Participants:
PrabhupādaŚyāmasundaraAtreya ṚṣiDevoteeDevoteesGuestKarāndharaPradyumnaSvarūpa Dāmodara
Śyāmasundara: So this, this philosopher is B. F. Skinner. He is actually a psychologist, but he has a philosophy also. And that philosophy...
Prabhupāda: Well psychology is part of philosophy.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. And philosophy...
Prabhupāda: In Vaisnava philosophy. Psychology better position [indistinct] together makes philosophy.
Śyāmasundara: Anyway, the philosophy is that, "The Christian ideal that inside the body there is a person is outmoded", he says. "But the science has discovered that a person's behavior and his reactions are simply a product of his environment, his conditioning. That he can make a fool out of a wise man or a wise man out of a fool simply by changing the surroundings and the conditions. This is called the..."
Prabhupāda: Why the man has not been able to change the surrounding of death, birth? What is this surrounding?
Śyāmasundara: Well, he said, "That problem can, can be never be solved."
Prabhupāda: Then how he said you can make change by surroundings?
Śyāmasundara: He only, he only talks about behavior.
Prabhupāda: Behavior, that's all right. Whatever behavior..., in the ultimate, goal. Everyone is dying so how man can change this condition? Then he can say that there is no God, there is no soul.
Śyāmasundara: Hm. His idea is that he wants..., he has one idea—that is to be able to control human behavior.
Prabhupāda: What he wants to do? By human behavior... Every man is eating. How he can control? That he cannot control.
Śyāmasundara: By what they call, "Method of reinforcement." Supposing... He said that, "Men have become too free, so our whole society—culture, is ruined. Being ruined because men are too free. Quite free..."
Prabhupāda: No. They are not free. We, according to our Vedic civilization, we are controlled by the Vedic knowledge. We are not free.
Śyāmasundara: That he..., He says that, in a way. He says that, "Everyone is conditioned by their environment."
Prabhupāda: No. He is conditioned by nature, not by environment. Just like there is excessive heat, excessive cold. He is conditioned by nature. You cannot avoid it.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Then where is his..., molding this environment. You cannot make winter season into summer season or summer season into winter season.
Śyāmasundara: No. But he says, "You can train a men to accept certain values by reinforcing, rewarding them when they are right and punishing them when they are wrong."
Prabhupāda: That means they are already conditioned, you want to make them further conditioned.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is the idea.
Śyāmasundara: Perfect control over everyone.
Prabhupāda: So that is already there. The Vedic injunction means the, the authorities. They conditioned, so that under condition they also can be peaceful. What is his idea?
Śyāmasundara: For instance, the society. He says, "The society should be full of love and security and harmony, everyone should work in unison. But because people have freedom to choose this or that. That—too much freedom, the society is falling apart.
Prabhupāda: That is Western society, not the society controlled by Vedic literature.
Śyāmasundara: So...
Prabhupāda: Just like marriage in Vedic society, that is a religious obligation. They cannot cancel. The freedom, the so-called freedom is allowed in the upstart Western society.
Śyāmasundara: So he says, "We have to change all this now."
Prabhupāda: Then they have to take to these Vedic principles. That is the way.
Śyāmasundara: He works... His idea is taken from his work on rats and pigeons.
Prabhupāda: [laughs] His authority is rats and pigeons. That's all right? Our authority is Vedavyāsa.
Devotees: [laughter]
Prabhupāda: That is the difference. Our authority is Kṛṣṇa. Our authority is Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, Manu—and his authority is rats and pigeons. That is the difference between the West and East.
Śyāmasundara: Right. He has shown scientifically that you can train a rat to push a button..., "Of many buttons, he will push the one that gives him food. If he pushes one button and the food comes, then he will continually press that button. So you can... " He says, "You can condition a man by rewarding him when he is right and punishing him when he is wrong."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is, that is the whole Vedic literature—the heaven and hell. If you do like this, then you go to heaven, and if you do like this, you go to hell. If you do like this, you go to Godhead. This is Vedic literature. It is already there, phala śruti, phala śruti. That if one chants like this, he goes back to home, back to Godhead.
Śyāmasundara: He says that, "If you insist that individual..."
Prabhupāda: And this morning I was speaking, "If you want to be naked, then you become tree. If you want become..., fresh blood. Then you become tiger and if you wants to serve Kṛṣṇa, that is Goloka Vṛndāvana." These things are there already in the Vedic literature. They are controlling. That is real conditioning.
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: Real controlling means there is no mistake. If these rats and cats are controlling, then maybe you take rats' and cats' authority and others may take some tigers' and others' authorities. This will change always.
Śyāmasundara: You said...
Prabhupāda: The authority must be fixed. Yes?
Devotee: Skinner's theory isn't. He isn't saying how we should control people. He is simply putting forth the idea that people should be controlled.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: He doesn't say... He doesn't, he says opinion, in fact admits that he doesn't know what the aim or goal is, or how exactly we should control it. He is simply putting forth what according to the Vedic system is, is the correct thesis [?] that people can be controlled.
Prabhupāda: Man is already controlled...
Devotee: Yeah right.
Prabhupāda: ...already controlled. Just like Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that you are already under the stringent laws, under the control of the stringent laws of material nature. And you are feeling inconvenienced, just like that threefold miserable condition.
