View source for If the Vedic culture was a superior culture, how come man gave up the Vedic culture to take to the materialistic life?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1975]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="8" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1975 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1975 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="MorningWalkJuly111975Chicago_0" class="quote" parent="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="139" link="Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago" link_text="Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago">
<div class="heading">No one has given up. You are taking up. No one has given up... That's all right. Otherwise how you are getting if it was given up? How you are getting now? It was not given up. Who says it was given up?
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago|Morning Walk -- July 11, 1975, Chicago]]: </span><div style="display: inline;" class="text"><p style="display: inline;">(break)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda:  ...philosophy?</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Philosophy book.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: Philosophy book is waiting until...</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: No, Hayagrīva is editing it now.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: Oh, now? Jaya.</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: We're going to do some of the chapters in installments in Back to Godhead. We're going to do Darwin as soon as possible, in a month or two. (break)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: ...philosophy is the ultimate, Vedānta. Vedānta philosophy. And Bhāgavata is the commentary on the Vedānta philosophy. (break) ...Darwin's theory. Wherefrom he begins?</p>
<p>Jayatīrtha: He begins in the ocean. He says that some fish-type animal climbed out of the ocean and began to breathe the air.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then wherefrom the ocean came?</p>
<p>Devotee: He doesn't say.</p>
<p>Śrī Govinda: In the beginning on the planet there was great turbulence and the oceans were stirring, and then there was some lightning charge.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Wherefrom the lightning came? And wherefrom the ocean came? Where his philosophy is? It is a speculation.</p>
<p>Śrī Govinda: It all began from a primeval explosion.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then same question, wherefrom the explosion came?</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: They say that explosion began at time zero.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Huh?</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: Time zero. (laughter)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Time zero?</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: Time began then, at time zero. And they say that if you ask the question, "What was before that?" that's not a logical, sensible question.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Why?</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: They say it's a question that should not even be asked.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, then you are rascal. You are beginning from zero. How you can begin from zero?</p>
<p>Devotee: Everything comes from nothing then.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that is not philosophy.</p>
<p>Śrī Govinda: They say it all originates from a giant mass of primordial matter.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then same comes..., that "Wherefrom the matter comes?"</p>
<p>Harikeśa: They say it's an accident.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense, another rascaldom. Where is the accident? Nothing is accident, everything is cause and effect. We say that in the beginning there was God or word of God. In Bible they say?</p>
<p>Devotee: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So God was there and God's word was there. That is the beginning, our beginning. Janmādy asya yataḥ ([[Vanisource:SB 1.1.1|SB 1.1.1]]). Aham evāsam agre. And Bhagavad-gītā, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate ([[Vanisource:BG 10.8|BG 10.8]]). This is our philosophy, "Everything begins from God." Now you can say, "Wherefrom God came?" But that is God. God existing, He is not caused by any other cause, He is the original cause. Anādir ādiḥ: "He has no beginning, but He is the beginning of everything." This is conception of God. Anādir ādir govindaḥ (Bs. 5.1). That ādi is Govinda, person, Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says, aham ādir hi devānām (Bg 10.2). We find from the history. Brahmā is the beginning. He is deva, one of the demigods. Kṛṣṇa says, aham ādir hi devānām. So He is the cause of Brahmā also. So this is our philosophy. We don't begin from zero or accident. This is not our philosophy.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: Darwin never tried to understand the...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no, he admitted that he speculated. He is not a philosopher, he is a speculator. He has admitted that "It is my speculation. I think like this."</p>
