"Evolutionary Suffering"

Los Angeles, June 8, 1976


Prabhupada: We have got experience that a child is coming from the womb of the mother. So why we should suggest a nonsense creation, that there was a chunk and there was a creation? What is this? Talk on this point. Where is your experience that all of a sudden a chunk dropped and there was creation? We have got experience that creation is there. Mother is there, and a child is coming. This is the creation. So wherefrom this idea comes, that without father and mother, creation is possible? What is his argument? He is great scientist. Let him...

Hrdayananda: Chief rascal.

Radhavallabha: They say that nature takes care of it all.

Prabhupada: What? Then why nature did not take care of you? (laughter) Therefore you are rascal.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada? The trees, they produce seeds, and the seed drops on the ground, and than another tree comes.

Prabhupada: That's all right,

Ramesvara: There's no father. Simply...

Prabhupada: There is no father. That I understand. But the tree is coming from the earth. So that is in anywhere. Just like the father gives the seed in the womb of the mother, and she produces the body and it comes out. The seed is coming from the father. And that is explained in the Bhagavad-gita: bijo'ham sarva-bhutanam [Bg 7.10]. The seed comes from the father, that you cannot deny. Mother, without seed, cannot be pregnant and cannot give child. That is our experience. Nature is mother, and the seed is given by the father.

Ramesvara: In science, the biologists teach that there are small animals, very small, called amoebas. And when they reproduce, they simply divide themselves into two; there is no sex, there is no father.

Prabhupada: That's all right. So two or three or four or five coming from the life. The amoeba is a life. Not that from any stone it is coming. The life is coming from life. But in a different way.

Radhavallabha: Previously the scientists used to say that they would put dirty laundry and rotten garbage in a box. Then a few weeks later they would find rats. So they said that rats are made from garbage. So then everyone -- this was presented as a very laughable theory. And then the next theory that was presented as the actual one was that life came from chemicals.

Prabhupada: First of all, life comes from rats (laughs). Every year, they are changing their theories.

Pusta Krsna: Actually, their philosophy came from rats.

Prabhupada: Hmm? What is that philosophy? Rat philosophy? This is called vrscika-tandula-nyaya in Sanskrit. The scorpion is coming from the stock of rice. Actually, the scorpions they lay egg within the stock of rice, and by fermentation the eggs become scorpion and come out. Not that the rice is producing scorpion.

Radhavallabha: The scientists know about that, and they say yes, that is very laughable, primitive. But their new theory is simply that life comes from chemicals. So it is actually the same thing.

Hrdayananda: Yes, because life is also chemicals.

Pusta Krsna: But the fact is that they cannot even manufacture a tiny seed which will fructify.

Prabhupada: Yes, let them manufacture a seed. From that seed a big tree will come.

Ramesvara: They cannot do that.

Prabhupada: Then?

Candanacarya: Some devotees are saying that cockroaches are coming from the vapors of impure things.

Prabhupada: Yes, they come. That is called sveda-ja. Just like from perspiration, bugs are coming out. Sveda-ja.

Radhavallabha: So isn't that life coming from matter?

Prabhupada: Not matter. From matter is not coming, but they are taking birth.

Hari-sauri: That's the atmosphere that they get born into.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Radhavallabha: So are they coming from eggs, or how are they coming? Just the soul enters the dirt?

Prabhupada: No. Just like it is a suitable circumstance from which the living entity makes his body.

Radhavallabha: But how has the cockroach been formed?

Prabhupada: Just like embryo. The living entity comes of the two secretions of father and mother emulsified. It creates a situation so that he can stay there and develop a body.

Radhavallabha: But it requires some emanation from a cockroach body in order to create another cockroach body. So how can a cockroach body be created from vapors without contact of another cockroach?

Prabhupada: No, no. Vapor does not create. The individual soul comes there according to his karma and, in that condition, he develops his body. Karmana daiva-netrena jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1].

Ramesvara: So the seed of.... The soul is within the vapor?

Prabhupada: The seed, when it is put into the earth, a situation is created so the soul can develop into a tree.

Radhavallabha: But how would the soul develop a particular body...?

Prabhupada: That is Yamaraja is.... We are reading the Yamaraja incident(?). That's all.