[aside:] You can sit-down there if you want [indistinct] pressing...
Guest: I, I'm...
Prabhupāda: [aside:] Yes, like this, yes. Some of you can come this side? Yes.
So there is no doubt about it that we are controlled. Nobody can say, "I am free." We are controlled.
Devotee: But...
Prabhupāda: When we are being controlled, we are feeling some inconvenience. So we are advising that you be under the control of Kṛṣṇa.
Karāndhara: One, one extension of Skinner's idea. They say, "Now we have so many criminals, and they are causing disruption within society." So he says that, "That is our fault." He says that, "Rather everyone from childhood should be trained in a controlled environment and then be conditioned to a certain pattern. So that they will not commit what is considered a crime and will only do what is considered good." In other words, they become more like robots. So only do what they are programed, like a robot. You program to do a certain thing and they won't transgress that program.
Prabhupāda: I see. So that program is already there. But if you create your own program, you do not follow the standard program. That is the defect.
Śyāmasundara: His program, he says, "Skinner himself believes in Judeo-Christian ethics combined with a scientific tradition. But he fails to answer how it is possible to accept those ethics without accepting something like an inner person with an autonomous conscience." In other words, he says, "We can program society to be good to your neighbor, to love one another, to be honest, upright, like that. But he is still not sure how it would be possible without accepting a free will."
Prabhupāda: Therefore the defect is that these programs are being forwarded by some rascals. Therefore they are defective. If they would have been forwarded by perfect men, then it would have acted nicely. Now one rascal is forwarding some program, another rascal next time family that this is good. So this is going on in the Western civilization. Because according to Bhāgavata they belong to the category of dogs, hogs, camels. So what is the benefit of a dog's program and superceded by a camel's program. If they are on the..., basically they are nothing but dogs, hogs, camels and asses. Then suppose dog has given some program and the camel says, "No. This program is better than this one." And the ass comes, he gives another program, "But this program is better than this program." So either of these programs because they are made by dogs, hogs, asses and camels, they cannot be perfect. Take a program from a real human being. Then it is sucessful. The defect is there. One philosopher is [indistinct] proposing something, another philosopher is proposing... That is everywhere—especially in the Western countries, they have been so in decline. But the Vedic civilization there is no independence. They must follow the Vedic injunction. As I have said several times, the Vedas says that the stool of cow is completely pure. They are satified. They do not argue that, "Formerly you said that the stool of animal is impure. Now you are saying the stool of animal—cow, is pure. So how can I accept?" But there is no such thing. The Vedas says, even it is stool, but the Vedas says the stool of cow is perfectly pure. Yes. No contradiction. Our presentation of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is like that. What Kṛṣṇa says, that is wanted—as it is. There is no question of altering or changing according to circumstances. We know Kṛṣṇa is perfect. Whatever He has said, it is all perfect, in all circumstances. That is our philosophy. We do not deviate. So similarly, if the direction is taken for training from the—perfect, then it is all right.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And if the direction is taken from the classes of men who are, hogs, dogs, and asses, and camels how you can take?
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Today you'll put something, next day another put something, next day another put something, so the whole society will be puzzled.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. He has some, some knowledge, he says, "Everyone is conditioned anyway. Everyone is conditioned by..."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is conditioned, that is, that is a...
Śyāmasundara: He said, he said...
Prabhupāda: Unless he is conditioned, there is no question of material life. Material life means conditioned life. There is no question of freedom. Just like prison life, prison life means conditioned life. You may be a first-class prisoner, a second-class prisoner, that generally. But as soon as you are put within the walls of the prison house, you are conditioned. That is the fact. Similarly, anyone who has accepted this body deha-bhājām. Not just like Bhāgavata [SB 5.5.1] says, nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke. Nṛloke. Everyone is conditioned, accepting this material body. But he says nāyaṁdeho-bhājāṁ nṛloke. [?] But those who have accepted this material body in the human society, for them it is not good to be engaged in sense gratification like dogs, hogs and camels. Everyone, everyone who has got this material body, he is conditioned. But, so when one gets the body of a human being, he should not be so conditioned like the dogs, hogs, camels. This is the truth, that we are conditioned. We have got the body. We have got the bodily necessities. We have to eat, we have to sleep, we have to, we must gratify our senses, must protect ourself from fear. So conditions are there, but a still, you can make your conditions better. And how? Tapo. We have to undergo austerities, penances. Just like we say, we don't say, "No sex life," but "No illicit sex life." This is better condition. Eh?
Devotee: Skinner also believes that we have to control activities, but he himself is not willing to undergo those austerities.
Prabhupāda: Therefore he is useless.
Devotee: Right. He speaks [indistinct].
Prabhupāda: Example is better than precept. By example he cannot prove. Therefore his precept has no value.
Atreya Ṛṣi: Another problem with his precept Prabhupada is that his result is societies goal. His comforts, material comforts, his peace and relationship with man to man to benefit one's own self on a very false ego level.
Prabhupāda: Hm. And...
Atreya Ṛṣi: And...
Prabhupāda: ...that is.
Atreya Ṛṣi: ...he has no knowledge...
Śyāmasundara: "Humanitarian," he calls it.
Atreya Ṛṣi: He's humanitarian. He has...
Prabhupāda: What is that humanitarian?
Atreya Ṛṣi: ...and that's what...
