So our proposition is that to receive knowledge from Kṛṣṇa, the perfect person, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We accept śāstra, means which is infallible. There is no mistake. Just like when I was walking near the cowshed, heaps of, piles of cow dung was there. So I was explaining to my followers that if such heaps of animal, I mean to say, man stool was heaped up here, nobody would come here. Nobody would come here. But the cow dung, there are so much heaps of cow dung, still, we find it pleasure to go through it. And in the Vedas it is said, "Cow dung is pure." This is called śāstra. If you argue, "How it can, it has become pure? It is an animal stool." But the Vedas, they... Because the knowledge is perfect, that even in argument we cannot prove how animal stool becomes pure, but it is pure. Therefore Vedic knowledge is perfect. And if we take knowledge from the Vedas, we save so much time for investigating, or researching. We are very much fond of research. Everything is there in the Vedas. Why do you waste your time?
Investigate (Lectures)
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Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
You are trying to be unaffected by all kinds of sickness, but your real sickness is this material disease: you take birth, you die, you become old, and you suffer from diseases. This is your real sickness. But who is caring for this? Where is the scientist who are investigating how to stop death, how to stop birth. They are, of course, investigating how to stop birth, but still, birth is going on. This sort of stopping births, by killing the body, is not stopping because the body is not the person. The real person is within the body, within the body. Dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13). We have explained. That they do not know. They are taking... No. By killing the body or by protecting the body, that is not the solution. The solution is that the living entity has infected itself with the material disease. It has to be cured. That is the whole purpose of Vedic civilization, how to cure your material disease.
General Lectures
So Kṛṣṇa says that material nature is acting on both these objects, moving and not moving. "They are acting under My direction." So there is supreme control. The modern civilization, they do not understand it due to lack of knowledge. So our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is trying to enlighten people to come to this point of knowledge. They're all crazy, conducted by the influence of the three modes of material nature. They're not in normal condition. So it is very important movement. We invite... This morning also I said at the press representative meeting at the airport that there are so many universities and, especially in your country, department of knowledge, but why they are not discussing this point? Where is the department of knowledge? Sometimes past, I think sometimes in 1968, when I went to Boston, I was invited to speak in the technical institute. So my first question was that "Where is that technological department which is making investigation between the dead man and the living man?" Where is that technology? A man becomes dead. Something is losing. Where is that technology to replace it? Why do they not try for it? But because it is very difficult subject, they set aside. They are busy for technology, for eating, sleeping, mating and defending, that's all. Animal technology. The animals also trying their best, how to eat nice, how to have nice sex life, how to sleep and how to defend. So what is the difference between man's knowledge and animals' knowledge. The man's knowledge should be developed to find out this technology, what is the difference between a living man and a dead man, a living body and dead body. That is spiritual knowledge.
Kṛṣṇa says that "This instruction, bhakti-yoga instruction of Bhagavad-gītā, was first imparted by Me to the sun-god, Vivasvān." That is mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā. Now, it is a question of believe or not believe. That is a different thing. We believe. We take it. Because it is said by Kṛṣṇa, we take it, accept it. And we apply our reason also, not blindly take it, that if I see that in every planet, in our this planet there is a president... Formerly, in this planet also, there was only one king, and he was ruling over all the planets. Gradually, people have divided their interests and become different nations. From Vedic history we can see... I understand... Somebody was telling me that in Australia also there is some Śiva temple here. Who was telling me that? He was telling me. So the archaeological investigation has found so many relics, and in the Vedic literature we also find the mention of all the island, sapta-dvīpa, seven islands. Seven islands means Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania. These are mentioned already in the Vedic literature. So it is not that the world was not known to Vedic culture. It was fully known. And one king—he was that Mahārāja Pṛthu—he was the only one ruler all over the world, and he was ruling over these seven islands—that is mentioned-although his residential quarter was in the Brahmāvarta, the piece of land between the rivers Yamunā and Ganges.
Philosophy Discussions
Śyāmasundara: So after he finished his investigation about what the limits are of pure reason, then he began his critique of practical reason.
Prabhupāda: This is to be understood, that however expert logician you may be, this is not possible, by your reasons, by your knowledge, to approach the Supreme Absolute. That is not possible. This process that when God descends Himself and He speaks about Himself, He demonstrates about His pastimes, then it is possible. So the Bhāgavata is the record of God's descents. The whole Bhāgavata is philosophy about God, theology about God, and practical demonstration of God.
Śyāmasundara: He comes to that. He finds out what is the nature of men through his investigation of morals. He later comes to that point of understanding what is the purpose of man.
Prabhupāda: What does he say is the purpose, ultimate goal of life?
Śyāmasundara: The ultimate goal of life is to attain its own perfection, and to attain...
Prabhupāda: But he does not describe what is perfection.
