Varieties of life (Conv. and Letters)

Expressions researched:
"life in different varieties" |"life is full of varieties" |"life, there is everything, varieties" |"varieties of life" |"varieties or species of life" |"varieties, atmosphere of life" |"variety stages of life" |"wherefrom this life came, varieties"

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation With John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison -- September 11, 1969, London, At Tittenhurst:

Prabhupāda: The living entities, they are in different forms. Just like we are sitting here, so many ladies, gentlemen, boys. We have got different forms. Similarly, you Europeans, you have got different color, or Indians, we have got different... So this whole world is full of varieties. So Kṛṣṇa says, "All the varieties of life, it doesn't matter. I am their father." Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā (BG 14.4). Pitā means father. So Kṛṣṇa claims all living entities as His sons.

1970 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- December 13, 1970, Indore:

Revatīnandana: I have a hazy memory that one time I heard that when a soul, when it finally does enter into brahmajyoti, that he has to remain there for some long duration of time, a daytime of Brahmā or a lifetime of Brahmā. Is that correct? What is that duration?

Prabhupāda: Not that. That is not like that.

Revatīnandana: Not like that. Thank you.

Prabhupāda: But he feels inconvenience without varieties of life. The Bhāgavata says, tvayy asta-bhāvād aviśuddha-buddhayaḥ: "Their intelligence is not clean." Arūhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ: (SB 10.2.32) "Although they rise up to the brahmajyoti," patanty adho tataḥ, "they again come back."

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- April 1, 1972, Sydney:

Pradyumna: You said in one place, "Man is the architect of his own happiness and distress."

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. That is an axiomatic truth even by the modern man. Yes, that "Man is the architect of his own fortune." So as soon as there is work to make your fortune, then there must be a person to decide to give you a fortunate position. Just like in an establishment, so many men are working, but there is a president. He is considering the work file, "How this man has worked?" And he is being promoted, his salary is being increased, and somebody is degraded, no promotion, rather, transferred in some other place. So natural conclusion is when there are so many varieties of life in our presence and they are, although in the same place, they haven't got the same facility, so there must be somebody who decides on this point. So how you can deny God? Our point is the Supreme Person, the president, who decides on this fact, He is God.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- May 5, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Well, they are also aquatics. They also live in water. But they are unfit for living in ocean water. So many varieties of life, different living entities meant for different purposes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: According to the desire of the...

Prabhupāda: According to the desire of the living entity. All facilities, whatever you want, you can have. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma eva kevalam (CC Adi 17.21). Another logic is bakāṇḍa-nyāya. Bakāṇḍa. Baka and aṇḍa. Baka, the duck. And aṇḍa, the testicle, testicle of the bull. The bull is going and the testicle is hanging, and the duck is after it. He is thinking here is a fish. You find him always going...when it will drop. Bakāṇḍa. This is nature's study. (break) The baka, the duck, they are after fish.

Room Conversation with Father Tanner and other guests -- July 11, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: No. When they are in opposition, they have to accept this material body. Just like the citizens in the prison house, it means they are all in opposition to the laws of the state, similarly, anyone who is in this material world, they are in opposition to the supreme will of the Lord. Therefore they are put into this material world in varieties of life. So they can stop that opposition and again go back to home, back to Godhead.

Father Tanner: You'd like to go, would you?

Mrs. Wells: Yes.

Father Tanner: I'm sorry. Mrs. Wells has to go, sir. And you look very tired.

Prabhupāda: No, I am not tired. I am a little old.

Morning Walk -- August 30, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: So if you forget sex life, where is the question of abortion? Where is the question of abortion? But they cannot do that. Therefore, it is said adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisram (SB 7.5.30). By nonrestricted sense enjoyment they are gradually going to the animal, lower grade of life. They cannot explain why there are so many varieties of life. They cannot explain. So this killer of baby within the womb, so the result will be that this man who is, I mean to say, indulging in abortion, he'll be put into the womb, and somebody will kill him. And as many wombs or babies he has killed, he'll have to take so many lives and being killed. So much so that it will be rather impossible for him for hundreds of years not to see the light. He'll remain in the womb and being killed. Does not know the nature's law.

