Srila Prabhupada gives some practical examples of the existence of God
LA morning walk conversation Dec 16 1973
Prabhupāda: …need of God or not? Whether there is need of God?
Prajāpati: The scientists say no, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: That is rascaldom.
Prajāpati: They say there’s neither need, nor usefulness.
Prabhupāda: That is their rascaldom. What is your opinion, scientist? There is need of God.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They may say that there is no necessity, but the fact is that there must be.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Otherwise they, we cannot conceive of how things are going on.
Prabhupāda: Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). Just like in the modern days, government, they have abolished monarchism, but still, why they elect a president? Why?
Prajāpati: Must be leadership.
Prabhupāda: Must be. That is the point. If you have abolished monarchy, then why you are electing another rascal to become a monarch? What is the answer? Why do you need it?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Because they need law and order.
Prabhupāda: Yes, there must be. In our organization… Just like in each temple we elect a president. Then we get GBC. Then above all, I am. So that is needed. It is not conventional. It is needed. Therefore above everything, there must be God. So if these people, they say, “There is no need of God, there is no use for Him,” that means they are all rascals.
–these garden beans below are not getting dried by “chance”–
…Prabhupāda: Under whose order it is being done?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They’ll say, “By nature.”
Prabhupāda: What you mean, “By nature”? That is another rascaldom. Why this wood is not moving by nature unless somebody comes and moves?
Prajāpati: They will say, “That is just the way things are.”
Prabhupāda: But it stops. Your body is moving. But when it stops, you cannot make just the way it is going on.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They also say, “That is also by nature.”
Prabhupāda: What is that nature? Nature means an instrument. Instrument, there must be one player. Nature is instrument. Just like this is an instrument. It is not recording by itself. When you push the button, then it works. You cannot say that “It is working by nature.”
Karandhara: They might say that by “nature” they mean it happens naturally. What’s happening naturally, they mean it doesn’t require anyone…
Prabhupāda: No, what things are happening naturally? Your father begets you, therefore you talk.Naturally you have not come. If your father would not begotten you through your mother, how did you come? Naturally your mother does not become pregnant. What things happening naturally?
Karandhara: No. By the father impregnating the mother, that is natural, naturally.
Prabhupāda: Why naturally? If father does not pregna… There are so many now “bachelor-daddies.” Nothing can be took natural. Nature is an instrument.
–the dairy farmer across the road dumped a load of silage and manure so that the garden will grow next year-you cannot just take from nature, you have to give back also-productive gardens do not happen by “chance”–
…Karandhara: Just like when they go and excavate a city under the ground, an old city, they see that so many things were built, and they say, “Oh, these people were very intelligent.” Although they never saw the person, they saw the civilization in the...
Prabhupāda: Yes. By symptoms, by symptoms they can understand.
Karandhara: So they say, “Well, we cannot see God.” But they could not see the people in those past days either.
Prabhupāda: No. You cannot see the government, but when things are going nicely, you must accept, there is government. That is… When things are going on very nicely, regularly, the sun is rising regularly, the moon is rising regularly, the seasons are changing and the waves are flowing, everything, then you have to accept that there is government. And as we have got experience here in this material world… Government is impersonal, but that at the end there is a president. Similarly, the whole government, the complete government, may be impersonal in the beginning, but at the end there is a person, that Supreme Person, Bhagavān. Brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate [SB 1.2.11]. Yes. Paramātmā [Supersoul] is representative of God. Just like the president has got so many representative governors, similarly, Paramātmā is the localized representative of God, and God is person, and the whole government is impersonal. This is the conception. When we say “government,” you cannot localize that “Who is that person, government?” That is impersonal. But when we find governor, then localized persons. And then above them, all of them, when there is president, he is supreme person. This is our practical example. Similarly, nature is working impersonally, but there are officers. They are called demigods. And above them all there is the Supreme Lord. He is Bhagavān. And this idea where from has come? The president, the governors, and the government. Janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1]. It has come from there. Because of the origin, the same thing is there.
Some Conclusions-The first section Srila Prabhupada explains that even though they have abolished monarchy (and for good reasons) still that does not mean- we require no leader. We do and that is why we elect somebody president. The need is real.
The second section Prabhupada explains in reply to an atheists statement that there is no God because everything happens by “nature”-would your birth have taken place by nature only, without your father? Of course not. We have so many “bachelor daddies” today (irresponsible men who get women pregnant and then just go away), so how did those births take place? Nobody did it? The sperm didn’t just fly out of space into some female womb by “accident”. It happened by a person.
And the last section he explains something we all can relate to-impersonal government. It is all impersonal-until you get to the top, where the “buck stops here”, as the saying goes. In government, everybody tries to pass the buck (blame) but it ultimately comes to the final person who is supposed to be in charge of the whole thing.
Hare Krsna
damaghosa das