Pusta Krsna: Just like how can a living entity take birth in the fire?

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Pusta Krsna: The argument is that how can an entity take birth in perspiration? His question. So how can a living entity take birth in the fire? Mostly our experience is that entities are taking birth from the earth, but according to the understanding...

Prabhupada: So how the fishes are born in the water? How the other living entities, they remain in the air? Or without air? There are five elements: earth, water, fire, air.... Anywhere, the living entities can take birth. Sarva-ga. Sthanur sarva-gatah acalo 'yam. You read all these words of Bhagavad-gita. Sarva-ga. From anywhere, he can take birth.

Devotee: Do the living entities who are born from perspiration require a mother and father?

Prabhupada: No. No. There is mother. That perspiration is mother.

Radhavallabha: So the reason why they get a particular body...

Prabhupada: And the father is God.

Radhavallabha: So they are just getting a particular body just due to Yamaraja.

Prabhupada: Yes, according to the decision of the Yamaraja, he has to get a particular type of body.

Radhavallabha: The scientists don't know this.

Hari-sauri: It's very confusing, Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Confusing must be. How you can understand the subtle laws of God? You have dull brain, with cow dung. (laughs) You cannot understand.

Arcita: So according to the Christians, Srila Prabhupada, Jesus Christ was born without contact of any material father. He was divinely placed in the womb of Mary.

Prabhupada: That's all right. Divinely placed by the Father is God. That's all. You cannot deny the fact. And he claims: "I am son of God." Then, what is the argument?

Arcita: Is there any such experience in the Vedic literatures, Srila Prabhupada? An example we can cite also?

Prabhupada: No, no, Vedic literature, apart from. Your argument, that without father, how it is without father? Without father, there is no question of birth; without mother, there is no question of birth. Our point is that without father there is no creation.

Ramesvara: Prabhupada, when a living entity is in an animal body, and when he quits his body, there's no karma, he's just automatically promoted to a higher body?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: So then...

Prabhupada: Animal life means there is no sin. It is promotion. Because they are animal, their consciousness is not developed. Just like a child -- a child, if he steals, that is not sin. He will not be criminally charged. He is child. A dog goes left to the right or right to the.... He is not criminal. But if you do, you are criminal.

Ramesvara: So Yamaraja does not direct the movements of the living entities as they are going automatically from animal body to higher body.

Prabhupada: An animal is not jurisdiction of Yamaraja. The man is in the jurisdiction of.... Just like law is meant for man, not for the cats and dogs.

Ramesvara: So what determines the different varieties of dogs and cats if they are just automatically being...?

Prabhupada: Not automatically. You are man. If you develop a dog's mentality, the Yamaraja puts you in the dog's body. And then you again develop, come to the man's body. That means your term of imprisonment finished. You become again man. Now again decide. And again if you become a dog's mentality, again go. This is going on.

Radhavallabha: The different varieties of suffering within the animal species are due to the different varieties of sinful activities in the human life?

Prabhupada: Yes. And they, then they automatically come. Just as your term of imprisonment, by day's gone, it is finished, again you are free. Similarly, by natural development from dogs or cockroaches or from this or that, there is a process of development. You come to the human form of body. Then again you decide whether you go down or you go back to home, back to Godhead. That is your choice. If you want to go down, go again. Otherwise, tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti [Bg. 4.9], come here. So make your choice.

Ramesvara: So the living entity who is in the lower body like insects or plants...

Prabhupada: Yes. They will come automatically to the human form of body, by promotion.

Ramesvara: And he passes through all the species?

Prabhupada: Oh, yes.

Ramesvara: So he has no desire to fly, but still he passes through bird species.

Prabhupada: No, just like child is taken care of. Child does not know what he is doing, but the father, mother, taking care of.

Hari-sauri: He's taken through stages.

Prabhupada: So mother nature takes care to bring him again to the grown-up youthful life. Now you make your decision. So, if you don't make your decision, the knowledge is there, the books are there, if you don't make your decision, still you want to remain as cats and dogs, again begin.

Devotee: Do most humans go down to the animal species again after human life?

Pusta Krsna: Do most human beings fall down into the animal species?

Prabhupada: Not necessarily. He can become a stool worm. (laughter)

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, what is the value for the living entity to automatically pass through all these different species? Does he get any knowledge?