<p>Harikeśa: He started his speculation from the creation of life. He didn't...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Anywhere, speculation is not science nor philosophy. We don't admit. No hypothesis.</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: They call the Vedas speculation. They say the Upaniṣads are speculation.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no, no, not speculation. Īśopaniṣad, īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam ([[Vanisource:ISO 1|ISO 1]]), everything beginning from īśa, the supreme controller... Where is speculation?</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They say that the Vedas are written by man so they are imperfect.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So you are less than a dog. It is written by man. That's all right. But you are less than a dog. You have no reason, no right. What is your philosophy? What is the value of your philosophy? It is speculation. We don't say, "It is written by man." Apauruṣeya. They may say whatever they..., we don't say. If somebody says, "Your father name is that," and I know my father's name. "What you are? You are not authority to say what is my father's name. I know very well." So it is their suggestion like that, "Your father's name is this." We don't say that "My father name is..." Is that very good suggestion? You don't know anything of my family. How you say that "Your father name is this?" Is it not another rascaldom? You do not know anything about my family, and you say that "Your father's name is this." What is this logic? You cannot say what is my father's name. You do not know about my family.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: Darwin's whole theory rests on the fact, the speculation, that he can show bones. They take these bones and these evidences, archeological...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Anyway, it is not possible that he has seen all the bones. That is not possible. So taking it that he has studied by seeing the bones, but I can say very easily that it is not possible for a person like you to see all the bones. That is my challenge. How you can say that you have seen all the bones? You say, "Millions and millions of years ago..." You live for fifty years. How you have seen all the bones? That is imperfect. You are a limited person. How it is possible that you have seen all the bones? What is the answer?</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: They say they haven't found all the bones, but what they've found is conclusive evidence.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: But then you cannot do that. If you have seen all the bones, then you can conclude. You say, "Some of the missing." So how it is fact? You did not see it.</p>
<p>Satsvarūpa: Just this year they found a skull that was millions of years older than any human skull they found before.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That's all right. But still, you cannot say that you have seen all the skulls. That is not possible.</p>
<p>Devotee: They will say they have not even found one skull from the Vedic culture.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh. No, Vedic culture do not keep skull, they burn it. Therefore there is no opportunity for you to see the Vedic culture. Then you become defective. Because you cannot see the skulls of Vedic culture. We burn it. So therefore your conclusion is defective.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: So the only bones they find are the bones of the fifth, sixth, seventh-class men.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, of the monkey-class men. (laughter) That's all. Therefore you conclude that the man comes from monkey. That is the conclu... Human being, Vedic culture, they burn it. So they have no opportunity to see the human being skull. The monkeys, they do not burn. So he has seen only the monkey skull, and his conclusion is, "Man is from monkey."</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: Actually they are simply interested in bones, but this is the activity of the dog. (laughter)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes, he finds, (laughter) like that. So it is dog's philosophy. Hare Kṛṣṇa. (break) ...history in the I.A., intermediate. So a big professor, Dr. Kalidasa Nath, he began to speak, "There was stone age, simply stone there was," in this way. And I immediately..., that "What nonsense you are speaking, stone? There was nothing?" According to the anthropology of Darwin... From the very beginning, when I was a student, I did not believe this Darwin's theory. (break) ...study one after another, chronologically, as Darwin says, skull, it is not possible at all. For any single man it is not possible.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: 8,400,000 species.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Has he gone down the water? Then what is the...? simply speculation.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Factual scientific study would mean to study all 8,400,000 species?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, that is scientific study. But that is not possible. Therefore your theory is always imperfect because you cannot say that "I have studied all." You simply guess, "There is some gap, millions of years." So this is not study.</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: They say even there's a missing link, a part that they cannot explain. So they admit...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that is not science.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: It's the most important part too.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Therefore we say they are rascals. And rascals will believe.</p>
<p>Jayatīrtha: Once you said the missing link was your foot in their face. (laughter) (break)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: ...logic also it is admitted that inductive logic is imperfect; deductive logic is perfect. (break) ...logic means śrota-panthā, paramparā, śruti, Vedic language, śruti. Śruti pramāṇa. Pramāṇa means evidence, and śruti means Veda. Pratyakṣa, anumāna, śruti. Pratyakṣa means direct, direct evidence, and anumāna, hypothesis. That is Darwin's theory, something like that. And śruti, Vedic. So out of these three kinds of evidences, śruti-pramāṇa is accepted as supreme, neither anumāna nor pratyakṣa. Pratyakṣa, you are seeing the sky, but you cannot say the length and breadth. You cannot say. You are seeing daily. If you say, "I have got this telescope," so that is an imperfect. and how you can see with your eyes directly, direct sense perception? Hypothesis, anumāna, guessing, that is also not perfect. And śruti, we take śruti from the perfect person, Kṛṣṇa. He says, aham evāsam agre: "Before the creation I was there." We take simply.