Syamasundara: Just like the frog may lay millions of eggs. Out of all those millions of eggs, a few--three, four--may survive. That means those who were the fittest, by chance they happened to be best, fittest to survive. Otherwise too many frogs...
Prabhupada: If I say that frogs or many others animals lay eggs, millions... Just like the snake gives birth to so many hundreds and thousands of snakes at a time. So, if so many snakes are allowed to exist, then there will be disturbance. Therefore the nature's law is that the big snake eats up the small, small snakes. That is nature's law. But behind this nature's law there is brain. That is our proposition: that nature's law is not blind. There is brain, and that brain is God. We get it from Bhagavad-gita: mayadhyaksena prakrtih suyate sa-caracaram. So whatever things are happening in the material nature, it is being done by indication of the Supreme Lord in order to maintain everything in order. Just like the snake is laying eggs, thousands. If they are not killed, then the whole world will be full of snakes only. So there is a plan that the snakes will eat. Just like tiger, tiger. They also have their cubs, but the male tiger kills them and the female tiger hides them. So many tigers are coming out. So that is another economic (indistinct) theory that whenever there is large number of population there must be some war, epidemic, some earthquake, like that. They should die. So these natural activities are planned; they are not chance. As he is saying, "chance," that means he has no sufficient knowledge.
Syamasundara: On the other hand, he has a huge amount of evidence which is gathered...
Prabhupada: Evidence, that is all right. Evidence, we have also got evidence. Evidence must be there. As soon as there is evidence, he should not speak anything of chance.
Syamasundara: Just like out of millions of frogs, one frog will be better adapted to living in the water.
Prabhupada: That is not chance; that is plan. That is plan. That is not chance. He does not know that. As soon as he says chance, that means his knowledge is not perfect. Chance... If a man says chance when he cannot explain, that is evasive. Therefore he is not in perfect knowledge; therefore he is not fit for giving any knowledge. He is cheating, that's all, because he has no perfect knowledge.
Syamasundara: He sees a plan or a design also, but he sees it in...
Prabhupada: Therefore if he sees a plan and design, then whose design? As soon as you call it design, there must be designer. If you call it a plan, there must be a planner. That he does not know.
Syamasundara: He would say that the plan is only the workings of a mechanical nature.
Prabhupada: No. That is nonsense. Nature is not working mechanically. There is a plan. The sun is rising exactly according to calculation. Calculation not first; first the sun rises. But we get experience than in such-and-such season the sun rises at such-and-such time, so in that season, exactly to the minute, to the second, the sun rises. So it is neither chance nor whimsical. There is a p]an. There is a plan.
Syamasundara: Could it not be said that that is mechanical...
Prabhupada: Who made this mechanical? As soon as you bring the question of mechanical, there must be a brain who set up the machine. Mechanical means, just like these, your all Telex is working. That is mechanical. That is all right. But behind that machine... (break)
Syamasundara: Isn't it possible that some day we may be able to discover the source of all these chemicals?
Prabhupada: There is no question of discovering; there is already, it  is known. It is not known to you. We know. It is not known to you, but it is known to us. The Vedanta says, janmady asya yatah. The original source of everything: Brahman. We know it. Krsna says, aham sarvasya prabhavo mattah sarvam pravartate: "I am the origin of everything." So we know that there is big brain who is doing everything, mayadhyaksena prakrtih. So we know. Darwin may not know. That is his foolishness.
Syamasundara: He might say the same thing about us.
Prabhupada: No. He cannot say the same thing about us. We accept Krsna, not blindly. Our predecessors, our acaryas, our learned scholars, they have accepted. So we are not blind. Rather, he cannot say anything. As soon as he says chance, that means he has no knowledge. We don't say chance. We have got an original cause. But he says chance; therefore he has got no knowledge.
Syamasundara: The scientists have found that we grow up out of a set of genes in the sperm of the male. They are called genes, tiny cells.
Prabhupada: That's all right. Wherefrom the genes came?
Syamasundara: These can be altered by cosmic radiation. Supposing a cosmic ray hits the gene, it may change it slightly so that maybe it comes out with...
Prabhupada: That is not the question. Suppose if you have got life, I can kill you with a knife. But the question is, "Wherefrom this life came?" I can change, merely with a knife, your life. That is not a very important thing, changing. The thing is to find out the origin, wherefrom the genes came.
Syamasundara: He has a book called The Origin of Species, and so...
Prabhupada: First of all, you are testing his knowledge.
Syamasundara: I'm trying to explain. You want to know what he thinks is the origin; so he traces back through geological excavations to the most simple forms of life, and they see that in the...
Prabhupada: What is the simplest form of life?
Syamasundara: They find at the lowest level of the soil layers which have built up through the years, they find small one-celled animal forms, sea shells, like that.
Prabhupada: How is it forming?
Syamasundara: Gradually, through the ages, they have become more and more complex to this age when...
Prabhupada: What is the beginning?
Syamasundara: In the beginning they have found only a one-celled animals.
Prabhupada: They found, but beyond that they do not know. They found it. It was already there. So wherefrom it came?
Svarupa Damodara: Another definition that is raised by most so-called modern scientists, they try to find out the meaning of what is (indistinct) and what is invention. So many scientists have posed also the concept that invention, strictly speaking, is a paradox. When we say invention, "I invented something," somebody invented radio, and somebody invented such-and-such thing, it is not really an invention.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Svarupa Damodara: They say it cannot come out of nothing. It is already there.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Svarupa Damodara: We did not know it, that it was already there. Foolishly we say that we invent these things.
Prabhupada: You see the action is already going on. You see all of a  sudden something comes. But that is not perfect knowledge.
Syamasundara: Then how do you explain that...
Prabhupada: We explain that everything, the source, the original source of everything is Brahman, Absolute Truth, Krsna.
Syamasundara: What we are discussing is this doctrine of natural selection, or survival of the fittest.
Prabhupada: Yes. That natural selection, that law is made by Krsna.
Syamasundara: So there is a law of...
Prabhupada: Yes. Certainly. The scientists say that we do not know wherefrom it is coming. All of a sudden I see something and he says I invented it. It is not invention. It is already there. He could not see before, and now he can see. That's all.
Syamasundara: Just like a dinosaur, these huge animals once existing in...
Prabhupada: That is his imagination.
Syamasundara: They found bones...
Prabhupada: Bones, that's all right. There are many... We also say from Vedic sastras there is fish, timingila, which can swallow up big, big whales, you see. That is also very big. There is the Varaha incarnation who picked up the whole earth on the tusk. How much big the Varaha animal was so that it can pick up the whole earth, earthly planet just like a ball. He cannot imagine such big animals.
Syamasundara: But my point is that they excavated down into the ground and they found that gradually, through the years, that animals are evolving towards more and more complex forms, from very simple forms in the water to land animals, plants, these big dinosaurs, then they died out.
Prabhupada: If they died out, that means there is no more existence of that animal. But how can you say that the animal is existing somewhere else? Now, according to his statement that from a certain basic principle, by gradual evolution, the human body is coming, now his theory is that the human body is coming from the monkeys.
Syamasundara: They are related; they come from the same...
Prabhupada: Related? Everything is related. That is another thing. But if the monkey's body is developing into a human body...
Syamasundara: Yes. Apelike man.
Prabhupada: Then after development of human body, why is the monkey species does not cease? Why not it does not cease?
Syamasundara: They are like branches of the same tree, he calls them.
Prabhupada: Branches of the tree, just like we see now the monkey is existing and human being is also existing. Similarly, we say what he sees the beginning of life, at that time also there was human beings.
Syamasundara: They find no evidence of them.
Prabhupada: Why no evidence?
Syamasundara: In the ground. There's no evidence in the ground.
Prabhupada: In the ground? That means that in the ground there is the only evidence? There is no other evidence?
Bali-mardana: Scientists think that the only way to maintain integrity is not to accept anything until they can see it or understand it with their own senses and mind, by material evidence. That is their whole platform of empiric research, that nothing can be accepted until it is proven by their own sensuous experience.
Prabhupada: But they cannot prove that there was no human being  wherefrom they are starting their study. They cannot prove.
Syamasundara: It appears from the evidence that there are apelike men in certain layers of soil...
Prabhupada: The apelike man or manlike ape is already existing. If you say development just like from this, it has developed this, there should be no existence of this. Karya-karanam. That's all. Now when I see still both are existing...
Syamasundara: The former doesn't exist any more.
Prabhupada: No, no, no. If from monkey, man is coming, so then when monkey develops into man, the monkey should not exist. Karya-karanam, cause and effect. When the effect is there, the cause is finished now.
Syamasundara: The monkey didn't cause the man; they came from the same common ancestor. That is their explanation. They...
Prabhupada: That is, we say that all we come from God, the same ancestors, the same father. What is the difference?
Bali-mardana: Everyone has the same ancestor.
Prabhupada: The same ancestor. What is the new thing?
Syamasundara: But if I am a Darwinist, your explanations are still not satisfactory to me. I'm not convinced because I see...
Prabhupada: My explanation is that the original father is Krsna. As Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita, sarva-yonisu kaunteya: "As many forms are there, I am the bija pradah pita, I am the seed-giving father." So what is your objection to this?
Syamasundara: Well, if I examine the layers of earth, I find no evidence in any of the layers below of any...
Prabhupada: You are packed up with the layers of the earth, that is all. That is your boundary of knowledge. That is not knowledge. There are many other evidences.
Syamasundara: But certainly, if there were men living millions of years ago, they would have...
Prabhupada: But man is still living. Man is still living.
Syamasundara: ...they would have left evidence behind them, tangible evidence, that I could see the remains of their civilization.
Prabhupada: So if I say that the human society, man after death is burned into ashes, so where does he get the bones?
Syamasundara: Well, that's possible, but...
Prabhupada: According to our Vedic system, when a man is dead, he is burned into ashes. Where..., why the rascal would get the bones?
Syamasundara: But there are not other... There are no cities...
Prabhupada: The animals, they are not burned. They remain. But human beings they burn into ashes. So he cannot find the human bones.
Bali-mardana: Another thing is that after a certain number of years, bones cease to be bones. They turn back into chemicals and merge into the earth.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: But what about cities and tools, these things? There must be some evidence. In the lowest layer there are clam shells that have become fossilized. In the lower levels millions of years back they find clam shells.
Bali-mardana: They say it's been millions of years, but how do they prove it has been millions of years?
Syamasundara: Through radioactivity.
Bali-mardana: But that is an imperfect method, devised by imperfect senses.

