Kṛṣṇa-kāntī: Śrīla Prabhupāda's morning walk, recorded May 11th, 1973, in Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles.
Prabhupāda: How far progress, establish matter from life, not life from matter?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I've started working.
Prabhupāda: Ah. A great task. That will be triumph of Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. [japa]
[break]
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...from Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa? Aśītiṁ caturaś caiva lakṣāṁ... [Padma Purāṇa].
Prabhupāda: Tān...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...jīva-jātiṣu.
Prabhupāda: Jīva-jātiṣu. Jīva-jātiṣu. Yes. That means the evolution means from one form to another. The forms are already... Jātiṣu. Their facilities, they are already there. The living entity is simply transferring himself. The same example = One man is transferring himself from one apartment to another.
That apartment is first class, second class, third class. Just a person has come from a lower-class apartment to a first-class apartment. The person is the same. Now, according to his karma or according to his capacity of payment, he has got a good apartment. This is... Bhramadbhiḥ.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Bhramad means?
Prabhupāda: Bhramad means wandering, wandering. Not that they... Evolution means developing. Is it not?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. I understand that part, but I also come across from Śrīla Prabhupāda's commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā that the living entities, all the living entities, 8,400,000 species, they are simultaneously created.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That means there are some living entities, say, for example, human beings, they come right away to the human platform without undergoing the...
Prabhupāda: Yes, Brahmā. Just like Brahmā. He is in human form, only with four hands. He is the first-born. And then he created other living entities. Brahmā is first born from Viṣṇu. He has got four heads, four hands, two legs, he can speak. It is human form. Then, from him other forms came out, marīcy ādi, ṛṣi, great, great, saintly person. Nārada, Kumāra. In this way, creation was there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the evolution of life... Those who are coming to the lowest living entity, the organisms, smaller units, so once they come to that stage, then they have to pass through the stages step-wise.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just the same example = As you get more money, you can acquire better apartment. The apartment is already there. Not that a apart..., this lower-class apartment has become higher-class apartment. This is their nonsense. The Darwin nonsense theory is like that = "The apartment has become lower class to higher class." That is his theory.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, he is saying that evolving from the smaller units. So they are claiming that there was no human beings at the beginning, so the smaller living entities...
Prabhupāda: But they are claiming where there is no life. That is their defect. Therefore they cannot think how there can be human being. But if you begin from life, supreme life, Viṣṇu, from another life, Brahmā came, then there is no problem. Everything is all right. Because they think that life comes from matter, so millions and millions of years ago there was simply matter. Life was not visible. That is their theory. We don't say that. We say both are the energies, God's energies, life and matter. The life is superior energy; the matter is inferior energy. That is the difference. Both of them are existing. Same thing, example = This nail and this part existing always. This is superior part, this is inferior.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are existing simultaneously or living entity creates?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Without nails, how can I exist? Without skin, how can I exist? My existence means everything---my skin, my hair, my nails, my legs, my hands, everything.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So one is dependent on other?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So one is dependent on other? Or the spirit is independent of matter?
Prabhupāda: The spirit is independent. Just like I am existing. That is life. And there are other limbs of the body. I can live even without limbs of my body, but I cannot live without life. If I have no hands, no legs, still I live. So therefore I am not dependent on hands and legs. My hands and legs are dependent on me. [japa]
[pause]
Is it not better to walk little than sit down, compact room?
Karandhara: Oh, yes, it's necessary to walk a little.
Prabhupāda: Yes. [laughs] Just get my cloth. Where it is? Missing? No, no, no. Harer nāma... [Cc. Ādi 17.21]. Our theory is sound. The rascal's theory is not sound. Ours is not theory; it is fact. Just like Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate [Bg. 10.8] = "From Me everything emanates." Vedānta-sūtra says, janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1] = "The Absolute Truth is that from where everything comes." But everything we see = life and matter. This is everything. What we see in this world? Life and matter. Is it not?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is everything. So life also comes from Him and matter also comes from Him. Energy.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But both come simultaneously?
