View source for In order to be involved in devotional service and execute devotional service in this life, we had to have some devotional service last life. So therefore, were you here last life too, to give us this devotional service?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1975]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="8" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1975 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1975 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="MorningWalkNovember11975Nairobi_0" class="quote" parent="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="230" link="Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi" link_text="Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi">
<div class="heading">So where is the chance? It is the cause and effect. If previous life you had some activities and the result is there. So where is chance?
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi|Morning Walk -- November 1, 1975, Nairobi]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Jñāna: If I eat a lot I become fat. If I stop eating I become thin.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: You stupid, you eat so much, but God is not stupid. He is conscious perfectly. He has nothing to eat. Still, He can grow. That is the difference between me and God. You don't require to eat even. There are many saintly persons they do not eat. How they are working? Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī was not eating. He was... Every alternate day he was, little butter, so much. That's all, not daily. Every alternate day. So actually we do not require to eat. Eating, sleeping, sex and defense—this is bodily necessities. But you are not this body. When you come to the spiritual platform there is no necessity of these four principles. So that is your mistake, that you are thinking, "God has got a body like me. He requires eating for nourishing it." That is your foolishness. Aṅgāni yasya sakalendriya-vṛttimanti. His body is so made that He can perform any limb's work by another limb. Just like we can see with the eyes. As soon as close the eyes, we cannot see. But Kṛṣṇa can see by His ear. As soon as you pray to Kṛṣṇa, immediately He sees you, "Oh, here is My devotee," by hearing the sound of your prayer.</p>
<p>Devotee(4): Śrīla Prabhupāda, you said that our body was made by (indistinct). Why should we (indistinct)? But why should we come back?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because you have this material body, you have got so many necessities and God has no material body. He has got spiritual body. He has no necessity. Apta kama. He is fully satisfied. He doesn't require to take anything.</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: He doesn't get hungry or thirsty.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Neither. Neither of these things because He hasn't got material body. You have got this material body; therefore you have got all these defects.</p>
<p>Indian man (5): Sometimes it was seen that the people that don't eat, then their body becomes very weak. Then the soul leaves the body after some time. People when they don't eat, their body becomes very weak, the soul leaves the body. Practically it has been seen.</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: Weak? Weak? The body becomes weak when they don't eat?</p>
<p>Indian man (5): Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that is all for the material body. Weakness or strength or dwindling or becoming old is ṣad-avikara. Ṣad-avikara means birth, then growth, then sustenance, then by-products, then dwindling, then finish. This ṣad-avikara, six kinds of changes, are meant for the material body, not for the spiritual.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: So everything is going on, and those things that are going on and they happen to fit in with the whole scheme, they continue. If there is some strength they survive, and if not, they die off, so everything is happening by chance. But because...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Chance?</p>
<p>Harikeśa: Yes, chance. But because... (laughter) But because...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Another stupidity. (laughter)</p>
<p>Harikeśa: But because some things happen to work, they continue.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Will the medical man will say that everything happening by chance?</p>
<p>Harikeśa: Well, that's because his body is all right. His body fits in with the scheme of things, so it can continue. But let's say the person doesn't eat, he can't get...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They know that you have violated these rules of health, therefore you are diseased. There is no chance.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: But he is fit to live so he can live. But someone other than...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Nobody is fit. The doctors also become sick as soon as there is violation. The violation is the cause of sickness, so either he may be doctor or no doctor, that does not matter. If you violate, you'll be sick. That is nature's law. Nature's law.</p>
<p>Devotee (1): Speaking of chance, Śrīla Prabhupāda, it was mentioned in the scriptures that, in The Nectar of Devotion, that in order to be involved in devotional service and execute devotional service in this life, we had to have some devotional service last life. So therefore, were you here last life too, to give us this devotional service?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hm?</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: He's asking that in The Nectar of Devotion it is stated that for one to engage in devotional service means that in his previous life he had some connection with devotional service. So he's...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So where is the chance? It is the cause and effect. If previous life you had some activities and the result is there. So where is chance?</p>
<p>Harikeśa: So that's survival of the fittest. Because he could take to devotional service, he is surviving on in devotional service.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Surviving... So he is surviving, but the cause and effect is going on.</p>
<p>Jñāna: The scientists are saying the evolution of the body is purely by chance.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. Therefore we call them stupid, rascals. There is no chance. Kāranaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya, Kṛṣṇa says, kāraṇam ([[Vanisource:BG 13.22|BG 13.22]]). There is no question of chance. Kāranaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya. Because you do not know how you are infecting... Just like you become all of a sudden attacked with cholera. You are thinking that it is by chance. It is not chance. Eh? What this medical man will... "It is chance." No. You infected somewhere. You do not know. And because you are foolish, you are taking it as chance. There is no question of chance.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: But it was by chance I infected.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, not chance. Why did you go where there is cholera case? That is your foolishness. Why did you go there? When there is infectious disease a man is forbidden, not to go there. So you went there without any knowledge and you infected. Now you are suffering. That's all. There is no question of chance. That is foolishness. Chance means ignorance. The ignorant people, they do not know. They infect sinful activities, and they say, "by chance." There is no question of chance. Kāranaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya, Kṛṣṇa says. There is no chance.</p>
<p>Cyavana: If God's energy is so perfect, then how does this ignorance come upon the living entity?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That we have explained many times. You create your ignorance. Just like you cannot live without serving Kṛṣṇa, but you create: "Why not independently?" That is your ignorance. By law, by nature's law, you cannot live without being subordinate to Kṛṣṇa. But why you are thinking, "Why shall I be subordinate to Kṛṣṇa?" Kṛṣṇa is asking you, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ ([[Vanisource:BG 18.66|BG 18.66]]). Why you are not doing that? Why you are not doing that? Kṛṣṇa is personally asking, "You do this. I shall save you." Why you are not doing this? So you violate the laws of Kṛṣṇa. You suffer. That's all.</p>
<p>Cyavana: But if that energy is perfect, how can it violate?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then you do not know what is living being. Living being has got the, I mean to say, independence, little independence. He can obey; he can violate. In our society there are so many. Somebody is strictly obeying, somebody is willfully, voluntary..., not voluntarily, willfully violating. They must fall down.</p>
<p>Jñāna: If God is perfect, why didn't He make us perfect?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: He is made perfect, but He is not... You are not stone. God is not stone. You are living being. The same thing you are repeatedly asking. You have got little independence because you are part and parcel of God. So by misusing your independence, if you violate the orders of God, then you suffer. You are perfect because you have got independence, but you misuse that perfectness. That is your fault. You perfect. You become imperfect by misusing.</p>
<p>Jñāna: Independence?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything is perfect. Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate, pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate (Iso Invocation). Because you are part and parcel of God, you are perfect, but willfully you become imperfect. Again you become perfect; then you become imperfect.</p>
<p>Jñāna: Where does that will come from?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Will is given to you. Living being means there is will—thinking, feeling and willing. Don't question if you do not know. Everything comes from God. What is the use of "Where will comes?" Janmādya asya yataḥ. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvam... ([[Vanisource:BG 10.8|BG 10.8]]). Everything is coming from Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has got will; you have got will. Why do you ask? This is foolishness. Kṛṣṇa has got independence; you have got independence. You are a small Kṛṣṇa. A particle of gold is also gold. Everything is there. All chemical composition is there. It has come from Kṛṣṇa. Why you are asking wherefrom it comes?</p>
<p>Jñāna: All living beings are independent, but some choose to serve and some choose to disbelieve.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. That is use of independence. Otherwise what is the meaning of independence? The meaning of independence is: "If I like, I can do. If I do not like, I do not do." That is independence. That means independence. If you are stereotyped, forced to do, that is not independence. Independence means if you like, you can do it, if not—you don't like-don't do it. That is independence. So misused independence means ignorance. He does not know that "If I infect this virus of this disease I'll suffer." But he does not know, ignorance. So he infects and he suffers.</p>
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