Now, actually we see also. At least in India we have got this experience. Now, this Bhagavad-gītā... The Bhagavad-gītā, we always... We must always remember that it is being taught in the actual battlefield. Now, a great personality like Mahātmā Gandhi, he wanted to prove from Bhagavad-gītā nonviolence. He was... He was in favor of the doctrine of nonviolence. Now, you have seen Mahatma Gandhi's picture that he is always standing with Bhagavad-gītā like this. So Bhagavad-gītā was his life and soul practically. And in the morning he was having Bhagavad-gītā class; in the evening he was having Bhagavad-gītā class. So that was his life and soul. But unfortunately he interpreted Bhagavad-gītā in his own way. Although he took Bhagavad-gītā as his life and soul, so, but he interpreted it in his own way. That is not the way of understanding Bhagavad-gītā. Therefore such a great man and such a good man... He was not only a great man; he was very good man in the worldly estimation. His character, his behavior, his dealing—everything was good. He was ideal personality. But just see. He was killed by violence. He could not stop violence.
Doctrine (Lectures)
Expressions researched:
"canons"
|"doctrinaire"
|"doctrinaire"
|"doctrinal"
|"doctrine"
|"doctrines"
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Madhudviṣa: He wants to know what the doctrine of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa consciousness means that you are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, or God, you being separated, I have already explained, you are suffering in this material world. So you back to your father, go back to your father and be happy. That's all.
So here it is said that vivasvān manave prāha manur ikṣvākave 'bravīt. First of all, this was spoken to sun-god Vivasvān, and Vivasvān spoke to his son Manu, and Manu spoke to his son Ikṣvāku. This Mahārāja Ikṣvāku happened to be an ancient emperor on this planet, and in his dynasty Lord Rāmacandra appeared, Mahārāja Ikṣvāku. He is kṣatriya. These are all kṣatriya. Sūrya, Vivasvān is also kṣatriya. There are two kṣatriya families, one from the sun and one from the moon, candra-vaṁśa and sūrya-vaṁśa. They're existing. And the Indo-European stock, they are also coming from the kṣatriyas. From the history of Mahābhārata, we can understand the Aryan families who migrated to Europe, they also belonged to this sūrya-vaṁśa or candra-vaṁśa. Anyway, that is another department of knowledge. Here it is said that..., Kṛṣṇa says that "I spoke this philosophy or this system or this doctrine of Bhagavad-gītā, yoga."
So kāla's business is, kāla, time, to kill. So here also it is said sa kālena iha, kālena mahatā. Mahatā is also kāraṇa, and kālena, by the influence of..., that is now lost. Because it is a struggle. Our struggle for existence means we are trying to exist, but kāla is fighting to kill. That is going on. So kāla's business, time's business is to kill, but that system is now lost, is now killed by the influence of time. Sa kāleneha...yogo naṣṭaḥ parantapa. Then, what is to be done? Sa eva ayaṁ mayā te adya yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. "So I have already begun to teach you about this Bhagavad-gītā. So it is not a new doctrine that I'm presenting before you." That, called... Sa eva ayaṁ mayā te 'dya yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. Purātanaḥ means the same old system, purātana. Purātana means Purāṇa. Purāṇa means the old, historical events. Purāṇa. And this Mahābhārata, Mahābhārata is also... Mahābhārata, great history. And the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata is also called Mahā-Purāṇa, the great history of olden days.
So here also, the same word is used, that Kṛṣṇa says, sa eva ayam, "This yoga system, the Bhagavad-gītā yoga system which I am now speaking to you, is very old. How old you can imagine that I first spoke it to the sun-god." If you calculate only the age of Manu, it is about forty millions of years ago. To speak the minimum. So anyway, it is very, very old. Not that it is doctrine which is presented... Just like in the modern educational system somebody is presenting some doctrine, and he's getting the title "Doctor," some new thesis. It is not like that. There is nothing to be researched. Eternal knowledge has nothing to be researched. There is no question of research. It is already established. Otherwise there is no meaning of eternal. This knowledge of Bhagavad-gītā is eternal. It is not a product of modern research or doctrine. Purātanaḥ sa eva. Sa evāyaṁ mayā te adya. Adya means "today." "Today I am speaking on the battlefield." Yogaḥ proktaḥ purātanaḥ. "Why You are selecting me? Why You are selecting me and why this battlefield? You are speaking a philosophical doctrine and the science of God, and You are speaking to me. I am not a Vedantist, I am not even a brāhmaṇa, I am not even sannyāsī. Ordinary gṛhastha. Of course, I have got the privilege that I am Your friend. So much so. Otherwise, yoga system is not to be spoken to me. Why You are speaking to me?" This may be questioned. Why specifically it was spoken to Arjuna? The reply is, bhakto 'si. "The only qualification is that you are My devotee. That's all."
