View source for Some people would say, "If everything is a creation of God, then why do you have such a..., why do you present this body as such a horrible thing?"

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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="GardenConversationJune81976LosAngeles_0" class="quote" parent="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="116" link="Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles" link_text="Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles">
<div class="heading">You wanted this body. Therefore you have got this body. You wanted. Just like a child asks the father, "Give me this dress." Father gives him, "All right, take this dress." You wanted a certain type of body. Just like the surfers. They want a body like fish. Therefore they are so much anxious to swim. So father will give him next body a fish.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles|Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Mahātmā: There was one boy in Berkeley, and he worked for a company that would record facts and figures, and he said every year the Navy would pay this company something like sixty thousand dollars and would give them their theories that they knew were wrong, and this company would supply false facts and figures to coincide with the theories—make up facts that would support their false theories.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What is that false theory?</p>
<p>Hṛdayānanda: They want to take money, so they say "We need so many things, you have to give us money from the government to buy new weapons," this, that, so they make up false things for money.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Befool.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: Child is born dead means defective body.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hmm?</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: It just means it is defective.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is, rascal, that his soul is not there, therefore defective. The body is already defective, your body, my body, but it is effective only so long the soul is there.</p>
<p>Devotees: Jaya!</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: The body is always defective. Either child's body or your body or my body, it is always defective without the soul and it is effective with the soul. This is the conclusion. Therefore Arjuna was chastised by Kṛṣṇa that "You are giving stress on the body. This kind of conception is for the fools." Aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase: ([[Vanisource:BG 2.11|BG 2.11]]) "You are talking like a very learned man, but a learned man knows always that this body is defective, either living or dead." The same body. Dead means the soul is not there, and living means the soul is there. The two conditions, effective and defective, is depending on the soul. The soul is important. You have to understand what is that soul. That is knowledge. Tattva-jñānārtha-darśanam. To understand the truth, what is the truth there, that without something this body is dead, no more value, and with that something the body is so valuable. So one who is intelligent, he'll try to find out what is that truth.</p>
<p>Dr. Wolfe: Prabhupāda, I told a friend, he's been a friend over the years, I tried to bring it home to him that we are not our body, and he said, "Oh, yes, and I cannot get away from the physical idea that I am this," and I said, "Your father is very sick now, and he may die at any time," he's very fond of his father, and when the father is dead and lying there on the floor and after few days he begins to smell, I asked him, "Is that still your father?" He had no answer for that.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Nobody can answer. They simply falsely argue. Therefore less intelligent. Mūḍha. If he was intelligent, then he would immediately accept the Kṛṣṇa's teachings, beginning with dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā ([[Vanisource:BG 2.13|BG 2.13]]). On account of the soul, the body is changing, kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā. The body is sometimes child, sometimes boy, sometimes young man, sometimes old man, sometimes diseased, sometimes healthy. All these terms are there on account of presence of the soul. If the soul is not there, then it is simply a lump of matter, and it is going to decompose into matter again, and then it will smell, either you have to throw it for being eaten by the vultures or you can bury it under some ceremony or you can burn it. Three.... What is called? Pariṇamanam. Transformations. Either as stool or as ash or as earth. Those who are burying, the bodies gradually becomes earth; those who are throwing, the vultures eat, the jackals, dogs eat and it turns into stool; and those who are burning, it turns into ashes. Three transformations. This beautiful body.</p>
<p>Nalinīkaṇṭha: Some people would say, "If everything is a creation of God, then why do you have such a..., why do you present this body as such a horrible thing?"</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: You wanted this body. Therefore you have got this body. You wanted. Just like a child asks the father, "Give me this dress." Father gives him, "All right, take this dress." You wanted a certain type of body. Just like the surfers. They want a body like fish. Therefore they are so much anxious to swim. So father will give him next body a fish.</p>
<p>Rāmeśvara: He was saying that some people criticize us that we are saying this is God's creation, yet we are always speaking of it in a very bad way.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Very bad way?</p>
<p>Trivikrama: The bad way is also the mercy of the Lord to help us realize that...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no. Bad way, good way, man proposes, God disposes. You want something, bad or good.... Actually, everything is bad. This body or the fish's body or the dog's body, that is all material body. So everything is bad. But I prefer to get the body of a human being or a dog or a fish or a bird. That is my choice. So God gives you that body. Everywhere God's mercy is there, because whatever you want, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham ([[Vanisource:BG 4.11|BG 4.11]]). In the material world, you have come to enjoy. You cannot enjoy. You are thinking.... Just like child. He's playing with something for sometime, again taking another thing, again taking another thing, childish. So similarly we want to enjoy this material world. Sometimes I am thinking it will be convenient if I get a man's body, it will be convenient if I get a tiger's body, it will be convenient if I get a fish's body. So God is supplying you: "All right, you take this body." So what is God's fault? He is very kind. You wanted to do something. Do it. Not only that, if he forgets that "I wanted the fish body, now how I have got it?" No, he forgets that he wanted it. So God reminds him that "You wanted this body; you have got this body." Mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca ([[Vanisource:BG 15.15|BG 15.15]]). So God is very kind in all circumstances. Now we proposing to enjoy this material world under different situations, and God is helping us. Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā ([[Vanisource:BG 18.61|BG 18.61]]). You want to wander within this material world. That is your proposal. So, in order to enjoy this material world, you require different types of body. Just like they are trying to go to the moon planet. It requires a different body. So yānti deva-vratā devān: ([[Vanisource:BG 9.25|BG 9.25]]) this life, you aspire of going to the moon planet; next life, automatically you will go there. Why you are trying unnecessarily to go to the moon planet by sputnik? You'll go there. You just always think of the moon and you'll go to the moon. It is simple process. And by this way, you cannot go. Now, exactly in the same way that you get the body of a fish and you very easily, whole day and night, for so many years, you jump over in the sea. So moon planet is one of the heavenly planets. There is process how to go to moon planet. In the Bhāgavata it is stated. Those who are karma-kāṇḍīya, very, discharging the Vedic ritualistic ceremony, karma-kāṇḍa, they can go to the moon planet or sun planet. There are millions and trillions of planets they can go. Yānti deva-vratā devān pitṟn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 9.25|BG 9.25]]). The same thing. Suppose if you want to go to India, you prepare yourself, take the visa, the permit, the passport and necessary money and permission, so many things. You go there. Yes.</p>
<p>Dr. Wolfe: I think so much of going to India, I would certainly be born in India.</p>
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