded like that. But first of all let him understand what is religion. Religion cannot come into existence without understanding the idea of God. Religion without God cannot be religion. According to Vedic system, religion means the order given by God. But if one has no conception of God, that there is no question of religion. So Godless religion is, certainly, it is sentiment. That is not religion. So he has studied something which is not religion; therefore he has got so many doubts about religion. Real religion is that there is God, that is a fact, and whatever orders the God gives, that is religion. So he does not know what is God. How he will know what order He is giving? So for him everything is not religion.


Hayagrīva: It's often been said of Freud that he tried to repress within himself religious feelings that were definitely there. He says, "I cannot..." In a letter he wrote, "I cannot rid myself of certain sceptic materialistic prejudices, and I would carry them over into the research of the occult." He considered religion the occult.


Prabhupāda: Occult, what is that?


Hayagrīva: Occult, something obscure. The...


Prabhupāda: It is not obscure. It is, everything is obscure to the foolish person. So he is a foolish person. He does not know what is God. How he will know what is religion? Our definition of religion is "the order given by God." But if I do not know what is God, then how can I take His order? That is the defect.


Hayagrīva: In the same letter he writes, "I am entirely incapable of considering the survival of the personality after death, even as a mere scientific possibility. I think therefore, it is better if I continue confining myself to psychoanalysis."


Prabhupāda: What is that psy...? He is deficient in psychoanalysis also, because he is practically seeing in his daily life that a child is growing to become a boy, a boy is growing to a young man, but the body is changing and the soul is there. So if he has no sense to understand this, what kind of psychoanalysis he is? The body of the child is finished, then he accepts another body, boy. So how you can deny it? You say it has grown. I say that it is finished. Then what is the difference? Actually the child's body is not there. So you can show..., speak in a different language, but the, when the child's body is finished, there is the boy's body. When the boy's body is finished, the young man's body. So body is changing, but still my child, my son, John, I still call him John, although he has changed his body, because I know my son, the soul John, whom I call John, he is there. So the soul is there; the body is changing, we are experiencing every day. So what kind of psychoanalyst he is, that he cannot understand this simple truth? And still he says, "I cannot believe in the eternity of the soul." That how poor thoughts he is maintaining, and he is proclaiming himself a philosopher. What kind of philosopher he is?


Hayagrīva: He wrote a book called Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and in it he wrote, "The goal of all life is death." For him death is the cessation...


Prabhupāda: But why...


Hayagrīva: ...of suffering.


Prabhupāda: That's all right. That means you, why you are afraid of death? Why go to the medical man? Huh? When you are diseased you are afraid of dying. Why go to the medical man? If death is ultimate happiness, then why you are trying to avoid death? What is the psychoanalysis? [break]


Hayagrīva: Now this theory... Freud's principal disciple was the famous psychologist Carl Jung. They had an argument, and Freud once fainted, and when he came to, his words were, Freud's words were, "How sweet it must be to die." And in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, he writes, "The most universal endeavor of all living substance, namely, to return to the quiescence of the inorganic world. We have all experienced how the greatest pleasure attainable by us, that of the sexual act, is associated with the momentary extinction of a highly intensified excitation. Thus the pleasure principle, the sex act itself, is preliminary to the most highly desired nirvāṇa, the extinction of desires, and ultimately the extinction of the life functions themselves. Thus the pleasure principle seems actually to serve the death instincts."


Prabhupāda: So where is the pleasure when he is dead? What is that pleasure?


Hayagrīva: Well there is pleasure, and then when pleasure is cultivated, culminated...


Prabhupāda: That pleasure is in the stone. So why you are...


Hayagrīva: That's inorganic. He spoke of the return, the quiescence of the inorganic world.


Prabhupāda: Yes. So...


Hayagrīva: To become like...


Prabhupāda: Why you are philosophizing? You just sui..., make suicide and become a stonelike death. That why you are philosophizing, taking so much pain? Better you suicide, commit suicide, and immediately become silent, then that's happiness. (laughter) Why you are, rascal, bothering yourself and headaching others? The best thing is that you commit suicide and become dead, and all happiness is there. As some rascal do that, that by committing suicide he will solve all problem. So this is easy process, commit suicide, and why you are writing so many books? If ultimate happiness is to become dead, do that immediately.


Hayagrīva: But isn't... Materialistic pleasure, he says, serves the death instinct, but doesn't materialistic pleasure just bring out more craving for pleasure?


Prabhupāda: He is making death as the ultimate pleasure. Is it not?


Hayagrīva: Death as the ultimate goal of pleasure.


Prabhupāda: That's all, then commit it immediately. Why you are writing so many book? Commit suicide, that everyone can do that.


Hayagrīva: After, after having sex, most people simply go to sleep, and he felt that this was the, sort of the ultimate extinction.


Prabhupāda: That means Freud is a most imperfect person. He is taking sex as very important thing, which the dog enjoys. As a dog's life and a hog's life, the hog has got very good facility. The monkey has got very good facility for sex life, and he is thinking this is ultimate goal, and then sleep. So that is going on. So if sex life is so big thing, the hogs, they have got good facility. The pigeons, they have got very good facility. I think every hour they have four times sex life, these pigeons. So if that is, then you become a pigeon. You pray to God that "Make me a pigeon, make me a hog." Why you are becoming philosopher? Now our philosophy is different—not to become a pig. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye [SB 5.5.1]. The life simply for sense gratification, and for that purpose working so hard, but that is the business of the pig. That is not the business of the human being. Human being is tapasya. Tapasya means stop sex life. That is tapasya. Tapasā brahmacaryeṇa [SB 6.1.13]. So our philosophy is different from his philosophy. And actually we are suffering. The pig has got good facilities for sex. Does it mean that is ideal life, eating stool and having sex without discrimination? They have no discrimination, whether mother or sister or daughter. That is hog life. So if sex life is final pleasure, then hog is in the greatest pleasure. He has no social obligation. He has no discrimination. But our philosophy says "Don't become a hog, become a sane man." There, there, there is a difference between his philosophy and our philosophy.


Hayagrīva: He says, "Everything in our life is an accident, from our very origin..."


Prabhupāda: Just see how foolishness he is.


Hayagrīva: "...through the meeting of the spermatozoa and ovum, an accident, which nevertheless participates in the lawfulness and fatalities of nature, lacking only the connection to our wishes and illusions."


Prabhupāda: You are so foolish that you cannot avoid even accident. You are subjected to so many accidents. So what you will do by your philosophy? If accident is so prominent, (laughter) so how you will make adjustment with your philosophy? Stop talking philosophy, accept accidents and suffer, that's all.


Hayagrīva: Concerning sex, Freud explored the realm of infantile sexuality and found a definite sexual nature in the earlier stages of childhood. He concluded that these sexual activities in childhood were normal phenomena, and finally concluded with his famous dictum, "In a normal sex life, no neurosis is possible."


Prabhupāda: That is also his foolishness, because a child can be trained up to become a brahmacārī so that he will have no inclination for sex. It depends on the child's training. The unscrupulous father and mother, they enjoy sex life before the child, and they imitate. I have seen it. I have seen it in Agra. There are two small children. In life, what do they know? The female child laid down, and the man child, just like they have seen father and mother-sex. He does not know anything, but he is imitating. So imitating, imitating, the sex life is there, it becomes prominent. Similarly, you train the children not to have any sense of sex life, he will become brahmacārī. So he has not studied. He has seen some abominable family's children. So they learn these things. Whatever you teach, they imitate. So if you keep the children aloof from this sex-life society, he will remain a brahmacārī. There is many instances. That is the Vedic civilization. The children are immediately, as soon as four, five years old, he is sent to the gurukula, and under the discipline he forgets sex life, practically. But still if he has little, that is natural when he is young man, so a guru sees that still tendency for sex life, he is allowed, "Go on, marry and become a gṛhastha." Otherwise, if he is perfectly controlled over sex life, he becomes a sannyāsī, vānaprastha, the whole life. Just like my Guru Mahārāja, he was never married. So he could..., that can be trained. Why he is saying the child is? Child can be trained. Even without sex he can live throughout whole life without any disturbance. That can be trained up. It is a question of education.


Hayagrīva: He felt that sexual repression would be harmful, but sexual sublimation can often be beneficial. Sublimation, he says...


Prabhupāda: What is that sublimation? More sex? (indistinct) sex?


Hayagrīva: Sublimation is, well let me read, "The excessive excitations from individual sexual sources are discharged and utilized in other spheres, so that no small enhancement of mental capacity results from a predisposition which is dangerous as such." In other words, he didn't believe that..., in total sexual freedom as it's conceived today, but that a man would be better, instead of trying to totally deny the sex drive, to try to redirect it, oh, perhaps in artistic activity or in, in study, or in some other activity. Not to deny it.


Prabhupāda: That means, in one word, to divert his attention.


Hayagrīva: Yes.