So as we have several times explained that we are all Brahman, but we are part and parcel of the Brahman. Now here it is said that paramaṁ brahma, the Supreme Brahman. The Supreme Brahman means one who does not come into this material contamination. He is called Supreme Brahman. The impersonalist school, they do not distinguish between these two Brahmans. They say, "Brahman is one. This individual Brahman, this conception of individual Brahman, is māyā, illusion." That is their doctrine. But according to Vaiṣṇava doctrine, they do not accept this. Their question is, "If Brahman is Supreme, then how He comes in contact with the māyā?" A Supreme cannot be under the subordinate, subordination of anything else. If something is under subordination, he cannot be Supreme. He cannot be Supreme. That is their argument.
So tarko 'pratiṣṭhaḥ śrutayo vibhinnāḥ. Śrutayaḥ means scriptures. If you take scriptures, different scriptures there are, and one scripture may differ from another scripture. So that is also very difficult, to find out the real truth, transcendence, from the scriptures. So tarko 'pratiṣṭhaḥ śrutayo vibhinnā nāsāv ṛṣir yasya mataṁ na bhinnam. And so far philosophy is concerned, each and every philosopher is different from the other philosophers. One philosopher is putting some theory, another philosophy is putting another doctrine or theory. So we are puzzled, which of them has to be accepted. Śrutayo vibhinnā nāsāv ṛṣir ya... Because in the mundane philosophers, mundane scholars, they want to give his own interpretation of everything. That is their habit. They don't accept the interpretation of the higher authority. They want..., each and every one of them want to become the higher authorities. So our this principle, this devotional principle, is not like that. We don't pose ourselves as the higher authority. We just try to follow the higher authority. We don't pose ourself. We never... We'll never say that "In my opinion, it should be like this." Oh, what opinion I have got? What value I have got of my opinion? What is my value? I am a blunt man. I cannot acquire any knowledge perfectly. And what is the use of my opinion?
So this is the line. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is, er, they do not accept anything which is not authorized by the higher personality. But in the material world you'll find one philosopher is putting one doctrine, another philosopher is putting another doctrine, and they're differing with one another. So you cannot conclude what is real thing. Nāsāv ṛṣir yasya mataṁ na bhinnam, dharmasya tattvaṁ nihitaṁ guhāyām: "Therefore the truth, real truth, is lying in the very confidential part of your body." Then what is to be done? Now, best thing is mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ: (CC Madhya 17.186) "You just try to follow the higher authorities."
This is universal. As soon as you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, as soon as you become God conscious, then your real universal, ideal, universal consciousness develops. Otherwise it is all simply jugglery. There are so many doctrines of universal love, universal friendship, fraternity, but they are fighting, and they are killing simply, because there is no God consciousness. If you are universal, if you are after universal love, then how you can maintain regular slaughterhouse? How you can think that an American gentleman or lady is your countryman and not a cow, and not a goat, not a serpent? Where is your universal idea?
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
Guest (2): Your Grace, the question I would like to ask you is: is there any philosophy, doctrine, creed, or, for that matter, ritual that can bring God down to the point of a human thought, reduce God to a human process of thought?
Prabhupāda: No, God cannot be forced to come down. Then He is not God. You see? If God but comes here, comes down by His own pleasure. You cannot force Him. We get this information from Bhagavad-gītā. He said that,
- yadā yadā hi dharmasya
- glānir bhavati bhārata
- abhyutthānam adharmasya
- tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham
- (BG 4.7)
"Whenever there is religious discrepancies and uprise of irreligious principles, at that time I come down." So God cannot be forced. Just like at night you cannot force the sun to rise. You have no such power. The sun will rise in due course of time, in the morning. At that time you can see sun. You can see the sun, you can see yourself, and you can see the world. But at the darkness you cannot force. You have no such searchlight, scientific advancement, that you can force. Similarly, if you cannot force a material object like sun to abide by your orders, how you can make God forced to come down? So He comes down at His own will, not by your word. God is not like that.