Room Conversation -- September 2, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: That is, that is next question, that you have to accept next body, but what kind of body you'll have? That you can see, that there are so many varieties of life, body. You have to accept one of them. Just like when you were admitted into school for education. The idea was that you'll be educated, and according to your education, there are so many posts you'll have to occupy. Just like you are lawyer, he's medical man, somebody's engineer, somebody else, somebody... Varieties or field of activities. So according to the perfection of one's education, he has to accept one post like that. Similarly, next body means according to your karma. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa jantur dehopapattaye (SB 3.31.1). You are preparing your next Life.

Room Conversation -- September 2, 1973, London:

Prabhupāda: They are not prepared because as soon as they understand that they are going to be one these varieties of life, they shudder. Therefore they do not like to understand this. If by logic I prove that you are going to be a dog next life, that is very difficult. Just like one astrologer has said that Jawaharlal Nehru has become a dog in Sweden. You know that?

Guest (1): No, I don't.

Prabhupāda: Yes. In Delhi, one astrologer.

Guest (1): Delhi, some astrologer said?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Room Conversation -- November 3, 1973, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: So they, these so-called leaders are so fools that they... Therefore they don't believe in next life. Because that is very horrible for them. But the next life is there. Just like we, we, we have our next life. We had our previous life, then now another life, another life. So this simple thing they cannot understand. Nature is controlling this, next life, next life. Otherwise why so many varieties of life? So they have no brain. They are simply making plan for the fifty years duration of life. That's all. And even from practical point of view, suppose you are constructing a very nice house, and if you know that next day you'll be kicked out, you'll die, will you do that? But it is a fact. Next day or two days after, you'll die. That's a fact. So first of all, make arrangement that you'll not die, you'll be able to live here. That is their foolishness.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 5, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is giving so much facilities. Sometimes, "All right, you become tree." "All right, some, become a serpent," "All right, you become a demigod," "All right, you become a human being," "All right, you become king," "You become a cobbler," "You go to the heavenly planets," "Go to the hellish planets." Varieties is there. Kṛṣṇa is so kind that He's changing varieties, atmosphere of life. But he's packed up in this material world. That freedom... He's asking for freedom, but he does not know the freedom is the shelter of Kṛṣṇa. That he'll not accept. Therefore Kṛṣṇa has arranged so many varieties. In disgust the Māyāvādīs, they want to make the varieties variety-less, nirviśeṣa. And the Buddhists they want to make it zero. But that is also not possible.

Room Conversation -- February 6, 1974, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: So destiny is that we should devote our life for awakening Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This human life is meant for that purpose. By nature's way, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27), nature is bringing us. As soon as we become sinful, we are dropped down to suffer the sequence of sinful life in different varieties. Again, just like a man, criminal, is put into the jail, but when his time is finished, again he is made free. Similarly, the cycle of birth and death, dehāntara-prāptiḥ, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), one after another, is going on. So the animal life means reaction of sinful life, and upper class of life, demigods, means result of pious life. Two kinds of things are there, sinful and pious, through the cycle of birth is going on.

Press Conference -- April 18, 1974, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: There are nine lakhs varieties of life in the water. Similarly, twenty lakhs varieties of life in the trees and plants. Then there are insects, then there are birds, then there are animals, then there is human being. So this human form of body is obtained after evolution of many millions and trillions of years. It should not be... This is a chance for stopping this business of repetition of birth and death. But people, they have no knowledge how to stop it. Although everything is there in the Bhagavad-gītā, everything is explained, but we are not utilizing. We are manufacturing our own concocted knowledge. Therefore we are suffering. If we read Bhagavad-gītā as it is, then all the solution of human society's problem are there.