Prabhupāda: That is brahmacārī. That is recommended in the Vedic culture, that from the very beginning of his life, divert his attention for spiritual activities, he, he will forget about sex life. That is the experience. Not only a trained-up child, even a grown-up person, if he takes Kṛṣṇa consciousness seriously, he also forgets sex life. So that is possible by training, one can forget sex life. That, that is experience of Yamunacārya. He expressing, yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde. He says that "Since my, my mind and attention has been diverted to Kṛṣṇa consciousness activities, as soon as I thing of sex life, I spite on it." That is possible. It is simply question of training. And if one indulges in sex life without any restriction, the physical problem is there. He will be impotent. He will not be able to, even though he has got sex organs, he will not be able to use it. That is nature's way of punishing. There are so many impotent person. So it is a question of training. So the Vedic training is to train the small child, from the very beginning of his life, how to avoid sex life. That cannot be artificially done, but there is a process of training. By accepting that training one can remain without sex life throughout the whole life. That is possible.


Hayagrīva: Well he felt it couldn't be stamped out. If it, if you try to stamp out the sex drive, it will manifest itself in neuroses, in undesirable...


Prabhupāda: No, that is..., he is not... That is the defect. He does not know perfectly anything, and he is philosophizing. That is the defect. Not only in him—I find these all mental speculators, that is the defect. Everything is possible, but our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is different from his imagination. Our philosophy is that so long one has the sex inclination, he will have to accept a material body. And as soon as he accepts a material body, he becomes implicated in so many miserable condition of material existence. But there is another life, which is not material, that is spiritual. If one is trained up to accept that spiritual life, there will be no more botheration of this material existence. That he does not know, neither he can understand. But there is such thing. That can be found in the Vedic civilization, not this meat-eating civilization. It is not possible.


Hayagrīva: Concerning religion, he said, "Of the reality value of most of them, of most religions, we cannot judge. Just as they cannot be proved, neither can they be refuted."


Prabhupāda: First of all, he does not know what is religion. That is the defect in him. We say religion means the order given by God. Simple thing. But he has no conception of God. How he can get orders from God? Therefore how he can understand what is religion? He has got some ideas of fictitious religion, which is described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, kaitava, cheating. Cheating religion. That is not religion. Religion means, just like law. Law means the order given by the government. You cannot manufacture law at your home. That is not... Similarly, if somebody manufactures law at home and says that "I have manufactured one law. You take it," so who, what sane man will accept that law? "Sir, you keep your law in your pocket." Similarly, this so-called religious system, which is not given by God, that is just like outlaws. They are not religion. He has simply studied which is not religion. That is his defect. Real religion is the law given by God. So he has no conception of God, how he can understand what is religion? He has studied only pseudoreligion, cheating religion; therefore he is dissatisfied.


Hayagrīva: He said, "The riddles of the universe only reveal themselves slowly to our inquiry. To many questions, science can as yet give no answer, but scientific work is our only way to the knowledge of external reality. Science is no illusion, but it would be an illusion to suppose that we could get anywhere else what it could not give us." In other words, religion is an illusion, but the answer lies in..., in science, that science will eventually answer all of these questions that religion attempts to answer through...


Prabhupāda: No. The science or philosopher, when they are imperfect in their knowledge, they, whatever they give, that is unscientific and without any basic principle of philosophy. So the, first of all we have to learn what is the objective of knowledge, what we are searching, knowledge. The knowledge that... Vedānta. Vedānta, Veda means knowledge and anta means ultimate. Unless you come to the ultimate point of knowledge, your knowledge is imperfect, insufficient. So the ultimate knowledge is God. So if these people, they cannot define any God, they cannot believe in God, that means they have not reached to the ultimate point of knowledge. God is a fact, but we do not have any clear idea what is that God. That means our knowledge has not reached up to the point of clear understanding of God. So unless one is able to reach that point, everything, what he calls knowledge, is imperfect. God is there, that's a fact, and knowledge means to go to that point. If one has not reached to that point, his knowledge is imperfect. So how he can give us something conclusively if he has imperfect knowledge? Let him be philosopher or scientist; if he has got imperfect knowledge, what is the value of his science, scientific knowledge and that? His knowledge is imperfect. So our, our policy is we don't accept knowledge from an imperfect person. We have received knowledge from the perfect person. Kṛṣṇa is accepted the Supreme Personality of Godhead, perfect, and anyone who follows Kṛṣṇa's knowledge, he is also perfect. So our policy is to accept knowledge from the perfect person, not from the speculators. Speculators are not in perfect knowledge; therefore whatever they say, they are all imperfect. Maybe to some extents it is perfect, but it is not perfect knowledge.


Hayagrīva: He writes, "As it is a delicate task to decide what God has Himself ordained and what derives rather from the authority of an all-powerful parliament or a supreme judicial decision, it would be an indubitable advantage to leave God out of the question altogether and to admit honestly the purely human origin of all cultural laws and instructions." In other words, man is the law-giver...


Prabhupāda: That, that means he has no clear conception of God, because God has to take power from some parliament. God does not take power from anyone. He is God. That is described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that janmādy asya yataḥ anvayād itarataḥ ca artheṣu abhijñaḥ svarāṭ [SB 1.1.1], that the Supreme, God, or Supreme Truth, Brahman, He knows everything. He knows everything in details. And wherefrom? Abhijñaḥ. He is, abhijñaḥ means completely in awareness. Then the question may be raised that "How He got this complete knowledge? From whom He received?" The answer is immediate, svarāṭ. Svarāṭ means independent. That is God. If one has to take knowledge from Mr. Freud, then he is not God. Anyone, if you come to that person that He is independent, parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport], naturally He is all-perfect. He hasn't got to become perfect by some process or from some authority. That is God. He is all-perfect automatically. That is God. So anyone who is trying to be perfect, he is not God. One who is... That, that, that is in the history, we find in the history of life of Kṛṣṇa. When He was three-months-old child He, He could kill big giant like Pūtanā. That is automatic. Either He is child or He is a young man or He is old man, the godly power is there. The nowadays these so-called yogis, they are becoming God by meditation, but the three-months-old child in the lap of His mother, how He became God? The God is God always. He hasn't got to learn it from anyone. That is His svarāṭ, independent. So these people have no conception of God; therefore they are simply speculating and misleading persons. God is not the subject matter of speculation. We, if we want to know God, then we must know it from God Himself or a person who knows Him. That is the direction in the Bhagavad-gītā:


tad viddhi praṇipātena
paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti tad jñānaṁ
jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ
[Bg. 4.34]


Tattva-darśinaḥ, one who has learned about God as fact, as you see eye to eye and you believe it. Similarly, one who has seen God eye to eye, you have to let..., get lessons of God from him. Just like Arjuna. Arjuna is talking with God. So if you have to understand God, then understand how Arjuna has taken his instruction from God and what he's understood. So Arjuna says, paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān, puruṣaṁ śāśvatam ādyam [Bg. 10.12]. So we have to take lesson from Arjuna not from Mr. Freud, who has no knowledge of God. That is the way.


Hayagrīva: Concerning early religious training, he writes, "So long as a man's early years are influenced by the religious thought inhibition, and by the lore one derived from it, as well as by the sexual one, we cannot really say what he," that is man, "is actually like." So he feels that early religious education actually warps a man's development, that you can't say what man can truly be like if you educate him to believe in a transcendental being.


Prabhupāda: That's a fact. If a child is given lesson that there is a supreme being controlling the whole cosmic situation, what is the wrong there? He should learn it.


Hayagrīva: But Freud felt that this inhibited man's natural development, that you can't know what man is naturally like as long as you inculcate him with these religious ideas.


Prabhupāda: Then why do you send your son to a school for education?


Hayagrīva: Well he felt that...


Prabhupāda: Naturally...


Hayagrīva: Some education, there has to be education.


Prabhupāda: That's all. This is also the most important education.


Hayagrīva: So therefore, they are following this line of thought now in the schools, because they've cut out religious education...


Prabhupāda: That, that this is the important education in human life—to learn about God. That is the only business, because in other lives, the animal life, cat's and dog's life, they cannot understand. But in the human form of life there is possibility; therefore that is the first education. The animals, they cannot think of God, but in the human society, why there are religions? Not in the animal society. To understand God, that is the civilized form of human civilization.


Hayagrīva: He agrees with Marx in his belief that religion is a form of narcotic. He says, "The believer...," that is in God...


Prabhupāda: Well first of all, these men do not know what is religion. That is the defeat. That is their defect, either Marx or Freud of so many so-called philosophers, they do not know what is religion. They have to learn what is religion. Without knowing what is religion, why they are talking of religion and God? They have no knowledge about.


Hayagrīva: He says, "The believer will not let his faith be taken from him, neither by argument nor by prohibitions, and even if it did succeed with some, it would be a cruel thing to do."


Prabhupāda: No. Anything, artificial teaching, that is cruelty. So that is being done by Mr. Freud also. Artificially he is stressing on sex and death and so on, so on, but that is not life. Real life is that to understand the simple truth. Just like..., who was protesting against father conception? That Mr. John, so and so?


Hari-śauri: Freud.


Hayagrīva: Freud.


Prabhupāda: Father. So how he can avoid this father conception? If you mislead people that there is no father conception, that is not education; that is misleading. Father is there, everyone knows this simple philosophy. And if he is misleading them, then that is not philosopher, that is cruelty. A man is naturally believing that there is father and there is father's father, and he is diverting his attention from this natural belief. So this is cruelty. He is committing cruelty to human understanding, simple understanding.