So if you read different scripture, you will be bewildered. In one scripture it is said... But there is adjustment. If you go to the authorized person, he can adjust. But you cannot see. You see, you'll see contradiction. So śrutayo vibhinnāḥ. Therefore they are considered different, but actually, they are not different. Śrutayo vibhinnāḥ. Tarko 'pratiṣṭhaḥ śrutayo vibhinnā nāsau munir yasya mataṁ na bhinnam. And there are speculators, so-called philosophers, putting theories and doctrines. So one doctrine is different from another doctrine. And people are convinced that no doctrine is absolute; therefore they are going on searching doctrine after doctrine throughout the whole life, and they do not know... Just like the theosophists. They go on, simply searching. They have never come to the conclusion, "Here is the end." They cannot do that. But in Bhagavad-gītā you will find, "Here is the end." Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya: (BG 7.7) "My dear Arjuna, here is the ultimate goal. I am—Kṛṣṇa. There is no more anything higher than Me." Nānyad asti kiñcid dhanañjaya. Mayi sarvam idaṁ protaṁ sūtre maṇi-ganā iva: "Just like in a thread, the pearls are woven, similarly, everything is standing in Me."
So if we read different scriptures, then we are also bewildered and we cannot come to the conclusions by arguments. And nāsau munir yasya mataṁ na bhinnam. And if you read different speculative methods or philosophical doctrines, that is also different from one another. Because the philosophy, one philosopher is big philosopher if he can defy his predecessor philosophers. Matam na bhinnam. Therefore, dharmasya tattvaṁ nihitaṁ guhāyām. Therefore the truth of a religious path is in oblivion. How one can understand what is actual Absolute Truth, what is the religious path? The last instruction is mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ (CC Madhya 17.186). Therefore you have to follow the footprints of authority. You can take anyone as you authority, as authority, but according to Bhāgavata there are twelve authorities. That is also mentioned. They are authorized persons from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and they have got disciplic succession. The twelve authorities are Brahmā, Nārada, Lord Śiva and Kumāra, Manu and Lord Kapila, Bhīṣma and Prahlāda, Janaka and Yamarāja and this Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who is speaking the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Vaiyāsaki. Vaiyāsaki means "the son of Vyāsadeva." And they have got their disciplic succession. And if we receive that knowledge from disciplic succession, then we can get perfect knowledge. That is the process of Vedic way.
So Yamarāja is the superintendent or the judge for considering what kind of punishment should be given to a certain sinful person. After death, those who are sinful, they are taken to Yamarāja for judgment, what kind of punishment one has to be given. And those who are pious devotees, they are taken charge by the Viṣṇudūta. I think the Christian doctrine, that in this life either you go to hell or go to heaven.
General Lectures
...consciousness movement was started five hundred years before by Lord Caitanya. This is not a new movement. Practically, it is as old as the creation of this world, but as things change in course of time, so it required rejuvenation. So this movement was rejuvenated about five hundred years ago. Before that, Lord Kṛṣṇa... You might have heard His name. Most of you have read Bhagavad-gītā, the famous philosophical doctrine of Indian Vedānta philosophy. Lord Kṛṣṇa instructed Bhagavad-gītā in the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra five thousand years ago. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means the last instruction of the Bhagavad-gītā. In the Bhagavad-gītā we find everything complete so far God consciousness is required. The first and foremost qualification to understand the science of God or to become Kṛṣṇa conscious is to understand yourself. The first thing is what you are or what I am. In the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra this perplexed question was there before Arjuna. Arjuna was to fight with his brothers and relatives on the other side to decide who shall be the emperor of the region. So in the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, when he actually came in front of his relatives, he decided that "It is no good fighting with my relatives and taking the kingdom. Better I shall beg. I don't want this kingdom." That is a very nice proposal, nonviolence, not to fight. But on this point the Bhagavad-gītā, or the science of God, developed from the lips of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa.
