Morning Walk Conversation Kirtanananda: …quotation from William Penn to the Indians. Prabhupada: “I have great love and regard toward you and I desire to win and gain your love and friendship by a kind, just and peaceable life. And the people I send are of the same mind. And I shall in all things behave.” And what about the shooting? (laughter) [break] …shooting? Ravindra-svarupa: It was a lie. Kirtanananda: They made up a saying, “The only good Indian was a dead Indian.” [break] Prabhupada: …nation or… So? Dancing? Jayatirtha: But it says in the Declaration of Independence—this is part of it here—it says that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” So they admitted that there was God. Prabhupada: Huh? Jayatirtha: The founders of the nation admitted that there was God, but now they won’t admit. [break] Prabhupada: …already very much attraction for this material world. That is called maya. And when we are involved with these things, material prosperity, then we become more involved. On account of our material attachment, we are getting repetition of birth and death in different forms of life, and these attractions are making us more and more involved. mayara vaibhava. People are becoming illusioned, “I am American. My country is so rich. I shall live here.” But you cannot live. He is preparing for another body. So therefore Bhaktivinoda Thakura says, anitya somsare, moha janamiya, jiba ke karaye gadha. Anityad means we shall not be able to stay. Unnecessarily, we are becoming involved in this material world. Now, those who built up this nation, where they have gone, nobody can say. Because after this body is fallen, where he is being carried, nobody knows. He is carried by his work, fruitive activities. Therefore they do not believe next life. Finished. [break] …gentleman, he was very well known, brother of Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore was poet, and he was artist, Abanindranath Tagore. In our childhood, in a meeting, he said that “Why should we bother about the next life? Let us enjoy this life.” I remember that. Most people think like that. Carvaka Muni advised like that. Rnam krtva ghrtam pibet. “Just enjoy life.” “I have no money to enjoy.” “Beg, borrow or steal. Bring money. Purchase ghee.” “I will have to pay.” “Ah! Why do you think like that?” “Then next life I will suffer.” “Don’t think like that. Your body will be finished. Who is coming here again?” What is that tower? Kirtanananda: Lighthouse. Prabhupada: Lighthouse for the river? Ravindra-svarupa: Yes. These buildings are all rowing clubs. They’re for boating, boathouses. Prabhupada: Oh. So still they are rowing house? No. Kirtanananda: Yes. It is a big sport. They race. [break] Prabhupada: …idea is there in the western countries? No. Kirtanananda: Not very much. Although the idea is there that the best education can be secured when boys are separate in school. That idea is there. The best families have always sent their sons away to school. Prabhupada: That should be followed in our system. Boys and girls must be separate. [break] …introduce now. How long? What is time? Brahmananda: It’s still a little early. Prabhupada: Early? [break] Guru dasa: The concept in sport of celibacy is also there. The best sportsmen are supposed to not take intoxicants or also engage in sex life. That was the training. [break] Ravindra-svarupa: …will end in this park here. Prabhupada: Oh. It will come this way? Ravindra-svarupa: It will come from the other direction and end here. Down under these trees is a very nice place. [break] Prabhupada: …going through the city? Ravindra-svarupa: We go through the city. The city’s just on the other side of these trees. Svarupa Damodara: One of our Godbrothers asked why the inductive knowledge is so successful, especially to scientists? Prabhupada: Inductive knowledge always unsuccessful. Svarupa Damodara: But science finds out these laws and so many things. So to some extent it’s working. Prabhupada: No, they can extend… Just like inductive knowledge is like this: you study man. You see, first man dies, second man dies, third man dies. In this way, you can go to hundred or thousand man. But I can say that “You might not have seen that man who does not die.” I can challenge that. You cannot say… Simply by studying hundred thousand man, you cannot say that all men die. I can challenge that “You have not seen the…, beyond that. So how you can conclude like that?” There may be somebody. As you say, “May be,” we can say, “may be somebody who does not die.” (laughter) What is the answer? Svarupa Damodara: That argument is different though from the way the science does. For