Prabhupāda: I cheat you, you cheat me.
Śyāmasundara: No he says that, "Now, now, now the conditions that control us are haphazard. Some are designed by selfish men to exploit others."
Prabhupāda: But why do we prove that he is perfect man?
Śyāmasundara: He says that we can design a culture that will survive due to its being moral, stay upright, honest, hard-working, all the Amer..., typical American... [laughs] Standards.
Karāndhara: Who puts the standards? Someone has to, has to be God in order to set the standard. The conditioning.
Śyāmasundara: He said, "Between God and I, I must admit that God is next to [?] superior." I'll give you his exact quote. He says, "Between myself...," between himself... He says, "There is a curious similarity between himself and God, adding, however, that "Perhaps I must yield to God in point of seniority." He wants to play God.
Prabhupāda: He wants to play God.
Śyāmasundara: He wants to design the culture.
Prabhupāda: What is his conception of God?
Devotee: A [indistinct] collegue.
Śyāmasundara: Senior, a senior collegue.
Prabhupāda: That's nice.
Devotees: [laughter]
Prabhupāda: We accept that. Nityo nityānām. [KU 2.2.13].
Devotees: [laughter]
Prabhupāda: We accept that. That is Vedic. That is Vedic. He is also living being, but he is the superior, chief living being? That is. Just like we are also living beings, but you accept me as chief of the society. Similarly, there are innumerable living entities all over the universes, all over the creation, but he is the chief of them? That is God, leader. Our philosophy is to follow the leader, Kṛṣṇa.
Devotee: But Skinner has no idea that there is an actual representative of God on earth that could set up such a perfect society. Therefore he is dreaming about setting up one in the future while his due representative is actually sitting with us now. He is thinking of the future.
Prabhupāda: When, when he was thinking?
Devotee: He is thinking...
Śyāmasundara: Now.
Devotee: ...that someday... He is thinking that it can be done.
Śyāmasundara: He is living now.
Devotee: He is living now.
Prabhupāda: He's living.
Śyāmasundara: This is his picture. [shows book to Prabhupāda]
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Śyāmasundara: It says, "Skinner playing the organ", and it quotes him, saying, "Yet, yet I am unhappy..."
Prabhupāda: So inform him that, "Your theory is that God's representative..." He is expecting God's representative or what is that?
Devotee: No, no. He's...
Śyāmasundara: I'll tell you what he says about God. "He says that the belief in God arose due to man's inability to understand his world, but that man no longer needs such a fiction."
Prabhupāda: Ah. Then one has to believe him?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah. Well some...
Karāndhara: He also says that we have the capacity to take matters into our own hands. We don't have to, we don't have to loose it to some controller far away which we have no control over.
Prabhupāda: But that you cannot do. You cannot take the question of birth, death, old age in your hands. How do you says that you shall be able to take affairs in your own hand?
Śyāmasundara: Well most, most scientists like that accept those problems as inescapable problems. But what...
Karāndhara: Makes deal with this mind. [?]
Śyāmasundara: ...while we are here, let us have the best life we can.
Prabhupāda: But if he can give the better life, where there is no death, there is no old age, there is no disease, why don't you accept it?
Karāndhara: They will only accept that if it is within this life here. This life can remain eternal. They have no vision beyond this life, nor are they willing to accept [indistinct].
Prabhupāda: That is your conclusion. This cannot be corrected. This cannot be corrected. That you cannot live. They accept it. But there, after death, it is done. But if we give some thought that after death you can attain, what don't you try it? After death, if there is a life of blissful and knowledge, blissful knowledge so what does they take it?
Karāndhara: Well scientists, a lot of scientists consider that to be a, a simply a psychological way of avoiding the issue now. They say, "Let us take matters in hand right now. Don't try to..."
Prabhupāda: What right, you have not been able to take in the matter in hand to stop death. That is not possible.
Karāndhara: They think by endeavoring, they will. They say it took so long this idea that we have a life after this life. That's kept people complacent, without working up to their own improvement. Now if you cast of that idea, you hook that idea of an afterlife and you work here and now, then you will become...
Prabhupāda: You are working. The dogs and hogs they are working, day and night. What they are missing? You say if you work, they are already working. They are already working—like animals, day and night. We sing that, śīta ātapa bāta bariṣana e dina jāminī jagi re [Bhajahū Re Mana 2]. They are already working what they are free?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Scientists, science also agree that you can't avoid accidents.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: You can't avoid acc..., no one can avoid accidents. I had accident early morning. So you cannot predict or try to define this. [?]
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: [indistinct] in a second. They understand that you cannot control this force of nature. From any moment...
Prabhupāda: Yes.At any moment you can meet death.
Devotee: So they're the ones who have actually neglected taking, taking into consideration the real problems. They slide over the real problems, that is birth, death, old age and disease. And they, they are fiddling around in very small matters...
Śyāmasundara: Social problems.
Devotees: . Social problems...
Śyāmasundara: Political problems.
Prabhupāda: The social problem will be automatically solved. If one becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious, social problems will be solved automatically.
Atreya Ṛṣi: The scientists have been offering a spiritual solution, but a spiritual solution also includes all other...
Prabhupāda: All material solutions.
Atreya Ṛṣi: And they are trying to solve the political problems, and they are unable. This is the fringe benefit...
