750714 - Morning Walk - Philadelphia

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

750714MW-PHILADELPHIA - July 14, 1975 - 42:14 Minutes

Prabhupāda: Both sides forest. (break) Now in America there is no sufficient men to live in all these places, to cut, clear it and make cottages and utilize the land for producing. There is no sufficient men, I think. And where there is overpopulation, why not invite them to come here? That they will not do. (break). . .has given sufficient land for all the people, but we have made artificial national area. Will not allow.

Gurudāsa: In India this would all be utilized for living.

Prabhupāda: Yes. These places also should be allowed to the people who are overpopulated. No visa, no immigration. The whole world is simply mismanaged for want of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Pramattaḥ. The word used, pramattaḥ, mad. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4): "All people mad and engaged in misdeeds only for sense gratification." (break). . .this room?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: I don't know, Śrīla Prabhupāda. Now it is just used for garbage. (break)

Prabhupāda:. . .all like this, jungle?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Yes, all along this creek there's a forest like this. This has been done in Philadelphia all along the river, and this huge area of land has been set aside. It's like this. No one can use it except to take walks. (break)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The question that I wrote to Śrīla Prabhupāda, the answer that Śrīla Prabhupāda gave me was that the cells in the body and the jīvātmā that resides in the heart, they are different living entities. But my understanding was directed to the relationship between the two, the jīvātmā in the cells and the jīvātmā in the heart, how they are related, how they . . .

Prabhupāda: They are separate identity.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But it looks like, though, in the material body the one cannot exist without another. They look like interdependent.

Prabhupāda: That may be, but still, they are individual.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: When the jīva in the heart dies, then all the other cells in the body also have to die.

Prabhupāda: No.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: No, they don't. But when the body decays, doesn't everything . . .

Prabhupāda: No. Dead body, so many germs come out.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Oh.

Prabhupāda: How it comes?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But that is different, though. When a body dies, then there are many germs from outside that . . .

Prabhupāda: Living entities within the body, they come out, hundreds and thousands. They have not died. Suppose in this jungle there are so many living entities. If I die, what has got to do with them?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But science tries to understand what is life, and in order to do that they just want to understand what is cell. Because science tries to understand what is life, but in order to do that they just want to study what is the cell, because cells are the smallest living units of life. That is their understanding. So once they understand what a cell is, then they know what life is. That is their aim. So if the cells and the jīvātmā within the heart, they are different and they are independent, then they cannot conceive of just having a jīvātmā in the heart.

Prabhupāda: That . . . The particular jīvātmā who has been given this body, he is living in the heart.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But according to the scientists, our body is made up of little cells, just like a brick wall is made up of so many individual bricks. Each . . . Like in one piece of skin there is . . .

Prabhupāda: That's all right. That is body. Just like I live in a house. The house is made of so many bricks. But I am not brick.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But they say that . . .

Prabhupāda: "They say"! They are foolish, we always say. Because I am living in a house consisting of so many bricks, it does not mean that I am brick.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But is each cell an individual living entity?

Prabhupāda: That I do not know. What do you mean by cell? But there are many living entities within this body. That we know.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is different from the concept of cell. There are many living entities like germs . . .

Prabhupāda: So concept of cell is the cell is just like bricks. Matter and spirit, two things are there. Either it must be matter or must be spirit.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But it's seen that the scientists, they can take some skin from your body and by putting in different solutions can keep that skin itself alive for such a long time. They have taken the heart of a chicken out of the chicken's body and then kept it beating for so many hours, even though that heart was away from the main chicken. Or they take some other tissue and keep it alive. So they say that each cell is an individual living being.

Prabhupāda: So we have no objection.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: That is all right. So there is a spirit soul in every . . .

Prabhupāda: No, no. All right or not all right, I don't say. But if they say like that, we have no objection

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the understanding to find out what life is, is just to study what a cell is. That is their . . . They say that cells are composed of these molecules.

Prabhupāda: What is the position of the cells when the man dies?

Svaupa Dāmodara: The cells are dead. The cells that compose the body, they are dead. There may be new living entities coming from different parts, but the cell that composed the human body is dead. They cannot reproduce anymore.

