Prabhupāda: So that is intelligence, that if in spite of your manufacturing such a huge machine, without the help of a pilot you cannot fly it.
Carol Jarvis: Yes, I know.
Prabhupāda: So why don't you manufacture pilot?
Carol Jarvis: Probably someday they may.
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. That is nonsense.
Carol Jarvis: At the moment we're just taking some photographs.
Prabhupāda: No, at the.... You talk at the moment, sir. You don't give me post-dated check that "In future I shall be millionaire. Now you take a check of million or..." Shall I accept it?
Carol Jarvis: No, at the moment we're just taking some photographs. We can't let you talk at the moment. You're supposedly listening to my questions.
Prabhupāda: All right.
Carol Jarvis: So for the moment I'll pretend to be asking you some questions for the purposes of cutting the interview.
Prabhupāda: No, you note down that we are asking that you are so expert in manufacturing big, big machine. Why not manufacture a pilot? That is my question.
Carol Jarvis: As I just said, they probably will some day.
Prabhupāda: That "probably" again. That is not possible.
Carol Jarvis: Oh, I don't know. I don't know.
Prabhupāda: You do not know. That is I say. Therefore I say you cannot do it. You do not know it. You cannot manufacture even a small germ, what to speak of pilot. That is the problem. The modern education is they do not know it. "Perhaps," "maybe," this is not scientific proposal.
Guru-kṛpā: Perhaps they can keep you young.
Carol Jarvis: That's just what I was going to say. Perhaps they can build something without giving him...
Prabhupāda: Who is.... Who is...
Carol Jarvis: ...giving him command, a free mind.
Prabhupāda: So suppose if you say, "Perhaps I'll be able to keep my young age continually," is it possible?
Carol Jarvis: I don't know.
Prabhupāda: Then? You don't know. Then learn it. It is not possible. You must become an old lady. (laughter)
Carol Jarvis: How do you know?
Prabhupāda: Yes, I know. You know also. You are denying only. You know that you shall become...
Carol Jarvis: No, but I don't know anything. I'm prepared to not know anything. I'm prepared to wait and see...
Prabhupāda: Then you can know from the experience that every.... Your grandmother was young lady some years ago. Now she's old man, old woman.
Carol Jarvis: Yes.
Prabhupāda: How do you know?
Carol Jarvis: But, you know, you could use that argument and say, "Yes, but I also know that they weren't able to cure a single disease."
Prabhupāda: Now, if you say that "My grandmother has become old lady. I'll not become," that is lunacy.
Carol Jarvis: No, no, no. I'm not suggesting that I'm not going to become old. I'm simply saying that I don't know...
Prabhupāda: So therefore, therefore you cannot stop the nature's process. You are dependent. You should first of all understand that you are dependent on nature's process. That is intelligence. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi... (BG 3.27). If you extravagantly say that "I shall stop this nature's process," that is lunacy, craziness. It is not possible. You have to accept that you are under the stringent laws of nature.
Carol Jarvis: Oh, I couldn't.... I agree with everything that you're saying about the laws of nature.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So but therefore how you can make a plan of happiness? Nature is baffling your plan. That you have to understand, "Why nature is baffling me?" That is real knowledge.
Carol Jarvis: So your answer...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Carol Jarvis: ...is to work with nature.
Prabhupāda: We can do that. We can do that, that...
- daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī
- mama māyā duratyayā
- mām eva ye prapadyante
- māyām etāṁ taranti te
- (BG 7.14)
You cannot combat with the nature's law, but Kṛṣṇa says that if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, you can do that. You can stop nature's law acting upon you. And that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Carol Jarvis: Why.... Why would you want to stop nature's law acting in its natural way?
Prabhupāda: Because I don't want to be old man, but I am being forced. Therefore I want to stop this force of the nature. That is my natural inclination.
Carol Jarvis: Isn't it also your natural.... Isn't it natural to...
Prabhupāda: It is struggle. Struggle means.... Struggle for existence means there is something against my will, and I want to stop it. This is called struggle for existence. And that is.... The whole world is going on, that.... They have started that United Nation. Why United Nation? You remain.... But they are trying to stop war. "Let us struggle unitedly." So that is going on. You don't want war, but the war is inevitable. Even the United Nation is there, still war is going on. That is struggle. So, but they are not coming to the point of understanding that "We are trying so much, so hard, to become happy, but nature is not allowing me." This is real intelligence. And that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. If we remain dull—"Let the nature's law act upon me as it likes"—and we go on struggling to stop it, it will never stop, because nature's law is so powerful. You can never stop it.
Carol Jarvis: But why do you want to fight nature at all?
Prabhupāda: Then you want happiness. Again I am repeatedly saying that you don't want to stop your old age. You want to remain young.