Prabhupāda: No, no, not simultaneously. It is there already. Coming... Idea is coming because we are in this limited world. We see everything here, we see there is beginning. So under that experience, we are thinking it is coming. But it's not coming.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is already existing.
Prabhupāda: Already there. Therefore they are missing the clue. Coming, beginning from here. They are rascals. It is already there. God is eternal and everything is eternal. His energy is eternal. Matter and spirit, everything is there. I am born, I think that this is the beginning of the world. Nonsense, the world was there long ago. Everything is there, existing. Just like you get heat from fire. So does it mean the heat is beginning?
Whenever there is fire, there is heat. But I think, "Now there is fire, heat will come." Heat will not come; it is already there. You will experience. Similarly, heat and light is... Everything is there in the fire. If the fire is there, heat and light is there. There is no question of beginning. What do they say? The heat and light, there was beginning? About the...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: There is a source. There is a source for heat and light.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So source is already there. Therefore heat and light is already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the varieties of living entities that we find in the material world can be explained because of the desire of the living entities to make..., to live in different houses?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He knows. Just like government constructs a prison house. Government knows there will be rascals, criminals. So already is there prison. Before the judgment the prison house is already there. Sarva-jña. God is sarva-jña. He knows everything. So He knows that some of them will come out criminal. Just like king knows that not that always everyone will be honest. There will be dishonest. So construct this prison house. Like that.
God knows, Kṛṣṇa knows, that this material world, the varieties of desires according to the modes of material nature. So there are three modes of... You can calculate also. Just like there are three modes of material nature = sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa, tamo-guṇa. Now if you make variety, three into three, it becomes nine. And nine into nine, it becomes eighty-one. So there is eighty-four. What is the difficulty to understand? These three qualities, just like three color, blue, red and yellow, you mix. Oh, thousands of different colors you will find. It is the expert color combination. That's all. Similarly this material world is made of three qualities, and if you make varieties, mix them, again eighty-one to eighty-one you can mix. It requires expert handling.
So that expert handling is there. Nature is there. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi [Bg. 3.27]. Guṇaiḥ. This very word is used, guṇaiḥ. By the qualities, prakṛti is manufacturing different types of body, varieties of body = plants, trees, aquatics, human being, demigods, cats, dogs, so many things, 8,400,000.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So when the Paramātmā and the jīvātmā are within the same material living body, so the...
Prabhupāda: Paramātmā is not material body. Paramātmā's energy. Just like heat and light is the energy of the sun. The sun is not feeling heat and light. For him, everything is all right. There is no heat in the sun, body of the sun. He doesn't feel any heat. You are feeling heat. Similarly, for Paramātmā there is no such thing, "this is material," "this is spiritual." Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate [Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8, Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport].
We hear that He has got different energies. His energy is one. Viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā. That is spiritual only. Just like sunshine. That is sunshine. Now we are seeing it is covered with cloud. It is our imperfectness. But there, in the sun, there is no such thing cloud. Experience, practical experience. The sun is not experiencing cloud, although there is cloud. We are experiencing. Similarly, this matter and spirit is for us, not for Him. He, either He comes in so-called material body or spiritual body it is the same. It is the same. For Him it is like that, the same, because it is His energy. He can turn matter into spirit, spirit into matter. That He can do.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So making these houses, temporary houses, is directed by Him.
Prabhupāda: No. Directed by māyā. Prakṛteḥ, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni [Bg. 3.27]. [referring to ground] Is it dry or wet?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Not very wet, but just a little wet.
Prabhupāda: He has nothing to do. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate [Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8]. Just like I am head of the institution. I have nothing to do. I say, "Karandhara, do it." Immediately does it. I say you, "Do it," immediately... I say him. I have got so many secretaries. I will ask him. Similarly, why God will create?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But there is a direction.
