Ultimate (Lectures, Philosophy Discussions)

Śyāmasundara: He says the mind is aware that there is an ultimate reality, or a thing in itself, a noumenon, which produces each phenomenon, but the mind is not equipped to sense this ultimate reality. So the mind must remain forever content to be agnostic.

Prabhupāda: No. He should go to higher authorities. Why should he remain agnostic? If there is possibility, mind cannot go beyond this, but if the same thing, we say upon the roof there is some sound, now we speculate, but we cannot ascertain what is the sound. But if somebody is actually there, he says, "This sound is due to this." So why I shall remain satisfied with agnostic position, that I could not ascertain what is the sound, and therefore I shall remain satisfied? I shall say, "Is there anybody on the roof?" If somebody says, "Yes. I am here," "Will you kindly say what is the sound?" "Yes: this, that, this, that." Therefore Vedic injunction is tad vijñānārtham: that which is beyond your senses, you must approach a spiritual master. He will give you information. That is our system, accepting guru. Tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam (SB 11.3.21). One who is inquisitive to understand the transcendental subject, he must approach a guru. What is guru? Śābde pare ca niṣṇātam: guru, who is expert or well versed in the Vedic literatures, śruti. And what is the result? How can I understand that he is well versed in Vedic literature? Brahmaṇy upaśamāśrayaḥ. He has forgotten everything material; he is simply concerned with the spirit soul. That's all.

Śyāmasundara: He says that although this ultimate reality appears unknowable, still the mind seeks to discover it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He cannot be satisfied. He is seeking Kṛṣṇa.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. So he says that the real world or the ultimate reality becomes a reconstruction of the mind by speculationists; that they take the contents of this world and reproduce it into what they believe to be the real world.

Prabhupāda: By speculation, the real world for them is negation of this world. That is voidism. I am experiencing everything here material, so this material thinking and other material thinking induces him to conclude that it must be opposite. It must be opposite. This is material. So spiritual means not this form, or formless, or void. So that is also material thinking. Just the opposite number.

Śyāmasundara: He is still proceeding in his method. He comes to some good conclusions. He is trying to understand what makes men's minds work. He says that "Thus this real world becomes an ideal construction in the mind of man."

Śyāmasundara: He says, for instance, that this pure reason or this transcendental reason is there to guide man to an understanding of wider knowledge, to guide his understanding to knowledge, and that the aim of this pure reason is to find the totality of synthesis, in other words, to understand everything. By knowing the ultimate reality, one will understand everything.

Prabhupāda: So simply by understanding that he is spirit, gradually he understands that there is a spiritual world. This spiritual world is full of varieties. Everything is there, exactly like this, but that is eternal and this is temporary.

Śyāmasundara: He says that this pure reason has a regulative value, that is, by attempting to grasp the totality of conditions by connecting a particular phenomenon with the whole experience. In other words, for example, the idea of a supreme being is a regulative principle of reason because it tells us to view everything in the world in connection, as if it proceeded from the necessary cause, or the Supreme Being.

Prabhupāda: The Supreme Being is the cause of all causes.

Prabhupāda: So in your preaching you can use this Kant's statement, how he is confirming the statement of Bhagavad-gītā. Bhagavad-gītā directly says and he as a philosopher has found out that this is a fact. So this may help in our preaching work.

Śyāmasundara: He says that phenomena are so endless that it is impossible to arrive at ultimate reality by the reason alone, because there are certain what he calls transcendental illusions.

Prabhupāda: Therefore you have to take Kṛṣṇa's assertion. I am puzzled with these varieties of phenomenal changes, and you cannot understand how these things are being done. But as soon as you come to Kṛṣṇa, He says that "I am behind this. I am doing it." Then your conclusion is perfect.

Śyāmasundara: He says that when you examine material phenomena by your reason, you come to certain contradictions, and he calls them antimonies. He lists four antimonies. An antimony means both sides are true.

Prabhupāda: In Sanskrit it is called bhiruda dharma-words that mean both "yes" and "no." He can adjust-yes and no, both.

Prabhupāda: That is possible.

Śyāmasundara: In fact he recognizes three such ideals of pure reason: one is the soul, two is the ultimate world or reality, and three is God. He says that these three ideals are a priori to the reason. They are born with us. We know these things.