</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: Prabhupāda, in the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says that in the beginning of creation He sent forth generations of men among the demigods. So the bones that they have found of those...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hm?</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: I said the bones that they have found so far...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Who?</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: Of the men that were living so many thousands of years ago.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: But they are not demigods.</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: No. But who are the bones... Where are those living entities now? Where they have gone?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: You can go to the higher planetary system and try to see there, bones of the demigods. Besides that, according to our śāstra, when Brahmā dies, then everything is finished. So you have no chance to see. Where is your chance? Because everything will be finished, you will be finished, everything finished, with the death of Brahma, so you cannot study Brahma's bones. Just like taste of potassium cyanide. As soon as you taste, you are finished. (laughter) So you cannot say what is the taste.</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: But the bones of those people that they've found, where are their bodies now? Have they gone to some other...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no, you might have found in your country. But that is not final that you have seen all the bones. (break) Darwin has... He is now dead. Now, even nowadays they are finding new bones. So how he studies perfect? He is now dead and gone.</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: Actually they are finding bones now, they claim, that challenge his theory. They are much older than what he ever thought. So they have to change all the calculations.</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: Even their method for dating the bones is defective also.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hm?</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: They have a scientific, not scientific, but they have a process how they date the bones. It's called the carbon 14 dating process, and it's been proved defective. (break)</p>
<p>Jayatīrtha: ...so many bones, they should draw the conclusion that the big problem is death.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (chuckles) That is impossible, sir. You lick up your bones, but you have to die. You have to lay down your bone now. (break)</p>
<p>Devotee: If the Vedic culture was a superior culture, how come man gave up the Vedic culture to take to the materialistic life? one</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No one has given up. You are taking up. No one has given up.</p>
<p>Devotee: But five thousands years ago...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That's all right. Otherwise how you are getting if it was given up? How you are getting now? It was not given up. Who says it was given up?</p>
<p>Devotee: Well, America was formed on a materialistic society.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: America may say, but if it was given up, then how you are getting now?</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: Now Americans are taking it up.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. How it is given up?</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: They will say that it became dormant. Not that many people liked it anymore so...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Not dormant. It is coming. It is coming. We have not lost it. It may be that a few people know it, but it is not lost. It is not that missing bone; it is not like that.</p>
<p>Devotee: They say like in Chicago they're so prosperous, but they don't worship Kṛṣṇa.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Who?</p>
<p>Devotee: Here in Chicago, there's so many big buildings and there's so much money.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So building, what you will do with building? You have to leave the building and go to hell. What you are doing for that? So long, fifty years, you can lick up the building. Then, after all, you will be thrown into the hell. Then what you are going to do about that? If you cannot stay in the building, then what is the use of constructing building? Suppose you construct one building here and the policeman..., "No, you cannot stay here." Still you construct building?</p>
<p>Devotee: They say they live for sixty years, so enjoy it while they can.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that is foolishness. You are making, (imitates piledrivers sound) "Dung! Dung!" very solid, but you are not going to live. The "Dung! Dung!" but that's all. This is called foolishness.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think there was one great personality—I forget his name—he was going to live as long as how many millions of years that he had hairs in his head. What is that story?</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: The story of the man who was on the beach...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ah, yes. Romaharṣaṇa. Romaharṣaṇa Muni was standing on beach and was chanting. So Nārada Muni was passing: "Then why don't you make a cottage here?" He was: "Oh, how long I shall...?" That, his life, was: when one hair will fall, one Brahmā will die. (laughter) And in this way all the hairs, when they will fall—all the Brahmās will die—then he will die. And he was thinking, "How...?" Actually that is a fact.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who was that, Romaharṣaṇa Muni?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Romaharṣaṇa. (break) ...basic principle of Vedic civlization. They did not... Vyāsadeva, such a learned scholar, he was sitting in a cottage. Lord Śiva, such a big powerful, and the whole material energy, Parvati, is his wife—he is sitting under a tree.