Hayagrīva: He says, "I disagree with you when you go on to argue that man cannot in general do without the consolation of the religious illusion, that without it he would not endure the troubles of life, the cruelty of reality."


Prabhupāda: Man cannot do without education. Without education a man remains an animal. Therefore in the human society there is a school, college, an institution, teacher—not in the animal society. So the principle is, the man is meant for being learned or being educated. That you cannot deny, that man life should not be like cats and dogs, simply eating, sleeping, mating, and dying. That is not man's life. Man's life is to become advanced in knowledge and education. And as I have already described, the ultimate knowledge: to understand God. If he is so-called educated, without any understanding of God, then his education is imperfect. You can deny the existence of God, but the God conception is there in the human society. Some may accept it, some may not accept it—that is another thing—but the conception of God, the whole civilized world, they have got some type of religion. Either you become Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim, religion means there is some cultivation of knowledge to understand God. And to understand God is the ultimate knowledge. That is called Vedānta. Veda means knowledge, and the ultimate knowledge: Vedānta. So ultimate knowledge, it, what is that? That is the beginning of Vedānta education. What is that ultimate knowledge? Athāto brahma jijñāsā. The Vedānta begins with this word, "Now this human form of life is to acquire the ultimate knowledge." Athāto brahma. Brahma means the ultimate. So, the absolute. Now it is the time to understand. So far understanding of sex, the dog also knows. You don't require to give him any education. So nobody is given education... Now of course they have adopted, but there is a Bengali proverb, "How to cry and how to enjoy sex, it doesn't require any education." When you are aggrieved, you cry automatically. When there is a sex impulse, you enjoy it automatically. It doesn't require any Mr. Freud. Without the help of any educator, everyone knows-cats, dogs, animals, human being—everyone knows how to enjoy sex life. It doesn't require any education.


So the Vedānta says that this kind of education is there in the animal kingdom also, sex philosophy. There is no question of philosophy, it is already there; anyone can enjoy it. Now, at this time, atha ato brahma-jijñāsā, now this human life is to inquire about the Absolute Truth, Brahman, because that is the ultimate knowledge. This ultimate knowledge can be acquired by the human being, not by the cats and dog. So if a philosopher, without any knowledge of God, doubtful knowledge of God, so he is imperfect, he is not even human being. He is cats and dogs. [break] God means supreme controller. So everything we see is controlled. The government is controller, but the supreme controller there must be. That's a fact. Now, if you want to know it clearly, then be educated. That is Vedānta. That is very reasonably said, that "What is that Brahman, God?" Immediately answer is, janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1]. God means, the Absolute Truth means, Brahman means from whom everything has emanated. We see everything is emanating. Just like we see the trees are emanating from the earth, and by eating the fruits, flowers, grains, the animal, human being, they are also emanating. So ultimate cause is this earth. We are emanating. We can say that "I am emanating from my mother." So the mother does not eat, then how he, his, her body can continue and how she can give another body within the womb? So ultimately we can see that the earth or the water is the source of emanation of everything. Then we can inquire wherefrom the water comes and wherefrom the earth comes, wherefrom the air comes, wherefrom the fire comes. This is philosophy. Then ultimately when we come, come to the supreme point of emanation, janmādy asya yataḥ: [SB 1.1.1] "Here is the person, here is the source of everything." So that we must know. Simply in the middle struggling for understanding without any perfect knowledge, what is the value of this philosophy and knowledge? There is no value. You must come to the ultimate goal, the ultimate source of everything. "By accident," "perhaps," that, that is not knowledge. Definite knowledge. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā you'll learn, Kṛṣṇa says,


ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo
mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate
iti matvā bhajante māṁ
budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ
[Bg. 10.8]


Why one should become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa? When he understands perfectly that "Here is the ultimate source." Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate.


So when you have got this knowledge, that this knowledge, jñāna, that how this knowledge comes? By researching for many, many life. Then, bahūnāṁ janmanām ante [Bg. 7.19], in this way researching, researching, researching, after many, many births, when he actually becomes in full awareness that "Here is the source," then He says, vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ: [Bg. 7.19] "Oh, here is..., Vasudeva is everything." Sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ. Then he begins his bhajana. Mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ bhajanty ananya-manaso [Bg. 9.13]. That is life. Simply speculation, coming to know definite knowledge, "perhaps," "maybe," and this and that—what is the value of this knowledge? That is childish. That is childish. He is, he is saying others, for giving him God, that is childish, but he is himself a child. He cannot give us any definite knowledge. "By chance," "by accident," "perhaps." What is the value of that knowledge?


Hayagrīva: Freud's..., this is Freud's final conclusion on this point: "True, without religion man will then find himself in a difficult situation. He will have to confess his utter helplessness and his insignificant part in the working of the universe. He will have to confess that he is no longer the center of creation, no longer the object of the tender care of a benevolent providence. He will be in the same position as the child who has left the home where he was so warm and comfortable. But, after all, is it not the destiny of childishness to be overcome? Man cannot remain a child forever. He must venture at last into the hostile world. This may be called education to reality. Need I tell you that it is the sole aim of my book to draw attention to the necessity for this advance?"


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: The advance to reality.


Prabhupāda: That reality is good advice. But unfortunately, who is taking advantage of his advice? Because here we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā, the real point of religion, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja [Bg. 18.66]. But these philosophers have misled the world so much that now it is very difficult to convince them that here is God speaking and here is religion. That service he has done. As they were innocent to accept the words of God, now they have become overintelligent. They think sex is God, and that is going on. So to counteract this mentality it will take some time, but anyone who takes, accept the Bhagavad-gītā, the words of God, and the ways and means of life as defined by God, if anyone takes, then he will be happy. That's a fact.


Hayagrīva: Christ said, "Unless he becomes a little child, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God."


Prabhupāda: Child.


Hayagrīva: Unless you become like a little child, you will not enter into the kingdom.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, yes.


Hayagrīva: And Freud says you must grow up.


Prabhupāda: He is a, he is a crazy fellow. That's all. And all these rascal philosophers, they are more or less crazy. One who does not know what is God, what is the value of his knowledge? But our criterion of knowledge is one who has known God. As long as you do not come to that point, your knowledge is useless. Simply misleading. And that is not knowledge. It is a fact that there is some supreme controller. Now if one give education how that supreme controller is working, how He is Supreme, that is real education. And you cannot understand how the Supreme is working, you simply deny the Supreme, that is not knowledge. Supreme is there because you are controlled. How can you avoid the control? How you can say there is no supreme controller? You make a plan and it is frustrated. There is supreme controller. You are making arrangement to live here very happily; next day you die. So you are under controller. How can you deny it? So there is supreme controller. Now, knowledge means, "Who is that supreme controller? How He is controlling?" Not that deny it, "Grapes are sour." Jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping, when he could not reach the grapes, he said, "Oh, there is no need of them. It is sour." Their position is like that. They cannot understand... God is there, that's a fact-supreme controller. But they cannot explain, neither they can understand. There is jackal struggle. Jackal jumping, jumping; when he cannot get the, reach the grapes, he says, " Why (indistinct)? It is sour." Their conclusion is like that. They cannot understand what is God, how He is acting, what is religion, and they are defying, "There is no need of religion, there is no need of God." Jackal struggling, that's all. Jackal struggling is no philosophy. (end)


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160898

Thomas Aquinas







Thomas Aquinas


Hayagrīva: This is St. Thomas, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225-1274. He compiled the entire body of Church philosophy called Summa Theologe, and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. He, unlike Augustine, he did not distinguish so sharply between the material world and the spiritual world, or between secular society and the city of God. He felt that the entire creation, both material and spiritual, has its origin in the Personality of Godhead. He acknowledges at the same time that the spiritual world is superior to the material world.


Prabhupāda: Yes. (indistinct) Material world means temporary, and some philosophers, like the Māyāvādīs, they say it is false. But we Vaiṣṇavas, we don't say it is false, but it is temporary illusion. It is reflection of the spiritual world, but there is no reality. Sometimes it is compared with the mirage in the desert. There is no water in the desert, but sometimes, by reflection of the sun, it appears that there is water. Similarly, in the material world there is no happiness, but the transcendental bliss and happiness existing in the spiritual world is reflected here, and those who are less intelligent, they are after this illusory happiness, forgetting real happiness in the spiritual life.


Hayagrīva: Aquinas believed that truths, religious truths, are attained through both reason and revelation. He ascribed to Anselm's statement, "I believe in all that I may understand," and also to Abelard's, "I understand in order that I may believe," so that reason and revelation complement one another as a means to truth.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Truth, through reason, that is... Of course human reason is not perfect; therefore revelation also wanted. So that truth arrived at by logic, philosophy and revelation, that is real truth. Our process is to arrive the truth through guru, spiritual master, and he is accepted as representative of the Absolute Truth, Personality of Godhead, and he carries the message of truth because he has seen the Absolute Truth through disciplic succession. So if we accept the bona fide spiritual master (as) representative of God and please him by submissive service, then by his mercy and pleasure we can understand God, the spiritual world, by revelation. We offer, therefore, our great respect to the spiritual master and say, yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādo **. If you can please the spiritual master, who is carrying the message of the Lord without any speculation, then God becomes revealed. Another place it is said, sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ [Brs. 1.2.234]. When we engage our senses in the spirit of service to the Supreme Lord, then Lord becomes revealed. In another place it is said, teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam, buddhi-yogaṁ dadāmi tam. The Lord is there, but one who is engaged in loving service to the Lord, he gets direct connection with the Lord, and the instruction also, so that the devotee may be able to enter the spiritual world.


