Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, what is the Vedic explanation of the working principle of the brain, how our brain is working.
Prabhupāda: Brain is working, because you living entity, soul, is there. Just like I am typing, and he is typing. I have got the latest mechanical, improved typist, and he has got old, bygone age typist, similarly, according to our karma, capacity, Kṛṣṇa gives us facility. So brain is that facility. Kṛṣṇa gives us. Not that... So far the brain substance is concerned, a dog's brain and your Professor Einstein's brain is the same. His brain, same. But because Professor Einstein is advanced in knowledge, he is working differently. Otherwise, when Einstein, the soul is off from the body, and the dog is off from the body, you will see the brain, equally the same. So this, your scientists, they do not know.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say that there are about nine billion cells. They are called neurons.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Just like I have given already. Why nine billion cells are there? Because you can work with it. I have given an electric running on typewriter because I know how to work it. Otherwise, this electric machine and the old electric machine, they are made of the same iron, but if I know how to work it, then I can utilize this machinery. But for a layman, it will be all the same. So that is karma. According to karma, we get a body. The body's machinery is also well-equipped, as I can work. This is nature's gift. Not that "This brain is first-class, that brain is first-class, er last class." All brain, last class. It is matter. The man who is working, the soul who is working, he is first-class, second-class, third-class. It is said clearly, īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati: (BG 18.61) "Īśvara, Kṛṣṇa, is situated in everyone's heart." Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā: (BG 18.61) "He is offered a yantra, a machine, made by material energy." But that is under the direction of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa has asked the material energy "Give a good machine; he can work. Good or bad, as He wants, as He wants. That's all. Give him a..." yantrārūḍhāni māyayā. It is all bad. Either this electric machine or that manual machine. They are all matter. So anything material, that is bad. But he wants it; "All right, give it." That is going on. He wants this facility. Now before these motorcars, people were walking on foot. All business was being done. But we wanted a machine like that, so Kṛṣṇa has given us brain to manufacture. That's all. But what you will benefit by this? Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, "You give up all this nonsense proposal." But they will not do that. They will create another nonsense desire. That desire should be stopped. That is desireless. Because they will go on simply proposing some nonsense desire... That is their material existence. Now, they have discovered this, made this motor, nice... Now there is problem, no power, gasoline. And if the gasoline is stopped, then your whole endeavor is gone. So this is their business. They are manufacturing something which will entangle him more and more. That he does not know.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: Now they have reduced the output of big cars because previously they were making big cars.
Prabhupāda: Just see. Now how the business will... Another problem. The factory... How will so many men...? So they will create problem. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, "You give up all this nonsense desire."
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: The airlines have laid off so many thousands of people because there isn't enough gasoline to fly all the aeroplanes. So they are just laying off people. They are becoming unemployed now.
Prabhupāda: Yes, one after another, problem will come.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Coming to the brain again, the, some people are working. Why some people are insane? For example, the mechanism of working the brain, some of the chemical pathways, they say, change, block. So some people become insane.
Prabhupāda: Insane? Then he cannot work. That's all. Even if I give you good machine... Just like I do not know how to work on it, so similarly, if one does not know how to work, then it is useless machine.
Karandhara: They are thinking that by certain types of chemicals they can correct things like depression and unhappiness. They say it's all just a chemical situation in the brain.
Prabhupāda: But that they propose so many nonsense things, but they cannot do anything.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They are making experiments on rats now.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. They will go on experimenting life after life. That is their foolishness.
Gurukṛpā: Next life they may have to experiment in a dog's body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. And some of our politicians, he has become a dog. Yes. Nehru. He has become a dog, in Stockholm. Yes.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: I told that to my mother and she would not believe it. You know, people think that if someone is a great politician or something, he can never become something like this.
Prabhupāda: Then why the politician dies? If he has got so good brain, let him live forever.
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa: People have so much blind faith in people like Nehru and Gandhi.
Prabhupāda: Jawaharlal Nehru did not want to give up his Prime Ministership unless he was collapsed. So why he did not live if he is so intelligent? And Kṛṣṇa says, if you have to believe Bhagavad-gītā, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). "He has to accept another body." So why you should disbelieve that he has accepted a dog's body? Because the acceptance of body is not your business. It is the business of higher nature. Daiva-netreṇa. So if the daiva likes that "You must take this dog's body," how can you refuse it? You cannot refuse.