 

Svarupa Damodara: It is limited. It is limited. It is very hard to find five thousand or six thousand years back.
Bali-mardana: They don't even agree amongst each other about what the age of things are.
Syamasundara: Just like if you go down a hundred feet below the soil, that soil has been down there for a long time. But there is no evidences of men, actually civilized creatures.
Prabhupada: Why he is trying to find out men's bones there? What is the...
Syamasundara: I'm just saying that it appears, because layer after layer is deposited in the earth's crust, that the animal forms are evolving toward more complex forms, from simple animals to bigger animals, and then more complex, then to the civilized man.
Prabhupada: From where it began?
Syamasundara: It began with the simplest form.
Prabhupada: What is that simplest form?
Syamasundara: Small one-celled animals, then bivalves, then mollusks, then simple forms of aquatics.
Bali-mardana: So the one-celled animals must be God.
Syamasundara: That isn't what I'm talking about; I'm just saying that this evolution appears to exist, evolution of species, from simplest forms to more complex forms. That's Darwin's idea.
Prabhupada: But the simplest form is still existing and the complex form is also existing at the present moment. Not that from the simplest form developed, developed, developed. Just like development means, just like I have developed my childhood body. The childhood body is no more there. But it is a fact I have developed from childhood body to this body. There are so many. So similarly, all the species are existing simultaneously, still.
Syamasundara: They find no evidence in the earlier times that these complex forms existed.
Prabhupada: No, no. Earlier times or modern times, when I see all different species, 8,400,000 species of life still existing, so what is the question of development? It existed long ago also. You might not have seen it, you have not source of knowledge to understand, but you have to accept it, because all these species are now existing. Similarly, millions of years ago all these species existed. You might have missed. That is a different thing.
Syamasundara: Then it is simply a matter of one opinion against another, because the scientists say...
Prabhupada: No. It is not opinion, it is a fact. Do you think that this development has ceased all other species, simply human being is there?
Syamasundara: No. But I don't see evidence that all these complex forms...
Prabhupada: I have said that one, this, by evolution, one after another, the human form is there. The Darwin theory is that some forty thousand years ago there was no human beings.
Syamasundara: Several million years.
Prabhupada: But we don't see that. Because at the present moment we see that all the species are there existing, including human beings.
Syamasundara: He says that they evolved. That is...
Prabhupada: They evolved, but they are still existing. Evolved, that is another thing. But all of them are existing still. So how you can say that millions of years they did not exist, all? His theory is  that...
Syamasundara: Because there is not evidence that they exist.
Prabhupada: This is the evidence: if now all the species of life are existing, why not millions of years ago? What do you say?
Svarupa Damodara: Yes. It was existing, but simply we did not know.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is one-sided test.
Syamasundara: You can say they existed, but show me. I don't see any proof.
Prabhupada: You do not see the animals, aquatics, birds, bees, trees--everything--is existing?
Syamasundara: Yes. But ten million years ago, according to my excavations, there were no beasts; there were all aquatics.
Prabhupada: That is nonsense. That is nonsense. Ten millions of... Ten million years ago... You cannot give a history of ten millions. It is your imagination. Where is the history of ten millions of years? You are simply imagining, that is your word. But where is historical evidence? You cannot give history more than three thousand years, and you are speaking of ten millions of years. This is all nonsense. How can you go... There is no history in the human civilization for ten millions of years.
Syamasundara: If I dig far into the ground, layer by layer...
Prabhupada: No, no. Dirt... You are calculating ten millions--it may be ten years. Because you cannot give history of the human society more than three thousand years, so how can you speak of ten million, twenty million? Where were you then? It is all imagination. You were existing(?), so existence was not there. How can you say that ten million or twenty million years ago these things happened? This is simply imagination. In that way everyone can imagine and say some nonsense. Everyone can imagine their own way. I can say "No, it is not ten million years. It is fifty millions years."
Syamasundara: They have a scientific way of testing that things disintegrate at a certain rate.
Prabhupada: But here is a scientist, and he does not agree with that.
Syamasundara: What about the half-life of certain elements?
Svarupa Damodara: Yes. The, normally, what they call the age determination, or how old a species is, they normally find out from this so-called (indistinct). They find some bone or something which contains normally carbon(ate). And they get this age of the elements or age of these findings by so-called Carbon 14 method. Carbon 14 is an isotope of normal carbon, it is called Carbon 12. Carbon 14 is radioactive. It's one they put in the radioactive testing, and they find out because it follows the normal chemical laws or physical laws. This is governed by the Lord Himself, by Krsna Himself. They're finding the chemical lowest form, and from that chemical lowest they normally try to reduce the, how old the sample is, and that method is very limited, it is not (indistinct). (break)
Prabhupada: ...fact, because we see all different species of life existing along with human beings. Therefore it should be concluded this is always existing. Human life is always existing. That is our first charge against him. He cannot say there was no human life.
Syamasundara: But we do not see any dinosaurs existing.
Prabhupada: You do not see--your power is very limited--but we have to conclude in this way, when we see at the present moment all the different species of life are existing. Therefore it is existing  always.
Syamasundara: But I don't see all the...
Prabhupada: You don't see because you have no power to see. Your senses are very limited. You don't see. And because you don't see, it is not to be accepted. So many people say, "I don't see God." That does not mean we shall accept, "Oh, so many people say--majority of people, will say like that--'We don't see God.' " Then we are merely crazy fellow, we are after God?
Syamasundara: No. But dinosaurs...
Prabhupada: But simply by dinosaurs missing you cannot say that what about other all species of life, other.
Syamasundara: Many, many, many, many are extinct, according to...
Prabhupada: I am accepting many are extinct, but the evolutionary process, it means one extinct, another comes. But we see that the monkey, from monkey, man comes. The monkey is there and man is there. The monkey is not finished.
Syamasundara: I remember last time when we discussed this, you said, "Well, then, why don't we see men coming out of monkeys still?"
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: "Why hasn't some man been born out of a monkey?"
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: "In our experience..."
Prabhupada: The monkey is existing and man is existing.
Syamasundara: "So if men came from monkeys, why don't we see it still happening?" That's what you said.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is our argument.
Syamasundara: So if you accept that there is an evolution, do you accept that the bodies change because of changing conditions of the natural surroundings?
Prabhupada: Body is not changing. The body is already there. The soul is changing bodies, transmigrating from one body to another.
Bali-mardana: Darwin doesn't accept that there is a fixed number of species. Rather, the number of species may vary at any time according to the natural selection. But he doesn't give any axiom that there are certain numbers of species from which all other variations come. We are saying that there are 8,400,000 species to begin with.
Prabhupada: But if first of all you give account for eight million species--you have no account. We say these are the fixed-up species. But your calculation of species, first of all give us account for eight millions, then you say, "The list is not complete."
Syamasundara: Their idea is that there's constant...
Prabhupada: Whatever it may be, within that eight millions, but you cannot give us list.
Syamasundara: They say that there is new species always evolving.
Prabhupada: That is not new. That is within the eight millions. You could not find the same thing, you could not find, before that; now we are finding your species. You could (not) give us a complete list. What is the evolutionary process wherefrom it began and how it's coming? You cannot give any fixed-up list. That is your imperfect knowledge. You are simply imagining. "It may be changed," "It may be chance," or this or that. That's all.
Syamasundara: Just like, let's say some condition changes suddenly in an environment...
Prabhupada: Yes. Any condition changes, but within the eight millions. Because you cannot give us any list, so then you have to  accept whatever species of life may take by changes or circumstance with this or that. That will be within the eight millions.
Syamasundara: Just like if you open(?) a marketplace, at any given point you can go through the marketplace and see that there's this kind of person, this kind of person and...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: And he may go away from the marketplace. So if because he goes away, you can't say that that person doesn't exist any more because he's not observable there.
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes.
Svarupa Damodara: Actually, in Darwin's concept he used the natural selection, but he doesn't go far enough what that nature is. He used the term "natural," but he does not know how to...
Prabhupada: Yes. Explain what is nature. That means insufficient knowledge.
Syamasundara: He simply observed there are mutations in nature. For instance, he thinks that perhaps at one time...
Prabhupada: That means nature is working.
Syamasundara: Yes.
Prabhupada: Nature is working, but he cannot explain how nature is working.
Syamasundara: At one time he says that one ape developed an opposing thumb so he was able to use tools, grasp things, so he became superior and passed that quality on to his offspring and that developed into man. Simply by...
Prabhupada: Then when there is offspring, then the same question comes: "Why the monkey does not produce offspring--a man?" What is this nonsense?
Bali-mardana: Scientists often take the shelter of this premise, that it's not..., we don't..., we're not trying to find out. Whenever they're asked what is the original source, they say, "We're not concerned with that. We're concerned with just examining the phenomenon of that source."
Prabhupada: Yes. That is childish. That is childish. Just like I have seen the phenomena, without man there cannot be singing. In the box there must be one man there. This is childish calculation, that's all. Phenomenal study means childish. A fan, in our childhood we will think that a fan is running, there must be some ghost who is running it. So this sort of phenomenal study is not scientific study. It is not scientific. If we don't find the original cause, that is not scientific.
Bali-mardana: That's what they're looking for. But because they can't produce a satisfactory answer, they have to say, "Well, we're not looking for that." They can't come forward with an answer.
Prabhupada: Yes. That is, what it is called? (Sanskrit), principle logic, or something like that, it is called.
Syamasundara: (indistinct) in question.
Prabhupada: That is not perfect knowledge.
Syamasundara: You must admit, though, being a scientist, that supposing you go down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, you see so many layers of earth going up thousands of feet, that the layers at the bottom are very, very old. You must admit, because the earth takes so many years to deposit soil. Even if it's only one million years, it's still very old. And in that lowest layer we find only evidences of simple...