Hayagrīva: Aquinas believed that God is the only single essence that consists of pure form. He felt that matter is only a potential and, in order to be real, must assume a certain shape or form. "Being in the universe have to acquire an individual form in order to actualize themselves. When matter unites with form, the form gives an object its individuality and personality." A form gives an object its individuality and personality.


Prabhupāda: Yes. The mat..., matter has no form. The spirit soul has got form. Though the matter is covering the actual form of the spirit soul, the matter appears to have form. Just like the original cloth has no form, but when the tailor cuts the cloth according to the body of the person, then the shirt and coat takes a form. The matter itself has no form. When you take clay, it has no form, but if you make it like a doll, like a man or woman, then it has a form. When the change the clay, and you manufacture a fort, then the fort has form. So form and formlessness is of the matter, but in the spiritual world everything has got form. The spirit soul has got form. God has got form. This is the truth.


Hayagrīva: Aquinas believed that only God and the angels have form that is not material. There is no difference between God's form and His spiritual self.


Prabhupāda: Yes. As in the material world any form-man or beast or anyone—in the outward, external covering is matter, but within the matter there is the soul. The soul has form and God has form. That is real form. And the material form is simply shirting and coating over the spiritual body.


Hayagrīva: Aquinas gives five arguments for God's existence. The first is that there must be a first cause, a first cause of everything. The second is similar in saying the material world cannot create itself but requires something external or spiritual to bring it into existence. And the third argument claims that because the world exists, there must be a creator capable of bringing it into existence. The fourth states that since there is relative perfection in the world, there must be absolute perfection underlying this relative perfection. And the fifth is the argument from design: because the creation has design and purpose there must be a designer and planner. So at this time they were very concerned with arguments for the existence of God, and Aquinas gave these five.


Prabhupāda: Yes. We also forward these kinds of arguments. Just like we say that there is the mother and the children. The mother is the material world, and there are so many forms of children. So when the mother is existing and the children are existing, then the father must exist. Without father, how there can be children? This is your strongest argument, that these foolish philosophers contemplate without God, or "God is dead," or so many godlessness in different way, but our philosophy is strong on the fact that there must be creator of this family, mother and sons. The father must be there. What are the other arguments?


Hayagrīva: Well, the first cause, as in Brahma-saṁhitā.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam [Bs. 5.1]. Yes, that is also admitted by us, that everything has got cause, and when you reach to the ultimate cause, that is God.


Hayagrīva: Because we have an idea of perfection in the world, or we see relative perfection...


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: ...there must be some absolute perfection.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That the spiritual world is the absolute perfection, and the reflection of the spiritual world is this temporary material world. So whatever perfection we find in this material world, that is derived from the spiritual world. Janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1], the Vedānta-sūtra, that whatever is generated, that is the param... Whatever is generated, it is from the Absolute Truth.


Hayagrīva: And the, I believe the statement that "Since in the material world we see that nothing can create itself..." It requires something different...


Prabhupāda: Yes. Brain.


Hayagrīva: ...to bring it into existence.


Prabhupāda: Brain, yes.


Hayagrīva: Not..., nonmaterial.


Prabhupāda: We don't find, even the biggest mountain cannot create anything, but when the spirit soul or the human being takes a stone, he can give a form to the stone. But the mountain, although it is very big, it cannot give any particular form to the stone. It remains stone.


Hayagrīva: Unlike Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas believed that God created the universe out of nothing and He...


Prabhupāda: No.


Hayagrīva: He created the universe out of nothing.


Prabhupāda: No. The universe is created by God. How you can say "out of nothing"? God is there. So before creation of the universe God was there, so you cannot say that the universe was created out of nothing.


Hayagrīva: Well, but the material universe must have been created out of nothing, because it could not have arisen out of God's spiritual nature.


Prabhupāda: No. The material nature is also inferior nature of God. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā: bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca [Bg. 7.4]. Apareyam, the material nature, means earth, water, fire, air, ether, and the subtle materials, mind, intelligence, ego. They are all emanation from God, so actually they are not unreal but inferior. They are, it is called, bhinnā me prakṛtir aṣṭadhā. They are separated material energy. We can have a little idea, just like we are speaking in the microphone, and it is being recorded in the tape recorder. When the tape recorder is replayed, the sound coming from exactly like the original person's sound, but it is not in touch with the person, but it has come from the person. If somebody does not see wherefrom the sound is coming, he can conjecture that such and such person speaking, although such and such person is away from that speaking engagement. Similarly, this material world is emanation, is expansion, of energy of the Supreme Lord, but it is not that this material world has come into existence from nothing. No. It has come from the Supreme Truth, but it is inferior energy. The superior energy is the spiritual world, which is reality. This, this cannot be supported, that material world has come from nothing.


Hayagrīva: Was created out of nothing.


Prabhupāda: What?


Hayagrīva: Didn't say... It was created by God out of nothing. In other words...


Prabhupāda: No.


Hayagrīva: ...the prakṛti had a beginning in time.


Prabhupāda: God has created from His energy.


Hayagrīva: But...


Prabhupāda: His energy, you cannot say nothing. Energy exhibited.


Hayagrīva: That energy is eternally existing with Him.


Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Yes.


Hayagrīva: So, that's different, that's a different viewpoint.


Prabhupāda: Not viewpoint. Energy must be there. God, if He hasn't got energy, then how He is God? Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport], He has got multi-energies. So this is one of the energy exhibited. So you cannot say from nothing. God is everything.


Hayagrīva: (indistinct)


Prabhupāda: Huh?


Hayagrīva: (indistinct) Again, like Augustine, Aquinas believed that sin and man go together due to Adam's, the first man's original sin. All men require salvation. Salvation can only be attained through God's grace. The individual living entity has to assent by his free will in order for God's grace to function.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is bhakti. Bhakti is devotional service. So you, sevonmukhe hi jihvādau [Brs. 1.2.234], and bhakti is our eternal engagement. So salvation means when you are engaged in our eternal activities, that is called salvation, or liberation. When you are engaged in false activities, that is called māyā. Muktir hitvā anyathā rūpaṁ sva-rūpeṇa vyavasthitiḥ. Muktiḥ means to remain in one's own constitutional position. In the material world we are also engaged in different types of activities, but they are with reference to the particular body. In the spiritual world spirit, as he is, is engaged in the service of the Lord. That is liberation.


Hayagrīva: Concerning law and government, Aquinas believed in the Divine Law, which consisted of the commandments of God given in the Bible. Aquinas felt that human laws also have some moral bearing, and that they also emanate indirectly from God, for he felt that all earthly powers exist by God's permission. Ideally, the Church is God's emissary on earth, and Aquinas considered it proper that the Church control earthly secular power as well. That is, he felt the secular rulers should remain subservient to the Church, and he felt that the Church could excommunicate, that means throw out, a monarch or ruler, in which case the ruler could no longer claim his throne. In other words, that the church has not only spiritual power but secular power on earth. Should have.


Prabhupāda: Yes, because the world activities must be regulated to the ultimate goal, understanding of God. Human civilization is meant for understanding God. So although the Church or the brāhmaṇas may not directly handle administrative activities, but it must be done under their supervision, or under their instruction. That is Vedic system. The brāhmaṇa is the Church, and the kṣatriya, the administrator. So the administrator used to take instruction from the brāhmaṇas, or one who can deliver a spiritual message. This is also mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā, that Kṛṣṇa, millions of years ago, He instructed the message of Bhagavad-gītā to the sun-god. Sun-god is the origin of administrators, kṣatriya. So therefore the king, or the kṣatriya who administrators the business of the state, if he follows the instruction of veda through the brāhmaṇa or the Church, then he is called rājarṣi-king, and at the same time saintly person. Although he is king, he is following the instruction of saintly person or the Church. So in this way if the brāhmaṇas or the Church are in order, their instruction is in order, and the administrators, kṣatriya, they follow that instruction, he is in order. So the brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya. Vaiśya, if he follows the instruction of the kṣatriya, he is in order, and śūdras, they have no intelligence; therefore they follow the instruction of the three superior orders. This is the division of the society.


Hayagrīva: Aquinas considered sins to be both venial, that is petty, and mortal. The venial sin can be pardoned, but the mortal sin cannot be pardoned. Consequently, the mortal sin stains the soul. Is there anything like this?


Prabhupāda: Yes. The mortal, mortal sin, mortal sin?


Hayagrīva: Mortal sin. A mortal sin would be a breaking of one of the direct commandments of God given in the Bible, such as "Thou shall not kill."