Prabhupada: To, to finish his life of imprisonment.

Ramesvara: How is it benefiting him?

Prabhupada: He's corrected. Benefit is he's corrected. After undergoing so many species of life, he is corrected and again he is brought to the human form of life, civilized form of life. Let him make his choice. If he again makes his choice, go down to become a stool worm. Go! That is nature's.... Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani-guna, according to qualities he has taken. Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah ahankara-vimudhatma: [Bg. 3.27] the rascal, being proud, "Now I have got this life, civilized life. I can do whatever I like to. Ah, there is no God." Then God comes as death and puts you again to become a worm in stool. That's all.

Duryodhana-guru: Srila Prabhupada, in the Seventh Canto you mention that there are certain species of human life for whom certain sinful activities they don't receive any reaction.

Prabhupada: Yes, uncivilized, they are like animals.

Duryodhana-guru: So they can perform, like, let's say for example, intoxication or meat-eating, and they won't receive any sinful reaction?

Prabhupada: Yes, oh, yes. No. Because they are uncivilized. And you claim to be civilized and you are killing animals? Must be responsible.

Arcita: Srila Prabhupada, those who come up from the animal species, do they automatically get a chance to contact Krsna consciousness, or do they, might be born in low family, or...

Prabhupada: No, they get.... Just like we are opening centers, we are giving chance to everyone. If he takes opportunity, he can become realized.(indistinct) Kirata-hunandhra-pulinda-pulkasa [SB 2.4.18]. That is the duty of devotees, to raise everyone to the sense of Krsna consciousness. But if one is unfortunate, he does not take the advantage.

Hari-sauri: It's a question of fortune then, in the human form, to get that.

Prabhupada: Yes. Obstinacy. If you take the worm from the stool, aside, it will go again to the stool. You see? Again it will.

Bharadvaja: Srila Prabhupada, there's still, within all the different species, there are still different varieties. What accounts for all these varieties?

Prabhupada: Varieties of the body, according to the mentality.

Bharadvaja: According to karma?

Prabhupada: Yes, according to karma at the time of death, mind is saturated in that way, and he gets a body, that's all.

Mahendra: And then, after, say if a human being falls down into the animal species, after that, does he go through each and every one of these species successively? Even there are different types of dogs, he becomes each different type of dog?

Prabhupada: Oh, yes, oh, yes. That is Darwin's gradual evolution.

Mahendra: Except this is evolution of consciousness, growing bigger.

Prabhupada: Darwin has captured that portion, how the body is changing one after another.

Duryodhana-guru: Srila Prabhupada, in Bhagavad-gita it is said sucinam srimatam gehe yoga-bhrasto 'bhijayate [Bg. 6.41]. So, for somebody who is now a disciple of the Krsna consciousness movement, are we to understand if he is not born in a family of devotees and if he is not born in an aristocratic family, that he was not a yogi in his past life?

Prabhupada: Eh? Past life, they had some good deeds. Therefore they have come to Krsna consciousness movement. It is called ajnata-sukrti. Besides that, whatever he may be in the past life, the movement is there, it is open for everyone. Everyone can come and take advantage, despite whatever he did in his past life. It doesn't matter. If he comes and if he is fortunate, if he chants, then he becomes advanced.

Duryodhana-guru: This is Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's special mercy.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, you were explaining to the reporter yesterday that the difference between the animal and the human is that the animal cannot think of God; he has no religion. So, when the living entity is passing through these different species, he doesn't have sufficient knowledge of...

Prabhupada: No knowledge. That is animal. That is animal.

Ramesvara: Then how is he benefited? You explained it, as he is being promoted he is being corrected.

Prabhupada: Corrected, yes.

Ramesvara: But if he cannot understand God...

Prabhupada: No, there is no need of.... Different stages of body.... Just like you are going up one step, another step, another step. There is no need of going, "What is this?" But you are going up, step by step.

Mahendra: In the Bhagavad-gita, you explain that one takes a specific birth due to a specific degree of lust.

Prabhupada: Yes, mental situation.

Candanacarya: Srila Prabhupada, you once said that if someone is not attracted to chanting Hare Krsna, that he is being punished by Yamaraja.