Prabhupāda: That means less intelligence. They have a poor fund of knowledge. And they are philosophising.
Śyāmasundara: For instance...
Atreya Ṛṣi: And they have no, never succeeded in any [indistinct]...
Śyāmasundara: They call their process social engineering. For instance, they say, "A criminal does not become bad because of his..., that he is naturally bad but it's because of his environment. So that if he is trained in such a way he will be good, and we can..."
Prabhupāda: Just like in, in the Western countries, the social environment, the killing of animals—it is taken not bad. In other societies it is taken as bad. Then how to adjust?
Śyāmasundara: Oh, I see. So...
Prabhupāda: There are two contradictory societies.
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: One society says that, "Nonviolence is nice, better," but another society says, "No—violence is better." Then how will adjust? Which society is good, which society bad? How he will decide?
Devotee: The animals.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee: They have no way of deciding.
Prabhupāda: But no. There is way. If you come to the Vedic life, then there is way.
Devotee: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: So we should propose this to Skinner.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: "We will accept your process if you take direction from us."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: He accepts that there should be some process, but he doesn't know what it is. He obviously has not...
Prabhupāda: The process is, tad..., just like we, we say, Vedic injunction: sa gurum evābhigacchet [MU 1.2.12]. You must approach guru.
Atreya Ṛṣi: His idea is that the process should be man-controlled.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Atreya Ṛṣi: The process is controlled by man.
Prabhupāda: It is man-controlled. It is man-controlled. Our society is being controlled by me.
Atreya Ṛṣi: Yeah right but [indistinct] is surrender to God.
Śyāmasundara: He says..., he says that, "The best way to release the beneficial energy of the people is to build a world in which people are... Build a world in which people are naturally good, in which they are rewarded for wanting what is good for their culture."
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is Kṛṣṇa society. Here it is let him sell it. Let him come, let him understand.
Karāndhara: His critics... The critics of this theory that we can condition everyone to a certain program...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Karāndhara: They are fearful that well someone unscrupulous will be riding us wrong.
Prabhupāda: No. That we cannot take, I mean, to accept guru as unscrupulous. Therefore we say paramparā. He is coming directly from God. He is perfect. Therefore this paramparā system is bona fide. We cannot accept any rascal to become guru. Guru must be in the paramparā system. Who is receiving the knowledge directly from God—he is perfect.
Śyāmasundara: This, this is their dilemma now, that they cannot find any standard of behavior. Formerly people's behavior was motivated by deprivation. They wanted more economic gain because there was hunger. But now we have everything, so no one wants to work anymore. So now there is nothing to satisfy people enough to make them behave.
Prabhupāda: Therefore, therefore the Vedānta gives considering him: athāto brahma jijñāsā. Now we have got enough to eat and enough to enjoy. Now you inquire about Brahman. This education is superior. So this is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. We are giving knowledge about Brahman, or the Supreme. We are not concerned about giving you some scientific invention, some this invention, that invention, this misgiving. We are giving the ultimate benefit. Now, just like I have come to America with this hope that, "Americans are not poverty stricken, they have no many problems. If I go there, if I speak to them about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they will be able to take." So if the human society has come to that standard. Then the next point is, now they should eat peacefully, sleep peacefully have sense gratification peacefully and making the mind peaceful—inquire about the Supreme Absolute Truth. This is ideal life.
Śyāmasundara: Well this, this, this will provide the stimulus which will..., so the people will react favorably, to behave favorably, simply by...
Prabhupāda: That stimulus is...
Śyāmasundara: ...performing these activities?
Prabhupāda: ...we have got experience that this material world is full of miseries. Everyone will be checked. Otherwise how, why he is trying to adjust?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: Now we have got information from Bhagavad-gītā,
mām upetya kaunteya
duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam
nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gataḥ
[Bg. 8.15]
duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam
nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gataḥ
[Bg. 8.15]
Kṛṣṇa says, "Anyone who comes to Me, back to home, back to Godhead, he does not come again to this material world which is full of misery." Mām upetya kaunteya duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam, nāpnuvanti...
Śyāmasundara: But then what is the stimulus? Why will they...?
Prabhupāda: This is stimulus. You are bothered in so many miserable condition of life and we are offering that, "You take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you go to a place where only there is blissful life and knowledge." What is that?
Pradyumna: Ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ [Bg. 8.16].
Prabhupāda: Na. Mām upetya.
Pradyumna: Mām upetya tu kaunteya punar janma na vidyate. "From the highest planet in this material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death takes place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again."
Prabhupāda: So there are many abodes. There are many planets, that is a fact. So there is a planet where Kṛṣṇa lives and if you go there, you live perfectly. You are trying to go to the moon planet, but here it says, ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino... What is that?
Śyāmasundara: So we have to condition people that every time they press our button, Hare Kṛṣṇa button, they get some pleasure.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: You know, then they will accept...
Prabhupāda: Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam. Ceto-darpaṇa... Every time he gets some higher knowledge and his dirty heart becomes cleansed. And therefore his spiritual beliefs becomes increased.
Śyāmasundara: We have...
Prabhupāda: Whereas in the material world, what is said, ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ...
Pradyumna: Punar āvartino 'rjuna. Again returning. Mām upetya tu kaunteya punar janma...
Prabhupāda: Na vidyate. Now read the translation.