So just like it is the duty of the police department or law order department to protect the citizens, and sometimes violence is required, similarly, the kṣatriyas also were meant for that purpose, and they were entrusted with the administration of the government. So when Arjuna decided not to fight, Kṛṣṇa instructed him this Bhagavad-gītā. It is very interesting. He said that "You do not deviate from your duty. Do not think that you are killing your relatives, because you, Me, and all the persons who have assembled in this battlefield, they were existing before, they are existing at the present moment, and they will continue to exist. It is simply changing the dress." That means you, I, or all of us present here, we are all individual spirit souls and we are present here as in different dress. Similarly, we are present here in this world and in any other world with different kinds of bodies. According to Vedic literature there are 8,400,000's of different kinds of bodies. So He gave very nice example. If we study this example with little intelligence, we can understand this doctrine of transmigration of the soul very quickly.
Tarkaḥ apratiṣṭhaḥ. This process of argument and logic, gymnasium, is imperfect always. You cannot realize what is the ultimate goal of life. Tarkaḥ apratiṣṭhaḥ śrutayo vibhinnā. Śruta means Vedas or books of knowledge. There are different kinds of theories and doctrines. So if you read those books, unless you are very nicely directed, that will create also perplexity. Śrutayo vibhinnam. And so far philosophical speculation is concerned, the Bhāgavata says that nāsau muni yasya mataṁ na bhinnam. Muni means mental speculator. So you cannot find any mental speculator who is not differing from another mental speculator. So tarkaḥ apratiṣṭhaḥ, the path of so-called logic and argument, is not perfect. Then, simply if you study different books of knowledge, that will also not give you perfect knowledge. If you consult so-called mental speculators, their different views, then dharmasya tattvaṁ nihitaṁ guhāyām. The ultimate goal of life is very confidential and mysterious.
So how we can transfer into that kingdom of light? The whole human civilization is based on these principles. The Vedānta says, athāto brahma jijñāsā. Atha ataḥ. "Therefore you should now inquire about Brahman, the Absolute." "Therefore now" means... Every word is significant. "Therefore" means because you have got this human body—"therefore." And ataḥ means "hereafter." "Hereafter" means you have passed through many, many lives, 8,400,000 species of life. Aquatics—900,000. Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati. This is the... Darwin has taken the idea of evolution from this Padma Purāṇa. You won't find any philosophy, any doctrine in the world which is not found in the Vedic literature. It is so perfect, everything is there. So the anthropomorphism or—what is called?—anthropology... Anthropology of Darwin is there in the Padma Purāṇa. It is very nicely described. Darwin cannot explain what are the number of the species of different, but Padma Purāṇa states that there are 900,000 species of life within water, within the ocean. And above the ocean, as soon as the ocean water is dried up, the land is coming out, immediately the vegetation begins.
Philosophy Discussions
Śyāmasundara: Darwin is the originator of the doctrine of natural selection, or survival of the fittest. That means that in the course of adapting to the environment one type of animal will develop in a particular way which is best suited for that environment, and he will pass on his superior qualities to his offspring so that that particular species will survive, whereas another, which is not so suitable to that environment, will die out. This is called natural selection. Nature selects different species that can best survive.
Prabhupāda: So what is his explanation of the nature?
Śyāmasundara: Nature is a combination of physical forces in the universe.
Prabhupāda: What does he say about nature?
Śyāmasundara: Nature?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Well, nature is a... All phenomenon can be explained by means of physical laws.
Prabhupāda: Who made these physical laws?
Śyāmasundara: He is not so much concerned with...
Prabhupāda: Why is he not concerned? If he is putting some theory for understanding, why he is not concerned with some primary principles?
Prabhupāda: You see, the action is already going on. You see all of a sudden something comes. But that is not perfect knowledge.
Śyāmasundara: Then how do you explain that...
Prabhupāda: We explain that everything, the source, the original source of everything is Brahman, Absolute Truth, Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: What we are discussing is this doctrine of natural selection, or survival of the fittest.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That natural selection, that law is made by Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: So there is a law of...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Certainly. The scientists say that we do not know wherefrom it is coming. All of a sudden I see something and you say that invention. It is not invention. It is already there. You could not see before, and now you can see. That's all.
Prabhupāda: That is not possible for you. How many millions of villages are there?
Śyāmasundara: No, but see, we're talking about two different things now. He is talking about the doctrine of natural selection or survival of the fittest...
Prabhupāda: But natural selection, that means that is not his selection. Natural selection.
Śyāmasundara: Natural selection.
