View source for How one can supremely control all conditions that would free one from karmic reaction? How could they control the environment?

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[[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="PhilosophyDiscussiononBFSkinner_0" class="quote" parent="Philosophy_Discussions" book="Lec" index="21" link="Philosophy Discussion on B. F. Skinner" link_text="Philosophy Discussion on B. F. Skinner">
<div class="heading">He says from childhood. Infant. Yes. That is possible. That is possible. Just like our children, from childhood they are dancing.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Philosophy Discussion on B. F. Skinner|Philosophy Discussion on B. F. Skinner]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Prabhupāda: Śyāmasundara: What about this statement? He says that "I can take any person at young age, any person with me, any person, and I can, at random, and I can train him to be any kind of specialist I might select-doctor, lawyer, even beggarman or thief, regardless of his talents or his nature, his tendencies or abilities."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that means training should be given from childhood. That is the whole idea.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: But is that true?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: We can train anyone to become anything.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Anything. Just like there is a story, the Tarzan. Tarzan. And he was living in the society of monkeys, and he learned how to jump from one tree to another. (laughter)</p>
<p>Devotee: If someone has a natural kṣatriya tendency, he cannot become a Vaiṣṇava?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No. There is no such barrier. Anyone can become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Anyone. Just like...</p>
<p>Devotee: What about brāhmaṇa? Brāhmaṇa too? Someone who is naturally a (indistinct).</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: By coming...</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Everyone has become śūdra now. You say everyone is born śūdra.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Devotee: In the Vedic age wouldn't everyone want to become a brāhmaṇa? Why train someone as a śūdra?</p>
<p>Devotee (2): It is progressive. It takes time. It is a whole progressive path. That is the whole Vedic culture, that everyone, no matter what...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: And all the śūdras can be made brāhmaṇas. But where all the śūdras are coming? All the śūdras are ready to become brāhmaṇas? How you can explain? We are inviting everyone to become Kṛṣṇa conscious.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He is just saying that it is possible that you can mold anyone into anything.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. Possible, yes.</p>
<p>Devotee: But if they won't accept, if they won't accept...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. That is karma.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: But he says there is no possibility of their not accepting, if you form the conditioning as the way. That they must accept by conditioning.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. That is also possible. But who is going to make that?</p>
<p>Devotee: How one can supremely control all conditions that would free one from karmic reaction? How could they control the environment?</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: By punishment and reward. By punishing them when they are wrong...</p>
<p>Devotee: Say he had a house, and he was doing that, and all of a sudden there was a flood came and the house... How could he control the environment?</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Of a person, not of a house.</p>
<p>Devotee: That is what I mean. How can you control the environment if that person is going to be punished and rewarded when he wants...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: He says from childhood.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He is talking about child. Infant.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Infant. Yes. That is possible. That is possible. Just like our children, from childhood they are dancing.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Here is a picture of his child. He put his child in a box when it was born. Now this is her today, twenty-seven years later. He conditioned her in this box for a year.</p>
<p>Devotee: How long?</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: For some time. And she came out better, healthier and happier than normal children, because they kept the temperature the same, because it was germ-free, there was no disease and always cleaned by rotating...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That means he protected the child from all calamities.</p>
<p>Devotee: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that is fortunate. If you can protect... Therefore I repeatedly said that our Dallas center should be taken as very much important place. All our children must go.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Make the environment perfect.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. That I have repeatedly said.</p>
<p>Devotee: The reason he built the box, he could not control the environment.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no, box, you are speaking box, (indistinct) different box. That is another thing. But the perfection is required.</p>
<p>Devotee: His supposition of being able to control the environment completely is imperfect, because he can't control the environment perfectly. Even if he builds his child a box, what if there is a fire in the house and the box burns down? How he can control that environment?</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Right now, the level of their experiments are relatively small. For instance, they have created teaching machines where a child is put in front of the machine and a question is asked, and if the child answers it correctly he gets the reward.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Another nonsense. The thing is that the Vedic conception of raising children, brahmācārya, that system is perfect.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Not by machine.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, this is (indistinct). We are not machines.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: No. But he says that when the answer is given correctly by the child, then he is rewarded by him.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: The answers and questions are already there. That is (indistinct). Just like we say that tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). There is question and answer. Therefore in order to understand the transcendental science, we must go to guru, gurum eva abhigacchet. And then what is the symptom of guru? Samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. Guru means who has learned knowledge by the paramparā system. Śrotriyaṁ brahma. The result is that he is perfectly a devotee.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Suppose we had a machine and one of our children was given the question "Who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead?" And then there were three possibilities, and if she pushed "Kṛṣṇa," some reward would come out.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: She has to push some button to take out Kṛṣṇa.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: Just like the answer has three choices: Kṛṣṇa, Durgā, Kālī. Which one is the Supreme Personality? So if she  chooses Kṛṣṇa and then he gets rewarded. So in the future he will always think Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Why must think? Why not take a live master?</p>
<p>Devotee: Yes. He says that that can be done also, but he is saying that they should be rewarded when they say the right answer.</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: He says that this will solve the problem of not enough teachers in our schools, public schools, not enough teachers for our children. A huge class, and the children have only one teacher. So there's not enough individual time given to each student.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So why not produce many teachers? That we (indistinct).</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: No one wants to teach anymore. No one wants to teach anymore.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Why?</p>
<p>Devotee: They don't know what to teach.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because they do not know how to teach, and they are simply teaching (indistinct).</p>
<p>Śyāmasundara: They don't get enough pay, so many reasons.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So our teachers do not ask any payment. They go freely. Why don't you take advantage of these teachers?</p>
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