Morning Walk -- May 30, 1974, Rome:

Prabhupāda: You cannot say that "No, no, I am not going to accept this post." No. You have to accept. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu (BG 13.22). These different types of birth are due to your association with different types of the modes of material nature. Otherwise, why there are so many varieties. One has become crow, one has become sparrow, one has become human being, one has become dog, one has become cat, one has become tree, one has become grass. But nature is so expert that in spite of different varieties of life, the nature assembles them in such a nice way that it looks beautiful. There is grass, there is tree, there is sparrow, there is human being, but arrangement is such nice that everything.

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 2, 1975, Atlanta:

Prabhupāda: Manifest. Just like this coat. It has not automatically come on my body. I have gathered it. Similarly, life is there, and it is gathering the matter to dress himself in a particular way. This is the varieties of life.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: We give that example that the difference between life and matter... We say that the difference is that the material living bodies... We live in a material body, but the material bodies, when a living entity stays inside a body, is fully automated, fully equipped.

Prabhupāda: Life is enjoying or trying to enjoy the matter. Matter is prakṛti, and the living entity is puruṣa. The chief puruṣa is Kṛṣṇa, and we are trying to imitate Kṛṣṇa to enjoy. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. Living entity is superior prakṛti. Apareyam itas tu viddhi me prakṛtiṁ paraḥ.

Discussion -- May 15, 1975, Perth:

Prabhupāda: He doesn't know that "I may become a tree like this." Then he must be... Why there are varieties of life? This is different type of punishment for different kinds of sinful activities. And he doesn't care for sinful activities. He got the human form of body, he doesn't care. Saintly persons, they are coming as Caitanya Mahāprabhu or Buddha or Christ. They are warning, "You do not do this." No, they will do it. So who is responsible for his sufferings? He is responsible. And so long he has got this short duration of life, fifty or sixty years or utmost hundred years, he is thinking, "I am free. Whatever I want, I can do," and making life risky.

Morning Walk -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Hari-śauri: There was one newspaper article in the paper I was reading. They were advertising a new book about the evolution of man. And they were saying that there was approximately two million varieties of life on this planet. This was the calculation of the scientists.

Prabhupāda: Two millions? No, 8,400,000.

Śrutakīrti: You were saying the other day that all the species of life are mentioned in the Padma-Purāṇa.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śrutakīrti:: They're all given account of.

Prabhupāda: They have given separate account or only on the total?

Morning Walk -- May 20, 1975, Melbourne:

Prabhupāda: Then it will be regular. It is nature's punishment. You may not care what is sinful life, but that is recorded. That is foolishness. "I don't care for God, don't care for what is going to happen." That is foolishness. People, lower planetary system, they are like that. In this planet also. In Western countries there are many places. "Don't care for anything, what is sinful life, what is going to happen. Let us enjoy, that's all." This is their philosophy. "Let us enjoy, that's all." Materialistic point of view is like that. They do not know that we are eternal and we are responsible for our activities. That is knowledge. But they have no knowledge. They simply want to enjoy. They do not care for death also. Simply sense gratification. That's all. This is called dānava, dānava life. The scientist explain for so many varieties. They accept there are varieties. Why there are so many varieties of life?

Morning Walk -- June 7, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: But of the same kind, having bunch of hair. (break) ...three hundred varieties of birds. How many one has seen? One million. Pakṣiṇam dāsa-lakṣakam. Dāsa-lakṣakam means one million. (break) ...varieties of life, so many varieties of planets, sky, the sea, ocean, the mountains, the rivers, and they want to compete with God. Just see their foolishness. (laughs) Controlling nature, is there... Eh? Bali-mardana? Scientists they want to control nature.

Bali-mardana: Yes, they try to make it rain or stop the rain. They try different experiments.

Prabhupāda: Why not death? Stop death.

Garden Conversation with Dr. Gerson and devotees -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: If he... As he likes, if he infects some disease, he must suffer from the disease. Where is his independence? If you infect some disease, infectious disease, then you must suffer from the disease. That is nature's law. So where is your independence? Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). It is all described. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Why there are so many varieties of life? Because he has associated with a particular type of modes of nature and he has got the body. Without any human sense he has learned to eat anything and everything, without any discrimination. Therefore nature will give the body of a pig. "All right, you eat anything up to stool. Up to stool you can eat." So how can you stop it? And because nature has given this body, he is relishing very good taste from stool.

