750720 - Morning Walk - San Francisco

Morning Walks by Date, 1975

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

 Listen to a 'Nectar Drop' created from this lecture

750720MW-SAN FRANCISCO - July 20, 1975 - 15:43 Minutes

Prabhupāda:. . . our shelter is land. (break). . . Juhu? No, only some birds. (several birds are making noises, including a crow) There is crow. (laughter)

Bhaktadāsa: We have the ducks and swans over there, and we have the crows here.

Prabhupāda: Why they are keeping crows?

Bahulāśva: "Birds of a feather flock together." They are crows, so they are keeping crows. (break)

Prabhupāda: They say that "You are crows. You have come to see the crow." (laughter) Will they not say like that?

Bahulāśva: Yes. (break)

Prabhupāda:. . . bottle?

Bhaktadāsa: This is a office for the zoo. They have a little exhibition of animals and botany. It smells like skunk. (break)

Prabhupāda: They capture other birds.

Bhaktadāsa: Yes, right. They eat mice and birds.

Citsukhānanda: And chickens. They come flying, those chickens. (break)

Prabhupāda:. . . call gaj pat(?). They eat pigeons also. (break). . .not very clear. Dirty water. (break)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa:. . .of the trees in Seva-kuñj.

Prabhupāda: Mm. (break). . .those are exactly Indian color. (break) They have good facilities on this lake.

Citsukhānanda: They have one church here, Prabhupāda. It is Mormon church. It is not too far from here. It is very gigantic, and it's on a hill. And every Sunday they get maybe five to six thousand guests, because they have spent great money on a big complex. They have a library, museum and church. This is . . . We could also do this sometime, make one nice Indian temple. Thousands of visitors would come, even just tourists, from all over the world. They could probably come the same way. Ours would be much better, though.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Very good idea. (break). . .also very nice.

Bahulāśva: The lake?

Prabhupāda: Hmm. Due to that lake. (break)

Bahulāśva:. . .but no one can swim.

Prabhupāda: Ācchā?

Bahulāśva: That big lake in Chicago? No one can swim because of the pollution.

Prabhupāda: How they polluted, such a big lake?

Bahulāśva: By factories. Many factories are there.

Dharmādhyakṣa: They empty all their waste directly into the lake. All the fish are dying.

Prabhupāda: Here some fishy smell. (break)

Bahulāśva:. . .gentleman first has to understand that he's not the body. That psychologist gentleman has to understand he's not the body first.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. So, what did he say?

Bahulāśva: Yeah, he believes that there is soul and that you're not the body, and he's hoping that he'll be able to become more serious about studying Bhagavad-gītā to understand that more clearly.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Let him prove there is soul. That will be great service to the Western world, yes, if a scientist and philosopher, psychologist, proves that "Here is soul."

Bahulāśva: Śrīla Prabhupāda, how should they set out to prove it, though? We've proved it by giving scriptural evidence. But how should a scientist do it?

Prabhupāda: No, we prove it as a living man and dead man, we give that proof. What is the difference between this dead man and living man? What is losing? What is missing? This is the proof. If . . . I so many times spoken that son is crying, "My father is gone. My father . . ." "Where is your father gone? He is lying here. So what is gone? You have not seen it." This is the proof. Why do you cry, "Father is gone"? Father is lying here. Why do you say "gone"? So that means what is gone, you have never seen it. Now you perceive, "Yes, something was there. Now he is gone." This is the proof.

Bahulāśva: So our statements are also backed up by observation. The Gītā's statements are also backed up by observation.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Science means observation and experiment. That is science. You observe that this man is moving. There is something . . . (sound of someone calling from a distance) Invite him. (Prabhupāda calls:) You are invited. Come. (laughter)

Devotee: Personal invitation.

Dharmādhyakṣa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, the psychologist is in ecstasy every time he speaks to you.

Prabhupāda: Hmm. No, he is a good boy. Although I say, "You do not know anything." (laughter)

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: He didn't become angry?

Prabhupāda: No.

Brahmānanda: He admitted.

Prabhupāda: He is good man.

Bahulāśva: He has some humility.

Gurudāsa: You tell everyone that, and they come back for more. (Prabhupāda chuckles)

Bahulāśva: So science means observation, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Prabhupāda: Yes, observation and experiment.