example, they work so hard… Prabhupada: The science does… They conclude something, and next man changes. So that is your science. So how you can make a conclusion? Svarupa Damodara: But how so many things are working under the laws…? Prabhupada: Working, that’s all right. You have seen that so many people are dying. That’s all right. But I am challenging that you have not seen the next man who does not die. That you cannot answer. Svarupa Damodara: For example, they find the laws of motion, Newton’s laws of motion. They utilize that concept in shooting rockets. And they use exactly some mathematical formula and apply it. Prabhupada: That’s all right, but sometimes the shooting of the rocket missing. Svarupa Damodara: No, what we are saying is that the law that they find out by their own effort is working… Prabhupada: So you effort is limited. How you can conclude? Svarupa Damodara: So inductive knowledge is true to a certain limit. Prabhupada: Certain extent, that’s all. It is not conclusion. Svarupa Damodara: But to a devotee, though, there is nothing like inductive knowledge because knowledge gives by Krsna. So it must be deductive. Prabhupada: Deductive always. And that is easier. Krsna says that “I come as death and take away everything.” So we know that nobody can be immortal; everyone must die. Simple conclusion. Brahmananda: We don’t have to test it because Krsna says it. Prabhupada: Yes. You take that… Ravindra-svarupa: We could never know ourselves unless we knew all cases. Prabhupada: No, we do not require to know. We hear from Krsna, the Supreme Person. That is perfect Devotee: That’s our logic. You said that once. Prabhupada: Yes, that is our logic. Gurudasa: But also you said once that we feel it. That is our proof. Prabhupada: No, feel, you may wrongly feel because you are imperfect. That is not good argument. Our argument is that the message is coming from the most authorized personality; therefore it is perfect. And we receive guru-parampara. That is our process. Evam parampara-praptam imam rajarsayo viduh [Bg. 4.2]. The rajarsis, means very, very, big, big, stalwart persons, they accept it. Just like Arjuna gives evidence that “I accept You. You are Parabrahma.” So he, next line, he says, “It is not that I am saying. But big, big personalities like Vyasadeva, he has said. Narada has said. Asita has said. And You are personally saying, so I have no doubt.” This is our process. [break] …Upendra, Upendra has not come? [break] …knowledge is always imperfect. Svarupa Damodara: What about jnana-yogis? Prabhupada: Jnana-yogis, they are also imperfect. Svarupa Damodara: Their knowledge is speculative. Prabhupada: Yes. Anyone who is speculative on the strength of his own knowledge is imperfect. Because we are imperfect, speculation is imperfect. Ravindra-svarupa: The same criticism that you made of induction was also made by John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, but they became skeptics. They said, “Therefore there’s no knowledge at all.” Prabhupada: That is another nonsense. That is also speculation. (laughter) “Because I have failed, therefore there is no knowledge.” This is also imperfect because how I can conclude like that? I am imperfect. I cannot decide this way or that way. So that is also. Vedic knowledge says that a conditioned soul has got four defects: illusion, mistake, imperfectness and cheating. Any conditioned soul. Even Brahma, he is receiving knowledge from Krsna. Tene brahma hrda ya adi-kavaye. Adi-kavi means Brahma. He is the most perfect person within this universe, Lord Brahma. So he is also receiving knowledge from Krsna. Any conditioned soul, beginning from Brahma down to the ant, they are defective in four ways: illusion, mistake, imperfectness and cheating. They know that “I am imperfect.” Just this Darwin. He knew that he is imperfect, and he cheated so many persons—by false theory, which he cannot explain. He simply gives, “Perhaps millions of years’ gap…,” this, that. That is not knowledge. So the imperfect person is prone to become a cheater. So we should not take knowledge from the cheaters. What do you think? Svarupa Damodara: We should take knowledge from Krsna. Prabhupada: Yes. Svarupa Damodara: And Prabhupada. Prabhupada: Yes. Prabhupada is giving you the same knowledge, that’s all. There is no question of cheating. I have received this knowledge from Krsna, and you take this. That’s all. My business is finished. Kirtanananda: Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Prabhupada: Yes, that is the duty. Parampara system means the spiritual master shall not give anything which is not spoken by Krsna. That is Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s… Yare dekha, tare kaha ‘krsna’-upadesa: [Cc. Madhya 7.128] “You become guru under My order.” “But I do not know anything nicely, how can I become guru?” “No, you have no botheration. You simply take Krsna’s word and say, and you become guru.” amara ajnaya guru hana tara ei desa yare dekha, tare kaha ‘krsna’-upadesa [Cc. Madhya 7.128] If the child says to another man, “Father said, ‘This is this,’ ” then he is perfect. He has learned from the father, and the father is perfect, then whatever he says, it is perfect. Why should he take so much botheration? So our, process is that, that we become guru not like that rascal Guruji, no. We speak whatever Krsna has spoken. That’s all. Of course, we try to impress upon you with your reason, logic, but we shall speak the same thing, not anything else. Krsna says, “I am supreme;” We say, “Krsna is supreme.” That’s all. Where is the botheration? I haven’t got to find out by my logic and induction whether Krsna is supreme. That I have already done. So Krsna is supreme. There is no doubt about it. Now, whatever Krsna says, it is all right. That’s all. Svarupa Damodara: That saves a lot of time. Prabhupada: Yes, that is intelligence. That is intelligence. These, all these rascals, they are unnecessarily wasting. Srama eva hi kevalam. Simply they are wasting time. That’s all. That is stated in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, dharmah svanusthitah pumsam visvaksena-kathasu yah notpadayed ratim yadi srama eva hi kevalam [SB 1.2.8] You are executing your duties as scientist or as anything, but if you don’t have faith in the words of visvaksena, then you are simply wasting your time. Svarupa Damodara: That’s one of the chapters in our book that Madhava is working, that inductive knowledge, there is nothing like inductive knowledge. It’s all maya; it’s illusion. Prabhupada: Yes, it is illusion. [break] …western countries it is full of inductive knowledge. That’s all. [break] Dr. Radhakrishnan used to say, on sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam [Bg. 18.66], “It is too much.” (laughter) Svarupa Damodara: He died just a few months ago. Prabhupada: Yes, he died, and brain fag. All his knowledge, last five, six years—he could not recognize his own men. Gurudasa: When we went to see him, he hardly could speak. Prabhupada: Yes. Svarupa Damodara: Because of his inductive knowledge. Prabhupada: That’s all. He became a victim of the western people. Because the Oxford University was paying him very nicely, he became a servant of the western thought. [break] Svarupa Damodara: …in the evolutionary cycle, the transmigration of the soul, we were inquiring whether there’s any specific details in the Vedas about the step by step transmigration of the spirit, of the soul. Prabhupada: Yes. From the aquatics to the plants, and then insect, then bird, then beast, then human being. Svarupa Damodara: Then it’s the same with the Darwin’s Theory. Prabhupada: Darwin has taken from here, and he has tried to explain in a hodgepodge way so that he may get the credit, that’s all. Ravindra-svarupa: The plants have more consciousness, manifest consciousness, than aquatics? Prabhupada: Huh? Ravindra-svarupa: That plants and grass, they are more conscious than aquatics. Prabhupada: Yes. That is also mentioned in the Bhagavata, about different animals, how they are conscious, developed. Svarupa Damodara: In the Bhagavata, in the later chapters, Srila Prabhupada? Not up to the present Fourth Canto that… Prabhupada: Fourth Canto there is, how one animal is more conscious than the other. Ravindra-svarupa: Yes. Devotee: Prabhupada, did you say that trees have the ability to see and hear in the Bhagavatam? Prabhupada: Yes. Devotee: How is that? Prabhupada: Just like a vulture, he has got more seeing power than you. Is it not? Devotee: Yes. He sees the carcass, you give the example, from way up. Prabhupada: Yes. (chuckles) But he can see only the carcass. Svarupa Damodara: That is also acintya-sakti of the vulture. He can see… He has special eyes. Prabhupada: No, it is acintya-sakti for us, but Krsna has given different power to different animals. For us it is acintya, not for Krsna. Svarupa Damodara: Not for…? Prabhupada: For Krsna there is nothing like acintya. Therefore we have to take knowledge from Krsna. [break] Balavanta: …the Vikings first discovered America, they said. Brahmananda: From Scandanavia came, before Columbus. Balavanta: But Mahabharata describes all the continents even way before that, doesn’t it? Prabhupada: Yes. (end)
with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
July 12, 1975, Philadelphia