View source for We can't predict that the process of punishment will have permanent effect, can we? Can we predict that? Many prisoners leave the prison, but some come back

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{{compiler|Visnu Murti}}
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[[Category:Cannot]]
[[Category:Prediction]]
[[Category:Process Of]]
[[Category:Punishment]]
[[Category:Will Have]]
[[Category:Permanent]]
[[Category:Effect]]
[[Category:We Can]]
[[Category:Many]]
[[Category:Prison]]
[[Category:Leave]]
[[Category:some]]
[[Category:Come Back]]
[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1971]]
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<div id="Lectures" class="section" sec_index="4" parent="compilation" text="Lectures"><h2>Lectures</h2>
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<div id="Philosophy_Discussions" class="sub_section" sec_index="13" parent="Lectures" text="Philosophy Discussions"><h3>Philosophy Discussions</h3>
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<div id="PhilosophyDiscussiononHenriBergson_0" class="quote" parent="Philosophy_Discussions" book="Lec" index="6" link="Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson" link_text="Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson">
<div class="heading">No, there is no permanent effect because we have got little independence. There is nothing as permanent. You can misuse your independence at any time. Otherwise there is no meaning of independence. Independence means you can do this, you can do that. "All right. Whatever you like."
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson|Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Śyāmasundara: But can we predict, can we tell in advance what there will be, what is the future?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: The future is to go back to home, back to Godhead. That is the ultimate future. But because he's not intelligent, he has to be kicked on his face very strongly by the (indistinct). That is the foolish man. And if one is intelligent, he can tell immediately, "Oh, my duty is to serve Kṛṣṇa." That's all. "Why I am trying to serve my senses?" But to come to this platform, this understanding that "I am eternal servant of God. My business is to serve Kṛṣṇa," it requires (indistinct); therefore the māyā is there. Just like police force. The police force is there after the criminal, just to teach him that "You cannot (indistinct) the laws of the state. When you are under our supervision, and we shall simply kick on your face, that is our business." So māyā is always kicking on the face, and (s)he is creating varieties, that's all. This is called conditional life.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: So that much is predictable, that for...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: You can see it is not predictable, it is actually happening. Everyone is trying to be happy, but he is being frustrated. Everyone can see. They are manufacturing different ways of material happiness but becoming frustrated. This is māyā's kicking. There is no question of prediction. Any man who has got a little intelligence, he can see.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: So someone can understand, someone can know what the life force is going to do in the future, how it will manifest itself in the future?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: The future, because he is eternally servant of God, so now he has forgotten. He wants to become master, and the material nature is kicking him, life after life. So one day he'll come to his senses and become again, renovate himself to become servant of God.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: So we can predict that everyone will...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Everyone will be. Somebody sooner, somebody later.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: So that the purpose of the life force then is to eventually go back...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Just like when a man becomes a prisoner, he will be freed, he'll be a free man at the end of his term, and within this term he is simply kicked by the police, so that he may not come back again to prison house.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: But we can't predict that the process of punishment will have permanent effect, can we? Can we predict that? Many prisoners leave the prison, but some come back.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, there is no permanent effect because we have got little independence. There is nothing as permanent. You can misuse your independence at any time.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: And come back.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise there is no meaning of independence. Independence means you can do this, you can do that. "All right. Whatever you like."</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: His conception of the soul, which he calls elan vital in French language, means the vital impulse.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Vital..., this is living force, vital force. (indistinct), it is never addressed. God has (indistinct) for the mind, for the intelligence, for the body, God has (indistinct).</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Is it (indistinct) in the same quantity in every body, in every living body?</p>
<p> Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Same quantity. The same measurement: one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: I mean the energy, the amount of energy.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. That much, that spiritual energy is everywhere, in the ant or in the elephant.</p>
<p>Atreya Ṛṣi: Prabhupāda, you mentioned the size of the soul, and this size seems to connote a physical size. Now, my question is: in the spiritual world, size, it seems that it is a material concept, it is a relative thing, distance...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Material size and spiritual size is not the same. Spiritual size is permanent; material size is changing.</p>
<p>Atreya Ṛṣi: In other words, how could you measure the spiritual phenomenon with something like one-thousandth of the tip of the hair? Hair is material.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No. Because you have no spiritual vision, therefore you have to be understood by material example.</p>
<p>Atreya Ṛṣi: That's an example.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
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