Śyāmasundara: Perfection is happiness combined with virtue.
Prabhupāda: Happiness everyone thinks. Even a drunkard, he is feeling happiness. Is that happiness? The hog, by eating stool, is feeling happiness. Is that happiness?
Śyāmasundara: But it is not combined with virtue.
Prabhupāda: Why not virtue? If you get happiness, that is virtuous. That means he has no standard knowledge. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā (SB 5.18.12). If a man is not a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, he has no good qualities. He may be a great philosopher, scientist, but he is a nonsense. Harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā, mano-rathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ (SB 5.18.12). By his mental speculation he is coming again and again on this material platform, that's all. He has no idea what is happiness, what is goal of life, the aim of life. He has no such idea. Vague. So therefore imperfect knowledge.
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.
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 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.
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: 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.
Hayagrīva: At first Darwin was a Christian, but his faith in the existence of a personal God dwindled, and he finally wrote, "The whole subject"—that is the subject of religion, or God—"is beyond the scope of man's intellect. The mystery of the beginning of things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic. I have steadily endeavored to keep my mind free, so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved, as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it." So he didn't argue against Plato or Descartes or Kant or any other philosopher, but he simply presented what evidence he had amassed during a five..., only a five-year voyage, on a British freighter, oh, from 1831 to 1836. But what is considered important is that his book, The Origin of Species, marks what they call the emancipation of science from philosophy.
Prabhupāda: What is that, emancipation?
Hayagrīva: That is to say he simply presented what material he found—that is the fossils. He investigated certain life forms on these island during this trip and theorized about evolution.
Prabhupāda: That is philosophic; that is not scientific. He found something and he based his thesis on that. He cannot find out all the bodies, because there are, at the end, some section, some sect they burn the body. So how he can get information of their body, burned? So his theory is not at all scientific. It is always defective.
Śyāmasundara: When science tries to investigate something, they assume that what they are investigating is static, that it is a constant, that it is not changing, that it's static, mechanical. But the life force, he says, is dynamic; it's always changing, unpredictable.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because it is living force, it must be dynamic. It is not a dead stone. Because it is living force, it must be dynamic. We are all living force, sitting here, we may sit down or we may go away. That nobody can check. Similarly, we are dynamic forces, and God does not interfere with our dynamic force. He allows us, "Do whatever you like." Because if He interferes with our independence, then we are no longer living entities; we become dead stones. So God does not interfere. He gives us full freedom. But at the same time He comes down and instructs us, "But why you are engaged in this foolish activity? Please come to Me, back to home, back to Godhead, (indistinct)."
Śyāmasundara: So if he says that the physical world...
Līlāvatī: Does that mean that the spiritual body changes, Prabhupāda?
Prabhupāda: Not spiritual body, material body. Spiritual body cannot be changed.
Hayagrīva: He writes, "According to the religious and philosophic tradition of Europe, the valid status of all the highest values, the good, true and beautiful, was bound up with their being properties of ultimate and supreme being, namely God. All went well as long as what passed for natural science gave no offense to this conception. Trouble began when science ceased to disclose in the objects of knowledge the possession of any such properties. Then some roundabout method had to be devised for substantiating them." In other words, science began to investigate the phenomenal universe without admitting the proprietorship of anyone, of God, and this brings a breakdown in morality and value. So Dewey attempts to reassemble these shattered values in a philosophical way, but he, like science, attempts to do so without recognizing the proprietorship of an ultimate and supreme being.
Prabhupāda: That is another lunacy, because everything has a proprietor. So why this big cosmic manifestation will not have a proprietor? To accept the proprietor is natural, and that is logical. And not to accept a proprietor, that is lunacy. How it can be possible? Just like we give this example: We are standing on the land. We know that there is government, there is proprietor. And a few yards after, when this ocean begins, how we can think of that the ocean has no proprietor, no government? How any philosopher and man having logic can believe it? What is the answer?
Hayagrīva: Although it appears that Schopenhauer does not believe in God, although his stand appears atheistic, he writes, "If a man fears death as his annihilation, it is just as if he were to think that the sun cries out at evening, 'Woe is me, for I go down to eternal night.' Thus even already, suicide appears to us as a vain and therefore a foolish action. When we have carried out our investigation further, it will appear to us in a still less favorable light."
Prabhupāda: Investigation of father, that means God.
Hayagrīva: The what?
Prabhupāda: Investigation, he says?
Hayagrīva: Oh, "When we have carried out our investigation further."
Prabhupāda: Further.
Hayagrīva: Yes, further, further. "More," "When we have investigated..."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: "...further, it will appear to us in a still," that is suicide, "that death is not extinction."
Prabhupāda: Then after death there is life. As soon as there is life, there is desire, willing.
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: 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: There is also another psychologist, Carl Jung, he's also very important. He followed Freud.
