Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we thought, now, the biologists have a difficult time in defining species. It's not very clear, the way they do it. Now we want to bring up the concept that the, by the combination of the three modes of material nature produce all these different varieties of species. We say 8,400,000. And on that line...
Prabhupāda: 8,400,000.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, now along that line, we want to make a nice chart on...
Prabhupāda: Chart is already there, jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi, nine hundred thousand species. Not species, forms.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. Now we want to make a very clear distinction of, say, the mode of goodness and mode of passion and ignorance. And we want to give some very specific examples...
Prabhupāda: The demigods, they are in goodness. And the human being in passion, and the animals in ignorance. That is general division.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The animals are ignorance. But now even we come to the, let's say,...
Prabhupāda: Nitijugdeva.(?) Deva means demigods, they are in goodness. And human being in passion, and animals in ignorance. This is general division.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: What about the plants and other smaller...?
Prabhupāda: That is also animals, less, still more in dense darkness.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The other point along this line, we also wanted to, even in the same animal or bird kingdom...
Prabhupāda: No, no. You can very minutely distinguish, this is the general division. Then there is minute division. That is numbering about 8,400,000.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Under that category, that minor divisions, now let's take the animals. Even in the animal kingdom, there are some animals which are influenced...
Prabhupāda: From the animals down, it is all ignorance.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Animals down, all ignorance.
Rūpānuga: What about like the cow, little goodness in it, mixed?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rūpānuga: And the lion, little passion?
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, everywhere there is mixture. Otherwise, how it comes to 8,000,000? There is mixture. But this is the general division. Now you cannot make how much passion, how much goodness is there. That you can understand from the behavior. But this is general division. We can speak of general division. The minute division is made by nature. That nature's study, one who can study nature, then he can do that.
Rūpānuga: That means to study the activity, psychology of the...
Prabhupāda: So all the qualities are working, mixed up practically. But prominently like this. Here you cannot have any quality completely of that quality. Other qualities are there, but prominently that particular... Just like demigods. They also become sometimes passionate, sometimes ignorant. So in this material world it is very difficult to find out pure modes of nature in anything. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Sometimes some quality prominent, sometimes some quality is prominent. So the best thing is to become transcendental to all these qualities. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26). That is devotional service. Śuddha-sattva, completely pure goodness. That is wanted.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is not the direction that we were thinking. We were thinking that we could give some specific examples. We understand that the modes of nature are mixed, but even then... Now let's take birds. A bird like swan likes to be very clean habit, likes to live in a nice environment like lotus and clean water, but on the other hand birds like eagle, very passionate, wants to...
Prabhupāda: Crow.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Crow is rather very ignorant and wants to be very dirty, whereas...
Prabhupāda: So what you will do by such study?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: By this...
Prabhupāda: Generalize the divisions, that's all. But none of the divisions are spiritual. Our aim is to come to the spiritual platform. Traiguṇya-viṣayā vedā nistraiguṇyo bhavārjuna. Not that to increase goodness and keep a less quantity passion and ignorance. Be completely free from all the three qualities, that is required.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that is our philosophy, but...
Prabhupāda: So some other living entity who is prominent in this quality, prominent that, it does not make much difference. So long he is in the material qualities, he's entrapped. So get him out of this condition and put him into the spiritual platform. That is the solution. Nistraiguṇyo bhavārjuna. In the material world if you think that the quantity of goodness is now big than the other modes of nature, that does not make a solution. Next moment the passion will be prominent, next moment the ignorance will be prominent. You cannot check it or fix him up in one quality. It is not possible. That is not possible. The best thing is to bring him to the unconditional stage, transcendental stage. Sa guṇān... Keep him engaged in devotional service, he is free from influence of all these qualities. That is wanted.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is on a human platform, but we wanted to appeal purely on a scientific level to the scientists. Now in order to bring these concepts that these three modes of nature, because of mixing of these three modes of nature it produces different species, varieties of species... Now this is completely unknown to them. They have no idea about these modes. So somehow we thought if we bring some specific examples like this, that looking the products of nature as a source, not worrying about transcendental or not, (microphone rattling)
Prabhupāda: What is the use of such things? If you particularly study that this living entity is now in this mode, say goodness fifty percent and passion ten percent, in this way, but it can change at any moment. You cannot fix it up.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is good, because if we argue this we can always defeat this concept of evolution. Our main point is to defeat the concept of evolution.
Prabhupāda: No, no, evolution is already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Evolution means material evolution, from chemicals.
Prabhupāda: No, no. It is not evolution. The species are already there, 8,400,000. Now the living entity is changing the position. The status is already there.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, but they don't understand that.
Prabhupāda: They don't understand. That is their foolishness.