Prabhupada: Yes. Apana karama bhunjaye samana kahaye locana dasa.

Danavir: Srila Prabhupada, sometimes when we're preaching to people that we don't eat meat, fish or egg, they say,"Why not eggs? They're not actually living. It's just a, it hasn't been fertilized."

Prabhupada: Then that's a rascal. You explain it, explain to him that why they cannot make an egg by chemical composition and give for fermentation and a chicken may come. Why do they not do that? Why they are taking eggs from hens? Why do they not chemically manufacture egg?

Bharadvaja: Must have life.

Prabhupada: That is rascaldom. If that is a fact, that there is no life, then you prepare egg. What is there? Some white chemicals. A little yellow. You can do it.

Ramesvara: Just like abortion. They have a process to take the egg from the hen, and they make sure that the egg will not grow into a chicken. It is like an abortion.

Prabhupada: That's all right. The life is there. You make some arrangement that it will not take part. That is another thing. If it is a fact that the egg is not life, then why you rascal do not manufacture a chemical egg and get a chicken? Why you rascal talking nonsense? That is our challenge. We say "rascals" not without consideration, because actually they talk like nonsense. Rascals. They cannot do, and still they'll insist they will do. That is rascal. Is it all right? (laughs) South, South America, er, South Africa, there are so many factories of begetting chicken.

Pusta Krsna: The Rainbow Chicken Factory.

Prabhupada: Yes, the chicken factory, but they're taking the eggs from chicken. Why not manufacture small egg and give to the fermentation and come? There is no question of killing animals. Why they are taking?

Radhavallabha: They say God has provided it for us for food.

Prabhupada: That's all right. Then you become a dog. God has provided you a dog's body. Take advantage of it and bark. (laughter) Protest. "Why You have made me? Why You are doing?" (laughter)

Radhavallabha: When I was in the hospital, right next to me there was one yogi, and a girl yogi came to instruct him every day.

Prabhupada: Girl?

Radhavallabha: Yes. (laughter) One of her instructions was, the first instruction was that you can do anything you want. You just cannot be attached to it.

Prabhupada: Then suffer. Why you have come to hospital? If you have become attached to the suffering...

Passerby: Good morning!

Prabhupada: Good morning. Thank you, Hare Krsna.

Devotees: Hare Krsna.

Passerby: Oh, isn't that nice.

Radhavallabha: So the whole time he was in the hospital, all he talked about was how much he was suffering.

Prabhupada: Don't be attached. (laughs) Rascal. Don't be attached. (devotees laugh)

Ramesvara: But the.... Certain psychologists are very, very interested in trying to put a person under hypnosis, and then he can talk about experiences he has had in his past lives. They are very eager to have a person under a certain condition where he will remember experiences from his past life.

Prabhupada: So why the psychiatrist does not remember? Why he does not remember?

Ramesvara: They say that only certain people have the ability to remember.

Prabhupada: Certain rascals.

Candanacarya: They hypnotize them, and they say, "Remember your last life."

Prabhupada: And whatever nonsense he says, it is all right.

Candanacarya: Yes.

Ramesvara: Is that possible, that the living entity can remember?

Prabhupada: He can remember, but not these rascals' mechanical process.

Hari-sauri: They say they take him into the subconscious and they extract thoughts from the subconscious.

Prabhupada: But they say certain people can be done. That means it is nonsense. If it is a fact, if it is a process, then everyone can remember. Why certain? That is their jugglery of words. Cheating.

Mahendra: They also say, Srila Prabhupada, that since little children, little infants...

Prabhupada: Stop them, all rascals.

Ramesvara: [break].... ability that they have studied, they call it ESP, or extrasensory perception, and by this the ability to see through the eyes is greatly increased, and you can, like sometimes they have a playing card and they turn it face down, and the man can guess what is the actual card, and they have all these games, and, in this way they say certain people have special powers.

Prabhupada: As soon as they say "certain people," that is not fact.

Candanacarya: Actually, they say that potentially everyone has these powers, but some are more developed than others. Also the powers to understand each other's thoughts. (someone passes with a portable radio hearing a news broadcast)

Prabhupada: Hare Krsna.

Ramesvara: The only hope is to read your books, Srila Prabhupada.

Devotees: Jaya.