Pradyumna: "From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again."
Prabhupāda: In the material world there are higher planetary system, lower planetary system and you sometimes go higher planetary, sometimes down, according to your karma. But wherever you remain, you cannot avoid birth, death, old age and disease. "But if you come to My planet, then there is no more birth." What is the objection of Mr. Skinner?
Śyāmasundara: He, he only wants to find out. He doesn't know himself what is the satifaction...
Prabhupāda: He doesn't know anything. He is a fool. What does he know? He has to learn.
Devotee: Yes, he, he more or less admits that he is not a perfect personality...
Prabhupāda: So how, who he accepts as perfect?
Śyāmasundara: "I am not happy." "I am not happy."
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Śyāmasundara: He say, "I am not happy."
Prabhupāda: Nobody is happy. How you can be happy? Nobody in this material world can be happy. How you can be, you are also one of them. Why you are claiming a better position? Nobody can be happy. We say nobody can be happy. Duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam [Bg. 8.15]. Anyone who is living in this material world cannot be happy.
Devotee: It seems like Skinner should be very right, or that he is very right, because he wants there to be a society where it is controlled and, and ah... people.
Prabhupāda: So let him come and study this society. He is a philosopher and he's an intelligent. Invite him.
Śyāmasundara: What, what about this statement? He says that, "I can take any person at young age, any person with me, any person, and I can, at random, and I can train him to become any type of specialist I might select. Doctor, lawyer, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents or his nature, his tendencies or his abilities."
Prabhupāda: So that means training should be given from childhood. That is the whole idea.
Śyāmasundara: But is, is that true? Is that?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: We can train anyone to become anything.
Prabhupāda: Anything. Just like there, there is the story, the Tarjan. Tarjan.
Śyāmasundara: Tarzan?
Prabhupāda: Yes. And he was living in the society of monkey and he learned how to jump from one tree to another.
Devotees: [laughter]
Devotee: Śrīla Prabhupāda can you give [indistinct] to someone who has a natural kṣatriya tendency, he cannot really become a Vaiṣṇava?
Prabhupāda: No. There is no such barrier. Anyone can become Kṛṣṇa. Anyone.
Atreya Ṛṣi: Vaiṣṇava yes. [indistinct] but he doesn't.
Prabhupāda: Just... just like...
Atreya Ṛṣi: What about brāhmaṇa?
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee: Brāhmaṇa too? Someone who is just naturally a śūdra. How can he become brāhmaṇa?
Prabhupāda: No, by training.
Śyāmasundara: Everyone has become śūdra now. Everyone is, you say everyone is born śūdra.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: In the Vedic age wouldn't everyone want to become a brāhmaṇa? Why, why train someone as a śūdra?
Karāndhara: It is progressive, progressive. It takes time. It is a whole progressive path. That is the whole Vedic culture, that everyone, no matter what stage [indistinct]...
Prabhupāda: And all the śūdras can be made brāhmaṇas. But where the śūdras are coming? Are the śūdras are ready to become brāhmaṇa? Then how you can? We are inviting everyone to become Kṛṣṇa conscious.
Śyāmasundara: He is just saying, he is just saying that it is possible that you can mold anyone into anything.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Well yes. Possible, yes.
Śyāmasundara: But if they won't accept, if they won't accept...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. That is karma.
Śyāmasundara: But he says there is no possibility of them not accepting, if you form the conditions in such a way.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: They must accept by conditioning.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That, that is also possible. But who is going to that? Make that permanent?
Karāndhara: Who, who can so supremely control all conditions that would free one from karmic reaction? All the karmic reactions. How could they control the environment that indefinately?
Śyāmasundara: By punishment and reward. For instance by punishing them when they are wrong...
Karāndhara: Say he had a house, and he was doing that, and all of a sudden there was a flood came and the house came... [indistinct] How could he could control the environment [indistinct]?
Śyāmasundara: No of a person, not, not of a house.
Karāndhara: That is what I mean. That how he can could control the environment if that person is going to be punished or rewarded when he wants him to be punished or rewarded?
Prabhupāda: No he says from childhood.
Śyāmasundara: He is talking about a child. Infant.
Prabhupāda: Infant. Yes. That is possible. That is possible. Just like our children, from childhood they are dancing.
Śyāmasundara: Here is a picture of his child. He put his child in a box when it was born. Now this is her today, twenty-seven years later. He conditioned her in this box for a year.
Devotee: How long?
Śyāmasundara: Some time. And she came out better, healthier and happier than normal children, because they kept the temperature the same, because it was germ-free, there was no disease and always cleaned by rotating...
Prabhupāda: That means he protected the child from all calamities.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So that is fortunate. If you can protect... Therefore I repeatedly said that our Dallas center should be taken very much important place. All our children must go.
Śyāmasundara: Make the environment just perfect.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That I have repeatedly said.
Karāndhara: He may built a box, he cannot control the environment.
Prabhupāda: No, no, box, he has put in box, how we have got different box?
Devotees: [laughter]
Prabhupāda: That is another thing. But the protection is required.
Karāndhara: His supposition of being able to control the environment completely is imperfect, because he can't control the environment perfectly. Even if he builds the child a box, say there is a fire in the house and the box burns down? How he controls that environment?
Devotee: [indistinct]
Śyāmasundara: No he doesn't [indistinct]. Right now the level of their experiments are relatively small. For instance, they have created teaching machines where a child is put in front of the machine and a question is asked and if the child answers it correctly he gets a reward.
Prabhupāda: This is another nonsense, you see. The thing is that the Vedic conception of raising children—brahmacārī—that system is perfect.
Śyāmasundara: Not by machine.
Prabhupāda: No, this is rascaldom.
Atreya Ṛṣi: Prabhupāda there is...
Prabhupāda: We are not machines.
Śyāmasundara: No. But he says that when the answer is given correctly by the child, then he is rewarded by the machine.
Prabhupāda: But after..., the answers and questions are already there. They can take advantage of that.
Karāndhara: Well one of there what...
Prabhupāda: Just like we say that tad vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet [MU 1.2.12]. There is question and answer. Therefore in, in order to understand the transcendental science, he must go to guru, gurum evābhigacchet. And then what is the symptom of guru? Samit-pāṇiḥśrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. Guru means who has learned knowledge by the paramparā system. Śrotriyaṁ brahma and the result is that he is perfectly a devotee.
Śyāmasundara: Suppose we had a machine and one of our children was given the question "Who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead?" And then there were three possibilities and she pushed, "Kṛṣṇa." And then, "Oh!" Some reward came out. Then she would...
Prabhupāda: No, no he has to put some button...
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: ...to take out Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: To take the answer. He has three choices: Kṛṣṇa, Durgā, Kālī. Which one is the Supreme Personality? So if he chooses Kṛṣṇa and then he gets rewarded. So in the future he will always think Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Prabhupāda: So why machine? Why not take a, a live master?
Devotee: Yes. He says that, that can be done also.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Devotee: It's just that as he's saying that they should be rewarded when they say the right answer.
Śyāmasundara: No he says that this will solve the problem of not enough teachers in our schools, public schools. There is not enough teachers for the children. There are huge classes of children and only one teacher.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Śyāmasundara: So there's not enough individual time given to each student.
Prabhupāda: So why not produce many teachers? That we are trying to do.
Śyāmasundara: No one wants to teach anymore.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Śyāmasundara: No one wants to teach anymore.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Karāndhara: They don't know what to teach.
Prabhupāda: Just because they do not know how to teach, and there cheating teaching has failed.
Śyāmasundara: They don't get enough pay, so many reasons.
Prabhupāda: Our teachers do not ask any payment. They go and freely. So why don't you take advantage of these teachers?
Karāndhara: One thing they refer to Prabhupāda. That when we speak in terms of the Vedic culture, and Vedic techniques. They, they say well, if that Vedic technique and Vedic culture was previously existing, then why did it devolve? Why did it fall apart and now we have to make some new way?
Prabhupāda: That, for a new way, cannot. If you want perfection, you must take to Vedic culture because it is not with the four defects of human being. Anything introduced for... Just like we are pushing on this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and some of the students are falling back. What can be done? That is not the defect of the institution. That is some other power. So people might have fallen from the standard of Vedic culture, but they cannot invent any new. That is not.
Karāndhara: Well that is the same thing they say about the scientific process. The scientific process isn't imperfect, it is just that there are attempts to masters that are imperfect.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Karāndhara: The empiric process.
Prabhupāda: Ah.
Karāndhara: That's there claim that the empiric process is perfect. Yet we haven't, we haven't understood it or we haven't developed it to perfection.
Śyāmasundara: For instance, they would say if our students are falling back, it is because of the environment.
Prabhupāda: They are not all falling back. Some of them.
Śyāmasundara: Some of them...
Prabhupāda: So that is possible anywhere.
Śyāmasundara: So he says, "Ideally, if the, if our environment was conditioned in such a way that they were rewarded for doing good things and punished for doing bad things, that they would not go away.
Prabhupāda: If they will be punished, but they don't care for punishment.
Atreya Ṛṣi: Prabhupāda there is, there is...
Prabhupāda: Just like, you say in the lawbooks that if you steal, you'll be arrested, but they don't care for your lawbook, they steal. What can you do? That independence is already there. The lawbook says that if you commit theft you will be punished, and he is actually punished. But if he doesn't care for punishment, then how what can you do? Punishment is already there.
Śyāmasundara: For instance, he gives an example that, let's say that in an institution there is lunch served for one hour between twelve and one, and at one o'clock the door is closed and locked, sharply. So that automatically everyone will want to come before one o'clock, to eat otherwise they will be punished and not be...
Prabhupāda: That's all right if anyone prefers to starve, they may not come. That law will be not be obligatory to a person who prefers to starve.
Karāndhara: That is the point. That's, that's what his critics make a difference to. He said that free will can be essentially eliminated and you no longer...
Prabhupāda: No.
Karāndhara: ...have the choice to be agreeable or not agreeable.
Prabhupāda: No. That is not possible...
Śyāmasundara: He's saying, "This child..."
Prabhupāda: That is another foolishness.
Śyāmasundara: "...if he was ever trained that if he ever misses a meal he will be severly punished. Then he may never want to miss a meal."
Karāndhara: Or he may never even want to take a meal out of rebelliousness.
Śyāmasundara: [laughs] He says. Actually, his idea is not so much to punish but to reward.
Prabhupāda: Now this, this is the concrete example, that a thief has learned from the lawbooks, from the religious books, that stealing is bad. If one steals he'll be punished. Because in the human society the scriptures they have got. No scripture will say that you steal, for example. Neither the lawbook will say that you steal. So he has heard from scriptures and from lawbooks that stealing is criminal, and by committing this criminal activity I shall be punished, and if he has seen also that anyone who has violated this law and stolen others' property. He has been arrested by the policeman and given him to the jail. He has seen, he has heard, he has completely experienced, but still, why does he steal? What is the answer?
Karāndhara: Compelled.
Devotee: Because he sees them as human being.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee: He has a tendency because of the four defects of a human being that tendency...
Prabhupāda: Then, then the question means, how to rectify these defects?
Śyāmasundara: He says, "By changing the social environment."
Karāndhara: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: By changing the social environment.
Prabhupāda: But you cannot do.
Devotee: But in a higher sense change the social environment can only change with nature...
Prabhupāda: The social environment is already there, but if you steal you will be punished. The social environment is there.
Śyāmasundara: But his idea is that if you reward them for not stealing that they will not steal. If you reward them sufficiently.
Atreya Ṛṣi: He's reward them...
Prabhupāda: First of all let him come to the point—not stealing. Then you devise. Where is your devise?
Śyāmasundara: Yes[indistinct]
Prabhupāda: He is determined to steal. Where is the question of devise?
Śyāmasundara: Well you pay him more than he wants to steal.
Prabhupāda: That you cannot. That you cannot. That is impermanent.
Atreya Ṛṣi: This reward and punishment system, Prabhupāda, is motivational.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Atreya Ṛṣi: His reward and punishment it's not that you pay him more or you pay him less or you punish him. The thing is, he says that...
Prabhupāda: No, no. Even if you pay. Suppose I am going to steal and get one dollar.
Atreya Ṛṣi: The reason...
Prabhupāda: And if you pay me three dollars, I may not, may not steal.
Atreya Ṛṣi: No he'll not...
Prabhupāda: Then, then next point will be when there will be four dollars, I'll go on to steal.
Atreya Ṛṣi: No. He is not going to pay you three and four dollars. What he is suggesting is the reason one steals is not so much that. There are other reasons, like he likes to break the law because he is angry to the law.
Prabhupāda: Therefore the question, why he likes to break the law? That is the question.
Atreya Ṛṣi: That is a good question. Because he is angry or he thinks that his friends would appreciate him more, and he thinks that his friends are more important. That is why he thinks that if you change the social environment then the rewards would come...
Prabhupāda: How you can change the social environment?
Atreya Ṛṣi: Well that's the ideal...
Śyāmasundara: Those rewards are quantitative. Just like the pigeon he gets a certain number of kernels of corn.
Atreya Ṛṣi: But this is an estimate...
Śyāmasundara: So it's a great choice.
Atreya Ṛṣi: An estimate is foolish. It's quantitative example, but his real point is the motivational field.
Śyāmasundara: Well how do you know? You don't know what he's saying.
Atreya Ṛṣi: I know Skinner.
Śyāmasundara: This is what he said. He said, "Each time that a criminal is given..., each time that he avoids doing bad, he is given some advantage", a material advantage.
Karāndhara: So we understand that material advantage doesn't satisfy him. He becomes more...
Śyāmasundara: That is the difference between the pigeons and the men. The pigeons are satisfied with a few kernels of corn. They won't want more than they can eat. But a man wants more and more and more.
Karāndhara: In the Bhagavad-gītā Arjuna asks the same question.
Prabhupāda: So this is important point, in that if what you are thinking to reward him, just now. He will think it is insignificant. What are you giving here. You are giving me five dollars, if I steal I will get twenty-five dollars. Why shall I accept your reward?
Śyāmasundara: So what about if I don't steal, my friends will like me. If I do steal, my friends will hate me.
Prabhupāda: Ah, but if you have got friends only thieves, then who will object? "Oh, you are very nice, you are very expert." Why should he mix with such friends who deride?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Karāndhara: In the Bhagavad-gītā [laughs]
Prabhupāda: He will select his own friends...
Śyāmasundara: He says there are three things that keep...
Prabhupāda: Birds of the same feather flock together.
Śyāmasundara: He says that there is three things that society has which keeps people from disobeying, that is God...
Prabhupāda: This is all speculating. It has no meaning.
Śyāmasundara: ...God, the police, and what other people will think.
Prabhupāda: But if he has..., you have to..., if you have no idea of God, what is God. And why am I expecting that you will fear God? You do not know what is God, and you are talking of God.
Karāndhara: Well he says social environment in the highest essence that has to lead to meaning controlling nature.
Prabhupāda: There they..., the thing is that these are all childish proposals. The real thing is that he should be educated. He should be educated. This is required.
Śyāmasundara: The they...
Prabhupāda: He should be educated from the very beginning that, "You are not this body." This is the beginning of education.
[aside:] While talking don't disturb in that way. Stop that.
So education is required. Without education these things cannot be taught—by rewarding, by this way, by that way, by machine, by... It is all nonsense...
Śyāmasundara: An interesting...