Garden Conversation with Dr. Gerson and devotees -- June 22, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: "All right, you can eat up to stool." Human life is meant for civilization, and they are trying to be naked. So next life will be: "All right, you remain naked standing as tree for five thousand years." How can you stop it? Wherefrom these varieties of life are coming? Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu (BG 13.22). This is kāraṇam, that he is associating with different modes of material nature and he is getting a suitable body. So where is that science to understand this subtle work of nature? Where is that science? Where is that education in the universities? You are not free. You cannot say "that I shall live life like this." You can live, but take the risk of next life. Therefore they avoid this question: "There is no next life." That is very horrible. But that does not mean... Just like the, what is that animal? Closes the eyes?

Room Conversation with Mr. & Mrs. Wax, Writer and Editing Manager of Playboy Magazine -- July 5, 1975, Chicago:

Prabhupāda: The law of nature is there. You cannot avoid it. If you infect some disease, you must suffer from the disease. You cannot avoid it. This is the law of nature. Law of nature is working in such a way that as you are infecting... Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgaḥ asya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Find out this verse. Why there are varieties of life. One is tree, one is cat, one is dog, one is human being, one is blind, one is lame, one is educated, one is foolish—why? Why the difference, varieties? And that is answered in the Bhagavad-gītā, kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya: "As you are infecting the modes of material nature, you are getting your birth." Otherwise, how you can explain by nature there are so many varieties of life, 8,400,000 species of life?

Conversation with Professor Hopkins -- July 13, 1975, Philadelphia:

Prabhupāda: No, as I told you the... Our only business is to know the Absolute Truth. If you do not try for this then you remain animals. Animal cannot know the Absolute Truth. So to remain animal means varieties of life. Sometimes cat, sometimes dog, sometimes demigod, sometimes this, sometimes that, sometimes American, sometimes something else. This will go on. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). In this life we are living, we are making the next body. So if we work nicely then next body may be the higher planetary system or above this material world, in the spiritual world.

Morning Walk -- October 3, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is nature's way. Give them again chance to develop. From trees they become flies. That is the beginning of movement. Then from flies to birds, birds to beast, and beast to animal, er, human being. This is great chastisement. You cannot move even. Suffer torrents of rain, cyclone, scorching heat, pinching cold. Stand up for hundreds and thousands of years. Then, when the punishment is finished, then he becomes moving. If there is scorching heat he can move to some shelter. But he cannot move. They do not study all this science, why there are so many varieties of life, of different grades. Wherefrom they are coming?

Room Conversation with Bill Faill (reporter) -- October 8, 1975, Durban:

Prabhupāda: No, that... This I have already told you. There are 8,400,000 different forms of life. So you can enter any one of them according to your mental condition. We are under the control of the material nature. The material nature is being conducted in three modes: goodness, passion and ignorance. So just like three colors: yellow, red, and blue. Now you mix-three into three equal to nine, nine into nine equal to eighty-one. So these modes of material nature is being mixed up. Therefore there are so many varieties of life. So if we transcend this coloring platform of material nature, we come to the pure consciousness. Then we stop this repetition of birth and death in different forms of life. And if we do not that, then there is chance of going down or going up. There are different planets.

Morning Walk -- October 25, 1975, Mauritius:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Here people take in consideration of his position. That is rascaldom. One should not think... There are varieties of life. And how they're in the sun? There is life. So you cannot conceive that there is life in the sun, but there is life. Otherwise how Kṛṣṇa went there and talked with the president of the sun? The president means he's alone there? President means there is kingdom. They have got body made of fire. Can you imagine there can be body made of fire?

Indian man: If Kṛṣṇa says, then there must be.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is our business. But you cannot interpret. They cannot accommodate within their tiny brain what is going on in the creation. They think in their own way. That's it. Now, they say that the water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. And who supplied so much hydrogen, oxygen?