Prabhupāda: So what is your proposal? That cell is life?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So can you develop life from the cells? As you said that you take the skin and you keep, so take the cells and develop into life.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That's called culturing of the cells. They can culture it.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Whether you have done it.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Well, they have that process called cloning. That is something else?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, no, this is the culture. That means take a cell from a living tissue, and you culture it and you supply the sufficient nutrients. Then theoretically they will grow forever. They will divide. They will . . .

Prabhupāda: So they will grow to a human being?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Not a human being, but the cells just divide.

Prabhupāda: Then an ant, an ant?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No.

Prabhupāda: Then what is this? (laughter)

Svarūpa Dāmodara: (laughing) But the cell is still alive.

Prabhupāda: But you said that as soon as the man dies, they also die.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is what my question arose, how these . . . the relationship between the jīvātmā in cells and the jīvātmā in the heart.

Prabhupāda: The jīvātmā . . . If the cells are living entities, then why do they not remain? Just like other living entities, they remain in the body and they come out. Even the man who has died, he is not there, but the other living entities are there.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So it seems that the cells are not independent. They are somehow controlled by the jīvātmā or the . . . Of course, Paramātmā is controlling everything. But I know sometimes the cells that compose the body of a living body, it seems that they are not independent; they are dependent.

Prabhupāda: That may be. But what about your cultivating living entities from the cells?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that can be done. That they have already done.

Prabhupāda: "That can be done," you say everything. But you never done.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: They call it . . . You know that? They call it cloning?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Cloning is a different process, though. Cloning is just they take the life from the genes from different species and put this together and form a new species called hybrids of some living entity.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: The scientists say that the cells reproduce not by mating but by splitting in half. They divide.

Prabhupāda: That is possible.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But once Śrīla Prabhupāda told us, though, that I am in the heart and is a small part . . .

Prabhupāda: I am an individual.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So that is my position. I live in the heart, and I go away. Other living entities may remain there.

Gurudāsa: When a heart is transplanted, does the soul stay in the heart?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, that is also . . . I want to clarify another, that Prabhupāda told us that compared with the cells, I am a little bigger god, but the cells are smaller. Just like we are serving spiritual master, similarly, the cells are serving. They have no choice in the . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is good idea. Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So similarly, we were discussing with the Balavanta Prabhu one day about the . . . He was giving a nice example that in a kingdom where the king stays . . . Just like Śrīla Prabhupāda's example: living in an apartment. Śrīla Prabhupāda and disciples and many other living entities stay in the same apartment, but a person, an individual, who knows his position is to serve the order of the head of the apartment, but somebody doesn't follow. He just goes away from the apartment. So Balavanta was asking what is the use of that? So similarly, when the cells . . . We can take out from one part of the body and can culture it, but what is the use? It produces, but actually it's not really behaving as it should. It has no value.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They are just like machine parts. Parts and parcels, they are helping the whole machine work.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: About Gurudāsa Prabhu's that point, when the heart transplant, the soul stays in the subtle body. Is that sound?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Soul is always staying in the subtle body, and the subtle body is left when he goes to God or kingdom of God.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: One thing I'm trying to understand is how is it that the soul wants different things and then the material body acts according to the desires of the soul. So there is a cause and there is an effect. Normally all our cause and effect, we see one material thing causing another material thing to happen. But how is it the spirit causes? What is the connection that spirit causes matter to do so many things? The spirit is manipulating the matter, but how? How is that contact there?

Prabhupāda: Contact? It is already in contact. You are in the material body. It is already in contact.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But I don't understand how that contact is working.

Prabhupāda: Contact is working under the direction of God. The individual soul desires, and God arranges to fulfill his desire with the help of prakṛti.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: So when I want to move my hand . . . when I want to move this hand and so I will to move my hand, actually there has to be God involved in that action. Otherwise the hand won't move.

Prabhupāda: Paralyzed.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Paralyzed.

Prabhupāda: When your hand is paralyzed, what you can do?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: So actually I don't directly do anything with matter. It is all Kṛṣṇa's doing everything with the matter.

Devotee: "Man proposes, God disposes."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Also, I heard that also in every act of . . . like if I want to blink my eyelid, also there is a demigod. What is the necessity of so many demigods? Why can't Kṛṣṇa directly . . .

