View source for Is it possible of making some experiments which would tend to indicate that life is not material? And this might be appealing to some of the people with scientific education, because they are used to such things, experiments

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1976]]
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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="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="9" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1976 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1976 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="InterviewandConversationJuly81976WashingtonDC_0" class="quote" parent="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="196" link="Interview and Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C." link_text="Interview and Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.">
<div class="heading">No, experiment is there. Just like in... Hindus, we burn the body into ashes. How the soul is transmigrating? This is scientific experiment. The Bhagavad-gītā says nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ. Everyone is seeing the body is burned into ashes, but still, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ. He's going to another body. How it is going? So the soul is not burned.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Interview and Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.|Interview and Conversation -- July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Rūpānuga: So the title of the journal is Sa-vijñānam, Sa-vijñāna.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: "Scientific Knowledge"</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: "In Scientific Knowledge"</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: "In"? This "in"?</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: That's what Śrīla Prabhupāda said, "In Scientific Knowledge." I was wondering, if this, is this, sa, mean "in"?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, sa means "with."</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: "With scientific." Would it be improper to say Vijñāna only? Would that be improper? I was thinking in terms of making the title as short as possible. Vijñānam or sa-vijñānam, both nice, but I was thinking...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Sa-vijñāna is more important. Vijñānam means theoretical. And sa-vijñāna means practical.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: So in parenthesis we write, "In Scientific Knowledge"?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That you say. Or you can write, "Spiritual Science." No. That will not ring for them. They will not understand "Spiritual Science."</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: How about "perfect science," "complete science."</p>
<p>Devotee: "Absolute science."</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: "Science of the absolute." So I'll be coming to New York, but first I have to go to Ratha-yātrā in Philadelphia. They are having Ratha-yātrā on the tenth. Then I don't think there will be any GBC meetings earlier than that, so I'll go there first. (to devotees:) Any other scientists have any other questions they'd like to ask Śrīla Prabhupāda while we have this time?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, any question?</p>
<p>Sadāpūta: There was one thing I was wondering a little bit. Is the possibility of..., is it possible of making some experiments which would tend to indicate that life is not material? And this might be appealing to some of the people with scientific education, because they are used to such things, experiments.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, experiment is there. Just like in... Hindus, we burn the body into ashes. How the soul is transmigrating? This is scientific experiment. The Bhagavad-gītā says nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ. Everyone is seeing the body is burned into ashes, but still, tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 2.13|BG 2.13]]). He's going to another body. How it is going? So the soul is not burned.</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: We were having a meeting with the other scientists, and they were challenging you. They were saying, "Show us one experiment. Show us one experiment!" That's the way they are.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: There are so many experiments.</p>
<p>Sadāpūta: We were wondering... We knew that, for example, Jagadisha Chandra Bose did some experiments indicating plants having consciousness. We were wondering if some things of that kind might be of some use.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So in the Calcutta there is Bose Institute, you can go and see. They have got all machine, how the plants are feeling. Everything is there.</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: That's important because they are saying these animals have no soul. They are saying lower form of life, they have no soul, so killing them is not important. So his work was important. It showed...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, killing or not killing, that is another point. You can kill your own son. They are killing, actually. That is another point. But they have got soul. All the symptoms are there; how you can say there is no soul? Where is the difference between man's behavior and animal's behavior? So far eating, sleeping, sex, defense is concerned, the same thing. How do you say that it is different from the human being? Why they differentiate the animal from the man? What is the main point?</p>
<p>Sadāpūta: I think that scientifically that was just Christian doctrine that made them do that. Because the scientists turned around...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Christian doctrine is not perfect. But symptoms of animal and symptoms of human being, primary necessities eating sleeping, mating, defense that is there, everywhere.</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: They may agree, but they'll say that this...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: There is soul. As soon as there is living condition, there is soul. As soon as the body is dead, there is no soul. This is difference. It is the Christian doctrine, not scientific doctrine, that animal has... What we have to do with Christian theory?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: They have poor understanding of the nature of the soul.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Huh?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: In Christianity, they speak of...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It is not very advanced.</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: That's not respected.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is true.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Even Billy Graham says there's no soul in the dog. In his column "My Answer"... There's a column by Billy Graham...</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: That's that column you saw.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So you challenge them, the scientists.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Somebody asked that "I love my dog. Looks like the dog comes when I call and behaves very nicely." So this question was asking that the dog might have soul. So he asked Billy Graham, "What do you think?" So Billy Graham was saying, "No, dog has no soul."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: This is dogmatic. This is not scientific; it is dogmatic.</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: He could not support his statements.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So dogmatic, you can say any nonsense, but philosophy and science is different. If he's talking on dogmatic platform, then what is his value? What does he mean by "soul is there" and "soul is not there"? How does he prove?</p>
<p>Rūpānuga: We were finding that there are some real scientific experiments like Pasteur's, the one we did in the slide show the other night, and some of the work of Bose, that have been ignored simply or misinterpreted. Already there has been some work in this area. So we were thinking that we could point to these as examples to confirm our position, because they are scientific.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Now, in Christian commandment, there is "Thou shalt not kill." So what does it mean? (door opens and closes)</p>
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