Bahulāśva: And experiment.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is science. (break)

Gurudāsa:. . .to make an experiment by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda: No. Here is experiment, just like the dead man and living man. First of all, you observe that this man is moving or this animal is moving. There is some moving force. And the experiment is when the man and animal is dead, you can understand that the moving force is gone. This is experiment.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Your car is here, Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Jayatīrtha: We can walk further if you like.

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (break)

Siddha-svarūpa: The psychologist feels limited by the particular means of experimentation that have already been used by other psychologists.

Prabhupāda: What experiments they have made?

Siddha-svarūpa: Well, these particular tests and so on that they're using. So it seems that he ought to change. Because somebody started doing that, right? I mean, they didn't always use those tests. They always change different kinds of tests and everything. Instead of being limited, he should offer a new method of observation, a new method of tests.

Prabhupāda: It is simple, but because of their bad education they cannot understand the simple thing.

Bahulāśva: They want everything complicated.

Prabhupāda: Complicated. The experiment is there. Observation is there. Everything is there. And the eternity is there. Kṛṣṇa begins like reasonable gentleman, not humbug. He says, tathā-dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13), very good example, that "As in this body is changing from this stage to this stage, this stage, this stage, step by step, similarly," tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ, "similarly another body." So where is the difficulty to understand? So if this is accepted, then immediately you can accept that the soul which is changing body, he is eternal. Na jāyate na mriyate. Therefore he was never born, never died.

Jayatīrtha: When Arjuna came, he was suffering so much distress, but Kṛṣṇa did not give him any psychological test to see what was the matter with him. He immediately knew it was because he was in the bodily conception of life.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Prabhupāda, the thing is that you say that it is life which makes matter move, but the scientists, they don't accept that.

Prabhupāda: Because they are rascals. How it is moving?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say it's a certain combination of matter.

Prabhupāda: You make it. That means experiment. You simply observe, but you have no experiment. Therefore it is not science.

Brahmānanda: You have to demonstrate knowledge.

Prabhupāda: Yes, demonstrate. You make in the laboratory that things are moving by this combination. Otherwise it is useless. Therefore two things must be there: observation and experiment, practical and theoretical. Theoretical—something is there who is moving. Now you make it practical to see that this combination . . . Just like they say chemical combination. Now take the chemicals and make experiment.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, the thing is that they are now, in the test tube, they are making experiment, and they are putting a certain set of chemicals together, and maybe some soul takes shelter of those chemicals. But the scientists say that they get the credit for it. They don't say that the soul has entered. They say, "No, we have put different elements together, and now some . . ."

Prabhupāda: No.

Dharmādhyakṣa: They have never succeeded doing that.

Bahulāśva: They have never done that successfully.

Prabhupāda: And even they are successful, what is credit? So many living entities are coming every minute, and if after thousand years they can create one ant, so what is the credit? (laughter)

Bahulāśva: Śrīla Prabhupāda, now the impersonalists, they will accept that there's something in that body that's different than matter, but they won't admit that that's a person. They say that it's just some type of energy force, or they call it consciousness.

Brahmānanda: Not an individual person.

Prabhupāda: But we haven't got to hear from them. You take lesson from Kṛṣṇa.

Nalinī-kaṇṭa: Are they better situated than the person who doesn't accept it at all?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Nalinī-kaṇṭa: The impersonalists that denounce Kṛṣṇa, are they better than the person who is ignorant of eternity?

Prabhupāda: Who is he ignorant of?

Bahulāśva: The common man.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are the impersonalists better than the gross materialists?

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is Śaṅkara's philosophy: brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. That is his philosophy. Brahman means that spirit soul, that is fact. And this material external, that is false. A little advanced than the Buddha philosophy.

Bahulāśva: Śrīla Prabhupāda, how is it that they describe the soul, the impersonalists?

Prabhupāda: Because they have no eyes to see. They say that "The body is finished. Now . . ." Gatākāśa potakāśa. They give the example, just like within the pot there is sky, and outside the pot there is sky, and when the pot is broken, the within sky mixes with the outside sky.

Bahulāśva: So we say that within the pot, or the body, there is consciousness, and that remains eternally individual.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is said by Kṛṣṇa. It is not our imagination.

Bahulāśva: So the eternal characteristic of the self, then, is that he is pure consciousness.

Prabhupāda: Pure consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He knows that "I am part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa." That is pure consciousness.

Bahulāśva: And therefore His servant.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Part and parcel means servant. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Bahulāśva: Would you like to walk further, Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: No. What is the time now?

Bahulāśva: It's twenty to seven.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Let us go.

Jayatīrtha: It's time to go. (end)