Prabhupada: Not my books, Krsna's books.

Hrdayananda: It's time to go back.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Duryodhana-guru: In Bhagavad-gita it is stated, nityah sarva-gatah sthanuh. So sarva-gatah, meaning the living entity is all-pervading, this is nominative singular.

Prabhupada: Not all-pervading, everyone can go, gatah, one who can go anywhere.

Duryodhana-guru: Oh, so that's the understanding, because the impersonalists' understanding, they could say that the living entity is actually God by saying that he is all-pervading, sarva-gatah. They could interpret it in this way.

Prabhupada: But you ask him, you are sarva-gatah? If you are intelligent you should have asked him, are you sarva-gatah? What he'll answer?

Duryodhana-guru: Well, he'll have to say, "No, not in this stage of life. Once I become liberated, then I will be." (devotees laugh)

Prabhupada: (laughs) Just see the jugglery of words. Now why you forgot yourself? You are sarva-gatah; now why you are conditioned? Why?

Duryodhana-guru: Well, couldn't answer, I guess.

Prabhupada: That is nonsense. (devotees laugh)

Radhavallabha: Sarva-gatah tomorrow.

Nalinikantha: When I'm liberated, I'll be able to answer you.

Prabhupada: If you are not liberated, why you are talking nonsense? Then you are a nonsense. You are not liberated, you cannot talk correct things. Don't talk. If you are not liberated, whatever you are talking, you are nonsense. So why you are misleading people? First of all, be liberated, then talk.

Bharadvaja: What is the position of Dhruva Maharaja, Srila Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: Hmm? He was a devotee, that's all. He never said that "I am God."

Ramesvara: Sometimes devotees argue that "Dhruva Maharaja, he had a material desire, and still he became perfect. So I can keep my material desires."

Prabhupada: No, when he gave up material desires, svamin krtartho 'smi varan na yace, "I don't want anything," then he became liberated. So long he had material desires, he was not liberated. When he refused to possess anything material, svamin krtartho 'smi varan na yace, then he became liberated.

Hari-sauri: But say, like Daksa, he saw Lord Visnu and he had a desire for sex.

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Hari-sauri: Daksa. So he was still having sex desire, but he saw Lord Visnu.

Prabhupada: What is that?

Hari-sauri: So then someone could argue, use that as an argument for returning.

Prabhupada: Seeing Visnu is not liberation. Just like when Krsna was present, so many people saw Him. Does it mean that everyone became liberated?

Hari-sauri: It's a question of understanding His position.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: Just like now many people are seeing you, Srila Prabhupada, but only a few are getting the benefit. Everyone is getting benefited in some way, but only a few are understanding.

Prabhupada: Apart from me, even one sees Krsna.... There were so many. But it is said that in the battlefield, everyone who died seeing Krsna, he got liberation.

Candanacarya: You once said if someone sees sankirtana and wonders "Who are those people?" then they are ten times more advanced than the greatest scientist.

Prabhupada: Yes. What is our test? Just explain. In the morning...

Hari-sauri: Oh. Prabhupada was explaining to the reporters yesterday, one man was asking what Prabhupada's opinion was about these other yogis. So he said, he quoted a verse in the Bhagavad-gita that if someone does not know Krsna, then he's either a fool, or he's a rascal or he's the lowest of mankind, or his knowledge is...

Prabhupada: Most sinful.

Hari-sauri: Most sinful, or his knowledge is stolen by illusion. [break]

Bharadvaja: I understand, Srila Prabhupada, that the pure devotee can be as pervasive as Supersoul?

Prabhupada: Hmm?

Bharadvaja: By the mercy of Supersoul, he can be present in many places at once?

Prabhupada: Yes. By the grace of Krsna, a devotee can become anything.

Duryodhana-guru: So in other words that means the pure devotees can be omniscient?

Prabhupada: Everything. God is omniscient, so a pure devotee can become omniscient by the grace of God.

Radhavallabha: Srila Prabhupada explains that Varuna is omniscient.

Duryodhana-guru: Varuna?

Radhavallabha: It's in Fourth Canto.

Madhusudana: Srila Prabhupada, how come that in the sastra sometimes there are verses that are slightly doubtful about...

Prabhupada: Whenever there is doubtful, go to your...

