If a human being tries to exist without ego, desire, feelings, dislikes, and so on, he will be converted into inert matter. This is not spiritual elevation. When a person gradually progresses from materialistic perception to spiritual perception, he can clearly understand how trivial are his mundane desires, feelings, dislikes, and so on which were so long contaminated by ignorance. As this ignorance dissipates, mundane desires become insignificant. Desires remain, but they are no longer mundane. They become transcendental. In that state, one perceives Brahman, the Supersoul, and the Supreme Lord as one. Such higher perceptions are possible only when one's mind and senses are transcendental, a stage impossible to reach in one leap. Those who try the impossible are irrational and overambitious. Everyone has to proceed gradually, placing each step securely before taking the next one. In this way one will ultimately reach the goal.
Irrational
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)
Just as men of childish intelligence consider a mirage in the desert to be a pond of water, so those who are irrational look upon the illusory transformations of Māyā as substantial.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
Lectures
Philosophy Discussions
Śyāmasundara: He uses the example of someone who doesn't want anyone to steal something from him but he steals something from others.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: And that is self-contradictory.
Prabhupāda: Yes, self-contradictory action is here, that I don't want to be killed but I kill another animal. This is self-contradictory. Supporting by some nonsense philosophy. I don't want to be killed but I kill other, this is self-contradictory.
Śyāmasundara: He would say a self-contradictory act is irrational.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Is not acting according to the rational will.
Prabhupāda: He is irrational and he is taking the position of a philosopher.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. The philosophy of pessimism. He says that reality is...
Prabhupāda: So why was he fond of dog? Pessimism? He found some value in dog?
Śyāmasundara: He says that reality is blind and irrational and capricious, or whimsical, and that actually life is an evil situation.
Prabhupāda: So how he is to establish his philosophy if everything is whimsical, irrational? How he will convince others if he is irrational and irresponsible? How he will make progress in his philosophical proposition?
Śyāmasundara: He figures his...
Prabhupāda: Man is called a rational animal. Although animal, it is rational. So how his irrational philosophy will be accepted by a rational animal?
Śyāmasundara: He doesn't believe in rationality at all. Everything is..., no matter how hard we try to be rational, our plans are always upset. There is always some flaw to our reasoning.
Prabhupāda: Your reasoning may be full of flaws, that is the same thing. But why do you think others also reasoning will be with flaws?
Śyāmasundara: He was the first Western philosopher to read some of the Vedas. He read Bhagavad-gītā and other Vedic scriptures. So he concluded that all phenomenon are mere illusions, or māyā. He uses that word māyā. This world is simply illusory.
Prabhupāda: That also we say, but it is not irrational. There is rationality. There is regulation. The sun is moving, the moon is moving—not irrationally, quite in order. Everything is in order. We cannot say it is irrational.
Śyāmasundara: But is this force irrational and blind? This is what he thinks.
Prabhupāda: No, this is not irrational. That will. You desire, you will like that, and as soon as you will, immediately material nature is helpful: "Yes, take this help," and you take the help and we are forced.
Śyāmasundara: Supposing I will for some sense object... (break) Shall we begin?
Prabhupāda: Mm.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So here is a perpetual conflict with māyā. Daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). This is a fight against, māyā is putting impediments, what I think it is right, māyā is breaking it.
Śyāmasundara: That's what he sees in it, the irrational.
Prabhupāda: Hitler's plan, Nazism, in so many ways, māyā has broke it into pieces. The Britishers, they also found the British empire, and māyā broke it. Roman empire... So, this frustration. But we are so fooled that in spite of repeated frustration, we are still trying to do the same thing. That is explained in the Bhāgavata, punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30), chewing the chewed. Chewing the chewed. He has been frustrated in so many ways, in sexual life, divorce this wife, again another accept, another wife.
Hayagrīva: This is Schopenhauer. For Schopenhauer happiness is inactive satisfaction, inactivity, nirvāṇa. The will to live is the irrational urge...
Prabhupāda: What does he give..., what does he explain about the nirvāṇa? What?
Hayagrīva: The will to live is the irrational urge that brings about all suffering. And his is a philosophy of extinction. Now in his first book, The World Is Idea, he ascribes to the philosophy of māyā, like a Māyāvādī. He writes, "The Vedas and Purāṇas have no better simile than a dream for the whole knowledge of the actual world, which they call the web of māyā, and they use none more frequently." From this Schopenhauer concludes that life is a long dream.
Hayagrīva: Well as, as to the nature of the world, Schopenhauer is vague, but he sees material life as basically irrational and whimsical.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact. Therefore you are changing body. Material mind is not fixed up; rejecting and accepting. This is going on. That Māyāvāda philosophers say as well. The Buddhists also say this material pains and pleasure is account to the material combination. It does not say material combination of this body. Soul is different, but he did not say because during his time they could not understand it. So he did not say that the..., there is soul, but he simply said that this body is combination of material thing; that is the cause of pains and pleasure. So dismantle it.