Prabhupāda: That how you can know? You are not the director. Director knows how many assistants he requires. You cannot know. You are under the direction. You are not director. (break). . .not a mechanic he cannot understand why there are so many parts in the motorcar. He is a fool. He doesn't know. But a mechanic knows that these things are required.

Gurudāsa: If the soul cannot be burnt, why does the desire to be burnt in the material world there? Burnt, drowned . . .

Svarūpa-damodara: Destroyed.

Prabhupāda: He is not destroyed. When this body cannot work any more . . . Because this body is a machine. So a machine, if he does not move, then you have to change to another machine.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The desire is not . . . Actually it is not burned; it just changed. The desire is changed to . . . for a higher purpose. We have a choice between the subtle desires. Just change is there from one to another.

Prabhupāda: No, the same example: just like in a motorcar you desire to go this side, but the machine is stopped, so you have to accept another motorcar. It is like that, to fulfill your desire. After all, it is a machine. Machine is matter. So it has got a time to work. When it is not working, then you change to another machine to fulfill your desire.

Gurudāsa: If God, Kṛṣṇa, desires the motorcar to turn right, what makes the car turn left?

Prabhupāda: Not Kṛṣṇa desires. You desire. Kṛṣṇa helps you. Kṛṣṇa desires you give up all this nonsense and surrender to Him. Only He desires that. But if you don't do, you will desire so many things.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: It remains a mystery to great thinkers that though the soul is pure by nature and transcendental, but somehow it is trapped in the subtle and gross body and . . .

Prabhupāda: Because he desired. Kṛṣṇa bhuliya jīva bhoga vañchā kare (Prema-vivarta). When he wants to enjoy this material world . . . In the spiritual world there is only one enjoyer. And in the material world everyone is a enjoyer. He is planning in his own way how to enjoy. That is material world. In the spiritual world the enj. . . is Kṛṣṇa, and all other is helping in His enjoyment. But in material world everyone is thinking, "I am enjoyer," and he is planning in his own way.

Devotee (1): Śrīla Prabhupāda, modern philosophy is teaching that the forces of greed and lust and these things are greater than man. That actually . . . This concept that we are eternal, full of knowledge and bliss - they cannot accept that or understand that. They're thinking that the powers of evil are much greater, and we're just controlled by these things.

Prabhupāda: Therefore they are fools. When a man's lusty desire is very strong, he commits, what is called, rape, and he becomes complicated in criminal activities. Kāma eṣa krodha eṣa rajo-guṇa-samudbhavaḥ (BG 3.37). Why one is forced to do that? The cause is lusty desires, anger, greediness. So we are thinking we are master of this material world, but actually you are servant of these desires, kāma, krodha, lobha, mohaḥ. And that is māyā. He is acting as servant, but he's thinking, "I am master." That is māyā, which is not the fact. Just like yesterday we were discussing that the women, they are acting as instrument of men, and they are thinking, "We have equal rights." A man is utilizing her for his own purpose, and she is thinking, "I am equal."

Ravīndra-svarūpa: I think you really surprised them when you told them that this women's liberation is just a trick by the men just to increase the class of prostitutes, available prostitutes.

Prabhupāda: Free prostitutes. You go to a prostitute, you have to pay. Here they have arranged in such a way that free prostitute loitering on the street, and you can enjoy any one. This is their plan. They are rendered into beggar, and they are thinking equal rights.

Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, what does it mean that the soul is immovable?

Prabhupāda: Immovable? Where it is?

Devotee (2): It states this in Bhagavad-gītā.

Prabhupāda: What is this? What is the verse?

Devotee (2): I don't know exactly. It's in the Second Chapter. Kṛṣṇa's describing the nature of the spirit soul to Arjuna. (aside:) Does anyone know that verse?

Nitāi: Sthanur acalo 'yam. . .?

Prabhupāda: Immovable in this sense: when he is fixed up in a certain body, then he is immovable from that body. Acalo 'yam sthanuḥ. Sthanuḥ. Just like we're speaking of transplanting the heart. That does not mean you move the soul. That is immovable.

Devotee (3): Śrīla Prabhupāda, the pure devotee's spirit soul is not trapped by the gross and subtle bodies?

Prabhupāda: Yes, when he is liberated by devotional service. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26).