Prabhupāda: So nature is more powerful than him. So he has not studied nature.
Śyāmasundara: He studies how the bodies change in nature.
Prabhupāda: No. He has not studied. He has studied in a particular place only. But nature means, when you speak of nature, suppose you have studied within this planet, but in nature means there is millions of universes, but he has not studied them.
Śyāmasundara: So you say the doctrine of natural selection is not...
Prabhupāda: Natural selection is there, but how the natural selection is working, he does not know that.
Karandhara: But you have to go there to make, to make your point and deduct it. (break)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: ...when it will be cause of all his existence, survival for the fittest, but he is not going into the, who posed this, how it has been done, how it is going to that theory, so his theories are not complete.
Prabhupāda: His theory, it is not science. It is suggestion, guess.
Śyāmasundara: They call it "doctrine of natural selection," not theory.
Prabhupāda: Doctrine. So doctrine, doctrine should be fact, but Darwin's theory, so far... It is called Darwin's theory...
Śyāmasundara: It's not called theory, it's doctrine. It should be doctrine.
Karandhara: What they mean by doctrine is that they can't agree on it and say it's fact. That there's so many short-comings that they will call it a doctrine but they won't call it fact. That's practically the whole story in scientific research: the real scientists, they never call anything a solid fact; it's always a theory or a doctrine because they never find a perfect enough conclusion which takes into account everything and perfectly reconciles...
Prabhupāda: What is that uncertainty? What do you call that?
Śyāmasundara: It's called Theory of Uncertainty. Heisenberg's Theory of Uncertainty.
Prabhupāda: That is also theory.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa nāma koro bhai ar sab niche, parai gab pap nahi yoni ache piche (?). Our real problem is birth, death. All these scientist, they could not solve any of these problems, neither they could answer. Maybe Darwin's cam(?) has died. They could not stop death. Kata choto dayana na mari meri jao (?).
Śyāmasundara: Tomorrow we can discuss ethical evolution, how ethics evolved. That is also part of his doctrine.
Prabhupāda: Ethic morality?
Śyāmasundara: How morality is also a product of evolution.
Prabhupāda: We change morality within six months. The most immoral man, you can make the most moral man within six months. This is practically happening.
Śyāmasundara: It also helps the fittest to survive.
Prabhupāda: You may not be fit, but we can make you fit.
Śyāmasundara: That's what I mean. If you become moral you become fittest to survive. That is also his theory, doctrine.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So that we can do within six months.
Hayagrīva: This is John Dewey, who believed that religions were basically myths and that experience is of the utmost necessity. He felt that philosophy was superior to religion. He writes, "The form ceases to be that of the story told in imaginative and emotional style and becomes that of rational discourse, observing the canons of logic." So it's apparent that Dewey considers religion simply to be a story told in imaginative and emotional style, and for him philosophy observes the canons of logic. So for him the Vedic accounts of Kṛṣṇa's pastimes would be imaginative and emotional, or mythic. How does one argue against this kind of a...?
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is historical fact. It is not imagination. It is, to think like that, is imaginative. Kṛṣṇa... The Mahābhārata is there. It is accepted by all Indian authority, and Kṛṣṇa is a historical figure. How it can be imaginative? So... he may think like that, like a madman, but India's leader will not accept that. Especially the ācāryas who are controlling the spiritual life of India, they do not accept a lunatic foreigner speaking like that.
Devotee (2): (indistinct) the fire is extinguished.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) taken him out of the fire, then he is ...
Devotee: But his one point is that Freud's theory underwent many changes. In the beginning...
Prabhupāda: Then (indistinct) because that is imperfect.
Devotee: His first doctrine was that we should indulge the senses, that this would help, but later he reformed that idea, that instead of indulging the gross senses we should sublimate our natural instincts to some higher cause. So his idea was that instead of actually indulging in gross sex life, we should channel this sexual impulse to some higher cause, such as for developing the culture.
Prabhupāda: That we have explained by quoting Śrī Yamunācārya's verse, that "Since I have taken to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, whenever I think of sexual intercourse, my mouth becomes deformed and I want to spit."
Prabhupāda: Another continuation is that the child changes body. So as he was acting in his childhood, he does not act in the same way when he has got the different body of a young man, but the same soul is there. It can be understood very easily.
Hayagrīva: The third type of rebirth listed is called resurrection. Now there are two types of resurrection. He says, "It may be a carnal, that is gross, material body, as in the Christian assumption that this body will be resurrected." That is the Christian doctrine, is that at the end of the world the..., somehow or other, through the miracle of God, the gross body will reassemble itself and ascend into heaven or descend into hell. Somehow survival of the gross body. He says, "On a higher level..."
Prabhupāda: And what he will do in the meantime?
Hayagrīva: I don't know what happens...
Devotee: (indistinct)
Hayagrīva: ...what happens to the material elements. The material elements disintegrate, disintegrate...
Prabhupāda: The material body...
Hayagrīva: They're distributed in nature.
Prabhupāda: ...it finishes, but of course this idea can be maintained. In the higher sense, that is not gross body; that is spiritual body. That is applicable to God and special representative of God, not to all. Then that is not material body; that is spiritual body. Means when God appears He appears in His spiritual body. It does not change. Just like Kṛṣṇa says that millions of years ago He spoke to the sun-god, and Arjuna questioned, "How it is to be understood that millions of years ago You spoke it?" So He said that "Yes, I did. You were also present, but you do not remember. I remember." So how it is possible? One who does not change the body, He can remember. Just like when we do not change the body, I can remember, but when we change body we do not remember. This is the principle. So this resurrection, I do not know what the exact meaning, but as to the Bhagavad-gītā, it is said, Kṛṣṇa said, sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā (BG 4.6). He comes in His original body, not covered by material body. Therefore, because He has no material body, there is no change.
Hayagrīva: He also stressed the process of remembering. It's called the, his, Plato's doctrine of recollection. And he says you can ask a boy, who may be ignorant of a subject, you can elicit answers from him, and this answers, he may give you the right answers, and this would suggest that he acquired this knowledge in a previous existence.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore we find a student in school is very intelligent and less intelligent. Otherwise both of them of the same age, why one is more intelligent, he grasps the matter very quickly, and why the other is not so intelligent? This is everything that putra-janma dṛḍhaṁ vidyā putra-janma dṛḍhaṁ dhanam. (indistinct) The two things especially, knowledge, education and money, they are earned in the previous birth, not that all of a sudden one has become rich, all of a sudden one has become very learned man. No. It is continuous. So if one man is extraordinarily learned, it is to be understood that it is the result of his previous culture. Similarly, if anyone is extraordinarily rich, it is to be understood it is due to his past pious activities. Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrī (SB 1.8.26), these four things are achieved on account of previous pious activities: good birth, good opulence, aiśvarya, and good education, and good beauty. These are the results of pious, good activities.
Prabhupāda: Our Vedic conception is almost the same, that the individual souls, or living entities, innumerable, and each one of them has an intimate relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the material condition of life the living entity has forgotten his relationship, and when, by the process of devotional service, he comes to his liberated position, at that time he revives his old relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Hayagrīva: Origen ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity. In the Trinity, God the father is Supreme, God the son, who's called the logos, L-O-G-O-S, which is Greek for word, is subordinate to the father, and he brings the material world into existence.
Prabhupāda: Who?
Hayagrīva: The son. God the son brings the material world into existence. God the father is not the direct creator; it is the son who is the direct creator. The Ho... The third aspect of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit, and he is in turn subordinate to the, to the son. So these Holy Spirits, they liken unto the...
Prabhupāda: Holy Spirit, he is the son?
Hayagrīva: There's the father.
Prabhupāda: Father.
Prabhupāda: So this figurative description is there in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The body is considered as like city, and the soul is described as the king of the city, and he goes out from different gates. The body has got nine gates. In this way a figurative description in the..., is in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But that city is figuratively taken as this body, and the king of the city is the soul. (break)
Hayagrīva: This is the continuation of Augustine. Augustine writes, "God is not the soul of all things but the maker of all souls." So this doctrine seems to admit of the transcendence of God but not of the eminence of God, at least not as the Paramātmā accompanying the individual soul.
Prabhupāda: He does not accept Paramātmā?
Hayagrīva: It doesn't seem to be. It seems that...
Prabhupāda: Then how God is all-pervading? The Paramātmā conception is there in the Brahma-saṁhitā:
- eko 'py asau racayituṁ jagad-aṇḍa-koṭiṁ
- yac-chaktir asti jagad-aṇḍa-cayā yad-antaḥ aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara...