Prabhupāda: That is also true. We also accept. Nitya siddha kṛṣṇa bhakti. Our tendency to offer service to the Lord, that is natural. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that He is eternal servant; therefore that tendency should be natural. But it is some way or another covered by material ignorance.

Śyāmasundara: He says whereas sense perception cannot provide the information about the soul and about God, pure reason can penetrate into the unknowable and provide us with conceptions in order to grasp the whole of reality.

Prabhupāda: This is not very clear, that sense perception cannot reach soul. But he says that reason is beyond the senses.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that we can grasp conceptions of God and soul and reality through the use of pure reason.

Prabhupāda: How the reason is exercised?

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Prabhupāda: So it is accepted that nature creates man, and that is not very good philosophy. Nature creates man, then nature is supreme. There is no such thing. And nature is ultimate. Nature is dull matter. What do you call nature? Bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ: (BG 7.4) earth, water, fire. They cannot create. Nature cannot create. Otherwise the materialist scientist, they could do it by combining, combining this earth, water, air, fire. So nature is dull, lifeless. How nature can create life? What is the logic? What is the philosophy?

Hayagrīva: He wouldn't say that. He would say that man is nature's final end...

Prabhupāda: No.

Hayagrīva: ...because man's moral nature alone is worthwhile.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, there is a plan. After this, this should be done. After this, this should be done. Otherwise why Kṛṣṇa says superintendence, mayādhyakṣeṇa (BG 9.10)? Just like you stand, you get your assistant, "Work like this. Do like this. Do like this. Do like that." So there is a plan, and there is direction. And there is reason also.

Śyāmasundara: What is the purpose of the plan? Is there any ultimate...?

Prabhupāda: Plan is... The whole plan is that living entities, they're part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Somehow or other they wanted to enjoy this material world so Kṛṣṇa has given them chance (indistinct). Just like children, some small children, they want to play with something but the father guides so that they may not meet(?), fall down, so many things. "No, no, don't do this. You can play like this." So Kṛṣṇa says, sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭho, I am sitting in everyone's heart, mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca (BG 15.15), I am giving him intelligence, forgetfulness, everything. So he wanted to play, "All right, give to him the chance to play." But the whole plan is that "Let him play, and again come back." That is Vedic knowledge, that he wants to play, "All right, you play." But when he's fatigued by this nonsense play, he says, "Give up this. Come to me," sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). This is the plan.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Prabhupāda: Yes. So when we perfectly come to that position then you become synthesis.

Śyāmasundara: That's what Hegel is trying to find out, that ultimate synthesis.

Prabhupāda: He has to find out that he has no knowledge to find out; he has to take knowledge from us. We can help him.

Śyāmasundara: But anyway the basic idea is that every fact can only be understood by relating it to its opposite.

Prabhupāda: That is in the relative world because here everything is relative. We cannot understand what is father unless he has got a son, and he cannot understand a son unless he has got a father. So similarly this world is like that. You cannot understand what is white unless there is black. And you cannot understand black unless there is white. So this is relative world, this is not absolute world. In the absolute world the black, white, everything is one.

Śyāmasundara: Well he says you can find out that absolute world by tracing out all of these black-white relationships in the material world. Eventually you come to the point of understanding the absolute.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Prabhupāda: Ad infinitum, ad infinitum, like that.

Śyāmasundara: Like the square root of minus one. There is no substantial reference for that idea but there is an equation: the square root of minus one.

Prabhupāda: The ultimate understanding, if we have accept this formula janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), so everything is emanating from the substance, so without having a place of that idea in the substance, you cannot have... That is another thing (indistinct). Because you are also a product of that something. So whatever you are thinking, that must be there, in the original.

Śyāmasundara: Suppose I have an idea, tomorrow I want to go to Pittsburgh. So then I actualize my idea, tomorrow if I go to the airplane, airport, get a ticket...

Prabhupāda: But you have heard that Pittsburgh, there is a place, a substance, you may not have seen. So you are preparing to go to Pittsburgh means Pittsburgh is a fact. Not idea. You are not going to idea Pittsburgh, you are going to actual Pittsburgh. That you have known, therefore you are (indistinct). You might have not seen. Just like I came to New York. I never saw it. I got an idea, "It may be like this." But I was coming to actual fact.

Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson:

Prabhupāda: Yes. This (indistinct), called varieties of (indistinct).

Śyāmasundara: But can we predict, can we tell in advance what there will be, what is the future?

Prabhupāda: The future is to go back to home, back to Godhead. That is the ultimate future. But because he's not intelligent, he has to be kicked on his face very strongly by the (indistinct). That is the foolish man. And if one is intelligent, he can tell immediately, "Oh, my duty is to serve Kṛṣṇa." That's all. "Why I am trying to serve my senses?" But to come to this platform, this understanding that "I am eternal servant of God. My business is to serve Kṛṣṇa," it requires (indistinct); therefore the māyā is there. Just like police force. The police force is there after the criminal, just to teach him that "You cannot (indistinct) the laws of the state. When you are under our supervision, and we shall simply kick on your face, that is our business." So māyā is always kicking on the face, and (s)he is creating varieties, that's all. This is called conditional life.

Philosophy Discussion on John Stuart Mill:

Prabhupāda: For every phenomenon there is a cause.

Śyāmasundara: But how do we determine that God is the cause behind everything?

Prabhupāda: Because then we know that God is the ultimate pusher, the pushing begins from there. So it may come through various agents. Just like one railway wagon is pushed by the engines, and it strikes another wagon and that is also pushed; another wagon, and that is pushed, that is also pushed. Similarly, the original pusher is the engine. Our study is like that, that the original, sa aikṣata, sa aikṣata... These are the Vedic... He glanced over, He desired; immediately there was creation. Therefore the original pusher is God, Kṛṣṇa. Now, how it is happening, that we cannot see. Just like same example, the wagon is already pushed, it is coming automatically. A child sees, "Oh, this wagon is coming automatically, and it caught another wagon, and it is now moved." He sees the (effect). But he did not see that ultimately there was a big engine that has pushed it.

Śyāmasundara: If we see a phenomenon like the rain falling or anything, and we want to apply the test that will prove that God is the cause of that phenomenon, what test do we apply?

Philosophy Discussion on John Stuart Mill:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Our senses are imperfect, simply by empirical scientific knowledge is (indistinct) are not complete (indistinct). So you..., we cannot compete with māyā. The ultimate conclusion is that there is a supreme cause.

Prabhupāda: Sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam (Bs. 5.1). So our knowledge, Kṛṣṇa conscious people, our knowledge is perfect. We say everything is caused by Kṛṣṇa. That's all.

Śyāmasundara: Even if you study the way the sun and the rain and so on combined to make this fruit ripe, you still have the question, "Well, why is there fruit in the first place?" Why is there fruit? Why has fruit appeared on this planet? There's no cause, apparently. But God has a cause.

Prabhupāda: God has made the law so perfect that one after—one cause affects something, and that affects another thing, another thing, one after another, so many things, ultimately. So we do not know so many things. We see the fruit, but how the fruit is growing, under which law, we simply explain nature. But it is not nature. There is a law. It is not only growing, the apples are having this nice color outside the skin, they have been painted; everything is perfectly being done by the laws, by the energy of Kṛṣṇa. Just like if you want to make a beautiful fruit, you paint it yellow or red, you take so much time. You apply your energy. The same energy is being applied there. Otherwise why, wherefrom you get the idea that a nice fruit can be painted like this?

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Prabhupāda: When a businessman goes to please somebody, he wants the money for himself. That is the difference. But when we go to please somebody, to get some money, our ultimate aim is to please Kṛṣṇa, the Absolute Truth. Therefore the means adopted, even if it is relative truth, that becomes Absolute Truth. The end justifies the means. Because the means is adopted, just like Kṛṣṇa advises Arjuna, "Just go and tell Droṇācārya that his son is dead," although his son was not dead. So this is not truth. But because by that action Kṛṣṇa will be pleased—Kṛṣṇa is Absolute Truth-therefore even that lying is also absolute.

Śyāmasundara: So practicality has to be judged on the result, what is the result of that action?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is that the end justifies the means. Means is not very important. What is the end, we have to see.

Śyāmasundara: For instance, James uses the example of God. Whether God exists depends on the extent to which a belief in God affects my life. In other words if it is practical, if it makes me feel happy, if I get some courage and strength by believing in God, then God is true, then God does exist.

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Prabhupāda: Because you do not see through the eyes of God—you want to see through your imperfect eyes-therefore you consider this universe as imperfect.

Śyāmasundara: His idea is, the exact quote is, "That order is gradually one and always in the making." In other words, the universe is evolving toward ultimate unification, which is never fully achieved.

Prabhupāda: That means he has no knowledge, poor fund of knowledge. The universe is complete, but he is not complete. The same example: The deaf husband is considering the wife is deaf, because he cannot hear the response given by the wife. So because he has got imperfect knowledge, he has no knowledge of God, he has no knowledge that the... God has created this universe, and because it is created by the perfect being, it is also perfect.

Philosophy Discussion on John Dewey:

Śyāmasundara: So that as long as one is improving in his moral nature...

Prabhupāda: Yes. This is ultimate moral nature—take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and gradually all moral things will come. Yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ (SB 5.18.12). All good qualifications will come automatically if he sticks to these four principles—these regulative principles and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and abiding by the orders of the spiritual master. Then everything will come automatically.

Śyāmasundara: Moral qualities will follow?

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.

Śyāmasundara: It's not that one has to develop them independently?

Prabhupāda: No. Automatically it will come. Because the good qualities are already there in the spirit soul, and it is being purified, uncovered by the material contamination. The original cult is coming out. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Śyāmasundara: What does the word "cult" mean?

Philosophy Discussion on John Dewey:

Śyāmasundara: He says that the greatest good is the elimination of the greatest evil or the fulfillment of man's greatest needs.

Prabhupāda: That's it. We follow that, that the highest objective, the ultimate objective is Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu. So becoming a Vaiṣṇava, the highest perfection of human life is achieved.

Śyāmasundara: So that greatest need is...

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The greatest need is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. (Hindi with guest) Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that is the supreme consciousness. Yes. That is pure consciousness, Kṛṣṇa. Mamaivāṁśo jīva loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ (BG 15.7). Every living entity is Kṛṣṇa's part and parcel. He always remembers that "I am part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. It is my duty to serve Kṛṣṇa." This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Śyāmasundara: He says that...

Prabhupāda: Jīvera svarūpa haya nitya kṛṣṇa dāsa (Cc. Madhya 20.108-109). If he remembers always this.

Devotee: Eternal position of the living entity...

Philosophy Discussion on John Dewey:

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?

Philosophy Discussion on Soren Aabye Kierkegaard:

Prabhupāda: What is the decision? Why people become moral—to feed the poor, like that, humanitarian? What is the decision, ultimate decision?

Śyāmasundara: He says that it's not so much the fact of the decision but how the decision is made: if it's made with integrity and self-confidence.

Prabhupāda: How the decision... Why, how the decision is made, that I still don't know. How? Why? Why they make such decision? One man is running on a slaughterhouse. He's killing only. Another man is after humanitarian work, giving food, giving them chance to live. So what is the ultimate decision?

Śyāmasundara: The decision is...

Philosophy Discussion on Soren Aabye Kierkegaard:

Prabhupāda: Then what is the use of giving it?

Devotee: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: If people are the ultimate persons to consider, then what is the use of his giving this statement? He is not authority.

Śyāmasundara: That Archbishop of Canterbury, he is a good friend of Mr. (indistinct). They went to school together, and he says that in college they used to jog together. That was their favorite pastime. (laughter) Now he is archbishop.

Devotee: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: And Brahmānanda sent me that picture, Africa, five thousand priests in that hospital, on account of their drinking habits.

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Śyāmasundara: He says that this world is composed of two parts: idea and will. That the ideas are sense experiences that we perceive in the world, and they are mere representatives of the will, but the will is the ultimate reality.

Prabhupāda: That idea is illusion.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. But he says that will is the ultimate reality. Something is...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, will is ultimate reality, we also admit. Because we desire, we will like this. We will that we shall be enjoyer of the material world. Idea was that "I shall become like Kṛṣṇa." This was the idea, and therefore I will. And Kṛṣṇa gave us chance, "All right, you come here and fulfill your desire." So they are implicated in so many karma, and becoming more and more involved. So according to karma he is getting different types of body, and there is no end. It is going on.

Śyāmasundara: Yes, he says that the will is eternal, and it is always incarnated in one body after another. But he describes it as a force...

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Prabhupāda: ...outside your door: "Prabhupāda is singing." But I am not singing.

Śyāmasundara: The computer doesn't...

Prabhupāda: I have made it to sing. The computer is not the ultimate. The real brain is the who has made it.

Śyāmasundara: The computer doesn't have a will, but it expresses the will of some man.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The mechanical arrangement is so nice by the brain of the manufacturer that is acting.

Śyāmasundara: I see. So he says that this will must continuously reincarnate...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: ...time after time, there is no stopping it.

Prabhupāda: No.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Śyāmasundara: So our ultimate verification does not rest with our senses but with the authoritative...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Authoritative knowledge, that is real seeing. That is real seeing. Just like we have not seen Kṛṣṇa, take for example. Then all we are fools and rascals, that we are after Kṛṣṇa? People may say that "You have not seen Kṛṣṇa. Why you are after so much, Kṛṣṇa?" They can say. But then you are all set of fools. Does it mean that we are all set of fools? Then how we have seen Kṛṣṇa?

Śyāmasundara: Wittgenstein, in that respect he answers that these metaphysical or mystical ideas, even though they are not expressed in words, can be felt or appreciated without knowing whether it is true.

Prabhupāda: No. That is knowing. To know through authorities, that is knowing. That is real knowing. That is the process of Vedic knowledge: to know through the authorities. The same example: if somebody is asking, "Who is my father?" then he has to know through the authority of mother; otherwise there is no other way. So therefore to know through authority is perfect knowledge.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are so many conditions. After, at the end, the conditions come to atom, atomic theory. But the atom is also conditioned, aṇḍāntara-sthaṁ paramāṇu cayāntara-stham. Kṛṣṇa is within the atom also; therefore the atom is not absolute or independent. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate fact.

īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ

sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ

anādir ādir govindaḥ

sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam

(Bs. 5.1)

That we have know, that He is the cause of all causes.

Śyāmasundara: So, for instance, the ring may be gold under one set of conditions...

Prabhupāda: Yes. It is gold under certain conditions, but the original cause is Kṛṣṇa. Everything. Under certain conditions something is wood, something is gold, something is metal, something is this, something is... These are different conditions. I am also conditioned. Under certain conditions I am talking that "I am human being." Otherwise animal, he is under certain conditions, he is an animal. So everyone is under conditions. Who is not under conditions? Everything is under conditions. Therefore this world is called conditioned world or relative world. Nothing is absolute.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Prabhupāda: Indirect is there. Just like we accept that everything has got some cause. So I am a person; the cause is my person father, and his father is also person. Similarly, the ultimate father, the original father, although I have not seen, I cannot sense perceive, still, I must conclude that He is a person.

Śyāmasundara: But I think behind your statement "Everything is Brahman," there are also statements which show the person how to experience Brahman.

Prabhupāda: This is Brahman. Brahman means the greatest. Greatest.

Śyāmasundara: But when you say "Everything is Brahman," you are also willing to include another set of propositions which show how to experience Brahman, how one can experience this fact, "Everything is Brahman."

Prabhupāda: That is not very difficult. Just like this International Society. Originally I started, so in any center, I am there. I am there. My photograph is there, I am there, accepting, Bhaktivedanta Swami. So personally I am not there, but I still am there by my expansion of energy. So similarly, Kṛṣṇa is the original Brahman. Whatever we see, we perceive, experience, it's all Kṛṣṇa's expansion of energy. That's all.

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?

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...

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?

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.

Philosophy Discussion on Carl Gustav Jung:

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.

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.

Philosophy Discussion on Carl Gustav Jung:

Prabhupāda: The puppy is, you will sometimes find, they try to take shelter of some boy, of some man. Natural tendency. "Give me shelter. Keep me as your pet." They are happy. That means by nature they are wanting some shelter. A child is also wanting some shelter. So that is our constitutional position. So in the human form of life, when consciousness is developed, that tendency to have a leader, to take shelter, that is Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is giving direction that "You want shelter, you want guidance, so you take My guidance," sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ (BG 18.66), "then you will be perfect." That is the ultimate instruction of Bhagavad-gītā.

Hayagrīva: In 1938 Jung was invited by the British government to take part in celebrations connected with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the University of Calcutta. He writes, "By that time I had read a great deal."

Prabhupāda: Twenty-fifth anniversary?

Philosophy Discussion on Carl Gustav Jung:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Morality, as we understand from Bhagavad-gītā, that nobody can approach God without being purified of all sinful reaction. Yeṣām anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām. A person who has finished all sinful activities, and simply standing on the platform of pious activities, they can understand what is God and be engaged in God's service. And another place it is said by Arjuna, paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān: (BG 10.12) "You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, param brahma." Every living being is Brahman, spiritual, but Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Being; therefore He is paraṁ brahma, and the paraṁ dhāma, and the resort of everything, ultimate resort of everything, and pavitra, purified, there is no material contamination. So, what is this? What does he say in this?

Hayagrīva: That, that same point?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: All ethics are derived.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So to become completely pure, then he is the necessity of morality and ethics. Just like we prescribe, "No illicit sex, no meat-eating, no intoxication, no gambling." These are the four pillars of sinful life. If we avoid these thing, then we can stay on the platform of purity. And God consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is based on this morality. One who cannot follow the principles, he falls down from the spiritual platform, and he cannot make any progress. So purity is the basic principle of God consciousness.

Philosophy Discussion on Jean-Paul Sartre:

Śyāmasundara: This is actually the major issue with people, especially today, that is there really any purpose to all my work, or anyone's work, or for anyone's activity? Is there any ultimate meaning or purpose to it?

Prabhupāda: It's quite clear. Just like if you make a decision to do something criminal, the plan is already there—you will be arrested and punished. If you make a choice that "I must do it. This is my decision. I must kill that person," you can do that, but there is already a plan that you will be hanged. That is less intelligent. They are not intelligent.

Śyāmasundara: They say that man is nothingness.

Prabhupāda: Why is nothingness? If he is nothingness, why is he speaking so much nonsense?

Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell:

Prabhupāda: Actually, as we say, that anti-matter are fixed up in (indistinct). I say anti-matter is spirit. That spirit soul is very small, keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya: (CC Madhya 19.140) the tip of the hair divided into ten thousand parts. So it is unimaginable by the modern scientist. Therefore the ultimate smallest part is the spirit soul, spark, part and parcel of the Supreme Spirit. Therefore we have to take the knowledge from Vedas. That is the perfect (indistinct).

Śyāmasundara: He says there are two types of logical atoms—the sense data and universals. And this problem, he saw, of the difference between the crude data of the senses and the things as understood by physical sciences. So he divided these into two types of knowledge. The knowledge of sense data is the immediate knowledge by acquaintance with something, and the knowledge of physical science is that knowledge derived from things, or inferred, by description from things. And he says the example of the first type of knowledge...

Prabhupāda: This knowledge, what is that?

Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell:

Prabhupāda: Ego, that is also matter.

Dr. Rao: That is the ultimate...

Śyāmasundara: So does the mind play any part in the evolutionary process? The mind?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Evolutionary process means... If evolution means to go higher, then from mind you come to intelligence. And if you go still higher, then you come to the platform of soul, spirit soul.

Śyāmasundara: Well, according to these men like Russell, the evolution of bodies, the changes from one body to another, those are simply physical.

Philosophy Discussion on B. F. Skinner:

Prabhupāda: Therefore the Vedānta gives for him: athāto brahma jijñāsā. Now we have got enough to eat, enough to enjoy. Now we inquire about Brahman. This is the business we should (indistinct). So this is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We are giving knowledge about Brahman, or the Supreme. We are not concerned about giving you some scientific invention, some this invention, that invention. We are giving the ultimate benefit. Now, just like I have come to America with this hope, that "Americans are not properly (indistinct), they have no (indistinct) problems. If I go there, if I speak to them about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they will be able to take." So if we, the human society, has come to such standard, then the next point is, now they should eat peacefully, sleep peacefully and sense gratification peacefully and, making the mind peaceful, inquire about the Supreme Absolute. This is ideal life.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Śyāmasundara: ...there is a tiger. There is a real object in my consciousness.

Prabhupāda: And because it is real object, it is reacting on my physical life.

Śyāmasundara: He describes ultimate reality as space-time. Space and time. He says that time is an infinity of instants, single instants, and that the basis of infinity is a point, and that these two are combined and this is called reality.

Prabhupāda: Infinity of?

Śyāmasundara: Point.

Prabhupāda: Points and?

Śyāmasundara: Infinity of instants.

Prabhupāda: Instinct.

Śyāmasundara: Instant. Like a moment is an instant.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Hm.

Śyāmasundara: So he calls this ultimate reality. Time and space.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Time is... We take it reality, time. That we accept also. Time is eternal. Reality. And therefore we take time as another feature of God.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Śyāmasundara: And space?

Prabhupāda: Space is later created.

Śyāmasundara: Oh, after time. Oh. And it creates the ultimate reality?

Prabhupāda: No. No. Space is also reality. Space is prakṛti. Prakṛti, kāla, jīva, and Bhagavān. They are all reality.

Śyāmasundara: Oh. Those four things.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: Oh. He leaves out entity and Bhagavān. He only has time and space in the ultimate reality.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Śyāmasundara: Oh. He leaves out entity and Bhagavān. He only has time and space in the ultimate reality.

Prabhupāda: Our philosophy... We see that one ultimate creator, Bhagavān. And jīvātmā, subsequent creator. God has created wood; I create a table and chair. I am subsequent. I am not ultimate creator. So jīvātmā is subsequent creator. Both the creators are eternal. And because the creation has got time connection, past, present, and future, so time is eternal. Time is eternal and jīva is eternal and prakṛti.

Śyāmasundara: Prakṛti means space?

Prabhupāda: Prakṛti means elements. Space is sky. Space is sky. So sky is one of the fundamental factors of prakṛti, space.

Prabhupāda: This is practical. Anyone can understand that when the body is, does not contain any more the soul, then it is dead, dead body, lump of matter. So spirit soul is different from the matter. This is practical. If anyone cannot understand, then he's less intelligent. This is practical.

Śyāmasundara: His idea of ultimate reality is that it is the moral ego or pure will that...

Prabhupāda: Then he has to define what is morality.

Śyāmasundara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Everyone says, "It is my morality." Everyone can manufacture (indistinct). Just like, for example in India if somebody talks of homosex (indistinct) immoral, and here it is going on. (indistinct). So what is morality? (indistinct).

Śyāmasundara: He uses the categorical imperative that Kant set up, the different categories of goodness and badness.

Śyāmasundara: Just like this propensity is there in men not simply to be satisfied with what is but always to strive for something improving, what ought to be.

Prabhupāda: So we, we give that ultimate ought to be that you will become surrendered soul to Kṛṣṇa. That is ultimate ought to be.

Śyāmasundara: And he says that everything should be seen in relation to that what ought to be (indistinct).

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is our philosophy. If it is approved and Rūpa Gosvāmī says, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-śīlanaṁ (CC Madhya 19.167), our ought to be is what is Kṛṣṇa approves or His representative approves. That is ought to be. Our standard. Otherwise it is not, not ought to be. Therefore we accept our guidance (indistint). Tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Therefore Vedas say that one must approach a bona fide spiritual master, in order to be fully in knowledge. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda. These are Vedic injunctions. One who has accepted a bona fide spiritual master, he knows everything. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda. Veda means in knowledge. So ācāryavān, one who has accepted ācārya. Therefore our principle is to follow the ācārya. In Bhagavad-gītā also it is said, ācārya upāsanam, one must worship ācārya, to go to the right knowledge. So that is our philosophy.

Prabhupāda: Yes. You may be very expert but the ultimate will be daivī cause is not in favor, it will not (indistinct). Here example is just like you (indistinct) your service, suffering, sick, and you are employing first-class doctor, first-class medical, first-class attendant there is no guarantee that you (indistinct). Then where is the cause? What is the cause? From the scientific world you can say that my (indistinct) I have appointed first-class physician, first-class medicine, first-class, everything, but my son died. Then where is the power?

Śyāmasundara: Whatever caused this person's death is the ultimate cause.

Prabhupāda: Therefore the ultimate cause is Kṛṣṇa. If Kṛṣṇa does not sanction your so-called first-class medicine, physician, place, and everything will be spoiled. And if he sanctions, even you don't appoint any physician, he will (indistinct). Rakhe kṛṣṇa mareke mare kṛṣṇa rakheke. If Kṛṣṇa kills nobody can save him, and if Kṛṣṇa saves, nobody can kill. Just like Rāvaṇa, Hiraṇyakaśipu. They made plans that they'll never die, but Kṛṣṇa killed them. No condition will be (indistinct). That is our philosophy.