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Therefore a sannyāsī is always moving around, Śrīla Prabhupāda?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Vairāgya. That is required. That is civilization. Vairāgya and jñāna. Jñāna-vairāgya, knowledge and renunciation, or detachment, this is the goal of human life. Because he is attached to this material world, he has to take birth after birth, birth after birth. So to save this botheration, one has to be detached. This is the basic principle of Vedic civilization, jñāna-vairāgya. And detachment is possible when one is in full knowledge, jñāna. And this bhakti-yoga process is detachment. Vairāgya-vidyā-nija-bhakti-yogam ([[Vanisource:CC Madhya 6.254|CC Madhya 6.254]]). So it is a civilization of detachment, not attachment.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That detachment is a form of wealth for the renounced order.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the gain of human life. Arthadam. This is meaning. Artha means meaning. Arthadam. Durlābhaṁ mānuṣaṁ janma tad apy adhruvam arthadam. This human life, form of life, is very, very rare. So one can say, "You will also die like cats and dog. How it is rare?" No, yes, adhruvam arthadam: "Although it is temporary, it will not stay, but you can have meaning of life." Adhruvam arthadam. Everything is there.</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The materialistic people say that... When they see someone in the detached position, they say, "He is impoverished." They are so confused that they conclude the opposite.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Impoverished?</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Impoverished means they are poor.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then what is the poor? What you are rich? You are whole day working day and night, and we are not working, getting our prasādam. I am poverty-stricken, or you are poverty-stricken? You rascal, whole day you are working...</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: For a dry biscuit.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: ...like an ass, and we are getting, sitting, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and getting our food. So you are poverty-stricken or I am poverty-stricken?</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: A poverty-stricken man has to work very hard.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Lakṣmī-nārāyaṇa: But they will say, "Well..."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They will say... First of all you see. You try to understand that this rascal is working day and night twenty-four hours for getting his food, and we are simply chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and getting our food. So he is poverty-stricken or I am poverty-stricken?</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: That means we're the rich men.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I am rich man.</p>
<p>Brahmānanda: Rich man doesn't have to work, and everything comes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, that is rich man. That is the explanation given by Marshall, a great economist. He says that unless one is obliged to work, nobody will work. That is his economic impetus. So the family affection gives impetus to work. He has to maintain the family. That is, he says, that is the beginning of economic development. Marshall theory. (break) ...kṛṣṇa-sambandhe yukta-vairāgyam ucyate. When there is attachment on account of Kṛṣṇa, that is detachment. Yukta-vairāgyam ucyate. He is attached to everything but not for his personal self. We are spending lakhs of rupees for constructing a temple, but we are not interested to construct a house or a skyscraper building. We are not interested. That is detachment. (break) We give up. Prāpañcikatayā buddhyā hari-sambandhe-vastunaḥ: "No, no, we don't touch money." Why? If the money can be utilized for constructing a nice temple for Kṛṣṇa, why we shall say, "We don't touch money"? Yes, give me as much money as you have got. Therefore you will find in India very, very big, big, costly temple, not skyscraper building. That is the sign. If any man had any money, he would spend it for Kṛṣṇa, not for his personal self. Personally he would be satisfied with a cottage. That is India's civilization. You will find in South India one temple is more than a fort, bigger. It is impossible to construct such temple nowadays. Still you will find in Vṛndāvana that broken Govindaji's temple. If you construct such temple, even crores and crores of rupees will not be sufficient. That was done by Mahārāja Mansingha, but you don't find any palace of Mansingha. He could have construct a palace there. No, he did not do. But for Govindaji, he spent so much money. There is no such thing, attachment, detachment. We must know that everything belongs to Kṛṣṇa, and we are servants of Kṛṣṇa. This knowledge is required. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And when you understand that everything is belonging to Kṛṣṇa, then the next sense is that why not everything be used for Kṛṣṇa? (break) ...theory is lost or not?</p>
<p>Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Who?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Bone theory, studying the bone.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: I think you've broken the bone theory. (laughter) (break)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (in car:) ...so where is your chance to study these colors?</p>
<p>Jayatīrtha: That is a perfect explanation.</p>
<p>Harikeśa: I'm going to send this tape and have them add that to the book. You defeated Darwin so quickly this morning it was wonderful.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, you can send. You have no chance to study. How you can theorize? (end)</p>
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