Devotee (4): Prabhupāda, when we try to explain to people that our philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is authoritative and is coming from undisturbed men, learned men, that our spiritual master is not an ordinary man, what does it mean that he is not an ordinary man?

Prabhupāda: He is not moved by the rascal scientist. (laughter) All rascals are moved by the so-called scientists.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda . . . (laughter)

Prabhupāda: (laughing) The scientist is angry.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: The soul is trapped as well as untrapped in the material body . . .

Prabhupāda: Because he wanted to be trapped.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But sometimes it is also untrapped. But sometimes he is also free.

Prabhupāda: No, by nature, he is not mixed up with these material things, but he is entrapped by his free will. Just like we are staying here. We are not bound to stay here, but we have come here. Nobody has forced us to come here.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So is that philosophy, simultaneously one and different . . .

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara:. . . that acintya-bhedābheda is also applicable in the case of . . .

Prabhupāda: No, soul never mixes with the matter. Now I have come here, I am not mixed up with this jungle.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But it looks like it . . .

Prabhupāda: It looks like. That is another thing. Asaṅgo 'yaṁ puruṣaḥ. The Vedic injunction is, "The puruṣa, the soul, is never complicated or mixed up with this." Because just like oil and water, it never mixes. The oil keeps its separate identity in water.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. But if you put in a body, though they cannot be mixed, but they can stay together. Like in a chemical laboratory we take a test tube. In the test tube I can mix two solutions like, for example, mercury and water and oil. They will not mix, but they will stay in the same test tube. But a man who knows about the art of separating those three mixtures can do it very nicely.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Similarly, soul does not mix with the matter, and by this art, transcendental knowledge, you can become out of it.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So that's why we need a process and someone who knows the process of.

Prabhupāda: The process is bhakti-yoga. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān (BG 14.26): "Anyone who has taken to this bhakti-yoga," māṁ ca vyabhicariṇi bhakti-yogena yaḥ sevate, "he immediately becomes freed from the mixture of these three guṇas." Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate. "He again revives his Brahman nature." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi. Brahma-bhūtāḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54): then he understands that "I have no connection with these all nonsense things. I am brahma-bhūtāḥ."

Devotee (4): Prabhupāda, we're in this material world, in this human body, we're having to work with this intelligence, with mind, material things. So there is a group of philosophers that say that actually because we're a product, our mind, the way we're thinking now, is a product of our upbringing and our past; that actually we have no free will, but we're forced to think and act in a certain way.

Prabhupāda: Why you are forced?

Devotee (4): Because of conditioning.

Prabhupāda: Then that you have to admit, that you are conditioned by some authority. When you are put into jail, you cannot act independently. You have to act according to the jail superintendent's order. The same thing. "Now let me finish." You will never be able to understand if you jump over like that. Let one thing be understood.

Devotee (4): So he admits he's conditioned, but still, there's no free will. He says, "Yeah, so I'm in the prison. I'm imprisoned. I'm conditioned."

Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Free will . . . Just like a man commits theft by his free will. But when he is put into jail, then no more free will. He has to act according to the jail superintendent. But his beginning of jail life is free will. Nobody asked him that "You go to jail." But why he has come? He knows also that "When I am put into jail, I will lose all my freedom." He knows that. Still, he comes. Why does he come? He knows that. That is called ajñāna. Mūḍha. That is called mūḍha. He knows; still, he does.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He is taking a chance.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that means he is becoming implicated.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: He thinks that maybe he will be free, that . . . if sometimes there's also a chance that he will be caught.

Prabhupāda: That is ajñāna. As soon as he "maybe," that means ajñāna.

Devotee (4): So that's why we originally fell down?

Prabhupāda: Knowledge must be solid. There is no question of "maybe." No. Just like if you touch fire, there is no question of "maybe." It must burn you. You may think, "It may not burn," but that is your foolishness.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: So they think that they can enjoy material nature, but not be implicated.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Not implicated . . . He is already implicated. There is no question of maybe. Must.

Devotee (5): So when we fell down from the spiritual world . . .

Prabhupāda: Then you must suffer. There is no question, "maybe."

Devotee (5): When we fell down, we were thinking we could enjoy like that, in the same way?

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is foolishness. And we are making our plans how to enjoy. That is our foolishness. And Kṛṣṇa says, "You give up all these nonsense plans. Come to Me."