Revatīnandana: To some extent.
Śyāmasundara: I mean chronologically. Freud's idea was that unconscious processes are invariably infantile, animal, or pathological. Jung said that some unconscious energies are sources of positive and creative activity. That the unconscious is important for the growth and development of the mature and well-adjusted personality. Freud investigated the unconscious and found that the negative side, that our unconscious life is always threatening us, that it is the cause of pathological...
Prabhupāda: What do you mean by unconscious life?
Śyāmasundara: Subconscious, that which we are not consciously aware of...
Prabhupāda: That means it is consciousness but it is covered.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that unconscious part of our mind is dangerous, infantile, animalistic. But Jung says that the unconscious can also be positive and helpful to the growth of our personality, that it can be an asset to understand this unconscious life.
Prabhupāda: But I think that the subconscious status as it is covered by the present consciousness, similarly, it can be covered by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so that those subconscious states will be no longer able to react.
Śyāmasundara: He sees a positive or creative function of this unconscious...
Prabhupāda: Just like the other day I was citing the śloka of Yamunācārya about sex life. The subconscious status is there, sex life, but because he has got Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is spiting on it. That means the subconscious state cannot overcome. So our policy is that you become fully Kṛṣṇa conscious, and then all the subconscious status which is gathered for life after life, and they are stored, they are in stock, they will not be able to overcome.
Śyāmasundara: Just like when we investigate different folklores, different mythologies all over the world, we find certain symbols which are the same. For instance the swastika, we find that in the Indian mythology and you find it in Māyā or Inca, western Indians' mythologies as well. And different symbols which are common to man all over the globe, whether they are primitive or whether they are advanced, he says that these are archetypal images which for thousands of generations have been passed on in men's consciousness. So that we are composed not only of our own individual thoughts and ingredients but also the ingredients of our ancestors. Is this a fact?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is called tradition. That is called tradition. But that is not paramparā. Paramparā is different. Paramparā means we get the right knowledge from the supreme. It is not something ac..., what is called? What he is speaking?
Śyāmasundara: Acquired. Archetypal. Means the original type.
Prabhupāda: My acquired knowledge can be changed by understanding from superior. Just like generally we have got bodily concept of life, but Kṛṣṇa says, "No. You are not this body." So this knowledge is not coming to me from tradition, but I learn it from great authorities like Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: So this investigation by Jung opened up a new kind of universality in philosophy because it was seen that the same symbols are common to all men, of all religions.
Prabhupāda: As soon as you come to the platform of human being, there is one similarity: religion. It may be under different name. Even in the aborigines, there is religion. Just like Red Indian, they have a religion.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. And they have the same symbols, many of them.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, that is a common concept. To accept some type of religion, this is common. Now, that type of religion may be different from me, but the principle is there. Just like eating principle is there, sleeping principle is there; similarly religious principle is there.
Śyāmasundara: His investigation of symbols around the world, he found that the symbols most used for someone who has realized the self are the jewel and the child—these two symbols. These are symbolic of someone who has attained the ultimate perfection. A jewel and the child.
Prabhupāda: Jew and the...
Śyāmasundara: Jewel, jewel.
Prabhupāda: Oh, jewel.
Śyāmasundara: Jewel.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: And a child.
Prabhupāda: How child has attained perfection?
Śyāmasundara: The same kind of innocent happiness that a child has.
Prabhupāda: Then when he grows he deteriorates. If he has attained perfection, how does he deteriorates?
Śyāmasundara: These German philosophers, they generally accept the Christian standard of morality to be what ought to be.
Prabhupāda: That's also good, but Christian morality, who is abiding by Christian morality? The Christian morality, in the beginning it is said "Thou shalt not kill," and they're all killing. So it will be very difficult to find out a real Christian who is following the morality. "Thou shalt not covet," and they're doing all this nonsense.
Śyāmasundara: Any rate, he's more or less investigating just what is the nature of man without going into the goals.
Prabhupāda: That we have got. Nature of man, nature of living entity is that he's eternal servant. He is serving. Everyone is serving. Who is a living entity where in this world he can say that "I am not serving, I am absolute, I am nobody's servant"? Everyone is serving. Either he's serving māyā or Kṛṣṇa, that's all. When he is in knowledge, he is serving Kṛṣṇa and when he's foolish, ignorant, he's serving māyā. That's all. But he must serve. Just like a citizen, he must abide by the order of the state. If he abides by the order of the state in an ordinary way, then he's a good citizen. And if he (indistinct), then he will have to be forced to abide by the order of the state (indistinct). But in all cases he must abide by the order (indistinct).
| Page Title: | Investigate (Lectures) |
| Compiler: | Matea, MadhuGopaldas |
| Created: | 16 of Sep, 2009 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=22, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 22 |