Śyāmasundara: All kinds of life disappear and there is simply rock. And they say the beginning was merely rock and water; then organic life came out.
Prabhupāda: No. That is not organic life. The soul appears in different ways. One of the ways is by fermentation, perspiration. So rock and water, when it is decomposed there is fermentation and there is possibility of soul taking advantage and come out with a body. In any case, from matter life never comes. It is compared with... Taṇḍula-vṛścika-nyāya. A vṛścika, a scorpion, is coming out from rice. Actually, a scorpion down lays eggs within the heaps of rice, and by fermentation of the rice, heating, the egg, I mean to say, produces a small scorpion, and it comes out from the rice. So foolish people, they think that the heaps of rice is the cause of producing a scorpion. So many things come like that, but that does not mean the matter is producing life. If matter is producing life, the modern science, so much advanced, so let them prove in the laboratory, mixing some matter, life is coming. That fermentation, that is accepted in the Vedic language. By fermentation living creatures come out.
Śyāmasundara: So it is only because the soul finds refuge there.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: What about this idea that nature...
Prabhupāda: Mister (indistinct).
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Give him one āsana.
Śyāmasundara: That nature is progressing. What about this idea that nature, or evolution, is progressing?
Prabhupāda: The same nonsense idea. Evolution is not progressing. Everything is there, but it is being manifested when the living soul takes shelter.
Śyāmasundara: But do you think that there will become a level of demigods, a race of demigods?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Demigods, according to Vedic system, demigods... (Hindi:) Aiye. Demigods were created before man was created. (Hindi:) Aiye. Jaya. Demigods, just like demigod, Lord Brahmā, he was first created. From Brahmā, Lord Śiva was created. Then... Created means born, not created. So similarly, from Brahmā, other, Dakṣa, he was created, so many, one after..., Prajāpatis, then Manus.
Śyāmasundara: So even before inorganic life there was...
Prabhupāda: There is no such thing, from inorganic life. Inorganic life... Suppose just like Brahmā is coming from the navel of Viṣṇu. So where is the... We don't get any information. Viṣṇu is origin, and from Viṣṇu, Brahmā came. From Brahmā, other demigods came, other animals came. They create animals and others. The first created being is Brahmā, the most intelligent. He's not animal. Their proposal is from lower to the higher, but our theory is from the higher, from Viṣṇu. Kṛṣṇa says, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ (BG 10.8). "I am the origin of everything." Now, how you can say there is development from the lower creatures? He is the origin. And Vedānta says, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). The origin, Absolute Truth, is that from whom everything is generating. So Absolute Truth means He is the supreme life. From life, life is coming. Where is the evidence that dead stone giving birth to a man or animal? Where is the evidence?
Śyāmasundara: His idea is that in future everyone will be a demigod, that the race of man, because of mental life, will be replaced by a race of superconscious beings.
Prabhupāda: Superconscious beings, there are already existing, just like in Siddhaloka and Gandharvaloka. There are many planets.