 

Prabhupada: Where is the lowest layer, he has gone? Where is it? Wherefrom it begins?
Syamasundara: The Grand Canyon is an example. That's a very deep canyon in the ground in Arizona.
Svarupa Damodara: What happens if there was no human beings in that area?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: Human beings aside, we still find...
Prabhupada: Just like desert. Desert there is no human beings. If you dig the desert, what you will find?
Syamasundara: That's all right. It doesn't matter if it was ocean; still we find gradually the forms become more and more complex toward the...
Prabhupada: But we cannot say where is the beginning and where is the end.
Syamasundara: No. That we can't say.
Prabhupada: Therefore his knowledge is imperfect.
Syamasundara: He said that if we say the origin of species is the simplest form, one-celled...
Prabhupada: How the species living force came in? What is the cause? How it is coming? Wherefrom the life begins?
Bali-mardana: It still evades the principal question of who is the creator. I can build a big house or I can build a small box. The point is, who is the builder? So it's evading the question of who... Even if everything started with a one-celled animal, what started the one-celled animal?
Prabhupada: Yes. Wherefrom the one cell came?
Syamasundara: That they say. He says (it) comes from four different chemicals: oxygen, hydrogen...
Prabhupada: Well, wherefrom the chemical came? They're not questioning. Who supplied the chemical?
Syamasundara: We still may be able to discover some day...
Prabhupada: That means you are fool, that you are granted. As soon as you say "still," that means you are fool number one. That is our (indistinct).
Svarupa Damodara: That's what the modern scientists are doing. They're trying to make life in a test tube. What they are trying to do, these so-called biochemists, at the present time the goal is to make life in a test tube. So what they do is they are going to put so-called big molecules--they say DNA, dioxynucleic acid. This molecule is a necessary molecule for..., it's life maintaining. So they're going to make certain combinations of these molecules and put in the test tube and find out whether there is life coming out from the test tube, and then trying to prove how life was formed. But it's such a foolish idea that they will never be able to make the...
Prabhupada: They are a set of fools. And going on under the name of scientists. Set of fools.
Svarupa Damodara: On the other hand, the so-called physicist... His name was Heisenberg. He produced the concept of the theory of uncertainty, and he found out that certain physical rules that govern certain parts of the so-called universal system of rules--why the planets are moving around the sun, and why they repeated course and so on. But he did not know what was the answer. So he named the title of the theory, the Theory of Uncertainty. Based on that, there are so many groups coming up, but they found that uncertainty itself, that  implies that there is some...
Prabhupada: Basic principle is uncertainty, and they're building on big, big buildings.
Syamasundara: Darwin calls it the missing link.
Prabhupada: That missing link, let them learn from us. We can give him the missing link.
Bali-mardana: But ultimately they'll say it'll come down to if we propose that Krsna is the creator or that God is the creator, then they'll say "That must be proved to me." In other words, they want to fit God within their own empiric gaze. That will be their only satisfaction when they actually become able to circumvent God's existence and create a power by their own intelligence.
Prabhupada: He has to admit that the theory of uncertainty is bogus, but everything is there, and that behind all these things there must be big brain. That one has to accept. Simply uncertainty, that is not a science. The certainty is that behind all these things there is a big brain. I do not know Him--that is a different thing--but there is a big brain.
Syamasundara: Darwin, he was not so much interested in those questions of origin and those things, but he was a botanist and a biologist, and he simply wanted to investigate how things evolved from one simple form to a more complex form...
Prabhupada: That he cannot say, how the... He captured something out of his imagination, but he cannot explain scientifically.
Syamasundara: From simple forms to more complex forms.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: Well, he says that this happens through mutation.
Prabhupada: But then do it in the laboratory by mutation, by combination.
Syamasundara: They can do that.
Prabhupada: No. But he just said that is not possible.
Svarupa Damodara: Srila Prabhupada, they find that just like I said already, the basic elements of life--carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen...
Syamasundara: You know the theory, not theory but practical proof, that the genes can be mutated by bombarding with cosmic rays.
Svarupa Damodara: Yes. That they prove by so-called... That's why the concern... The example of that mutation is the cancer cell. They try to find out how cancer is caused in the body. They say that somehow the cell has been changed, and they say that it has been done by mutation, and they try to prove it in the laboratory by changing the structure of the cell, and that is called mutation. So they say why the cancer is formed because cancer is an abnormal cell, this is a normal cell. So answering why these elements are formed from these basic four chemicals--carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen--they try, they say that somehow this nitrogen and hydrogen, they combine forming ammonia. That is called ammonia, from nitrogen and hydrogen. They say somehow this has formed, and somehow, by combination of hydrogen and oxygen, water is formed. And somehow by combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, these so-called carbohydrates, or these are formed. But they say somehow these are formed, but they do not know how it is formed.
Syamasundara: But all that Darwin is interested in is in the evolution of species: how one type of body evolves to the other type due to the changing conditions, and that because he has evolved a certain body he is best adapted to survive in that condition so that  his species survives. So the scientists have shown that by bombarding the cosmic radioactive elements, that a gene or cell can change, mutate, so a different kind of animal comes out. From one kind of mother a different kind of animal comes out.
Prabhupada: But we say that different kind of animal is not beyond these 8,400,000 species.
Svarupa Damodara: Actually this is not completely different animal. Some of these properties...
Syamasundara: A variation.
Svarupa Damodara: Just a little change. But another point in that connection is that nature makes its own (indistinct) balance of all the species, and it could have been all a balance. That is why, when nature is balancing all the species, there is no question of making another species fresh or something. This has been already made. It has already been done by nature. What is that nature, you have to ask by going to the real nature, not this false nature.
Syamasundara: Just like Darwin first investigated some islands off of Peru, Galapagos Islands, and he found different species of life that exist there that don't exist anywhere else, so that they must have evolved...
Prabhupada: That means that he has not seen all the species, because he has not traveled all over the universe. He has seen one island but he has not seen the whole creation, Yes? How he can fix up. There may be many others he has not seen.
Syamasundara: But the only thing that I want to get at is...
Prabhupada: The only thing he has has studied, this earthly planet...
Syamasundara: ...how the bodies change.
Prabhupada: ...but there are many other millions of planets, he has not seen all of them. He has not excavated, dug the depth of all the planets, so how he can conclude that this is all? He has not seen everything, neither it is possible for this.
Syamasundara: But according to the conditions, different conditions on this planet, natural conditions, certain animals...
Prabhupada: Yes. But he has not seen different conditions in different planets. Suppose the sun planet, the condition is fire. So how life can exist in the fire, he has no knowledge.
Bali-mardana: You point out in the introduction to Sri Isopanisad that deductive conclusions are always imperfect because you have to be able to deduce everything in order to come out to the right conclusion. Just like if you live in a village where everyone is only five feet tall, you may deduct that everyone in existence is only five feet tall; but if you go to the next village you may find someone who is six feet tall. So you have to search out every village and see every person before you...
Prabhupada: That is not possible for you. How many millions of villages are there?
Syamasundara: Yes. But see, we're talking about two different things now. He is talking about the doctrine of natural selection or survival of the fittest...
Prabhupada: But natural selection, that means it is not his selection. Natural selection.
Syamasundara: Natural selection.
Prabhupada: So nature is more powerful than him. So he has not studied nature.
Syamasundara: He studies how the bodies change in nature.