Prabhupāda: So anyway, we also have similar passage, that kṛṣṇa bhuliya jīva bhoga vāñchā kare. This is mortal sins, when the living entity disobeys the order of God, he is put into this material world, and that is his punishment. And he either rectifies himself by good association or he continues this transmigration one body after another and suffers this tribulations of material existence.


Hayagrīva: But in any case, how can a sin, any sin, stain the soul if the soul cannot be stained in any way?


Prabhupāda: He is not stained, but as spirit soul, but he can be put into sinful activity. Just like the water and the oil, if you put the oil on the water, it does not mix with the water, it remains as separate from the water, but he is carried away, this. The oil floating on the water is carried away by the water. So that means as soon as we put in material contact then, on account of our contact, we are practically under the clutches of the water, or material world. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ [Bg. 3.27]. As soon as the living entity puts himself in the material world, he loses his own power. He is completely under the clutches of the water. This is the exact similarity. The oil never mixes with the water, but as soon as the oil is in touch with the water, it is being carried away by the waves of the water. [break]


Hayagrīva: Continuation of Aquinas. Aquinas felt that the monastic vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience gave one a direct path to God but that they are not meant for the masses of men. He conceived of life as a pilgrimage through the world of the senses, through the world of nature, and to the spiritual world of God's grace. These, when a..., when one enters a monastery he takes a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience, these three vows.


Prabhupāda: Yes. It is called tapasya. According to Vedic instruction one must take to the path of tapasya. Tapasya means voluntarily self-denial, sense gratification denial. That is tapasya. Tapasā brahmacaryeṇa [SB 6.1.13]. Tapasya, our austerity begins with brahmacarya, celibacy, no sex life. That is the beginning of tapasya. Tapasā brahmacaryeṇa śamena damena vā, controlling the senses, controlling the mind. Then tyāgena, renouncement or giving in charity, whatever you have got, for the service of the Lord, tyāgena; satya-śaucābhyām, by following the path of truthfulness and remaining cleansed; yamena niyamena vā, by practice of mystic yoga. In this way one makes advancement towards spiritual kingdom or spiritual world. But all these can be totally performed simply by engaging oneself in devotional service. That is also stated: kecit kevalayā bhaktyā vāsudeva-parāyaṇāḥ [SB 6.1.15]. If one becomes devotee of Lord Vasudeva, Kṛṣṇa, then simply by executing devotional service he attains the result of austerity, celibacy, and mystic yoga practice, and the result of charity, truthfulness, cleanliness—everything attains simultaneously, without separate effort. Therefore our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is spreading devotional service. By one stroke, the candidate can attain the results of all other processes.


Hayagrīva: This is a point where Catholic doctrine seems to differ. Aquinas did not believe in a soul per say, or pure soul per say, as divorced from a particular form. God did not simply create a soul. He created an angelic soul, or the soul of a demigod, a human soul, an animal soul, a plant soul, etc. He believed that simply to create a pure soul, a being, would be almost the same as creating God Himself.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: So again we see the Christian conception that God created the soul out of nothing.


Prabhupāda: No. The soul is created and... Actually not created. Soul is existing along with God, just like the sparks of fire is existing with the fire. But the difference between the two fire is that the sparks may be separated from the big fire, and when it is separated, is loses its illumination. Similarly, an individual soul is already there. The master is there and the servants are there, eternally. Just like the body is there, the parts of the body are also there. We cannot say that the parts of the body is separately created. As soon as the body is there, the fingers of the body are there, the other limbs and parts of the body are all there. The soul is never created or never dead. It is explained in the Bhāgavata, na jāyate vā mriyate vā. Soul has neither creation nor death. It appears, because the soul has accepted this material body, with the end of this material body it appears that somebody is dead. But he is not dead. He simply transfers from this body to another body, and when he is liberated, then he hasn't got to accept any more material body. Then in his original, spiritual body he goes back to home, back to Godhead. So actually the soul is never created. It is always existing with God, and this is nice that if it is accepted the soul is created, then God is also Supreme Soul—the question may be raised that He is also created. So that is not the fact. God is eternal, and His part and parcels are also eternal. The only difference is that God never accepts this material body, but the individual soul, being small particle, it may be sometimes he succumbs by the material energy.


Hayagrīva: So..., but the soul is eternally existing with God in some form?


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: Well that..., well then maybe this is saying the same thing. "By its nature the form of the soul is the form of the body. It is that form incorruptible."


Prabhupāda: No. The form..., material body is imitation, is false. Real body is the spiritual body. Because the spiritual body has form, the coating of the spiritual body by matter takes a form, as I have already explained, that the shirt and coat originally has no form, but when the shirt and coat is cut by the tailor according the form of the man, it takes a form. So actually this material form is illusion. It is not form. It, it takes the form, and when it is old enough, no more use, it again comes to the original position, earth. "Dust thou art, dust thou beist." This form is made by the material nature. It is just like a machine. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā [Bg. 18.61]. The soul has its own form, but he is given a machine, a particular machine, which is this body, and therefore he enjoys by wandering throughout the whole universe in different conditions of life.


Hayagrīva: I think the problem with all of these is that they cannot conceive of spiritual form. When they speak of form they are thinking that there must necessarily be matter involved. Aquinas believed that the Augustinian and Platonic doctrines of the complete independence of the soul from matter or the material body denied man's substantial unity. That is, man is body and soul. He is a particular type of soul in a particular type of body.


Prabhupāda: It..., it is the same argument, that when you are dressed it appears that you are not different from the dress. The coat is moving, the pants is moving, but actually it is completely different from the person who is putting on the coat and shirt.


Hayagrīva: So in other words they, he, he actually had no idea of spiritual form as such.


Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.


Hayagrīva: He considered that matter was necessary to give the soul form.


Prabhupāda: No. He has got his original form.


Hayagrīva: Original form?


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: Which is the form of the body.


Prabhupāda: Original form, that is the form of the spirit.


Hayagrīva: Of the spirit.


Prabhupāda: Yes. And the form of the body takes place on account of the form of the spirit. This is very nice example. The cloth has no form, but when it is cut according to the form of the gentleman, it takes a form. Similarly, matter has no form. When it is coated on the spiritual form of the soul, it takes the form. This is very easy to understand.


Hayagrīva: To get on to another point, Aquinas believed, or rather he opposed sex for any purpose other than the begetting of children, and not only should sex be used only for the begetting of children, but that when one begets children one takes the responsibility of giving them a spiritual education.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is Vedic injunction, that don't beget children unless you can give the children relief from the cycle of birth and death. One should not become father and mother. That is responsible father and mother. And without this responsibility, if a man gives birth to a child and if a woman bears the pregnancy, that is prohibited. One should not become a father, one should not become a mother unless they are competent to give freedom to the children from the cycle of birth and death.


Hayagrīva: His argument, well, he says, "Marriage is natural to man, and an irregular connection outside of marriage is contrary to the good of man; therefore fornication must be sinful."


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: But he goes on to argue, "The inordinate emission of semen is repugnant to the good of nature, which is the conservation of the species. Hence, after the sin of murder, whereby human nature already in actual existence is destroyed, this sort of sin seems to hold a second place whereby the generation of human nature is precluded." Well how, people today would ask, how could the argument of the generation or the, the conservation of the species still hold, since there's so many human beings, since there are almost four billion human beings on this earth, how could this argument still hold that, uh...?


Prabhupāda: That, what is that argument?


Hayagrīva: That sex is only to beget children, for propagation of the species, and any other use is...


Prabhupāda: Sinful.


Hayagrīva: ...sinful.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That we recommend in our, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness: no illicit sex. Illicit sex means not producing..., not for producing children but for enjoyment. That is sinful. And...


Hayagrīva: Well the conservation, what he calls the conservation of the species, that doesn't enter into it.


Prabhupāda: No. The soul is already explained, that it has nothing to do with the body, but he has to accept a certain type of body on account of his association with certain type of modes of nature.


Hayagrīva: So this is actually a faulty argument to say that, that illicit sex is sinful because it threatens the conservation of the species.


Prabhupāda: Illicit sex is sinful. Illicit sex is sinful, because it is not meant for begetting child; it is for sense gratification. Sense gratification in any form is sinful.


Hayagrīva: He believed, like Plato, in an enlightened monarch ruling, but in certain cases Aquinas believed that it was not necessary for men to obey...


Hari-śauri: (aside:) It wasn't very much, just, uh... I can... Shall I cut another one?


Prabhupāda: No.


Hayagrīva: ...that it was not necessary for man to obey human laws if these laws were opposed to human welfare and were...


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: ...instruments of violence.


