So long we are within this body, material body, that is our conditional life. We live under certain conditions. But actually, we are spirit soul, we are part and parcel of God. As soon as we are free from this conditional life, that is our real, actual life. That is called liberated life. The human form of life is meant for getting this liberation. So long one does not get this human form of life by the evolutionary process... There is evolution, from aquatic to birds and beast and then... Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi. First aquatic life, then plant life, tree life, then insect life, then bird's life, then beast life, then human life, then civilized human life. So this is the process of evolution. Now, we are supposed to be civilized human being. This life is especially meant for how to get out of this evolutionary process, how to get out of this evolutionary process. The evolutionary process means transmigration of the soul from one body to another. We do not wish to die, but we have to accept death. This is our conditional stage of life. I do not wish to take birth; still, I am forced to go into the womb of my mother by the laws of nature. After giving up one body I enter another body. And there is no security what kind of body I shall get next. It may be human body, it may be animal, it may be trees or it may be better than human being, because there are three divisions. One division is called demigod, and one division is called the human being. The other division is called lower than the human being.
Evolutionary process means
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Philosophy Discussions
Śyāmasundara: He says that the mind plays no part in the process of evolution, because the only evidence for the existence of mental phenomena is a fragment of space and time. But this is not a substance; it is simply a set of relations.
Prabhupāda: He does not know it is also matter, but very subtle matter. It is matter. Just like ether—you cannot touch, you cannot see, but still it is matter. And mind is subtler than the ether. But it is matter. Intelligence is subtler than the mind, but still it is matter. So from Vedic authorities we understand that earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, they are all material.
Dr. Rao: And ahaṅkāra, ego.
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.
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. That is nonsense.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: ...body, and the body is considered as the dress, and the person who is dressed, that is within.
- dehino 'smin yathā dehe
- kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
- tathā dehāntara-prāptir
- dhīras tatra na muhyati
- (BG 2.13)
Just like this child, this is a dress. Now, after some days this dress will be changed to another dress. After some time another dress, another dress. This body is dress, we should understand, but the person who is putting on the dress... Just like I remember my childhood state, dress and condition, my youthful condition. So many things I remember. So although the body has changed—either you say it has grown or changed—I am the same. Therefore conclusion should be that after giving up this dress, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), I must have another body. This is the proof of immortality of the soul and transmigration from one body to another. Now, there are 8,400,000's of different dresses. There are 900,000 dresses within the water, then plants and trees, then insects, then birds. This is evolution of different dresses. The spirit soul is passing through different dresses.
Ambassador Keating: Both the human and the animals?
Prabhupāda: Just so. Spirit soul individual. He is passing through the evolutionary process. Evolutionary process means as he is desiring, nature is supplying a particular type of body.
Mrs. Keating: That's very interesting. I believe in the transmigration of the soul.
Prabhupāda: Yes. It is a fact.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Devotee: Do the number of demigods have something to do with the number of species, like there are thirty-three million demigods?
Prabhupāda: There are thirty-three million. Thirty crores. There are also divisions, Gandharvas, Apsarās.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Do they belong to these species? They are also included in these eight million four hundred? These Gandharvas?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So they are counted, what, as human beings?
Prabhupāda: Some of them are devatās, some of them are human being.
Rūpānuga: When we say four hundred thousand species of human beings, that doesn't include all the demigods then.
Prabhupāda: The demigods are like human beings.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Prabhupāda told me that when you become a devotee, you are a demigod. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: The whole evolutionary process means to bring the living entity to the platform of goodness and then transcend that platform also, come to pure goodness. That is devotion.
| Page Title: | Evolutionary process means |
| Compiler: | Labangalatika |
| Created: | 21 of Jun, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=2, Con=2, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 4 |