Prabhupāda: Direction, yes. That is said, mayādhyakṣena prakṛtiḥ [Bg. 9.10] = "Under My direction." So if it is possible for a common man like me, how much it is possible for God? That we have to understand. Now I want to go to India, London, now everything arrangement is made. I can go immediately. So similarly, if God wants to do something, why He has to do something? Everything, as soon as He desires, everything is there. He wants, "Let there be material creation." There is, immediately. This is God. We are thinking in my terms = "Oh, such a huge universe! How a person can create? Where he got this tool? Where he's got the hammer? And how he constructed it?" I am thinking like that. Because I am limited, I am thinking in my limited way. So I am denying = "There is no God."
Therefore you have to first of all understand acintya, inconceivable power. Then we can understand God. If I think, "God may be..." That kūpa-maṇḍūka, that frog is thinking, "It may be little bigger than this, little bigger than this." That how you can understand Atlantic Ocean within the well? So these rascals are all frogs. So they are thinking in their own terms, God. And because they cannot accommodate = "There is no God. Finish." The same example, the rabbit = "Close the eyes, there is no danger." That's all. Finish. That's it. They are no better than the rabbits, these so-called scientists. Closing the eyes, there is no God. You have to smash them by their... Tora lati na..., tor śilā torna amora tora bāṇi dāntera gora.[?]
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Tor śilā?
Prabhupāda: Śilā you know?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Ah, huh.
Prabhupāda: And nora means mortar, mortar and what is called, pestle?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Mortar and pestle?
Prabhupāda: So it is your śilā nora. I take it and break your teeth. [laughter] So take their this jugglery of words and break their teeth. That should be the policy. "These molecules and this and that," so many words. You have to simply catch their words, and with their words kill them. That is intelligence. We are saying plainly. You say with these words, which is their sona, mortar and pestle, and break their teeth. That's all. Tora śilā tora nora tora bāṇi dāntera gora.[?]
This policy should be adopted. Otherwise, we know they are rascals. But if I say rascal, people will say, "You are not a scientific man. How you can say he is rascal?" "Therefore I am flattering you that otherwise..." You haven't got to convince me that a rascal. I know that he is a rascal. Now, because we have to prove that he is a rascal to another rascal, we have to take your help. This is our policy. Otherwise, so far we are concerned, if they go on lecturing for millions of years, we shall kick on their face. You should know he is mistaken. Let the rascal speak whatever he likes. We know the conclusion.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So in trying to make a house, we need certain materials to build the house.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Materials are already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So similarly, when the living entities, when they come down to the material platform...
[pause]
Prabhupāda: The material is already there. Just like what you are manufacturing? You are... Already everything is there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the chemists or the scientists, what they're thinking is, there are chemical elements, which are the materials necessary for staying the spirit soul within the..., so long as he is within the material world. So they're saying that these material elements---carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen---the main elements, somehow they combine together, forming the living units. But our point is the chemicals are there, but in order to start the real nice house, the spirit soul has to enter within these chemical elements.
Prabhupāda: Yes. These chemical elements will already help him, by nature's way. Just like you put a seed on the earth. So other things necessary for fructifying that seed, that is already there. That will then come to help it. That is already there. Just like the living entity in seed form is impregnated within the womb of the mother. The mother has got within the womb all ingredients. Body will develop. On account of the presence of the living entity, by the laws of nature, everything is there. A dog is forming dog's body, man is forming man's body. Why? Because everything is there. A cat is forming cat's body in the womb of the... Yathā yonir yathā bījam. You haven't got to search out. It is already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So they may ask, "How do I know that the living entities...?"
Prabhupāda: What you know? You do not know, first of all. Therefore you have to take information from the śāstra. Karmaṇā daiva netreṇa jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1]. This is there. The jīva is doing something, and higher authorities is giving him the result = "Now you have done this. Now you live in this way, in condition."
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That part we can explain by... What they ask, "How do I know that the living entities...?"
Prabhupāda: Just like a man is condemned for going to the jail. The man who will take him to the jail, the jail and everything is already there. The arrangement for his living in the jail, everything is complete there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Can we explain by acintya śakti, Śrīla Prabhupāda? If we say how we enter, that is the difference between the...