Morning Walk -- December 14, 1975, New Delhi:

Prabhupāda: Yes. They inject glucose through the rectum. There are many varieties of life. That is the fault of the modern rascals. They want to compare with himself, everything. They do not know that in the God's kingdom there are varieties of life. Otherwise why the 8,400,000? There are varieties. What these rascals know about these varieties? Ātmavat manyate jagat. They think, "Everyone should be like me." (sound of crows in background) Now these birds, within a second, goes hundred feet high. You cannot do. This is variety.

Conversation on Roof -- December 26, 1975, Sanand:

Harikeśa: Another point.... I just thought of. They say it's some chemical which is missing that's making life, yet, if the same chemical is there that's making life, what accounts for so many different varieties of life? If it's the same chemical, how is there so many different varieties from that same chemical?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Harikeśa: And if it's a different chemical, that means there's so many thousands and billions of chemicals. Yet they can't even find one of them.

Prabhupāda: They do not know even one of them.

Harikeśa: They don't even know one of them.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) And still you are proud. What is this nonsense? And supposing the chemical combination is there and is being administered in different way for different life, then who is making this arrangement? Somebody's there who is making arrangement. You cannot do that. Therefore we are inferior, He is superior. You have to accept. It is not that it is not existing. It is existing. So as you are trying to do something, somebody has already done it. Then what is your credit?

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- May 3, 1976, Fiji:

Prabhupāda: If you have made yourself as god, then "Come on, you'll be demigod." That is for everything. Otherwise why there are varieties? There is dog life and there is demigod life, Indra life. It is not one-sided. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), it is not one-sided. You have to change your body. And there are varieties of life, so it is up to you what kind of body you have got. You can change your body up to the point of becoming associate of Kṛṣṇa. Mad-yājino 'pi yānti mām (BG 9.25). Yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma... (BG 15.6). These informations are there. So if you have to prepare for the next life, why not go back to home, back to Godhead? Yad gatvā na nivartante. This is intelligent? Or to become modernized and become a dog next life? Which is intelligent? The śāstra says, "No, this is intelligent." What? Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattvam (SB 5.5.1). This life should be utilized for tapasya, to purify your existence. That is the śāstra. Śāstra does not say you become modernized. What is this modernized? Simply waste of time.

Garden Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: The nature will work. Puruṣaḥ prakṛti-sthaḥ. As soon as we are in this material world... I am living entity, spirit soul, and because I am in this material world, I have accepted this material body under the regulation of the material laws. Otherwise why there are so many varieties of life? Here is a tree. It is standing here. We are human beings; we are also here. But when there is cold blast, scorching heat, we can go into the room, but he has to be standing here for thousands of years. Why this distinction? It cannot move even an inch. It is also living entity. Why he is punished in that way? And when there will be snowfall, pinching cold, he cannot go. But a small ant, it can go from here to there. Moving and not moving, the two kinds of living entities... Some of them can move; some of them cannot move, sthāvara. Just like grass. We are trampling over with our legs. It cannot protest.

Garden Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: This is the result. What is their explanation of the varieties of life?

Rādhāvallabha: They say, due to evolution over many millions of years...

Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: The strongest, somehow they survive, and other, weaker species, they become extinct.

Rādhāvallabha: They say the origin of species is genetic.

Devotee (3): They say "Somehow or other..." Then...

Prabhupāda: Is that science? "Somehow or other." If I say, "Somehow or other, you'll become a dog," (laughter) what is the wrong there? If things are taking place somehow or other, so I say somehow or other you'll become a dog. Our explanation is complete. They accept somehow or other is a means. So somehow or other, you are going to be dog. How can you deny it? If that is your position, that things are taking place somehow or other, so how can you deny, somehow or other you'll become a dog?