 

Prabhupada: No. He has not studied. He has studied in a particular place only. But nature means, when you speak of nature, suppose you have studied within this planet, but in nature means there is millions of universes, but he has not studied them.
Syamasundara: So you say the doctrine of natural selection is not...
Prabhupada: Natural selection is there, but how the natural selection is working, he does not know that.
Bali-mardana: In a sense we know from Vedic information that the species from one end from the smallest germ up to the highest demigod, they are progressively more advanced. So anyone can come along and take out a small eclipsed portion of that sequence and propose the theory that the species is advancing, but that gamut, that range, perspective of higher and lower is existing, but not that it's evolving...
Prabhupada: It is already there. I am simply changing place, transmigration. That is our theory--transmigration.
Syamasundara: But you still haven't answered satisfactorily...
Prabhupada: Just like you are traveling in a train. There is first class, second class--that is already existing. But if you pay more, you come to the first class. You cannot say, "Now the first class is now created." It was already existing. So their defect is that they have no information of the soul. The soul is transmigrating. The forms are already there. The soul is transmigrating from one apartment to another apartment. That they do not know.
Syamasundara: But still I'm not convinced that if we make geologic investigations all over the world, not just the Grand Canyon or here or there, but in many parts of the world we always find the same thing, that the...
Prabhupada: But if you say that you have studied all over the world, I say you have not studied all over the planet. That is still defective.
Syamasundara: Let's just confine it to this planet.
Prabhupada: No. Why should you confine it? Nature is not only within this planet.
Syamasundara: Because you said that millions of years ago there were many complex forms of life existing on this planet.
Prabhupada: No. Not on this planet; maybe anywhere. It is when you say nature, nature is not confined--what is called--limited within this planet. That you cannot say. When you say nature, this material nature, there are millions of universes and millions of planets in each and every universe. If you have studied... Suppose you have studied this planet; that is not sufficient knowledge.
Syamasundara: So, but you said before that millions of years ago there were complex forms of life on this planet: men, horses, animals, elephants...
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes.
Syamasundara: But from hundreds of different sources of this...
Prabhupada: But I say, I say that it is still existing. The man is existing, the horse is existing, the snake is existing, the insect is existing, the trees are existing; why not millions of years ago?
Syamasundara: Because there's no evidence.
Prabhupada: This is the evidence. This is the evidence. You cannot give the history of this planet. Now suppose the existence of sun, you cannot give history. The sun is existing millions of years ago. It is not that sun is created now. The sun is existing now, the moon is  existing now, so why should not they come from millions of years also? The sun existing, and within the sun everything is existing. So if the sun is existing, then other things must be existing. That is my (indistinct).
Syamasundara: They may be existing, but on this planet we have no evidence...
Prabhupada: That doesn't mean... That means you limit your study to one planet. That is not full knowledge.
Syamasundara: I just want to find out for the time being about...
Prabhupada: Why time being? If you are not perfect in your knowledge, then why should I accept your theory? That is my point.
Syamasundara: Well, if you make claims that millions of years ago there were complex forms of life on this planet...
Prabhupada: Why you are... I never said on this planet. By nature's way everything is existing.
Syamasundara: So on this planet there were not complex forms of life millions of years ago...
Prabhupada: So maybe; may not be. That is not of the point. The point is that everything is existing in the nature's way. The species, as we say from Vedic language, 8,400,000, fixed-up. So maybe in your neighborhood, in my neighborhood, it is, they have got..., they are fixed up. But you simply, if you study your neighborhood, that is not perfect knowledge.
Syamasundara: I accept that. But I want to understand that the theory of evolution is that...
Prabhupada: Theory of evolution we accept.
Syamasundara: ...from simple forms of life, more complex forms evolve.
Prabhupada: Yes. That's all right. But they are all existing still. They are not extinct. That is the point.
Syamasundara: All right. But on this planet, now if we could examine this planet...
Prabhupada: Again you come to this planet. Why you are sticking to this planet?
Bali-mardana: Lord Brahma, the most complex... From the Vedic information we find that the most complex living entity was first, and from him, he created all the variations. So from the most complex the most simple was evolved. Then if you have the wrong information, you could look at it and say it was the opposite, that from the most simple the most complex evolved. The sequence is there, and if you observe it in the wrong way, you may conclude it's going in the opposite direction.
Syamasundara: But in the Vedic scriptures...
Prabhupada: The first creature is Brahma, the most intelligent, the most learned.
Syamasundara: ...and he said, and you say that on this planet there were pastimes, for instance, of Lord Ramacandra millions of years ago, with His men, His animals, His horses, deers, so many things. But in all of our evidences we find only at that time the most simple forms of life...
Prabhupada: Your evidence... You will be satisfied with your evidence, but I have got my own evidence. Why shall I accept your evidence? You cannot force your evidence, your so-called evidence upon me. What is evidence? First of all you have to select, what is that evidence.
Syamasundara: Terrestrial, archaeological findings...

 

Prabhupada: No. No. That is not evidence. That is not evidence.
Bali-mardana: If you find a bone, how do you know it's not...
Prabhupada: That is imperfect. You have studied one portion of the creation. That is not evidence. In other portion of the creation there is different. But that is not evidence. Your study, your limited study is not evidence.
Svarupa Damodara: So the evidence posed by Darwin's theory is not enough to explain...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: Yes. I agree with that. It doesn't explain there is an evolution...
Prabhupada: Evolution we accept. There is no quarrel about that point. But we say there are 8,400,000 species of life, evolution is coming through that. But you cannot give us any list that so many... We give real evolution, that there are 8,400,000 species of life, and the living entity coming through that. (break) ...evolution is taking from here to here, and how many there are? You cannot say. You simply say "missing," "something missing," "something is added," all vague.
Syamasundara: That admitted, but...
Prabhupada: If you admit that you are imperfect in knowledge, then it is no use citing scripture. There will...
Syamasundara: But what I want to know is that...
Prabhupada: ...evolution we admit. But your evolution theory is not perfect. Our evolutionary theory is perfect.
Syamasundara: But it appears that the evolution is from simple to complex.
Prabhupada: That we admit, simple. That we admit. But you cannot say what is the simple and what is the complex one, what are they... You say something missing. That is evasive. Why you should be missing if you are in knowledge? You must say this thing is missing, that you have no knowledge.
Bali-mardana: It's just an axiom, that if any part of the knowledge is perfect, then the whole knowledge is perfect. If you have any part of the truth, you have to have the whole truth in the highest sense. So if their theory is at all correct, and any of the premises are solid, then why it doesn't conclude itself by its own logical deduction? Why it would always have to allude to something missing, some missing factor?
Prabhupada: Jiva jatisu. The Padma Purana says jiva jatisu, so different species of life. And they give: from this, this; from this, this; from this, this. Then, just like it is said that from bird's life the beast's life comes. Now the beasts, this category is of three millions types of beasts.
Syamasundara: Just like they find evidence of large bird, pterodactyl, which has beastlike qualities and has legs also, and they say from that kind of bird evolved a more beastlike As you say, beasts.
Prabhupada: Just like we said that krmayo rudra-sankhyakah paksinam dasa-laksanam. From the insect life the bird's life developed. That we see practically. One has become flying, pterodactyl; in the grass, worm becomes a butterfly. That is, that is evidence.
Syamasundara: But at that time were there only insects existing?
Prabhupada: No. Everything was existing.
Bali-mardana: That's not evolution of the species, it's evolution of  the soul through the existing species.
Prabhupada: Transmigration from one body to another. The bodies are already existing.
Syamasundara: For instance, they say that during the Ice Age, when there were..., the earth became very cold, and there were great ice formations in Europe and America, that this animal that they call the mammoth--it's an elephantlike animal but it had long, very long hair for warmth--suddenly this species appears. Does it mean that that body existed always somewhere else, but it just suddenly appeared here...
Prabhupada: Yes, yes.
Syamasundara: ...in order to live here in that environment?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Bali-mardana: What if it is indeed a different species? What do they qualify as the difference in species? I mean, like one man has lots of hair on his body and one man doesn't. That doesn't make him a different species necessarily.
Syamasundara: Yes. But in this case elephants always lived in tropical. They were living in hot climates, and suddenly they had to adapt to the cold.
Prabhupada: Again, that's like we have got experience that the change of season. Different animals are also produced with the change of season. But it is not that they are coming new. They are already existing.
Syamasundara: They're appearing.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Bali-mardana: Appearing and disappearing according to seasons.
Prabhupada: Yes. Just like this Los Angeles City, there is a havoc of flood from the ocean and all men die. That does not mean extinct; the men are there somewhere else. You cannot say that human species are now extinct, because your study is limited.
Syamasundara: Supposing one man in particularly adapted, and he is smart, intelligent, and he survives when everything else is killed...
Prabhupada: That he may survive, that we don't disagree.
Syamasundara: But he would say that that man passes on his superior traits to his children, and it's another species.
Prabhupada: No. He survives, but many other men like him, they are existing somewhere. He may survive of this catastrophe, but that does not mean that other men are all extinct. You cannot say that. In these circumstances this man may survive or may not survive, but man is existing somewhere else.
Syamasundara: And another example, for instance there is a dog called the Pekingese dog. It was made by man, developed by man. They took a certain type of dog and crushed it's jaws in so many instances until eventually that trait was passed on naturally to its children...
Prabhupada: But he is still, it belongs to the dog species. We are speaking of dog species.
Syamasundara: But it is a new type of dog. New type. Never existed before that, here.
Prabhupada: New type, that will not exist also. Because it has been artificially made, it is existing now; now it will not exist again.
Bali-mardana: There's a kind of Indians, when the babies are young they put a board on their head so that (indistinct) like that.
Syamasundara: But now this dog is produced naturally, with its face like that.
Bali-mardana: But it's still a dog.