Prabhupāda: This is very good. First of all they must know what is the welfare of the human being. Unfortunately, with advancement of so-called material education, the human society is missing the aim of life. The aim of life is declared openly in the Vedānta philosophy, athāto brahma jijñāsā. This is the aim of human life. In the Bhāgavata it is said, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā. The life is meant for understanding the Absolute Truth. That is the aim of human life. The whole Vedic civilization is based on this principle. But on account of deviating from the original Vedic civilization, they have dedicated the human form of life in so many unnecessary scientific discoveries, that discovery, which will not give him any relief to the human society. The real tribulation of life is birth, death and disease and old age. So the so-called advancement of material civilization has not solved the real problem of life, and the aim of human life is to solve the real problem of human life. The real problem of life, that we are eternal, as eternal as God, but we are subjected to birth and death. So with the poor fund of knowledge in the Kali-yuga, people being very bad, or slow for self-realization, and they create their own way of life, mandāḥ sumanda-matayo [SB 1.1.10], and they are unfortunate and, and disturbed. Disturbance is always there, but they are not mindful about the real disturbances of life. Now, on the whole in this age, practically the human being has become like animal. The animal, although always in disturbed condition, cannot understand the aim of life, what is his position. So this type of civilization is very, very dangerous to the human society, that they have no aim of life.


Hayagrīva: So he concludes we must obey God rather than men, in terms of laws.


Prabhupāda: Yes. We can obey such man who obeys the laws of God. Otherwise they..., it is useless to obey an imperfect person. Andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānāḥ [SB 7.5.31]. To obey the imperfect person means just like a blind man following other blind man. So what benefit he will get? If one blind man is begging help from others, "Please help me in crossing the road," if another blind man comes and he says, "Yes, come on with me," so what will be the result? Both will be crushed by accident. So any, any person who does not follow the instruction of the Supreme Controller, he is a blind person. He cannot lead. As we are concerned, we therefore don't accept the so-called scientist's or philosopher's belief. They say, "We believe," "Perhaps it may be like this." These are all doubtful declaration. There is no truth in it. If there is any truth, that is also doubtful. Why should we risk our life by following such blind man who is thinking, who is believing, but he has no clear knowledge? Therefore we have decided to take lesson from the Supreme Person, Kṛṣṇa, who knows everything perfectly well. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni [Bg. 7.26]. He knows past, present and future, and what is our benefit, welfare, everything. So we should follow Kṛṣṇa instead of so-called blind philosophers.


Hayagrīva: Aquinas writes on beauty and contrasts the absolute beauty of God, which is beautiful in all times and all places, absolute beauty. He contrasts this with the relative beauty that we find in the world, and he says, "He is beautiful in Himself and not in relation to some limited terminus," that is God. "Hence, it is clear that the being of all things is derived from the Divine beauty. By God's own beauty He wishes to multiply it as far as possible; that is to say, by the communication of His likeness. Indeed, all things are made in order to imitate Divine beauty in some fashion."


Prabhupāda: Yes. God is the reservoir of all knowledge, all beauty, all strength, all renunciation, all riches. He is the reservoir of everything; therefore He is God. So beauty, whatever we see beautiful, that is emanation from, a very minute percentage of God's beauty. (aside:) Who paid this?


Hari-śauri: Someone gave it this morning.


Hayagrīva: Concerning theology and philosophy, Aquinas writes, "Just as sacred doctrine is based on the light of faith, so is philosophy founded on the natural light of reason. Hence it is impossible for items that belong to philosophy to be contrary to those that pertain to faith, but the former may be defective." That is, philosophy may be defective in comparison with, with the latter, theology, which is based on faith. "If any point among the statements of the philosophers is found contrary to faith, this is not philosophy but rather an abuse of philosophy resulting from a defect in reasoning."


Prabhupāda: Yes. That we say, that every man is defective on account of his material condition of life. So philosophy coming from such defect persons cannot be any good for the human society. Philosophy coming from a person who is in contact with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that is perfect. That will benefit human society. And the speculative philosopher, who has no definite idea, simply basing on his belief or imagination, by following such philosophy nobody will be benefited; rather, he will be deviated from the actual philosophy of life.


Hayagrīva: So he concludes that Divine revelation is absolutely necessary, because by the philosophical method very few men could arrive at the truth, and only after a long time and many errors.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That's a fact. The so-called philosophers, they are imperfect, so there is no need of consulting them. Our path is that you directly contact the Supreme Person in knowledge, who has got complete knowledge—Kṛṣṇa—and we take His instructions and try to follow Him.


Hayagrīva: This knowledge based on revelation or scripture is called sacred doctrine or scripture. He says it, this scripture, "does not provide information about God and about creatures in equal fashion, but about God principally and about creatures as they are related to God as to a source or to an end. Hence the unity of the science is not ended." So scripture for him is the science of God.


Prabhupāda: This is science of God.


Hayagrīva: Yes.


Prabhupāda: God is explaining Himself... [break]


Hayagrīva: This is a continuation of Thomas Aquinas. We've been discussing sacred doctrine, which is the same as scripture. He states that the only author of sacred scripture is God Himself, within whose power is not only to adjust words to their meaning, which even man can do, but also to adjust things themselves. In reading the scripture, one should avoid two mistakes. 1) One should not think that they can be false in any way.


Prabhupāda: False?


Hayagrīva: That there's no falsity.


Prabhupāda: Oh.


Hayagrīva: Falsity cannot form the basis of Divine scripture, which has been handed down by the Holy Spirit. That's one mistake one can make in reading scripture. Another, he says, "No one should try to restrict scripture to one meaning to such an extent that other meanings containing some truth and quite possible in relation to the context would be excluded. In fact it belongs to the dignity of Divine scripture to contain many meanings in one text, so that in this way it may be appropriate to the various understandings of men."


Prabhupāda: Meaning is one, but interpreter are different. Just like even in the Bible it is said, "God created the universe." So that is a fact, God created. So unless you interpret in a different way, how you can say that the universe is created by some chunk and this way and that way? So we accept scripture in that sense, without any change; therefore we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā as it is. We cannot change the words of God. That is our principle. And interpretation with motive, there are so many interpreter, and that has spoiled the God consciousness of the human society.


Hayagrīva: Well this is rather strange, because Aquinas, his writings form the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church has always emphasized one meaning, which is interpreted by the Pope, by the head of the Church. The meaning is given by the Pope, of scripture, because...


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is...


Hayagrīva: But here he says that the scriptures may contain many meanings according to one's degree of realization.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Not many meaning. Meaning is one, but if one is not realized, then he can make many meanings. Otherwise meaning is one. What can be any other meaning? Suppose God created this universe. This is stated in the Bible, or in the Bhagavad-gītā the same thing is expressed in a different way, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate [Bg. 10.8]: "From Me everything emanates." So that's a fact, that everything is coming out from God's energy, so why there should be second meaning and second interpretation unless one is godless? What is the possible second meaning?


Hayagrīva: That means...


Prabhupāda: God created, that's all accepted. God created. What the second meaning?


Hayagrīva: Well, he would give the example of the creation of God walking through... In the Bible it's stated that God walks through Paradise in the afternoon. He would cite this...


Prabhupāda: No, no, God...


Hayagrīva: ...as having an interior meaning.


Prabhupāda: If God can create, He can walk also, He can speak also, He can touch also, He can see also. God is a person. So where is the second meaning? What is the possible second meaning?


Hayagrīva: The second meaning, as far as I could see, would be based on an impersonal interpretation.


Prabhupāda: So God cannot be impersonal. If He is creator, how He can be impersonal? He must be person; otherwise there is no meaning. [break] (end)


Link to this page: http://prabhupadabooks.com/g=160850

Discussions with Hayagriva dasa
St. Augustine







St. Augustine


Hayagrīva: This is St. Augustine, or Augustine. We'll call him Augustine. Augustine, like Origen, considered the soul to be immaterial, noncorporeal. He believed that the soul did not exist prior to the birth of the individual human being. It is only at death that the soul attains its immortal nature and lives on through eternity.


Prabhupāda: What is that? He sometimes says it is not eternal? What is the clear ending?


Hayagrīva: The soul did not exist previous to the birth of the individual human being.


Prabhupāda: Does not exist?


Hayagrīva: When the individual was created, the soul was created with him. Only after this initial creation is there immortality.


Prabhupāda: What does he mean? It is not very clear.


Hayagrīva: It is not clear.


Prabhupāda: He...


Hayagrīva: The soul is created, he is saying. That means it has...


Prabhupāda: If it's created, then how it is immortal?


Hayagrīva: It's immortal after it's created. It's created but it doesn't die.


Prabhupāda: Then what is this death?


Hayagrīva: The death is simply the death of the body.


Prabhupāda: Then if he accepts another body, then he has to accept transmigration.


Hayagrīva: No, he doesn't. Now here's, here's the point. Augustine believed that God elected some men to everlasting happiness and others to everlasting suffering. With the fall of Adam, or the first man, man was subjected to death. For Augustine, however, death is of two types: physical death—the soul leaves the body—and soul death—the death experienced by the soul when God abandons it. The damned face not only physical death but spiritual, soul death as well.


