RC BOM 1977-04-17 Beyond Sense Perception
ANNOUNCER: The following is a conversation
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda,
recorded on April 17th, 1977 in Bombay India.
PRABHUPĀDA: Now you have given the evolution of from fish to plant,
plant to insect, bird, animal.
That can be [a] little elaborated: Evolution.
Then human being: Full consciousness.
Now, this is the chance for understanding God.
And if they are still kept in darkness like the animals, that’s a dangerous civilization—
refusing the opportunity to the humanity.
By knowing this, you can get out of this continual evolutionary process.
That is anti-material world, Vaikuṇṭha world, where you can actually live.
na jāyate na mriyate vā [Bg. 2.20]
He does not take birth, neither dies, but dances with Kṛṣṇa.
That is life.
That we are wanting.
We are seeking after.
It is not possible here.
Here you have to go through the evolutionary process
again and again if you don’t take the opportunity for going back to home.
Then it is your misfortune.
So this civilization [is] keeping people in their unfortunate condition.
mām aprāpya nivartante mṛtyu-saṁsāra-vartmani [Bg. 9.3]
This opportunity is to understand God and go back to Him,
but that opportunity is being refused.
Therefore he is returning again to the same position of birth and death.
From animal to man, from man to…: Up and down.
But, dehāntara, that is very dangerous.
Tathā dehāntara: You have to change your [body].
Stop this.
If you are scientist, stop it.
Continue as American forever.
Why you cannot?
Why you are so proud of your so-called scientific education?
Then you are under control.
You have constructed this skyscraper building.
Live here forever.
Why don’t you live?
Kicked out.
In the same house can become a cockroach
because you have got attachment.
“All right.
Live here as cockroach.”
Who can check it?
Cockroach is also life.
Dehāntara.
The proprietor becomes cockroach.
Can you check it?
Nature will do.
Now we are proprietor; next life a cockroach.
“Live here in your skyscraper building.”
How much valuable time he has wasted by constructing this skyscraper building.
He remains there in the photograph, and actually his life is in the commode.
Cockroach.
He is living in the commode, and his son’s worshiping his photograph.
This is called ignorance.
Very misleading civilization this is.
So we are trying to save everyone from this misleading civilization.
This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
We are trying ourself to be perfect and trying to teach others perfect life.
Kṛṣṇa begins His teaching from this understanding: “You are not this body.”
This is beginning of Bhagavad-gītā.
And in the bodily concept of life, where is spiritual knowledge?
They talk of spiritual, that life is…
First of all one has to understand that “I am not this body.”
Ahaṁ brahmāsmi.
athāto brahma jijṣāsā. [Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.1]
“Then if I am Brahman, then what is my value?
So far I have led my bodily concept of life, but I am Brahman.”
Then brahma-jijñāsā.
athāto brahma jijṣāsā [Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.1]
How Brahman lives, how Brahman is produced, what is his real life. [splice]
What about transmigration of the soul?
As a… We were thinking to do that for a next film,
- because it seems like a very natural thing. - Transmigration, how it can be shown?
The mind, intelligence and ego you cannot see.
But you will have to accept there is mind.
We have not really worked out any details.
Details, you cannot show it.
It is so fine.
Just like here is the sky, but you cannot see it.
The mind is finer than the sky.
The air is sky.
That is sky.
Where is the proof?
That you cannot see.
Śabda, sound.
Sound is the sign of presence of sky.
But you cannot [see it].
But it is there; this is the proof.
It can be suggested only.
That’s all.
Therefore śruti, which is beyond the sense perception,
you have to hear it from authorities.
- Just like in the… - That is knowledge.
Who has seen it? These rascals… Who has seen it?
So grossly educated.
“Everything can be seen.”
Why everything?
The same example we give: You have not seen your father.
You have to hear, “Here is your father.”
That’s all.
That is the proof.
Just like in this last film, we suggested that there is a soul in the hand sequence—
when the hands were always changing, and the body grows old.
So the idea was that there is something that’s not changing there.
So in film there are certain techniques we can use to suggest,
as Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami said, certain ideas.
Idea’s that… Idea is given there.
Just like you cannot see the flavor, but still, you are smelling, some flavor is nice.
In the air, it is rose flavor.
It is passing.
You cannot see what is that flavor and how it is being carried, but you can smell.
Similarly, the soul is being carried by the mind, ego and intelligence.
You cannot see [it],
but you have to understand by hearing from the authorities like Kṛṣṇa.
…itas tu… viddhi me prakṛtiṁ parām
jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho [Bg. 7.5]
Beyond this material things, there is another prakṛti.
That is the…
That does not die.
na jāyate na mriyate [Bg. 2.20]
And that is being carried by mind, intelligence and ego.
By our gross eyes, we see the body is burnt into ashes, finished.
Soul and everything is finished.
The atheist will say like that.
bhasmi bhūtasya dehasya tataḥ punar āgamano [?]
“Everybody’s already burnt into ashes, who is coming and who are going?”
The atheists.
Kṛṣṇa does not say.
No.
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre [Bg. 2.20]
So will you accept the atheists or Kṛṣṇa?
That is our process.
Subtitles by Pratyatoṣa Dāsa, Causelessmercy.com