 

Prabhupada: The dog species.
Syamasundara: But it's a new species of dog.
Bali-mardana: Well, they call it a new species, but according to Vedic definition it isn't a new species.
Syamasundara: What did you just define by species? You mean different types of men, you say...
Prabhupada: The species, definition of species according to biology is different. We say species means jati, human race.
Syamasundara: So four hundred thousand species of humans.
Bali-mardana: Different levels of consciousness?
Prabhupada: Different levels of consciousness.
Syamasundara: I see.
Bali-mardana: And within any species there can an infinite variety of variations of that one species. Just like...
Prabhupada: Just like the scientists, their species is different. Just like we are making division that 400,000 different types of men. They will say this is one species.
Syamasundara: So would you say, for instance, someone who is less intelligent or more intelligent than I am is in a different species?
Prabhupada: Less intelligent or more intelligent, that does not make any species, because suppose you have got five children, one is less intelligent, more intelligent.
Syamasundara: He was just saying levels of consciousness determine the species.
Prabhupada: Yes. This is levels of consciousness, that just like we divide the human society: some men are brahmana, some men are ksatriya, some men are vaisya, that can be found at any time.
Syamasundara: Those are species?
Prabhupada: They are not species, according to their...
Syamasundara: They are types of men.
Prabhupada: Yes. We said varieties.
Syamasundara: Then what is the different species of man, separate from me; for instance, what is another species that is different than I am?
Prabhupada: I do not know exactly the species, but when we, (break) ...means jati, manusya jati.
Syamasundara: I mean what is an example of different species of man. What are they, for example, several species of men?
Prabhupada: I say that species, this word is not applicable in that sense. In that sense, according to the scientists' species. But when we say species, class you can say. Classes.
Syamasundara: Classes. But what, give me an example.
Prabhupada: Again, just like we are a class--Hare Krsna class. Our mentality is different from others.
Syamasundara: Oh.
Prabhupada: Therefore we are a class.
Syamasundara: So tribes, more like tribal distinctions?
Prabhupada: We are not exactly tribal. Culture, by culture.
Syamasundara: By interest and culture. I see.
Prabhupada: Differentiation of culture.
Syamasundara: Those are species.
Prabhupada: Those who are Aryan, non-Aryan; just like I say, they are all human beings, but why you say one Aryan and another non-Aryan? It is difference of culture, that's all.
Syamasundara: Say, for example, there is Caucasian race, the Negro race, different races like that. If they are all living in the same...  Say they all join Krsna consciousness movement, then they are all the same...
Prabhupada: But Krsna consciousness movement is not on the basic principle of this body. It is basically on the soul; therefore you will find everyone same.
Syamasundara: But otherwise it goes...
Prabhupada: Because it is culture. When one comes to the spiritual platform, there is no question. Even animal you can accept. Just like we worship (indistinct), Hanuman. He's animal, but because he's devotee of Lord Ramacandra, we worship. But that doesn't mean we are worshiping animals.
Syamasundara: You mean like Bengalis are a different species than Gujaratis? Something like that?
Prabhupada: Why do you mix what we have already explained? Our jati means of the same culture. He may be Gujarati, he may be Bengali, he may be American.
Syamasundara: So, for instance, carpenters are different than field workers--like that, different interests?
Prabhupada: Why different interest? The interest is to earn money. So you may earn money in some way, I may earn money in some way, he may earn money in some way.
Bali-mardana: So is the primary factor of the variation is how much advanced they are in Krsna consciousness, how least advanced they are in Krsna consciousness?
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes.
Syamasundara: So there are only two species.
Bali-mardana: The demons and the devas.
Prabhupada: This consciousness is coming through so many species, animals, then they're trees, they have no consciousness, but the soul is there.
Syamasundara: I'm still trying to understand what you mean by the species of human life. It's not clear to me. I don't understand what you mean by the different species of human life.
Prabhupada: By culture.
Syamasundara: By culture.
Prabhupada: Yes. One class of human being...
Syamasundara: But everyone is looking for money. You said the field worker is not the same as, or is the same as the carpenter, because they're both looking for money.
Prabhupada: Yes. But one who knows how to earn money very easily, and one may not know. That is culture. That is culture. One man is sitting in one place earning daily one lakhs of rupees.
Syamasundara: So big industrialists and field workers are two different species of men.
Prabhupada: Not species, class. Jati.
Syamasundara: Jati. So when you say 400,000 species of human life...
Prabhupada: Difference of culture.
Syamasundara: It's different from what we think of as species.
Prabhupada: Culture.
Bali-mardana: So the angle of vision is not from the bodily, it's from the closeness of the soul to Krsna consciousness, as far as they're able...
Prabhupada: Unless they accept soul and consciousness, there cannot be question of culture.

 

Syamasundara: But when the scientists say "species," they mean different types of bodies.
Prabhupada: Yes. We say 400,000 different forms of bodies, so human body, just like Negroes, they are also human beings, and you are also human beings. So this scientists will say they are all one species, human being. But we say that Negro culture and the Aryan culture is different.
Syamasundara: They also say their bodies are different, Negroid bodies or Caucasian bodies, or Oriental bodies...
Prabhupada: Then you can say species. Species and the different bodies.
Syamasundara: Species means different bodies.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Bali-mardana: So the consciousness, the body, or my form, it's pertaining to my consciousness, the developer of my consciousness.
Prabhupada: Yes. You and your brother may be of the same type of body; there may not be a different, same type of consciousness.
Syamasundara: But you just said, for instance, the industrialist and farmers are two different species of men, but there can be a Negro industrialist...
Prabhupada: I already said that. Why don't you listen? Species, definition of the scientists is different from ours. We say class.
Syamasundara: I'm trying to understand, because you said class but then you also said bodies. Negro bodies are different from white Caucasian bodies.
Prabhupada: Many difference of bodies. But that does not...; therefore our classification on the basis of soul. The soul is equal in spite of different types of body. The soul is one. There is no change of the soul. Therefore in the Bhagavad-gita it is said that he does not see the species or the class or definition. He sees one: panditah sama-darsinah. Pandita, one who sees to the (indistinct), the soul, he does not find any difference between these species. This is our point.
Bali-mardana: So Darwin and other similar material scientists, they have no information of the soul, yet they're...
Prabhupada: Again, they're missing the whole point.
Bali-mardana: But they're trying to find out information for themselves, and for others around them, but not knowing who they are, they're drawing on a material platform which is infinite, or at least infinite as far as their capacity to understand. But not only will they never be able to understand the material, the construction of the material arrangement, at ultimate issue it has no pertinence, anyway. It doesn't mean anything.
Syamasundara: No. It does mean something if you accept that forms are evolving from simple to complex. That means that we can expect in the future that mankind will even be of a more superior nature than they are now.
Prabhupada: One form is superior than the other form. Do as you said.
Bali-mardana: That possibility is also there. We know that by performance of certain types of sacrifices you can become (indistinct) and go to the demigod planet...
Prabhupada: That difference is that one apartment is better than the other apartment. Material.
Syamasundara: They would say that from the lowest apartments we are evolving to the better apartments.