Madhusudana: Just like it will have something that has perhaps two meanings, you can't...

Prabhupada: Huh? There cannot be two meanings. Tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet [MU 1.2.12]. In order to understand, go to your guru.

Madhusudana: In other words, sometimes it says Krsna comes Himself, and actually the meaning is that He comes as His incarnation like Lord Buddha, but the verse seems to say that it's the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, and without your purport it's not possible..., it's almost left so that you can be fooled, as if it's a covering, a special covering so that nondevotees cannot understand it.

Prabhupada: The Supreme Personality cannot come? It is said there?

Madhusudana: No, it says He comes in the form of Lord Buddha, but I remember it was a great misunderstanding that Buddha was...

Prabhupada: He can come in any form He likes, not particularly as Lord Buddha. He's coming as fish, He's coming as tortoise, He's coming as boar, so why as Lord Buddha?

Madhusudana: But you explain that Lord Buddha is not visnu-tattva, but that He is sakty-avesa-avatara.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Madhusudana: But the verse says the Supreme Lord will come Himself, so one tends to think, well, Lord Buddha is the Supreme Lord Himself, but actually without your purport we wouldn't understand that He's sakty-avesa.

Prabhupada: So the sakti is Krsna. Sakti-saktimator abhedah. The sakti, energy, and the energetic, they're identical.

Duryodhana-guru: But sometimes also the Supreme Lord comes Himself as sakty-avesa-avatara.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Duryodhana-guru: Saksat variety.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Arcita: Srila Prabhupada, just like in this material body there are so many millions of living entities, but there's one living entity, myself, who's thinking that "I am this body." Is it the same way in the spiritual body -- there are many living entities in one body but there's one living entity who's thinking that "I am this body"?

Prabhupada: Explain.

Pusta Krsna: There's many living entities within the body. Just like there's tiny germs, worms, all kinds of living beings. Because of our attachment, our particular modes of material nature, karanam guna-sango 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu [Bg. 13.22], we are identifying with this material body.

Arcita: Is it the same in the spiritual body? Is it the same in the spiritual body? Is the spiritual body actually composed of many living entities, but there's one living entity...

Pusta Krsna: The spiritual body is identical with the soul. Here in the material world there is duality, inferior and superior. In the spiritual world everything is of a superior nature. There is no duality. There's no material.

Prabhupada: Petrol smelling everywhere.

Pusta Krsna: It's from these automobiles, the exhaust. They say that in some cities like New York, just living in the city itself, it is like smoking two packs of cigarettes every day because of so much pollution in the air, so contaminated. [break]...in the Srimad-Bhagavatam that the cure for madness is open space and fresh air. That's Ayurvedic method. So in the cities there's all kinds of confined spaces, the air is not all clean. There's so much madness. [break]

Prabhupada: (in car) Scientists are changing their theories, how we can accept? Reasonably? You are changing your theories, how we can accept you are scientist? You are not sure of your position. Philosophers also, they say "I believe." What is the meaning of this philosophy?

Hari-sauri: They simply give their own opinion about something and present that as being fact, and everyone else has their own.

Prabhupada: I have got my own opinion. Or anyone can have his own opinion. Why your opinion should be accepted? I have got.... [break] ...is that one does not understand that he is imperfect. Or he knows that he is imperfect, still, he wants to push forward his opinion. That is the difficulty. He knows he's imperfect. But he does not think that "I am imperfect. What is the value of my opinion?"

Ramesvara: If I have a bigger brain than someone else, and if I give my...

Prabhupada: Comparatively, you are less crazy. That is another thing.

Hari-sauri: "My idea may not be perfect, but it's better than yours," that's their idea.

Prabhupada: That's all right. That is not your secure position. One child is older than the, another child. That does not mean he is a grown-up.

Ramesvara: [break] ...means to know who your father is.

Prabhupada: Yes, certainly.

Ramesvara: Srila Prabhupada, I was once told by some devotees that you had said in some previous age of Kali, the dinosaurs, gigantic animals, were on the earth.

Prabhupada: I said?

Ramesvara: They say that you said. (laughs)

Prabhupada: (laughs) I never said. I never bother with these nonsense things.

Ramesvara: They have got so many bones in the museums showing these gigantic animals.