Garden Conversation -- June 28, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: There are so many varieties of life, so we have to accept one of them by Kṛṣṇa's desire, Kṛṣṇa's arrangement. Kṛṣṇa says, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). He is situated in everyone's heart. He's observing everything. So He orders that "Give him a body like this." Who can check it? Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). This body is a machine. The machine is given by material nature. Today you may be a very big man, and by your activities, asuric activities, you are so condemned that you have to accept a lower-grade life, a fox, sly fox. "You are very sly to spend others' money in moon excursion.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: We see that so long the life is there in the material body, he has got varieties of thoughts. That is the proof that life is full of varieties. As soon as the life is not there, no more varieties, only one variety, dead body, that's all, finished. And as long as the life is there, he has got so many ideas, so many arts, so many philosophies, so many... That is the proof that life is full of varieties. That is the proof. As soon as the life is off, there is no variety. So what do you want, more proof that life is full of variety.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: You can... Because we, at the present moment, we cannot understand, except physics and chemistry, we cannot understand life. So as we do not understand life, so therefore the definition by negation is there. It is not physical, not chemical. It is something beyond. But by practical experience we can see that when there is life, a living man wants varieties. That's a fact. Varieties. Otherwise, why we disagree? I have got some varieties, you have got some varieties. So the conclusion should be tested that living condition or life is full of varieties, therefore the kingdom of life, the spiritual kingdom, must be full of varieties. That is the conclusion.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: He gives a particular type of yantra, machine. This body is machine. Body is machine, everyone accepts. This is a machine. If we want to go to India, we ride on a machine, airplane, and go there. Similarly, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni. We want varieties of life, and God gives us a particular machine to ride on and travel, go to heaven, go to hell, become a dog, become a cat, become a demigod, become a tree. This is going on. Transmigration of the soul. God gives us a particular type of body, and we change from one machine to another. This is transmigration.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: He has infected the contamination of material modes of nature, and he must develop a type of body according to that consciousness. Just like if you contaminate some disease, germ, then you must suffer from that disease. This is the mystery of birth. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu. Otherwise, why there are difference of varieties of life? Sat, asat, something good, something bad. That he does not know. He works independently, defies the laws of nature, and becomes implicated. And on account of dull brain, he is punished, "Stand up here for ten thousands of years. Become a tree," that's all. That is the result of his dullness. "Remain here for ten thousand years, a dull brain. Even one cuts, you cannot protest. You suffer all kinds of natural disturbances." This is very sinful when you become a tree. And they do not make any distinction between life and matter.

'Life Comes From Life' Slideshow Discussions -- July 3, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: This is very sinful when you become a tree. And they do not make any distinction between life and matter. These things are going on. There is no knowledge, and they are passing as scientist, as philosopher. Why varieties of life? What is the scientific explanation? One life, he is prince; one life, he is tree. Why this difference? Is there any explanation? There must be some explanation. It is also life, it is also life. Why one life has got this prince body, another this tree body? Kāraṇam..., Bhagavad-gītā, kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). The cause is association of different types of material modes of nature. If you keep yourself dull as the tree, without associating with the modes of goodness, without becoming a brāhmaṇa, then you become a tree.

Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Prabhupāda: We are giving all, all round enlightenment. Bhagavad-gītā is full of information from all standpoint. Yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati (BG 4.7). We are now in such a downtrodden position, the whole human... He must accept. There is... The civilization is doomed. (pause) What do they explain about so many varieties of life? How do they come?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: They call by mutation. It's called mutation.

Prabhupāda: What is that?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Mutation is... They say DNA molecule is the... called master molecule. But somehow during the course of...

Prabhupāda: Somehow.

Room Conversation -- August 17, 1976, Hyderabad:

Prabhupāda: Here it is very clearly stated that kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya (BG 13.22). The biology, infection. Kāraṇam, that is the kāraṇam. Kāraṇam guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-janma-yoniṣu. Why there are varieties of life? One is very intelligent...

Guest: You know also in (Sanskrit).

Prabhupāda: Same thing.

Guest: Same thing, no? Everything has light. Only it is in transformation by that formula it is inanimate to animate. That is what is happening all around us.

Prabhupāda: So, if from... Just like medical science... It is also a medical science. Bhavauṣadhi. It is... auṣadhi means medical science. This is bhavauṣadhi. By this treatment one becomes relieved from the material disease.

Room Conversation -- September 7, 1976, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: It is further from them. Everything is being done by superior arrangement. Karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1). People should learn all these things by practical example instead of becoming irresponsible and without any obedience to the superior law. They should learn it, but they have no intelligence. They think, "We are all free." Wherefrom the monkey is coming, why there are so many varieties of life, how it is...? What do they know? Nothing. All bluff, vague explanation and that is going on in the name of science. This is the position. All rascals. Fortunately we have got this Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Bhagavad-gītā. All knowledge. First-class knowledge. (break) ...eternally-enjoyment. For him everything, ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). Everything ānanda. He has no such thing that this is harmful, that this is useful. That is Kṛṣṇa. Because nobody can do harm to Him and neither in the spiritual world, anyone is harmful. Everyone is advanced devotee. Even the tigers, they are also devotees.

Garden Conversation -- October 9, 1976, Aligarh:

Prabhupāda: If he is engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore it is the topmost welfare activities in the human society. Anyone can be raised. There are different grades of life all over the world. Some are black, some are white, some are ugly, some are poor. Varieties. Some are trees, some are plants, some are aquatics, some are birds, beasts, insects. Different varieties of life, 8,400,000. Some of them demigods, Brahmā, Indra, Candra. Very, very powerful. Just like this sun, that is also a planet, and the chief person is the sun-god Vivasvān. We get all this information. There is. These rascals, they do not know what are these planets, what are the arrangement. They are exactly like this planet. Just like here also, we have got president. It is expected, one president or one king in one planet. That was formerly. On this planet there was one king. The Pāṇḍavas, up to Mahārāja Parīkṣit. Five thousand years ago. One king of the whole world.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Discussion about Kumbhamela -- January 8, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: I have seen. The soldiers are beating with the butts of the gun—still (laughter) not going. So many varieties of life we had to pass through, and with great fortune we get this human form of body. And that also we waste in the same business—punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30), misguided. Labdhvā sudurlabham idam bahu-sambhavānte (SB 11.9.29). After many, many births this human form—people do not understand. Sudurlabham. Durlabham means rare, and sudurlabham means still...

Dr. Patel: More rare.

Prabhupāda: But the rascals, they do not take it very seriously.

Room Conversation -- January 21, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: They are blindly following some ways of life. Blind men, certainly, without guidance, we are falling down in the ditch. Once this human life is misused, he falls down in the ditch. He does not... He becomes a tree. "Stand up there for one thousand years. What you can do?" This risk they are taking. They do not believe, therefore, there is next life. And wherefrom this life came, varieties? These rascals have no brain, and they are passing as scientist, politician, philosopher, all rascals, tenth-class men. Tell them. Challenge them, "What do you know about the value of life? Your brain must be washed to clear out all the dirty things." Our duty is that. Just like a patient does not know how he will be cured, but the surgeon—"Operation. Clear out these pusses." He may protest, "Oh, you are clearing out my pusses!" But "Yes! It is my business.

Morning Walk -- February 1, 1977, Bhuvanesvara:

Prabhupāda: There must be father. Because we, our experience, without father and mother there is no generation. You prove that, that here is the mother; there is the child. And where is the father? And the father says, "Yes, I am father." Ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā (BG 14.4). Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām. That's all. There must be father. "You do not see." This is not logic. There must be father. So there must be God; otherwise how they are coming? By whose arrangement? Now, the exact fruit and flower will come from this. You bring another tree. Not it will resemble like. Varieties of life. You cannot say it is accident. Huh? Why not accident—the red flower comes here and the white flower comes there? Accident? They're standing for years. Why there is not a single accident? And accident. You say, "accident."