- (Bs. 5.35)
One part of His feature, eko 'py asau. Racayitum, creation, this creation is done by one plenary portion of His person, the puruṣa-avatāra, the Mahā-Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, in expanding. So, and not only one universe but millions of universes, jagad-aṇḍa-koṭim. And in the Bhagavad-gītā also same thing is confirmed, atha vā bahunaitena kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna, ekāṁśena, viṣṭabhya aham, sthito jagat: "By My one plenary portion I expand throughout all the universes, all the living entities. Even within atom I am present." So unless God has got that omnipresence potency everywhere, then how He can be omnipresent? This is one meaning. He is everywhere present by His expansion of His one plenary portion.
Hayagrīva: This is a point where Catholic doctrine seems to differ. Aquinas did not believe in a soul per say, or pure soul per say, as divorced from a particular form. God did not simply create a soul. He created an angelic soul, or the soul of a demigod, a human soul, an animal soul, a plant soul, etc. He believed that simply to create a pure soul, a being, would be almost the same as creating God Himself.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: So again we see the Christian conception that God created the soul out of nothing.
Prabhupāda: No. The soul is created and... Actually not created. Soul is existing along with God, just like the sparks of fire is existing with the fire. But the difference between the two fire is that the sparks may be separated from the big fire, and when it is separated, is loses its illumination. Similarly, an individual soul is already there. The master is there and the servants are there, eternally. Just like the body is there, the parts of the body are also there. We cannot say that the parts of the body is separately created. As soon as the body is there, the fingers of the body are there, the other limbs and parts of the body are all there.
Hayagrīva: I think the problem with all of these is that they cannot conceive of spiritual form. When they speak of form they are thinking that there must necessarily be matter involved. Aquinas believed that the Augustinian and Platonic doctrines of the complete independence of the soul from matter or the material body denied man's substantial unity. That is, man is body and soul. He is a particular type of soul in a particular type of body.
Prabhupāda: It..., it is the same argument, that when you are dressed it appears that you are not different from the dress. The coat is moving, the pants is moving, but actually it is completely different from the person who is putting on the coat and shirt.
Hayagrīva: So in other words they, he, he actually had no idea of spiritual form as such.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. God is the reservoir of all knowledge, all beauty, all strength, all renunciation, all riches. He is the reservoir of everything; therefore He is God. So beauty, whatever we see beautiful, that is emanation from, a very minute percentage of God's beauty. (aside:) Who paid this?
Hari-śauri: Someone gave it this morning.
Hayagrīva: Concerning theology and philosophy, Aquinas writes, "Just as sacred doctrine is based on the light of faith, so is philosophy founded on the natural light of reason. Hence it is impossible for items that belong to philosophy to be contrary to those that pertain to faith, but the former may be defective." That is, philosophy may be defective in comparison with, with the latter, theology, which is based on faith. "If any point among the statements of the philosophers is found contrary to faith, this is not philosophy but rather an abuse of philosophy resulting from a defect in reasoning."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we say, that every man is defective on account of his material condition of life. So philosophy coming from such defect persons cannot be any good for the human society. Philosophy coming from a person who is in contact with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that is perfect. That will benefit human society. And the speculative philosopher, who has no definite idea, simply basing on his belief or imagination, by following such philosophy nobody will be benefited; rather, he will be deviated from the actual philosophy of life.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That's a fact. The so-called philosophers, they are imperfect, so there is no need of consulting them. Our path is that you directly contact the Supreme Person in knowledge, who has got complete knowledge—Kṛṣṇa—and we take His instructions and try to follow Him.
Hayagrīva: This knowledge based on revelation or scripture is called sacred doctrine or scripture. He says it, this scripture, "does not provide information about God and about creatures in equal fashion, but about God principally and about creatures as they are related to God as to a source or to an end. Hence the unity of the science is not ended." So scripture for him is the science of God.
Prabhupāda: This is science of God.
Hayagrīva: Yes.
Prabhupāda: God is explaining Himself... (break)
Hayagrīva: This is a continuation of Thomas Aquinas. We've been discussing sacred doctrine, which is the same as scripture. He states that the only author of sacred scripture is God Himself, within whose power is not only to adjust words to their meaning, which even man can do, but also to adjust things themselves. In reading the scripture, one should avoid two mistakes. 1) One should not think that they can be false in any way.