Prabhupada: Not gigantic. There are bones. But that animal is still there, whalefish.

Ramesvara: Whalefish.

Prabhupada: Oh, yes. Very big body.

Ramesvara: Some have become extinct.

Prabhupada: Why they should be extinct?

Hrdayananda: No longer on the earth.

Ramesvara: No longer on this planet.

Prabhupada: (too much noise) Not necessarily. They are within the ocean.

Hari-sauri: No, other animals.

Prabhupada: What other animals?

Ramesvara: Those gigantic, they called them...

Hrdayananda: Brontasaurus.

Ramesvara: Tyrannasaurus. Gigantic animals, they say are meat-eaters.

Hrdayananda: Dinosaurus.

Hari-sauri: Tetrasaurus.

Prabhupada: Another imagination. These are actual facts.(?)

Hari-sauri: They just made up different compositions of bones and then drew some outlines on them.

Prabhupada: Yes. They are imagination.

Hari-sauri: But you said in Hawaii though that there are some animals that are as big as skyscrapers?

Prabhupada: Yes, these are birds. It is far from this earth though. They travel from one planet to another.

Ramesvara: So these bones that they have found of these gigantic animals, they were all living underneath the water.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: Not on the land.

Prabhupada: Maybe. But the list is there: jalaja nava-laksani. There are 900,000 different forms, and how many we have seen? There is information in the sastra. Pasavas trimsal-laksani. Three million different types of animals.

Hari-sauri: We've seen a few hundred at most.

Prabhupada: That's all. (laughs) That is also doubtful.

Ramesvara: Krsna incarnates into every species of life. He can appear in any form.

Prabhupada: Yes. Otherwise, why the form came? Janmady asya yatah [SB 1.1.1]. If we have to accept this sutra, that everything emanates from Him, so unless Krsna has got such similar form...?

Hari-sauri: That's one argument that always defeats the impersonalists. They can't explain how forms have come from something without form.

Prabhupada: Impersonalists are neophytes. My Guru Maharaja used to say, "With poor fund of knowledge." Their knowledge is imperfect.

Ramesvara: Yesterday you were telling a reporter that it is not possible for modern man to travel to the moon, but in your Second Canto you describe that in a previous age of Kali the men had created mechanical means for going to other planets, and they were creating havoc all over the universe, and Lord Buddha appeared to stop their nonsense.

Prabhupada: Lord Buddha?

Ramesvara: I remember.... [break]

Prabhupada: ...they are all mythology. Do they not say?

Ramesvara: Yes.

Prabhupada: Therefore, I'm stressing on this point, that it is not mythology. It is fact. It is history. [break]

Ramesvara: ...they are sending their sputniks to..., with televisions.

Prabhupada: They can never stay there. They're coming back.

Ramesvara: No.

Prabhupada: They cannot go there.

Ramesvara: But they have TV camera on the sputnik, and the sputnik is flying over the planet, and they are filming it, and they don't see any life. That is their argument.

Prabhupada: No, we have got our own argument, that the other planet is as good as this planet. If this planet is full of life, why the other not? Analogy. Analogy is also another science.

Ramesvara: Sometimes, you write in the Krsna book that the demigods can come to this planet invisible.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Ramesvara: So, if ordinary man went to some other planet through his sputnik, would he be able to see the demigods?

Prabhupada: No, why not? Some men arguing that.... Because he did not see, it does not mean there is no life. That they cannot say. Just like in the water we don't see. Superficially.

Hrdayananda: Yeah, if they take a sputnik...

Prabhupada: Eh?

Hrdayananda: If they take a camera over the water, they won't see any life.

Ramesvara: Or over the fire, they will not see any life on the sun...

Prabhupada: No.

Ramesvara: ...with their camera.

Hrdayananda: Even over the earth, you can't see any life. They took pictures of the earth.

Prabhupada: That, that is their defect, that their eyes are defective. They cannot go there. That they will not accept. The camera which they manufactured, that is also defective. Because you have manufactured it. You are defective. Your senses are defective. Therefore, in the Vedic literature: "Don't try to see with your eyes, but try to see by ear, sruti. " Sastra-caksusa. You should accept as your eyes the sastras. Not your so-called eyes. (end)

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles