June 8 1974 Geneva conversations
Prabhupāda: Yes. (indistinct) consider what kind of life I’m going to get. (indistinct) They have made their own rascal philosophy that there is no life after death. Although they’re experiencing that I am changing my body in this duration of life. I know that I have a child’s body, child’s body. That body’s finished. Still I’m existing. So why I shall not exist after this body’s finished? Where is the logic? Where is the… The simple logic they cannot understand. So dull brain. And they’re advanced in civilization, big, big professor, big, big Indologist, this logic. The simple reason they cannot understand. What did they say? You have talked to many men about this logic?
Guru-gaurāṅga: About life after death?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Satsvarūpa: They say it doesn’t go beyond… They have to agree that the baby’s body is gone and the young man’s body is gone. They have to agree. But they say that that doesn’t mean logically that I have to take another body.
Prabhupāda: What is the other logic? If you have changed your body so many times, why not change this body? What is your reason? Natural course it should be that I have changed so many bodies so this body I shall change. This is natural logic. And what is his logic?
Satsvarūpa: So he said… They say it may be or it may not be.
Prabhupāda: But that is your rascaldom. But this is the real logic.
Guru-gaurāṅga: They also say that it is not… It is the same body, more or less…
Prabhupāda: Same body…
Guru-gaurāṅga: But it is just developed, but it is not a different body.
Prabhupāda: No. Developed means different body. Development means different body. They cannot say it is not different body. Then if it is not different, then go to childhood again. That means they’re not human being. Human being means with logic. According to their definition, man is rational animal. They’re not even rational. Like cats and dogs. There is no rationality. Cats and dogs also they have got rationality. Logic plus authority, Kṛṣṇa says. How you can deny? That means they don’t agree with Kṛṣṇa’s instruction. You see? This logic, I am not giving this logic. This logic is given by Kṛṣṇa. So unless… The difficulty is that unless they accept the authority, it is very difficult. Logic is there. The authority is there.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: They feel, Prabhupāda, that they’ve been cheated so much by so many philosophies that when we say that the Vedas are written by a person who’s not contaminated by the modes of nature, they say, “Well, how is this possible? My experience is that everyone who’s written books, they’re all materialistic and therefore the philosophy must be like that.”
Prabhupāda: But you must be following some philosophy. You’re not without philosophy. Even the hippies they’re also follow… They’ve got their own philosophy.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So you cannot give up philosophy. Now it is misfortune that you met with the cheaters. So make your fortune now. Believe in Kṛṣṇa’s philosophy. Then you’ll be happy.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Jaya.
Prabhupāda: That argument that we don’t believe… But you’re believing in Lenin’s philosophy, the communist. And what is this hippies, their philosophy, Allen Ginsberg’s philosophy? Ha? Debauch number one. (laughter)
Satsvarūpa: Ultimately, they don’t follow anyone, although they may like people, they…
Prabhupāda: No, they follow.
Devotee: They say our only…
Prabhupāda: But they are manufacture their own philosophy. Philosophy there must be. They’ve become their own authority. That is a chaotic condition. Authority he has made himself. Yes. I am my authority. Authority has to accept. But he does not know that I am fool No. 1, what is the value of my authority? Authority he must accept. But he makes himself his authority. That is the tendency now. “In my opinion.” All rascals say like that. “In my opinion.” He does not… He’s rascal No. 1, what is the value of his opinion? But he’ll say, “In my opinion.” That is the difficulty. And this is called creative philosophy. Is it not?
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: This is going on. All rascals have creative philosophy.
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: When I hear in the United States there’s a saying, a slogan, amongst the young people: “Do your own thing.” And also in India now when I go there they say, “So many men, so many minds.”
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is Vivekananda. Yata mata tata patha. That means everyone can become authority. This is their philosophy.
Satsvarūpa: And this they praised as good.
Prabhupāda: Ha?
Satsvarūpa: And others praise this as…
Puṣṭa-kṛṣṇa: Very tolerant, liberal.
Prabhupāda: :Yes, but our philosophy, Kṛṣṇa says, “You rascal, give up everything. Just surrender unto Me.” This is our philosophy. “You rascal, you give up everything and surrender unto Me.” This is our philosophy.
Some Conclusions- Prabhupada begins his points…
“That body’s finished. Still I’m existing. So why I shall not exist after this body’s finished? Where is the logic?”
We have so many different body changes even in one lifetime-and yet we exist in each of these changes. This is simple logic but SP says these people are so dull headed, big big professors, philosophers, they cannot understand this simple truth.
Devotee: But they say that that doesn’t mean logically that I have to take another body.
Devotee;But it is just developed, but it is not a different body.
Prabhupada:No. Developed means different body. They cannot say it is not different body. Then if it is not different, then go to childhood again. That means they’re not human being.
SP is saying if they dont accept that the body is changing then look at the childhood body-how can any reasonable man say it has not changed or is not different? Not accepting this means they are not even human being.
Prabhupada:..Human being means with logic. According to their definition, man is rational animal. They’re not even rational. Like cats and dogs. Logic plus authority, Kṛṣṇa says. How you can deny? That means they don’t agree with Kṛṣṇa’s instruction. You see? This logic, I am not giving this logic. This logic is given by Kṛṣṇa. So unless… The difficulty is that unless they accept the authority, it is very difficult. Logic is there. The authority is there.
So we see this problem today even among the devotees who simply do not accept Srila Prabhupada as an ultimate authority-otherwise why do they disobey him in so many ways, why do they go to so called “higher education universities” if they believe what the sastra and the param para teaches us about this imperfect knowledge?
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is Vivekananda. Yata mata tata patha. That means everyone can become authority. This is their philosophy.
One of the pranam mantras to Srila Prabhupada states that he came here to the western worlds to stop this impersonalism and voidism prevelant everywhere thanks to Vivekananda and Sankaracarya. And not accepting completely higher authorized authority is the doorway to this illusion and major pitfall to pure bhakti.
Prabhupāda: :Yes, but our philosophy, Kṛṣṇa says, “You rascal, give up everything. Just surrender unto Me.” This is our philosophy.
Hare Krsna
damaghosa das