Prabhupāda: False?
Hayagrīva: Well this is rather strange, because Aquinas, his writings form the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church has always emphasized one meaning, which is interpreted by the Pope, by the head of the Church. The meaning is given by the Pope, of scripture, because...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is...
Hayagrīva: But here he says that the scriptures may contain many meanings according to one's degree of realization.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not many meaning. Meaning is one, but if one is not realized, then he can make many meanings. Otherwise meaning is one. What can be any other meaning? Suppose God created this universe. This is stated in the Bible, or in the Bhagavad-gītā the same thing is expressed in a different way, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate (BG 10.8): "From Me everything emanates." So that's a fact, that everything is coming out from God's energy, so why there should be second meaning and second interpretation unless one is godless? What is the possible second meaning?
Hayagrīva: Pascal believed in the doctrine of original sin. That doctrine holds that at one time man fell from grace by committing some sin or other, and that fall from grace accounts for his present position between the demigods and the beasts. In other words, that original sin accounts for man's engagement, or encagement, in matter.
Prabhupāda: Yes, this is our...
Hayagrīva: What was this original sin?
Prabhupāda: To disobey the order of Kṛṣṇa, or not to serve Kṛṣṇa. Just like some servant, he tries that "Why I am serving this master? Why not become a master." The, sometimes psychologically it comes. A man is working in the office, he is seeing the managing director is sitting and is taking all the money, and sometimes the worker... Just like a capitalist and the worker. Why it is Communist movement? That they are thinking that "We are working, and the capitalist is taking the money." So they revolt, they make strike, and they form a society that "We have the..., we must have this money." That is communism.
Hayagrīva: Huxley did appear to have..., to adhere to the doctrine of transmigration. He says, "The doctrine of transmigration constructs a plausible indication of the ways of the cosmos to man. Every sentient being is reaping as it has sown, if not in this life then in one or other of the infinite series of antecedent existences of which it is the latest turn." In Evolution and Ethics he writes about brahman and ātmān and liberation. He says, "The earlier forms of Indian philosophy agreed with those prevalent in our times, and supposing the existence of a permanent reality or substance beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind, the substance of the cosmos was brahman, that of individual man ātmān, and the latter, that is ātmān, was separated from brahman only by its..."
Prabhupāda: That is also not. He is not separated. He is, brahman and ātmān, they are existing, co-existing, and that is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā in the chapter "Kṣetra and Kṣetrajña." The body is the field, and the ātmā, individual soul, is the owner of the field or the worker in the field. So it is also said there is another owner, kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ vidhi. As the individual is working in the body, similarly, there is another soul working in the body. So what is the difference between the two? The two is different that the individual soul knows only about his own body, but the other soul, Supersoul, He knows everything of every body. That is the difference. I know the pains and pleasure of my body. I do not know the pains and pleasure of your body. But this Supersoul, He knows the pains and pleasure of this body, of that body, of millions and millions of bodies.
Hayagrīva: ...Frenchman, and he is known as a positivist. He felt that positivism reconciles the heart and the intellect. He felt that theology dealt solely with the heart or the sentiments and that philosophy dealt solely with the intellect, but positivism reconciled the two. He writes, "Positivism proves more efficient than theology yet at the same time terminates the disunion which has existed so long between the intellect and the heart. It is a fundamental doctrine of positivism, a doctrine of as great political as philosophical importance, that the heart preponderates over the intellect. When it is said that the intellect should be subordinate to the heart, what is meant is that the intellect should devote itself exclusively to the problems which the heart suggests, the ultimate object being to find proper satisfaction for our various wants," meaning material wants, as well as spiritual wants.
Prabhupāda: So we have got from Bhagavad-gītā that the gross understanding are the senses, though the still finer understanding is the mind, and then intellect, and then the soul. The soul is the original, basic principle of activities. So it becomes grosser, grosser, grosser, and when the soul acts on the platform of senses and body, these are gross activities. So our calculation is the gross activities of the body, then the subtle activities of the mind and still more subtle activities of the intellect, and then spiritual platform. So that is also expressed in another way: pratyakṣa, parokṣa, aparokṣa, adhokṣaja, aprākṛta.
| Page Title: | Doctrine (Lectures) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti |
| Created: | 08 of May, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=36, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 36 |