Prabhupāda: No, that is acintya-śakti. You cannot think how it is done.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But it is done.
Prabhupāda: It is done. Just like sometimes I think that I came here alone, without any expectation of success, and this movement has become so nice. Actually, by one man's effort it was not possible. But it has become so. This is acintya-śakti, Kṛṣṇa's, inconceivable. Even a modern businessman, he cannot organize such a worldwide organization in such short a time. We have talked with many businessmen in India. They... Some say, "We have got thirty branches," somebody says, "We have got forty," another twenty branches. Our students say, "My Guru Mahārāja has 102 branches." [laughing] So they say, "No, we cannot compare with your Guru Mahārāja."
So this is acintya-śakti. You can see so many things, the acintya-śakti is working. So unless we accept acintya-śakti of God, it is not possible to understand what is God. Inconceivable potency. And that is actually a fact. We want to bring God to our level, that frog philosophy. Atlantic Ocean to the level of well. That is foolishness. That is foolishness. We have to understand that this whole universe... Just like Arjuna saw the virāta-rūpa, universal form. So this whole universe is the form of the Lord.
So if in my body there are so many chemicals, enzymes and other things, so how much there must be, proportionately? Suppose if we find some portion of chemicals in my body, you will find less in the ant's body. Or you will find more in the elephant's body. So if I can create so many chemicals within my body, how much chemicals He can create? On that account... Your theory, that combination of hydrogen, oxygen makes water, that is a fact. But you are surprised wherefrom such a big quantity of hydrogen, oxygen came so that the ocean is there. That you cannot calculate. But we answer = "This hydrogen, oxygen is there in the body, universal body of the Lord." Therefore you find. Why do they do not understand this plain thing? Hydrogen, oxygen we accept; that's a fact. But you are surprised wherefrom this big quantity of hydrogen, oxygen came. That we answer.
So let us cooperate. Then the people will be happy. That is acintya-śakti. If a poor man cannot spend ten dollars and if a rich man immediately spends million dollars, he becomes surprised, "How it is possible? How it is possible?" It is like that. We have got the capacity of not even ten dollars; you are thinking of millions and trillion dollars. Adara vapari yahan khabor.[?] You know this?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Adara vapari yahan khabor?
Prabhupāda: Adar, adar, adar means ginger. A ginger merchant, he is asking, "When the another ship will come?" Ginger is never purchased ship-loaded. You take little ginger. If you have got one bag of ginger, then it will be sold in three years. So adar vapari yahan khabor. What you have got to do with ship, shipment? You just carry one bag or ten seer, ten kilo... That's all. So these rascals, they are adar vapari, and they are taking account of "Where is that ship?" Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I've noticed that there is a misunderstanding in the definition of living and the non-living among the scientific communities.
Prabhupāda: What is their definition?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are saying that living beings can reproduce and can grow and can make [indistinct] like themselves.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that we say. That we also say.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But there are also non-living matters like crystals. They can grow. They can... We can divide them, and it will reproduce like...
Prabhupāda: No. Without living entity within, nothing can grow.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. So some are saying that when they make these chemicals like the big molecules that we were talking about, DNA, and they are saying that DNA can make its own replication, means it can make another chain of molecules by its own. So they are saying that it is living.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: And some are saying that it's not living.
Prabhupāda: That is the... That means their knowledge is imperfect. Somebody is saying something, somebody is saying something. That means imperfect.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So if we define the definition what is living and what is non-living, so living means that contains consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: And the non-living, that has no consciousness.
Prabhupāda: No. That is the difference. That is defined in Bhagavad-gītā. Avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam [Bg. 2.17]. That thing which is spread all over your body, that is avināśi, that is eternal. Antavanta ime dehā [Bg. 2.18]. This, what is said... This body is antavantaḥ, perishable. Nityasyoktāḥ śarīriṇaḥ. And the spirit within the body, that is eternal. That they cannot understand.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we can also see that according to the different shapes of the material bodies, different shapes and qualities of the material bodies...