 

Prabhupada: Yes. So according to your position, if you... There are different apartments: first-class apartments, second-class apartments, third-class apartment. But as you are fit to pay the rent or price, then you are allowed to enter in the apartment. The apartments are already there--first-class, second-class, third-class. They are not evolving.
Syamasundara: They say all living things on this earth are evolving in that way, from lower to higher. In the history of the earth...
Prabhupada: That also may be accepted, because just like after certain period, people are constructing a certain type of apartment, next day they construct a different type of apartment. That can be accepted. But the apartment is not evolving; the evolution is taking, on the apartment, on the desire of something else.
Syamasundara: On the desire of something else. So just like...
Prabhupada: That they do not know.
Syamasundara: Oh, I see. Just like...
Prabhupada: They say simply the apartment is changing.
Syamasundara: Just like if it suddenly got cold, the spirit soul would desire to be warm so he would evolve a body with hair.
Prabhupada: Yes. Right. That we say. That is our..., according to the mentality at the time of death you get another apartment. But the apartment is already there.
Syamasundara: I see. So if conditions suddenly change...
Prabhupada: Change of mind.
Syamasundara: ...a new apartment would arrive on the scene. It would appear.
Prabhupada: Not will arrive; it is already there. It is already there.
Bali-mardana: The material nature has it in its closet...
Prabhupada: Yes. "If you want this, yes, come on..."
Bali-mardana: ...that, that dress...
Prabhupada: "If you want this, come on here." It is already there.
Syamasundara: And then all the others will die out and that new one will begin, because the...
Prabhupada: Everyone will die. Everyone will die means change his apartment. Now at the time of changing apartments, suppose I am here, I have to change another; so I can select my apartment, what kind of apartment I should have. But that apartment is already there. I'll have to simply make arrangements, that's all. It is not that I'm creating that apartment.
Syamasundara: The elements, material elements, ingredients are already there.
Prabhupada: Already there.
Bali-mardana: Possibilities are unlimited as far as... It's not possible to make such a close...
Prabhupada: And that apartment is fixed up 8,400,000. Now you can enter into any apartment. Or it is to be ascertained that you cannot think beyond this. Just like a hotel owner, he has got different types of apartments, and he knows the customer cannot think beyond it. So any customer wants, "I'll give this apartment." So by nature's way there is 8,400,000's of apartments. You should be changed according to your mentality: "I want this," "All right. Come on." It is, apartment is not evolving. I am evolving in this sense, but I am changing one apartment to a better apartment. Better apartment is already there.
Syamasundara: To go back to this survival of the fittest theory,  supposing we are all here and the water comes, like you said. Supposing one of these persons in Los Angeles has the ability to breathe in water, somehow or other he can breathe under water...
Prabhupada: So we have no objection.
Syamasundara: So he survives; everyone else...
Prabhupada: He survives means... He survives means that even if he's dead, that does not mean that the species is dead. There is another human being in another part of the world.
Syamasundara: I accept that, but I mean I want to...
Prabhupada: So you say that because he does not survive, the whole species is extinct.
Syamasundara: No. But he survives..., one man survives because he is able to breathe in the water.
Bali-mardana: But how is he able to breathe in the water?
Syamasundara: Because he's adapted, he's mutated somehow.
Bali-mardana: But what has been that selective principle that he's adapted?
Syamasundara: According to you, you say it's his desire.
Bali-mardana: But the selective, active principle...
Prabhupada: But the fact is that you do not find anyone that one can breathe within the water.
Syamasundara: No. That's only an example.
Prabhupada: But you should give example which is proper.
Syamasundara: All right. There is a fish which is called lungfish, which... Most fish have gills, they breathe underwater with their gills, they extract oxygen from the water. But there's one fish in Africa that has developed lungs, so that, because it lives in an area where the water sometimes goes away, so it must be able to breathe oxygen from the air. So they say out of millions of fish in the water, one happened to have a pair of lungs, so he survived.
Prabhupada: So we say that means he was already existing. We say there are 900,000 species of fishes. He may be one of them, that's all.
Syamasundara: So the selective principle is there, but all species are already there.
Prabhupada: Already there, existing.
Bali-mardana: The selection will simply be dictated by... The so-called observance of selection is just the circumstance. The water's gone away, so...
Prabhupada: The selection of the species of life. I can select from fish, I can become man; from man I can become fish.
Syamasundara: So that fish desired to survive in that condition. I see.
Prabhupada: Therefore there's a greater law. Just like the hotel people: he has got experience, the customers come and they want this sort of facilities. So he has made all the facilities here to receive all kinds of customers. Similarly, this is God's creation. He knows how much a living entity can think of, so He has made all these species. If he thinks like this, "Come on, here," nature will, "Yes." Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani. Nature is offering facility, "Yes." God, Krsna as Paramatma within the heart, He knows, He wants this. He wants us, immediately nature, "Give him this apartment," and nature offers, "Yes. Come on. Here is apartment." This is real explanation.
Syamasundara: So I understand that, and I'll accept that, but the  one thing I'm still puzzled on is that there's no geological evidence that in former times on this planet there were more complex forms...
Prabhupada: Why you are taking geological evidence as final? Why you are taking that? That is final?
Syamasundara: But it's logical...
Prabhupada: What logic? Science is progressing. You cannot say that this is final.
Bali-mardana: Scientists couldn't deny; they could just say that we haven't found any evidence.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: But until there's something that disproves it to me, then I must accept it, because it..., because it's logical.
Bali-mardana: But that's a false platform. I'll conclude on the basis of my limited knowledge because I don't have the perfect knowledge. That's an abortion.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: Yes. All right. You can say that I've never seen a purple man, so there must be no such thing as a purple man. You can say that, but as far as I can operate within my practicality, there are no purple men. I've never seen one; no one has ever seen purple men. So isn't this logical?
Prabhupada: Purple men?
Syamasundara: I'm just using it as an example.
Prabhupada: What is that purple men? But you have not also seen, why you are, why is that...
Syamasundara: I'm using it as an example of an exception.
Prabhupada: No, no. What, you are scientist, what you have never seen, why you are thinking like that?
Syamasundara: I'm using it as an example of an exception...
Prabhupada: Why example? Why you give a fictitious example which you have no experience?
Syamasundara: All right. So let's say no one has ever seen a...
Prabhupada: No, no. That is another... You cannot say which you have never seen. At least, because yours is experimental, I may say, but you cannot say like that.
Syamasundara: I have excavated in all parts of the world, and every time I go to the...
Prabhupada: No. You have not excavated all parts of the world. That is another nonsense. You have not done this.
Syamasundara: Well, on seven continents I have excavated...
Prabhupada: But that seven continents is not the whole world. That is our charge. That you are claiming that you have excavated all, and we say no, not even an insignificant portion. So your knowledge is limited. (indistinct) this is same thing, Dr. Frog. Dr. Frog is limited within the three-feet well. If he says "I have seen everything," that is not (indistinct).
Syamasundara: But at least in thousands of places they have bored into the earth and dug into the earth, and they've found...
Prabhupada: Thousands of places is not anything, the whole planet.
Bali-mardana: They're always coming up with something new to revise their theory. Just like that pamphlet. They had to revise the whole theory about Carbon 14 because they found a new factor in the deterioration in the element which they never before considered...
Prabhupada: This experimental knowledge is always imperfect. Because they are experimenting with imperfect senses, therefore they must be  imperfect. Our source of knowledge is different. We do not depend on experimental knowledge.
Syamasundara: Let us say that the remains of every animal, every living entity that has ever been found in the ground...
Prabhupada: That is also a limited space. You cannot say you have excavated a portion of the earth and that is all. You cannot say.
Syamasundara: So far, anyway.
Prabhupada: So far means that is not all. That is, so far, as soon as it is so far, that is not all.
Syamasundara: But, so surely we must be practical and say that every...
Prabhupada: Practical means...
Syamasundara: We don't operate on things that we have...
Prabhupada: Practical means which is beyond your knowledge, beyond your capacity, that is impractical. So nothing is practical.
Syamasundara: How can I theorize there were other or higher forms...
Prabhupada: You theorize partially, as far as. That is not point, then.
Syamasundara: If I accept your knowledge, how can I theorize that there were higher forms of life millions of years ago if I have never found any evidence and I have searched...
Prabhupada: This is the evidence. This is the evidence. You have to see through the evidence, because in the (indistinct) there are so many species of life, say 8,400,000, they are all existing now. They are all existing now. Therefore why should I conclude that millions of years they did not exist?
Syamasundara: You say they are all existing now, but I don't see the dinosaur. There are no dinosaurs on this planet.
Prabhupada: That is not the denied. Dinosaur you may not have seen, it may be existing some other... Neither have I seen the 8,400,000 different species of, different forms of life. But my source of knowledge is different. You are experimenter with imperfect senses. I am taking from the perfect who has seen, who knows this; therefore my knowledge is perfect. Therefore the same example: I am receiving knowledge from my mother, "Here is your father," and you are trying to search out where is your father. You don't go to the mother, but you are searching out. Therefore, however you may search, your knowledge always will be imperfect.
Syamasundara: And your knowledge says that millions of years ago there were higher forms of living entities on this planet.
Prabhupada: Oh, yes. Because our Vedic information is that the first creation is the most intelligent, that is the most intellectual personality within this universe, Brahma. So how we can say..., how we can accept your theory that intellect develops? We are receiving the Vedic knowledge from Brahma, so perfect. So that is the evidence. The first creature was so perfect.
Bali-mardana: You are accepting authority anyway; we are accepting Darwin's authority that he went to these islands and found these animals. How do we know he went to the islands and found the animals?
Syamasundara: Because you can go there now and find them; they are still there.
Bali-mardana: But you have to go there to make, to make your point and deduct it. (break)
Svarupa Damodara: (indistinct) survival of fittest, but he is not going into the (indistinct) who posed this, how it has been done, how  it is growing to that theory, so his theories are not complete.
Prabhupada: His theory, it is not science. It is suggestion, guess.
Syamasundara: They call it "doctrine of natural selection," not theory.
Prabhupada: So doctrine; doctrine should be fact, but Darwin's theory, so far Darwin's theory...
Syamasundara: It's not called theory, it's doctrine.
Bali-mardana: What they mean by doctrine is that they can't agree on it and say it's fact. There are so many short-comings. They will call it a doctrine but they won't call it a fact. That's practically the whole story in scientific research: the real scientists, they never call anything a solid fact; it's always a theory or a doctrine because they never find a perfect enough conclusion which takes into account everything and perfectly reconciles...
Prabhupada: What is that uncertainty? What do you call that?
Syamasundara: It's called Theory of Uncertainty. Heisenberg's Theory of Uncertainty.
Prabhupada: That is also theory.
Syamasundara: Yes. That has to do with atomic particles.
Svarupa Damodara: Accepting the (indistinct), when we find out the smallest particle in the atom, it was a theory; it was accepted for about twenty years.
Syamasundara: That was long before, in Greek times, Democritus.
Svarupa Damodara: But the real theory started by Darwin, it was accepted for several years, but later on, with new advancement, his theory changed. His theory became disproved, that "What you are saying, it is not right, it is not final." So his theory is being changed. So same thing, Darwin's theory is also changing.
Syamasundara: But his impact upon the thinking of the world so completely changed the whole conception of...
Prabhupada: That is now changing again. So what is the use of that, such change?
Syamasundara: Well, you have to investigate, because he is important for our...
Prabhupada: No. That's all right. We will investigate; and a theory which changes, it will change, that's all. It is not fact. The sun rising is a fact. It cannot change.
Syamasundara: Still, you say if there were high forms of, say Brahma, in Brahma's time or millions of years ago, there were also other high animals besides men?
Prabhupada: All I say is that all kinds of different classes of forms were existing, since the creation.
Syamasundara: On this planet there were higher forms?
Prabhupada: Why are you taking this planet? We are talking of the whole creation. In the creation everything is there.
Syamasundara: If you expect me to understand this, I have to see it on this planet.
Prabhupada: That is not knowledge.
Bali-mardana: Possibly there were and possibly there weren't.
Syamasundara: You tell me that Rama and some other higher creatures lived on this planet so many millions of years ago, so I can expect some day to find evidence of that?
Prabhupada: The evidence is the authority, Vedic literature.
Bali-mardana: What other authority will you accept? If you dig up a bone and make a test with your own senses and accept that as an  authority...
Prabhupada: Bone authority. So you will be satisfied with your own authority. We have got our different... If you don't accept my authority, then I don't accept your authority.
Syamasundara: It would just seem if there were bones surviving for millions of years, why not cities, why not chariots, why not...?
Prabhupada: Yes. During Ramacandra's time there were chariots. Everything was there.
Bali-mardana: They have found pieces of chariots and pieces of cities.
Syamasundara: Not millions of years ago.
Bali-mardana: How do they know it's not millions of years ago? What is their test for proving?
Prabhupada: That millions, that is also bogus. You see? In the human history there is no history more than three thousand years. They are talking of millions of years. Why?
Syamasundara: You are a scientist. What other ways do they date geological findings? How do they date them?
Svarupa Damodara: Now it is Carbon 14 is the most reliable technique.
Syamasundara: Before they discovered that, how did they do it? They knew the Pleistocene, the Pliocene, all these different ages. How did they date them?
Bali-mardana: (indistinct) They all remain their own postulations according to their own sense impressions, and because the initial format is imperfect, then the conclusion has to be imperfect. So knowledge always remains fallible and mutable, whatever basis they put it on. It is what they have derived out of their own sense impressions, imperfect.
Syamasundara: Yes, I admit it, but I say that...
Bali-mardana: So dealing on a whole range of imperfections...
Syamasundara: Anyone can argue on that level and say anything, but what I want to know are the facts.
Bali-mardana: The facts are there, but you can accept the facts as Darwin presents them or as the Vedas present them or as anyone presents them.
Svarupa Damodara: These are all controlled by the force of nature. For example, you do not find evidence, scientific evidence, so-called they've got from (indistinct). It does not mean anything. It is all subject to the course of nature. So (indistinct).
Syamasundara: I'm a Darwinist; I'm still not convinced. Because you still haven't proven to me that the layers of earth that are far, far below are not millions of years old. You say that they may be newly formed, but...
Bali-mardana: They haven't proven that they are millions of years old.
Syamasundara: Well, I'm not a geologist...
Prabhupada: My charge is that you cannot give history of human society more than three thousand years; how you speak of millions of years? That is my charge.
Syamasundara: Written history...
Prabhupada: No. Suppose a child says that "Millions of years ago it happened like this," but I would say, "You were born maybe three years ago. How you speak of millions of years?" That is my charge.
Syamasundara: I don't know how geologists date earth layers...
Prabhupada: They bluff everything.

 

Syamasundara: But even if, let's say the deepest layer is only five hundred years old, but still the ones on top are newer. So in the lowest layer, there are no chariots, cities...
Prabhupada: We can rather believe the Bhagavad-gita, which gives a description from one, twelve hours duration of life, millions of years. So we can believe such authority. You can actually gain...
Syamasundara: Just like when you are dreaming, you may think it's millions of years, and it's only five minutes. You wake up and you've only been asleep five minutes.
Prabhupada: Yes. Actually, according to modern scientists, the law of relativity, so everyone speaks with this relative knowledge. It is not perfect. Everyone speaks with relative knowledge, that's all. Therefore we should accept knowledge from a person who is not within this relativity.
Syamasundara: There is also some scientific evidence that where there is land now, it was once water, and where there is water now, it was once land. That the oceans reversed...
Prabhupada: Yes. That we accept.
Syamasundara: ...so it's quite possible that if there were great civilizations existing, that they, all remains are swallowed, with no trace.
Prabhupada: That is, everyday we see. One day we walk on the beaches, and the next day it is covered with water. So that is not very difficult to understand. But when the covered with water portion you cannot experiment, how can you say what is there within? Has Darwin gone within the sea, layers, studying the bottom of the sea?
Syamasundara: Yes. Where it has become land. And you find that there are sea shells, sea animals, in the layer, in the next layer up more complex forms, in the next layer more complex forms...
Prabhupada: I mean to say, but there is already sea. Have they gone down the sea and excavated the level of the sea, gone down?
Bali-mardana: Even if they...
Prabhupada: That we do not know. That we do not know. Neither he knows. Because we cannot accept that. Nobody has said that they have excavated down the bottom of the sea. But you also said that bottom may be opened at one, sometime. So unless it is opened, your experiment is insufficient.
Bali-mardana: Even if you were to grant that the first life forms on this planet were simple one-celled life, that does not mean that more complex life did not begin earlier on other planets. The theory is not aborted. It may be you can discount the possibility of...
Prabhupada: The whole thing is that Dr. Frog, famous story. He comes to this country, Dr. Frog's understanding. He has studied the three-feet-wide well, and he says he is satisfied with that. He has nothing to do with the Atlantic Ocean. But Atlantic Ocean is also a reservoir of water, and that well is also a reservoir of water. But there is a vast difference. So we take knowledge of who has created Atlantic Ocean. Therefore our knowledge is perfect. What do you say?
Syamasundara: I just wanted to try to cover this from every angle so that Darwinists will not be able to argue. Today I'd like to find out how they date earth layers, how geologists find...
Prabhupada: No. Your geologists have given, "It may be millions of years ago." They say like that.
Syamasundara: They estimate, but there must be some basis for their estimation.

 

Bali-mardana: They don't even agree amongst one another. They argue. I attended college with scientists, and they argue amongst one another; they don't agree on their own scientific evidence.
Syamasundara: But at least they all agree that there is several million years old, many millions of years old, at least.
Bali-mardana: No. Not necessarily.
Syamasundara: The Pleistocene was two hundred million years...
Bali-mardana: Just an assembly of fools. You can get all the fools to agree on the same thing. It doesn't make anyone...
Syamasundara: Well I still want to find out how to...
Prabhupada: (indistinct) krsna nama koro bhai ar sab niche, parai gab pap nahi yoni ache piche (?). Our real problem is birth, death. All these scientist, they could not solve any of these problems, neither they could argue them. Many Darwinists came and died. They could not stop death. Kata choto dayana na mari meri jao (?).
Syamasundara: Tomorrow we can discuss ethical evolution, how ethics evolved. That is also part of this doctrine.
Prabhupada: Ethic morality?
Syamasundara: How morality is also a product of evolution.
Prabhupada: We change morality within six months. The most immoral man you can make the most moral man within six months. This is practically happening.
Syamasundara: It also helps the fittest to survive.
Prabhupada: You may not be fit, but we can make you fit.
Syamasundara: That's what I mean. If you become moral you become fittest to survive. That is also his theory, doctrine.
Prabhupada: Yes. So that we can do within six months.
Syamasundara: He says that at some point a man who had developed sympathy for others, he was able to survive because he would cooperate with them to survive when others were killing each other, like that. So gradually morality also evolved. Tomorrow maybe we should finish Darwin. (break)
Prabhupada: An animal is put in some certain atmosphere, he adjusts. But there are different types animals. Just like we see while walking (in) severe cold, we try to adjust by covering. Others, the birds, the skylark, so on, they do not adjust.
Syamasundara: His finding is that new types of species will come out, which will be better adapted. The swans, if it becomes too cold, they will die.
Prabhupada: They are better than us, than human beings?
Atreya Rsi: What the theory is all about is that, for example, if you have many many swans living in one place, those who cannot adjust will be extinct after many, many years, and those who can adjust will live. In effect, what he tried to prove was that Krsna's law, nature's law, is perfect. But he was missing Krsna. In other words, what the proof is very scientific, but it is lacking.
Prabhupada: Yes. He is adding zero, without one.
Atreya Rsi: That's right, Prabhupada.
Prabhupada: Therefore the value remains zero. He couldn't find the one, so that the value of the zero at once increases.
Atreya Rsi: But there are some great scientists like Newton who studied many, many, many years and made many, many theories and then they gave it up when they realized that they couldn't go further. Newton, at a very early age, like forty-three years old, went to a monastery.