Room Conversation with Scientists, Svarupa Damodara, and Dr. Sharma -- March 31, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: The child is there, the mother is there, there must be father. This is logic. Otherwise how the living entity came into existence? Talk on this point. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. Śāstra says in the beginning, jalajā, living entities born in the water. And they are not one kind. Not that one kind of fish is coming. Nava-lakṣāṇi. Nine hundred thousand different types of life, varieties, varieties of life. So how these rascals say that all of a sudden came another? What is that another? Answer it. What is that another? "Big, big monkey, big, big belly, Ceylon jumping, melancholy." (laughter) What is that another? That "another" is God. It is simple for us. We understand. Why? Because you are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Kṛṣṇa says ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā (BG 14.4). "I am, here I am. I am the seed-giving father." Finished. We take it.

Room Conversation with Ram Jethmalani (Parliament Member) -- April 16, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: (Hindi conversation) I have gone through variety stages of life. So I have got full experience of this material world. I don't want it. That determination is there. Society, family, love, friendship, these nonsense, everything—out! I have tasted. I am no more interested with this material. That is niṣkiñcana. Finished.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Distaste for all worldly things.

Prabhupāda: That I am realizing, that Kṛṣṇa pushed, dragged me through all circumstances, that "These are useless." Niṣkiñcanasya bhagavad-bhajanonmukha... That is required. Just like Jagāi and Mādhāi. They were made to promise, "No more." "Yes sir, no more." "Then I accept you. That's all right."

Conversation: Vairagya, Salaries, and Political Etiquette -- April 28, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: He'll have to develop certain type of body according to his desire of enjoyment. This is nature's law. Then where is the question of going back to home, back to Godhead? Why so many varieties of life? There is Brahmā, and there is ant in the stool. So vairāgya-vidyā-nija... Vāsudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ (SB 1.2.7), janayaty āśu vairāgyam. And vairāgyam means jñānam ca. When one is in full knowledge that "To remain in this material world is useless for me"—jñānam—"I am simply wasting my time by repetition of birth and death," then he can have vairāgya. "Stop this!" If this sense is not awakened, there is no bhakti. It is not so easy. Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati (BG 18.54). That is vairāgya. So vairāgya-vidyā... Otherwise why big, big persons, they renounced everything?

Conversations with Kirtana Groups -- May 29, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: Kṣitir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ. Must... (aside:) Give me. Give me that.

Indian devotee (4): Still down?

Prabhupāda: Hm. (break) Everywhere there is life, there is everything, varieties. Here you see in the water there is life, in the land there is life, in the air there is life, within the silicate there is life. So many, many millions. These crabs... What is called?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Crab.

Prabhupāda: How they are living? As soon as you walk, they go within the sand.

Room Conversation -- July 17, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: (Bengali) Kṛṣṇa baḍo doyāmoy, koribāre jihwā jay. Kṛṣṇa-prasāda... (Bengali conversation) The real fact is that this jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. One life is food for another life. That is nature's way. But one has to pass through so many varieties of life, evolution. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. How many millions of years we'll take to evolve to become a human being. Then he gets chance of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Payeche mānava janma, mano rañjanam alpa.(?) Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante (BG 7.19). Emona janma, this janma, manuṣya-janma. And if we miss and don't get Kṛṣṇa, again glide down. Mām aprāpya mṛtyu-saṁsāra. Again you fall down. I'll eat you; you eat me. And the aquatic, 900,000 species, varieties of life. The same struggle, one fish eating another fish. Struggle within the water. A small fish can understand three miles away a big fish is coming. It is all stated in the Bhāgavata. This struggle is going on.

1947 to 1965 Correspondence

Letter to R. Prakash -- Allahabad 22 June, 1951:

The whole material world is the creation of the external illusory energy of Godhead and the living entities who forget the eternal relation with Godhead are so to say entrapped by maya to undergo a conditional life under the modes of nature.

Out of eighty four lakhs of varieties or species of life there are only four lakhs varieties of human being. Out of these varieties of human being those who can acquire the the qualities of goodness out of the three modes of nature, can also realize the proper self which is not the product of material world.