Prabhupāda: Different opportunities... Yes. According to consciousness we have got the shape of the body. If you have got dog's consciousness, then you get a dog's body. If you have got a god's consciousness, you get a demigod's body.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is the desire of the spirit soul.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Ye yathā māṁ prapadyante [Bg. 4.11]. Freedom is given. Kṛṣṇa says, "Whatever you want, you can take." Yānti deva-vratā devān pitṝn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ [Bg. 9.25]. Everything is freedom.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Then why is it in the Vaivarta Purāṇa, after traveling 8,400,000 species of life, we get this human form of life? Is that contradiction with the...?
Prabhupāda: No. Because in the lower form of life, the progress is by the laws of nature, and in the human form of life, you get consciousness development. Therefore you have got discretion. The other forms, they have no discretion = one after another.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No. My point being the... Some human beings, they come without traveling through these 8,400,000 species.
Prabhupāda: Then he can come.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So this applies only to those living entities who are born...
Prabhupāda: They are advanced in consciousness. They are advanced in consciousness. Suppose you are advanced in consciousness. So you are not going to get the dog's body or cat's body. You get another human body. Yoga-bhraṣṭo sañjayate [Bg. 6.41]. Yoga-bhraṣṭaḥ is not ordinary man. He is practicing yoga, but somehow or another could not fulfill.
Therefore he gets again human body. He does not get the cat's body, dog's body. So he directly comes to the human body. There is no question of evolution. Same example = The apartments are already there. If you can pay more, "Come on, this apartment is ready for you." Not that you have to come from the lower platform, lower animal apartment. Daiva-netreṇa. The judgment will be done by the higher authorities. They do not know that.
Karandhara: Prabhupāda, we should start going back.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa [SB 3.31.1]. Your work, and supervision---higher authorities.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is completely in contradiction with Darwin's theory.
Prabhupāda: Darwin's is a rascal. What is his theory? We kick on your face. That's all. That is our philosophy. The more we kick on Darwin's face, the more advanced in spiritual consciousness. He has killed the whole civilization, rascal.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Even all the scientists now, the present scientists, their arguments are based on Darwin's earlier theories.
Prabhupāda: What they are...?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Said that life started from matter and is evolving from the uni-cellular organisms to the multi-cellular organisms. So that means they are saying that there was no higher species at the beginning of creation.
Prabhupāda: Nonsense. So why there is now higher species? And the lower species also. As we see at the present moment, there is the most intellectual person and the most foolish ass also. So why do we see all the things simultaneously? Why ass is not abolished? What is their answer? So similarly, formerly also there was.
Karandhara: They call it... They say "parallel evolution." They say in the process of evolution some are advancing and some are remaining stable.
Prabhupāda: So if that, even parallel, then there is Brahmā. He is most advanced. Why do you say there was no human being? There was. Therefore their theory, "In such-and-such era the human life began," that is wrong if they accept parallel. They are existing always. And as we see. Now, as we see, the trees are there, plants are there, animals are there, human being are there, God is there, demigod is there. Everything is there. Where is the question of evolution? Simply we have to enter. That's all.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Do we have anything, Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the reference?
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Do we have anything saying that all the living entities are already there?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that jīva-jātiṣu.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Oh, and that implies?
Prabhupāda: Jīva-jāti, different grades of jīva. Jāti. You know jāti?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like there are different nations. They are already existing. So jāti means that. Jāti means born of a particular species. That is jāti. Jīva-jātiṣu. Ṣu, plural number. So many jīva-jāti. He's simply bhramadbhiḥ[?]. Just like I am traveling, sometime America, some Australia, sometime... But they are already there. I am going sometimes in America, sometimes Australia, sometimes Africa, but they are already there. I am the man; I am traveling.
Not that because I have to come to America, I create America. This is nonsense. And there are many countries I have not gone there. Does it mean that they are not existing? They have no even human reason, these rascal scientist---the commonsense reason. And Bhagavad-gītā clearly says they are already existing. Wherever you like, you can go. You can go even up to the kingdom of God if you so desire. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I want to know a little more about the nature [indistinct]... [end]