 

Syamasundara: We discussed Newton's philosophy.
Prabhupada: Sir Isaac Newton?
Syamasundara: Yes.
Prabhupada: He was Englishman.
Syamasundara: But in Africa we discussed his philosophy.
Prabhupada: He died at the age of twenty-three. His picture is there in Westminster Abbey.
Syamasundara: His tomb, his grave. He is buried there.
Prabhupada: Westminster Abbey has become now a museum.
Syamasundara: Graveyard and museum.
Prabhupada: People go to see, tourists.
Syamasundara: I think it cost us sixteen shillings for us to see. Remember we saw King (indistinct). So they're making some money.
Prabhupada: Yes. For some period, Elizabeth to Queen Victoria, the English nation advanced in so many ways. They wanted to record it that they are the greatest nation in the world. But the basic principle was how to get money from outside in London. That was the basic thing. By advertising that actually by nature they are very impoverished, they have no sufficient food, even; their nature. And they wanted to be greatest nation. By nature they are not very much favored. Now they are coming again in the lap of nature.
Syamasundara: Darwin's theory about them would be that because their environment was not very suitable for farming or mining, no natural resources, therefore their brains developed and they were able to survive.
Prabhupada: That we accept. That we accept, that we have to adjust things according to circumstances. That is acceptable. But finally, if God does not approve of it, it does not happen. Pratividhi. Pratividhi, counteraction. Tavat tanu-bhrtam tvad-upeksitanam. Pratividhi. We make counteractivities for adjusting things, but unless it is approved by the Supreme Lord, that adjustment also will not be very much (indistinct), very much helpful. Balasya neha pitarau nrsimha. Just like a small child, the nature's way is the parents has got affection to take care. At that time, if the parents do not take care, the child cannot live. But the parents' taking care is not all. If the child is condemned by the Supreme Lord, in spite of the parents taking care, it will not be happy, or it will not exist. Parents' care is natural. Generally it so happens by the parents' care the child is happy, but in spite of parents' care the child is unhappy, then we have to go to the Lord. Is it not? Just like when a man is diseased, the counteraction is physician, medicine. Generally it is expected by attendance of good physician and using good medicine that the patient becomes cured. But it is also seen that in spite of all careful attention, scientific medicine, he dies. Then what is that?
Syamasundara: Darwin would say he wasn't well enough equipped to survive.
Prabhupada: That is the deficiency, that you will not be well equipped if Krsna doesn't wish you to survive. That means you will not be able to counteract with all the counteractions. You cannot.
Atreya Rsi: In other words, Prabhupada, nature's arrangements, you are saying it is Krsna's arrangement. In other words, when Krsna wishes something it happens in a natural way.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Atreya Rsi: Nothing in an unnatural way, but in a natural way. But it is then Krsna's desire.

 

Prabhupada: Yes. This is all just like a child is protected by the parents, that is also natural. But in spite of his taking care, the child dies, suffers, that is also natural.
Syamasundara: Just like some children are born with blood diseases or some incurable disease; the parents take all care, but they still have to die young.
Prabhupada: Yes. So then it is to be understood that different natural laws are working, and they are working under one controller. That is God. Just like we are taking so many services from this electricity current, but all this electricity current are working under one leader in the powerhouse, the resident engineer. From him, the original electricity current is coming, is generated. And we are utilizing the same current in different varieties, purposes. So then, just like electric current, the same electric current working in this machine, in a way; another machine another way. It may be contradiction, but the power is the same. According to the machine, the same example: one machine is cooler, one machine is heater, although the current is the same. Parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate svabhaviki jnana-bala-kriya ca. Everywhere God's energy is working as if natural.
Syamasundara: Just like a tiger's body and a deer's body--the tiger kills the deer, but the same current is working in both. One survives, one does not survive.
Prabhupada: Nobody will survive. This is called karma. This is activity. The body is the field of activity. You are given license to act with this body for some time. That's all. No question of survival. Nobody will survive. You can act for some time.
Syamasundara: By survival he means species. The species will survive.
Prabhupada: Any species. Nobody will survive. That is also false theory. Nobody will survive. Where is the species that is surviving?
Syamasundara: Just like horses. Horses, they have found in the fossils and millions of years ago, they say millions of years ago horses were there. Slightly different forms, but still they were horses.
Prabhupada: So different forms, just like human beings, formerly they were very tall, and they are reducing their stature. At the end of Kali-yuga they will be stature like this. This is not change of the species. This is changing, just like your father is taller than you, is he not? Is he not taller?
Syamasundara: No. I'm taller than he is. But they say because our generation got better foodstuffs than our parents.
Prabhupada: So therefore, according to circumstances, the stature is changing but not the species. It is the same human, but formerly the human being was taller, stouter; now they are reducing in strength, in stature, in memory, in duration of life, span of life, in mercy. That is stated in Bhagavatam. They cannot change all these statements.
Atreya Rsi: This changing of human size also may be a scientific thing, scientifically because of our condition, because of our state of consciousness and because of conditions...
Prabhupada: Yes. Under certain conditions, changing. (break)
Syamasundara: ...research. They found that atomic particles vibrate at a certain frequency, a certain rate of vibration, and that elements such as lead, iron, all the different chemical elements, disintegrate gradually, and the atomic particles vibrate out of the element and change the structure of the element gradually, and this is a constant,  what they call life of the element, and the constant number of years before it disintegrates into some other element. So this life they have measured, and they have a table or a chart, and by this half-life formula they can determine how old a rock is by how quickly the isotopes are disintegrating. So according to their calculation, the layers of the earth go down for many millions of years; and in those lower disintegrating. So according to their calculation, the layers of the earth go down for many millions of years; and in those lower layers, millions of years old, there is either no form of life or very, very simple form of life. There is no evidence of any complex forms.
Prabhupada: Bolo... (Bengali)
Svarupa Damodara: (indistinct--regarding the determining of the age of rocks using strontium and crystal technology)
Syamasundara: The rock is at least three billion; maybe it's older.
Svarupa Damodara: Yes, maybe older, but does not give the exact age. We do not know.
Syamasundara: But the point is that they have determined that there are rock structures in the earth very, very, very old and that these contain no evidence of any complex forms of life. So that if there is a statement that there were higher forms of life millions of years ago existing on this planet, there is no evidence ever found of that.
Prabhupada: So why they're trying to find out evidence from the rocks, not from any other source?
Syamasundara: Well as civilizations come and go, they leave remains, evidence behind of their...
Prabhupada: "Civilization goes" means? Where goes?
Syamasundara: Well, if people come and they...
Prabhupada: Do they come, and they are still living? They are still there? Just like my great-grand..., great-grandfather is living. So I am his descendant.
Syamasundara: But where is he?
Prabhupada: Where is he? You want to see him? Therefore you are childish.
Syamasundara: No. I want to find his remains.
Prabhupada: You want to see my great-great-great-great-grandfather?
Syamasundara: But he must have left some remains.
Prabhupada: I am the remaining. I am his descendant.
Syamasundara: But he made no tools, he had no house?
Prabhupada: Who said? You said. You said that there may not, but because my fore... I can make tools; naturally, my grandfather, he can make too. So what is that making tools?
Syamasundara: No. But why weren't there any tools left behind for us to find, remnants?
Prabhupada: What?
Syamasundara: Final remains and tools or other evidence of other men.
Prabhupada: What is the use of tools? Tools are used for the carpenters, and we are not carpenters.
Syamasundara: But if there were higher forms of men living...
Prabhupada: Then he's (indistinct) with the carpenters, not the philosophers.
Syamasundara: ...they must have lived in cities.
Prabhupada: My forefathers were philosophers. They did not require any tools.

 

Syamasundara: They required no houses?
Prabhupada: No. Even they required, they called some carpenters and they did it. Because there is no tools, therefore there is no civilization?
Syamasundara: But tools, not houses or anything men have to use, there should be some remains left behind from their civilization.
Prabhupada: What is remains? Remains means just like the coal, that is the remains.
Syamasundara: Coal.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Syamasundara: Coal is the remains of trees, plants...
Prabhupada: Yes. This is the remains.
Svarupa Damodara: (indistinct) coal, oil, petroleum.
Syamasundara: That means there was some evidence that there were... If we look in coal beds we find remains of trees that were very simple, no complex forms of trees. Now trees are much more complex.
Prabhupada: Complex or simple, it doesn't matter. There were trees.
Svarupa Damodara: Actual