Prabhupāda: So it may..., it can be taken figuratively, that when one forgets his position, that is a kind of death also. One forgets himself. But actually soul is eternal, and what Augustine says as spiritual death, that is his forgetfulness. Just like in unconsciousness one forgets his identity, but if he is dead then he cannot revive consciousness. Similarly, it is little difficult for the bodily concept of life persons, but there are many proofs and understanding that soul is eternal. He, of course, until he gets his freedom from this material existence, he is spiritually dead. Even though he is working in this material form, because he has forgotten his real identity, that is also a kind of death. Yā niśā sarva-bhūtānāṁ tasyāṁ jāgarti saṁyamī. This śloka explains how one is dead and how one is alive. When one is forgetful of his spiritual consciousness, God consciousness, he is supposed to be dead, and when he, one is alive to the spiritual consciousness or God consciousness, he is alive. In this sense, it is a question of two stages, awakening stage and forgetful stage, but actually a soul is eternal. He never dies, even after the annihilation of this body.


Hayagrīva: But the forgetful stage is never everlasting or eternal, is it?


Prabhupāda: Yes, it is not. It can be, what is called, revived, his consciousness. That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Just like a man is sleeping, almost unconscious, but if you call him again and again, and the sound enters through the ear into the heart, he becomes awakened. Similarly, by this chanting process he revives his spiritual consciousness, then he is alive in his spiritual life.


Hayagrīva: So then... But Augustine would say that God would eternally abandon the damned soul, a soul damned to eternal perdition.


Prabhupāda: "Eternally abandon" means for very, very long years, millions of years, he remains forgetful. So...


Hayagrīva: Seemingly eternal.


Prabhupāda: Ah. But actually he can be revived at any moment in good association, sādhu-saṅga [Cc. Madhya 22.83], by this method of hearing and chanting, śravaṇam. Therefore this devotional service, beginning with hearing, is very important. If he consciously hears from the self-realized soul, then he becomes awakened to his spiritual life, and keeping himself always in the devotional service, he remains spiritually alive.


Hayagrīva: (aside:) That's the end of that tape. Augustine speaks of two cities in his... He wrote a famous book called The City of God, and one city is divine. In one city, love of God unites all men, and the other city, men are united by love of the world. One society loves the flesh, and the other society loves the spirit.


Prabhupāda: So this figurative description is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The body is considered as like city, and the soul is described as the king of the city, and he goes out from different gates. The body has got nine gates. In this way a figurative description in the..., is in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But that city is figuratively taken as this body, and the king of the city is the soul. [break]


Hayagrīva: This is the continuation of Augustine. Augustine writes, "God is not the soul of all things but the maker of all souls." So this doctrine seems to admit of the transcendence of God but not of the eminence of God, at least not as the Paramātmā accompanying the individual soul.


Prabhupāda: He does not accept Paramātmā?


Hayagrīva: It doesn't seem to be. It seems that...


Prabhupāda: Then how God is all-pervading? The Paramātmā conception is there in the Brahma-saṁhitā:


eko 'py asau racayituṁ jagad-aṇḍa-koṭiṁ
yac-chaktir asti jagad-aṇḍa-cayā yad-antaḥ aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara...
[Bs. 5.35]


One part of His feature, eko 'py asau. Racayitum, creation, this creation is done by one plenary portion of His person, the puruṣa-avatāra, the Mahā-Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, in expanding. So, and not only one universe but millions of universes, jagad-aṇḍa-koṭim. And in the Bhagavad-gītā also same thing is confirmed, atha vā bahunaitena kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna, ekāṁśena, viṣṭabhya aham, sthito jagat: "By My one plenary portion I expand throughout all the universes, all the living entities. Even within atom I am present." So unless God has got that omnipresence potency everywhere, then how He can be omnipresent? This is one meaning. He is everywhere present by His expansion of His one plenary portion.


Hayagrīva: Augustine disagrees with Origen, who looked on the body as a prison. He says, "If the opinion of Origen and his followers where true, that matter was created, that souls might be enclosed in bodies as in penitentiaries for the punishment of sin, then the higher and lighter bodies should have been for those whose sins were slight, and the lower and heavier ones for those whose crimes were great." So...


Prabhupāda: That is Vedic conception. The soul, he, as he is, he is part and parcel of God, but he is imprisoned in different types of body. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that "I am the seed-giving father of all different forms of life, and the mother, material nature is the mother." That is actually very logical. Through the matter different varieties of living entities are coming out. From water, from earth, from air, even from fire, ether, everywhere, sarva-gataḥ, life, living entities are visible. Therefore the combination of five elements—earth, water, fire, air—that is the body of the living entities. And the soul is the part and parcel of the Supreme, and the souls are impregnated within this material world by God, and they come out through the womb of the mother, nature or individual mother, whatever you say. The soul is coming out of matter but it is not matter. The living entities, part and parcel of God, assuming different types of body, either you say according to pious or impious activities, or according to his pious and impious desires. Vāsanāḥ. So the desire actually is the cause of higher and lower grades of body, but the soul is the same. Therefore those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness, they see the same soul in, in each and every body. Either in the body of a dog or in the body of a brāhmaṇa, the same soul is existing, but according to different desires and karma one gets a different types of body.


Hayagrīva: Augustine believed that all men came from Adam, that is the first man or one man, and that this one man God created—this one man—and this one man is the root of all mankind. He writes, "God knew how good it would be for this community often to recall that the human race had its roots in one man, precisely to show how pleasing it is to God that men, though many, should be one."


Prabhupāda: They... It is, our Vedic conception is also like that, that the mankind has come from Manu. From Manu, human being, or manuṣya... The Sanskrit word is manuṣya, "coming from Manu." So Manu is also coming from Brahmā. In this way, as the conception of a first creature, Adam, similarly, a first living being is Lord Brahmā. Therefore our proposition is that a living being coming from the living being. Brahmā is living being, or Adam is living being. Then the living being does not come from matter. Brahmā is also coming from the Supreme Lord as raja-guṇa avatāra, incarnation of raja-guṇa. So all living being, they are coming from the Supreme Living Being. So Brahmā is also the first creature within this universe.


Hayagrīva: Augustine... Just as Augustine saw that the soul is created into a particular body, he felt that this was a gift from God, and that this was not an...


Prabhupāda: Soul is coming from particular body?


Hayagrīva: That the soul is created at a particular time... We went though this yesterday, I believe.


Prabhupāda: Hm.


Hayagrīva: The belief in the creation of the soul. The soul is created, and that the body is a gift. And he also rejects, on the basis of this, he rejects reincarnation. He writes, "Let these Platonists..." Because Plato believed in it, reincarnation. "Let these Platonists stop threatening us with reincarnation as a punishment for our souls. Reincarnation is ridiculous. There is no such thing as a return to this life for the punishment of souls. If our creation, even as mortals, is due to God..."


Prabhupāda: Punishment of the soul? What is that return?


Hayagrīva: He says, "There is no such thing as a return to this life for the punishment of souls." And the reason he gives, he says, "If our..."


Prabhupāda: Soul is life. What does it mean, "returning to the life"?


Hayagrīva: He believes there is no reincarnation as punishment. Reincarnation is envisioned as a kind of a punishment. To have to take birth again is a type of punishment, and Augustine rejects this, saying that how can the return to bodies, which are gifts of God, be punishment? He doesn't see how that this is a form of...


Prabhupāda: But does he think that the body of a hog and the body of similar lower creatures eating stool and living in filthy place, is it not punishment? Does he think like that? Why one gets the body of King Indra or Lord Brahmā and why one gets the body of a pig and hog, and living in filthy place and eating stool? Is it not punishment and reward?


Hayagrīva: Well, he would say that, um...


Prabhupāda: How he explains the body of a pig eating stool?


Hayagrīva: I've been putting this off. He wouldn't agree that man could be reincarnated as an animal.


Prabhupāda: Why, why he will not agree? If a body is a gift by God, then body can be a punishment also by God.


Hayagrīva: Yes.


Prabhupāda: This is reasonable. When he is punished, he gets the body of a pig. When he is rewarded, he gets the body of King Indra. So that is punishment and reward.


Hayagrīva: What about the body of a man? Is that punishment or gift?


Prabhupāda: Man, man, there are many men who are very well situated and there are many men who are suffering. So two things are there according, suffering and enjoyment, according to the body. So this has been explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ [Bg. 2.14]. According to the body the heat and, what is called, cold? Heat or cold?


Hayagrīva: Hm.


Prabhupāda: Sītā uṣṇa. That is perceived. An old man perceives very much cold, and a young child, he does not perceive—according to the body. An animal, naked body, he can walk on the street in severe cold, but a man cannot. So this body is the source of suffering and enjoying. So why not take it as punishment and reward?


Hayagrīva: Well, Augustine believes that each individual man, or each individual soul within man, is not necessarily condemned to earth due to his own personal desire or sin but due to the original sin of Adam, the first man. He writes, "When the first couple," that's Adam and Eve, "were punished by the judgment of God, the whole human race, which was to become Adam's posterity through the first woman, was present in the first man." So that was the origin of sin and death. So man's sin is not personal. The reason I'm in..., conditioned in this human body is not because I personally committed a mistake...


Prabhupāda: Your becoming conditioned is punishment. Why you should be conditioned?


Hayagrīva: For my..., as punishment for my own desire.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: For my personal desire.


Prabhupāda: Then why does he say there is not punishment?


Hayagrīva: But here he says it's because not for anything I did, but because of the original man, the sin of the original man, that everyone coming from the original man is...