Śyāmasundara: I think we have many clothes out on the line.
Devotee: I don't think that in this discussion that we can convince in any way the (indistinct). I think the invalid aspects of Freud (indistinct) called irrational.
Prabhupāda: (indistinct)
Śyāmasundara: We have scientific reasons
Devotee: But there are aspects of Freud's philosophy and psychology which they feel have proven beneficial for mankind. So many cases of, say, someone is paralyzed and they can't find any direct physical reason why a person can't walk, and through analysis they are able to trace down that it is due to some repressed trauma, what they call trauma.
Śyāmasundara: But if the consciousness is not the predominator, then sometimes a person's activities will be irrational or unconscious.
Prabhupāda: No. There is no question of unconscious. Subconscious, that is there. Yes.
Devotee (3): What is the exact meaning of the term "subconscious"?
Prabhupāda: Mm? Consciousness?
Devotee (3): I understand the principle of consciousness, but what is the exact meaning of the word "subconscious"?
Śyāmasundara: So would you say that the lower stages of life are, could be termed irrational, and the higher stages of life termed rational?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Righteous.
Śyāmasundara: So the consciousness becomes more and more developed...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: ...as we proceed higher.
Prabhupāda: Not developed. Uncovered. There are different layers of material contamination. So that has to be cleansed. (aside:) You can come this side. (indistinct). The more the layers are cleansed, his original consciousness come out. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam (CC Antya 20.12), cleaning the dirty things accumulated on the heart.
Hayagrīva: Well, this..., thinking in this way Augustine writes, he says, "We do not apply 'Thou shalt not kill' to plants, because they have no sensation, or to irrational animals that fly, swim, walk or creep, because they are linked to us by no association or common bond. By the creator's wise ordinance they are meant for our use, dead or alive. It only remains for us to apply the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' to man alone, oneself and others." So...
Prabhupāda: So that is imagination of Augustine. But Jesus Christ does not say such qualitative killing. He says frankly, "Thou shalt not kill." When he says that, he means, "You should not kill." But when there is absolute necessity, just like he says that "One life is food for the another life..." Does he not say it like that?
Hayagrīva: He says, "The universe is to be studied not for its own sake but for the sake of man, or rather of humanity. To study in any other spirit would not only be immoral but also highly irrational." This is the old Greek Sophist position, that man is the measure of all things.
Prabhupāda: So the man should be inquisitive to understand the Absolute Truth, athāto brahma jijñāsā. Human intelligence is meant for that purpose, that he should find out what is the ultimate source of everything. That is intelligence. What is the other point he said?
Hayagrīva: "To study in any..., to study in any other spirit would not only be immoral but also highly irrational." To study the universe for any other sake other than the betterment of humanity.
Prabhupāda: Betterment of humanity will depend on studying the cosmic nature or not? What does he say?
Hayagrīva: The purpose for studying the universe is to improve nature, is to improve man's situation in nature. To improve the lot of man.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Dr. Weir: That's where your line is so very good in saying that the real evolution of man's mind has been his ability to produce more and more the functions of whatever the mind may be. But the mind is just as indivisible as God. We know what the brain is, but we don't know what the mind is. Yet more and more of it under conscious control instead of being irrationally eruptive(?).
Prabhupāda: But there is the summum bonum of that realization. That is explained in Bhagavad-gītā: bahūnāṁ janmanām ante, jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19). After many, many births of this mental evolutionary process, when actually he becomes wise he becomes God conscious and surrenders to God. That is real evolution(?). That evolution will go on. But when it comes to the summit, that is God realization. Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19).
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prof. Pater Porsch: I agree with you but just think how the world was only a few years ago.
Professor Durckheim: Yes. And especially if you talk about the rational (German), the really German tradition is the irrational. So now this is coming back now, rediscovering their own past slowly.
Prabhupāda: So long they do not come to the standard platform, they will accept this sometimes and that sometimes. This will go on, changing.
Prof. Pater Porsch: No, but I meant it differently. Can it not be that average man in the street... I don't mean... Yes, it was, of course, in Germany. Man in the street now is infected from the...
Professor Durckheim: Absolutely, yes.
Correspondence
1968 Correspondence
Yes, Sanskrit is spoken not only on Krishna Loka but also in higher planets, of the demigods. It is called the language of God and the demigods. It was spoken also on this planet, when people were all godly, they used to speak in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is the origin of all languages of the civilized peoples. It is most perfect, not only descriptive; the word "Sanskrit" means "the most perfect". Because not a single word you can pronounce without having a bona fide principle. It is not like the English language, "but, put" with irrational difference in pronunciation, no principles. Sanskrit isn't like that. Therefore it is perfect. It isn't whimsical. English poetry has one line one inch long, next line 600 inches long. Sanskrit is not like that.
| Page Title: | Irrational |
| Compiler: | Sahadeva, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 13 of Nov, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=1, CC=0, OB=1, Lec=14, Con=2, Let=1 |
| No. of Quotes: | 19 |