Prabhupāda: Education. The education is, the first education is that every children should be taught from the very beginning that, "You are not this body." And he should be taught the nature of the soul. Then he will gradually come to the Supreme Soul. Then he will gradually come to the relationship between the Supreme Soul and this individual soul. And then he'll, when he develops love for the Supreme Soul he will not violate the order of the Supreme. That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Śyāmasundara: Just like Sarasvatī. She thinks Kṛṣṇa lives in her heart...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: ..and she's always thinking that.
Prabhupāda: Yes. She, she is hearing, she is being educated in that point, so she is now feeling. Similarly if we educate all our children in that way, they will be nicely grown-up children.
Śyāmasundara: There is an interesting comparison to be made. They have tried to set up a community along this philosophy just near our New Vrindavan. This is, this is the place, in the hills of Virginia, and some of the... It's interesting to see what their code is compared to ours. Their code is that, "All are entitled to the same privileges, advantages and respect. Private property is forbidden except for such things as books and clothes, and even then there is community clothing which is all shared. No one is allowed to boast of individual accomplishment or to gossip or to have any negative speech or to be intolerant of any other's beliefs."
Prabhupāda: So you cannot be. It is simply dream. It is simply dream, it will be never be fruitful. But our philosophy is that everyone is thinking as servant of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore he has no competition, he has no competition. He wants to serve Kṛṣṇa, the center is there.
Śyāmasundara: He says that's the main difficulty, is that. That there is still competition going on.
Prabhupāda: It will much go on, because he has not changed the mind. He, he..., the mind is how to become master. So as soon as you want to become master, I want to become master, he wants to, there must be competition. But our teaching is different. If we become servant, servant of Kṛṣṇa. Even there is competition, so that competition is centering Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: Their process is—if someone obeys these laws, he is reinforced. That means they'll put a sign up saying, "So and so cleaned up..."
Prabhupāda: Go on this is a nonsense. Putting signboard. This is nonsense... Unless..., that is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's formula: ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam [Śikṣāṣṭaka 1], cleansing the heart. That is the process. By putting signboard, philosophy cannot be..., that is not possible.
Śyāmasundara: They put a sign that. "So and so cleaned this room today. He is a good boy."
Prabhupāda: He will clean automatically provided he is clean hearted.
Devotee: That is the difference. [indistinct]
Śyāmasundara: Yeah. Another thing is that they reject the idea of modesty and sin. They say that sex is all right. It's a pleasant pastime like anything else. Alright they have freedom of sex life.
Prabhupāda: Just like animals. Sex life like animals.
Śyāmasundara: It's what it says.
Prabhupāda: Him? He must say that. He is also animal.
Śyāmasundara: They do not reinforce sex, the sin, the sin of sex life.
Prabhupāda: Sex life, we don't say it is sin, but there is rules and regulation of sex life.
Śyāmasundara: However, they, they have contraceptive methods, because to bring children into the equation at this time is not good.
Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. [laughs] That is the difficulty, that these people are coming as philosophers teaching. Rascals. That is the difficulty of the present society.
Devotee: They call...
Prabhupāda: That they accept. The dogs, hogs, camels, asses. They are taking the position of teacher. That is the defect of the modern.
Śyāmasundara: They make...
Prabhupāda: We don't take it, accept like that. Dogs, hogs, we cannot accept teacher.
Śyāmasundara: They are making life into an equation, like a mathematical formula. Teaching like that. But it doesn't work.
Prabhupāda: It will not work.
Śyāmasundara: They prove it. It says that they have a seventy-percent turnover. That means that people get disgusted and leave, seventy percent of them every year.
Prabhupāda: Leave?
Śyāmasundara: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: Go away.
Śyāmasundara: Go away.
Śyāmasundara: Because it says that those who are more competent, they still expect special recognition for their talents. And they..., so they make this demand but we cannot reinforce that, that kind of behavior. So we deny them and then they go away.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: So it seems that the whole philosophy [indistinct] control society [indistinct] and then the point that they are. The whole material world is attached to sex life, so that the whole thing is that all these philosophies that are just invented. So that they may have liberty in thinking that they are free and that they may be active...
Prabhupāda: Yes,
Devotee: ...in an animal way.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Atreya Ṛṣi: And so, and so it's a whole thing. All these philosophy so I can have free sex life so I don't have to think that I'll be punished by having this freedom in their life.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: They want to justify it...
Prabhupāda: Real, real point is sense gratification. Freedom of sense gratification. That is their point. But these fools, they do not know that by sense gratification you are entangling yourself—in repetition of birth and death.
Śyāmasundara: So Skinner nonetheless, nonetheless allows himself some relaxation. He drinks vodka and tonic in the late afternoon [laughter]. He sees an occasional movie. He reads George Simon detective novels once in awhile and enjoys the company of friends. He has two children and his grandchildren. Here is a note from his diary: "Sun streams into our living-room. My hi-fi is midway through the first act of Tristan and Isolde. A very pleasant environment. A man would be a fool not to enjoy himself in it. In a moment I will work on a manuscript which may help mankind. So my life is not only pleasant; it is earned or deserved. And yet, yet, I am unhappy."
Prabhupāda: In that sense he is a truthful man.
Devotees: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Truthful.
Śyāmasundara: He wants to..., try. He is trying to understand.
Prabhupāda: He cannot. That is not the way of understanding. The Vedic way is that you first approach a guru. That is Vedic way. He cannot personally solve all these things. That is not possible.
Śyāmasundara: So true... [End]