Devotee (5): Is this example proper, that a son is being well taken care of by the father, but sometimes he's thinking, "I can enjoy more some other way"?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, can I change the topic?

Prabhupāda: Hmm.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Last . . . day before yesterday, morning, Prabhupāda said that plants are more highly developed than the fish or the aquatics. But someone may ask what about the dolphins and the seals. They are regarded as very intelligent and highly developed.

Prabhupāda: Every living entity has a particular type of intelligence which is greater than the other.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, in the evolutionary cycle. Talking about the . . .

Prabhupāda: No, evolutionary cycle, the body may change, but every living entity has got a special advantage upon the others.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: What is the advantage of a tree, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: You see how they are standing there for five thousand years. You cannot do it. You cannot do it even for five minutes.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually, the trees are absolutely necessary for the survival of animals.

Prabhupāda: That is another thing. We say nothing is necessary; simply Kṛṣṇa is necessary. That is material conception: "This is necessary. This is necessary." But Kṛṣṇa says, "Nothing is necessary." Sarva-dharmān parityajya (BG 18.66). You are simply planning and becoming entangled with so-called "necessary."

Svarūpa Dāmodara: But that is on the spiritual platform.

Prabhupāda: You can create spiritual platform immediately. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān (BG 14.26). If you fully engage yourself in devotional service, immediately you are above this material conception.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: So the concept that the three modes of nature, the three modes of material nature, they're working all species, so it's not the . . .

Prabhupāda: They are directing. Just like in the jail there are different departmental management, similarly, this management is required because you are in the jail. If you don't go to jail, the management may be closed. But you are thinking, "If I do not go to jail, how it will exist?" That is your business, say that "If we all become liberated, how this world will go on?" They say like that, as if it is very necessary.

Devotee (3): Śrīla Prabhupāda, is the subtle bodies in the subtle world, are they made up of subtle atoms?

Prabhupāda: Subtle body means subtle atoms. So if we are in subtle body, so whatever there is in the subtle body, everything is there.

Devotee (6): Prabhupāda, sometimes on saṅkīrtana we say that the human form of life is the highest, because in this form we can understand God, and they say, "Well, what about the dolphins? You know, they've been doing experiments with the dolphins, and they've been finding out that the dolphins have their own conversations," and things like that.

Prabhupāda: So what they have done with the dolphins? They are talking only. What they have done? Simply theorizing. (break)

(in car)

Prabhupāda:. . .improved anything.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: No.

Prabhupāda: They are going on ciraṁ vicinvan. Forever they are simply thinking, and no improvement has done.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Of course, they promise that they will be able to do so many . . .

Prabhupāda: That everyone can. A child can also promise. That is another thing. (break)

Ravīndra-svarūpa:. . .the cells, because they say that the cells are the fundamental unit of life, and if they can understand even a very simple cell, then they think perhaps they can find the principles to understand everything living.

Prabhupāda: Well, this "perhaps . . ."

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But they can't understand the cell.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So their "perhaps," "maybe," is going on. And that will continue.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: Why does the living entity wish to speculate in this way?

Prabhupāda: He has been given a special advantage to think of God, but instead of thinking God, he is thinking all these rubbish things, which he will never be able to fulfill. Misusing. The thinking power he is misusing.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: So this mental speculation, or this "perhaps" and "maybe," is a misuse of his specific power to understand God.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. The life, human life, is meant for enquiring about God, and God is explaining Himself about God. Instead of studying Bhagavad-gītā very scrutinizingly, they are wasting time: "The cells, this, that, atom." That's all, wasting time. Just like we are driving this car. So we can utilize it for going from one place to another. So there is no need of studying how the car is moving, how many parts are there.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: But still, people seem to have always a curiosity about these things.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That curiosity is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, that it is a machine, and there are many subtle parts of the machine. So you have been given this machine. You utilize it properly. Why you are busy in studying the different parts? The different parts are there undoubtedly, but you cannot actually understand.

(approaching temple) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya.

Devotee: I can pull up to . . . It's drier.

Ravīndra-svarūpa: We're going to take a picture, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Heh?

Ravīndra-svarūpa: We're going to take a picture.

Prabhupāda: All right. (end)