Prabhupāda: Original man was punished. So the next man, he, why he comes to such father, unless he is punished? Sometimes father's disease is inherited by the son. Is it not punishment?


Hayagrīva: Yes. So the very coming into...


Prabhupāda: Body.


Hayagrīva: ...the race is a punishment in itself.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Hayagrīva: He says this on the one hand, and on the other hand he says it's a gift, not a punishment.


Prabhupāda: Yes, gift you can take. If you take it that it is given by God, so it is gift. "God has given me this body for punishment. It is His mercy that undergoing punishment I am becoming purified, making progress towards God." The devotees, they think like that. Although it is punishment, they take it as reward, because by undergoing the punishment he is making progress towards God-realization. In that sense it is a gift. Gift actually means something given by somebody. So when it is given by God for our correction, it can be taken as gift.


Hayagrīva: Augustine believes that the physical body comes first, and then the spiritual. "What is so in a natural body arises a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. But it is not the spiritual which comes first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthy. The second man is from heaven, heavenly. But the body which, by the life-giving spirit will become spiritual and immortal, will under no conditions be able to die." So that man must first come as a, as man, as a mortal, physical being first, in order to attain immortality.


Prabhupāda: Why man? Every living entity has a mortal body. So to enter into the mortal body, that is a kind of punishment. And then there is evolutionary process from lower grade of body to higher grade of body. That is quite reasonable, that every living entity or soul is part and parcel of God, but on account of some sinful activities or disobedience to God, as they believe Adam on account of disobedience to God they lost Paradise and came to this material world, similarly, the soul belongs to the Paradise, or heaven, or Kṛṣṇa, but somehow or other he falls down within this material world, and he gets first a body like Adam. But again, on account of his further, low-grade activities, he goes down, sometimes as human being or sometimes as more than human being—the demigod—and sometimes as animal, trees, plants. In this way he goes down, degradation, or goes up by elevation. But he is always aloof from the material body, but according to his desires and activity he gets different body. This is quite reasonable and confirmed by the Vedic literature. But his actual life is when he is freed from this material contamination, getting different bodies life after life.


Hayagrīva: Augustine conceived of peace in this way. He says, "Peace between a mortal man and his maker consists in ordered obedience guided by faith under God's eternal law. Peace between man and man consists in regulated fellowship. The peace of the heavenly city lies in a perfectly ordered and harmonious communion of those who find their joy in God and in one another in God." So that peace in its final sense is the calm that comes out of this order.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Peace means to come in contact perfectly with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is peace. When a man is in ignorance, he thinks that he is the enjoyer of this world, but when he comes in contact with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Supreme Controller, he understands that God is enjoyer; we are not enjoyer. We are servants to supply the needs of enjoyment of God. That is our life. Just like a servant supplies the needs of the master. The master has no need, but he enjoys the company of the servant, and the servant enjoys the company of the master, because our relationship is as master and servant. A servant getting a good, nice government job is very happy, and similarly the master is also happy getting a very faithful servant. This is the relationship. So when this relationship is disturbed, that is called existence in māyā, and when this relationship is restored, that is called spiritual life. So in the spiritual consciousness, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one understands that the Supreme Lord is the actual enjoyer; we are servant. The Supreme Lord is the actual proprietor, and we are residents. And bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram [Bg. 5.29]. And Supreme Lord is the Supreme well-wisher, friend of everyone. When a living being understands these three features of God's transcendental quality, he becomes happy.


Hayagrīva: Augustine writes, "No man must be so committed to contemplation as in his contemplation to give no thought to his neighbor's needs, nor so absorbed in action as to dispense with the contemplation of God." So he felt that activity and meditation, neither should be exclusive, but they should complement one another. They should go together.


Prabhupāda: That means devotional activities.


Hayagrīva: There should be both activity and meditation, not just one exclusive.


Prabhupāda: Meditation, when you are active, the meditation is already there. Unless you think of God, how you can be active in the service of God? So meditation about whom? Meditation about the Supreme Personality of Godhead or the Supersoul within the core of heart, that is real meditation, and activities more important than meditation. If I simply sit down and think of God, that is very good, but if I factually work for God as God desires, that is more important than meditation. If you love me and simply think of me, that may be taken as meditation, but if you love me, if you carry out my orders, that is more important.


Hayagrīva: Augustine says...


Prabhupāda: You can call this (indistinct) here. Now.


Devotee: It's ten to, ten minutes to six.


Prabhupāda: So we shall finish up.


Hayagrīva: We will finish, we can finish Augustine.


Prabhupāda: Hm.


Hayagrīva: He conceived of the spiritual world as a place where the bodies are very beautiful, are very happy, they move with, with grace. The... God is the source of every satisfaction and is the consummation of all desires. The people in the spiritual sky never cease praising God, never tire of praising Him. There is no envy, and bliss is all-pervasive. Sin has no power of temptation.


Prabhupāda: Yes. When he, we remain in contact with God, the sin cannot touch. That is the explanation given in the Bhagavad-gītā: daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā [Bg. 7.14]. According to our desires we are associating with the different qualities of material nature, and we are getting different types of body. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgaḥ asya. Nature is the agent of Kṛṣṇa, God, so as we desire, Kṛṣṇa gives us the facility by giving us a body which is a machine. Just like father and the son. The son insists, "Father, give me a cycle." So the affectionate father gives him a cycle. And he says, "Father, give me a motorcar." So affectionate father gives him a motorcar. So this is the relationship between the father and the son. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, that,


īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati
bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni
yantrārūḍhāni māyayā
[Bg. 18.61]


The father, or Kṛṣṇa, is there within the core of heart of every living entity, and as he desires, the father supplies him a type of vehicle manufactured by the material nature. So this body is given by God because we desire it, but the body is manufactured by the material nature. This is very reasonable. So we are in different types of body means in different types of vehicle, sometimes as acting on the vehicle of a pig, and sometimes we are acting on the vehicle of a very important person or demigod. But we desire such thing, and God gives us such vehicle manufactured by the material nature.


Hayagrīva: This, this is the last point. It's actually very crucial. For Augustine, the mind, reason and soul are one and the same, and he writes...


Prabhupāda: Mind, reason?


Hayagrīva: Mind, reason and the soul are all wrapped up together.


Prabhupāda: Wrapped up. But there are different identities. Intelligence... Everyone has got mind, but the mind acts under intelligence. But the intelligence of different living entities are different. Similarly mind is also different. A dog's intelligence is not equal to the intelligence of the human being. A dog's mind is not equal to the human being's mind. So actually the soul, being put under different types of body using different types of intelligence, and different some mental, psychic action, thinking, feeling, willing. So according to the body, the mind and intelligence are different.


Hayagrīva: Well, this..., thinking in this way Augustine writes, he says, "We do not apply 'Thou shalt not kill' to plants, because they have no sensation, or to irrational animals that fly, swim, walk or creep, because they are linked to us by no association or common bond. By the creator's wise ordinance they are meant for our use, dead or alive. It only remains for us to apply the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' to man alone, oneself and others." So...


Prabhupāda: So that is imagination of Augustine. But Jesus Christ does not say such qualitative killing. He says frankly, "Thou shalt not kill." When he says that, he means, "You should not kill." But when there is absolute necessity, just like he says that "One life is food for the another life..." Does he not say it like that?


Hayagrīva: He says, uh... [break] He says..., this is, this is Augustine writing. He said, "Some people try to stretch the prohibition 'Thou shalt not kill' to cover beasts and cattle and make it unlawful to kill any such animal, but then why not include plants and anything rooted in and feeding on the soil? After all, things like this, though devoid of feeling, are said to have life and therefore can die and so be killed by violent treatment."


Prabhupāda: No, that is not Vedic philosophy. Vedic philosophy admits that one living entity is the food for another living entity. That is natural. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam,


ahastāni sahastānām
apadāni catuṣ-padām
phalgūni tatra mahatāṁ
jīvo jīvasya jīvanam


Those who have got hands, they eat the animals without hands, only four legs, and the four-legged animals eats the animals which cannot move—that means plants and vegetables. Similarly, the weak is the food for the strong. In this way there is natural law that one living entity is food for another living entity. But our philosophy, Kṛṣṇa consciousness philosophy, is not based on this platform, that plant life is not sensitive and animal life is more sensitive or human life is more sensitive. We take all of them as life, either human being or animal or plants or fish, it doesn't matter. That is inevitable. Either you eat animal or vegetable, you eat some living entity. That is inevitable. You cannot avoid. Now it it the question of selection. That, of course, is there. But apart from this vegetarian or nonvegetarian diet, we are concerned with Kṛṣṇa prasādam. Kṛṣṇa, whatever..., our philosophy is whatever Kṛṣṇa eats, we take the remnants of His foodstuff. So Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, "You give Me food, and prepared from patraṁ phalaṁ toyam, vegetation." So if by killing vegetable or plant there is any sin, that, that is Kṛṣṇa's. We simply eat after His eating. This is our philosophy. We are not after vegetarian diet or nonvegetarian diet. Whatever Kṛṣṇa eats, we take the remnants of food.


Hayagrīva: So that's the conclusion of Augustine. (end)


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