Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita


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2011-12-20 13:31

Discussions with Syamasundara dasa
Charles Darwin







Charles Darwin


Śyāmasundara: Darwin is the originator of the doctrine of natural selection, or survival of the fittest. That means that in the course of adapting to the environment one type of animal will develop in a particular way which is best suited for that environment, and he will pass on his superior qualities to his offspring so that that particular species will survive, whereas another, which is not so suitable to that environment, will die out. This is called natural selection. Nature selects different species that can best survive.


Prabhupāda: So what is his explanation of the nature?


Śyāmasundara: Nature is a combination of physical forces in the universe.


Prabhupāda: What does he say about nature?


Śyāmasundara: Nature?


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: Well, nature is a... All phenomenon can be explained by means of physical laws.


Prabhupāda: Who made these physical laws?


Śyāmasundara: He is not so much concerned with...


Prabhupāda: Why is he not concerned? If he is putting some theory for understanding, why he is not concerned with some primary principles?


Śyāmasundara: He says that we cannot be certain how everything began.


Prabhupāda: Then how he is certain that this natural circumstance is favorable? How he is making certain?


Śyāmasundara: He made many, many tests; he has much evidence...


Prabhupāda: What is that evidence?


Śyāmasundara: ...to show that animals adapt to their environments, just like if you...


Prabhupāda: Why he takes animals first? Why not others?


Śyāmasundara: Animals, trees, plants, insects, men, he examines all the different varieties. For instance if you put a certain animal in a cold climate, he will develop hair to protect his body against the cold, and he will pass on this characteristic to his sons.


Prabhupāda: So why...? The people in Greenland, do they develop hair?


Śyāmasundara: They don't have so much hair, but they develop very fatty tissues. Their eyes are slitted so there is not so much snow and bright light...


Prabhupāda: Then development of hair is not only the existent; there are other many conditions. You cannot say that development of hair is due to the condition as he says, natural condition. That is not a fixed-up...


Śyāmasundara: I was just using that as an example of how a species can adapt to its environment.


Prabhupāda: The question is that this development of body, is there any plan that this body should exist in certain condition of nature, and therefore he must have these equipments, either you say, tissues or veins or hair? Who has made these arrangements? That is the question.


Śyāmasundara: His answer to that is chance variation.


Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. There is no such chance. If he says chance, that means he is a nonsense.


Śyāmasundara: He examines that...


Prabhupāda: He examines what is already existing. But our question is, who has made these circumstances, different circumstances for the existence of different animals? That is our question.


Śyāmasundara: Well, 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 fitted to survive. Otherwise too many frogs...


Prabhupāda: If I say that frogs or many others animals lay eggs, millions... Just like the snake. They give 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-gītā: mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram [Bg. 9.10]. So whatever things are happening in the material nature, it is being done by the 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 Malthus theory that whenever there is large number of population there must be some war, some 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.


Śyāmasundara: On the other hand, he has a huge amount of evidence which he has gathered...


Prabhupāda: Evidence, that is all right. Evidence, we have also got evidence. Evidence must be there. As soon as there is evidence, then he should not speak anything of chance.


Śyāmasundara: Just like out of millions of frogs, one frog will be better adapted to living in the water.


Prabhupāda: 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.


Śyāmasundara: Well, he sees a plan or a design also, but he sees it in...


Prabhupāda: Therefore if he sees a plan and design, then whose design? As soon as you call it design, there must be designer. As (soon as) you call a plan, there must be a planner. That he does not know.


Śyāmasundara: He says that the plan is only the workings of mechanical nature.


Prabhupāda: 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 of all 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 plan. There is a plan.


Śyāmasundara: Could it not be said that that is mechanical...


Prabhupāda: 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 your, what is that, telex is working. That is mechanical. That's all right. But behind this machine. there is a big brain who has made this possible. Now you are seeing at the present moment that by pushing one button you get your business done, mechanically, but who made this machine. That is important. This machine has not come out itself. There is iron and there is some, it is made of iron. So iron has not molded itself to that machine; there was a brain who has made the machine possible. Now when you are using, because you have no, if you have no knowledge... Just like in our childhood we used to think that there is a man within the gramophone box. This is childish. It is not mechanical. Everything has got a plan, design, and behind that plan and design there is a brain, big brain. What do you say, here is a scientific man?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually modern scientists try to prove that life itself started from four basic chemical elements. They are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. These four basic elements are necessary for making all the by-processes. Somehow they say that it is made and they don't know who made it.


Prabhupāda: Therefore their knowledge is imperfect. As soon as you say chemical, chemical we have got experience, it is manufactured. Some by big company, they manufacture chemicals, so basic principle is chemicals, who made the chemicals? That question must be there.


Śyāmasundara: Jus t like a hundred years ago we did not know about the existence of uranium, so isn't it possible...


Prabhupāda: You did not know but you don't know who was there. You did not know. Then three hundred years ago that governments did not know there is a land. But it was there.


Śyāmasundara: But isn't it possible that some day we may be able to discover the source of all these chemicals.


Prabhupāda: No, no, it is... 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. And the Vedānta says, janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1], the original source of everything: Brahman. We know it. Kṛṣṇa says, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate [Bg. 10.8]: "I am the origin of everything." So we know that there is a big brain who is doing everything, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ [Bg. 9.10]. So we know. Darwin may not know. That is his foolishness.


Śyāmasundara: He might say the same thing about us.


Prabhupāda: No. He cannot say the same thing about us. We accept Kṛṣṇa, not blindly. Our predecessors, our ācāryas, 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 no knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: 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.


Prabhupāda: That's all right. Wherefrom the genes came?


Śyāmasundara: Well 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...


Prabhupāda: 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 very important thing, changing. The thing is to find out the origin, wherefrom the genes came.


Śyāmasundara: He has a book called The Origin of Species, and he traces back...


Prabhupāda: First of all, you are testing his knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: I'm trying to explain. You want to know what he thinks is the origin; so they trace back through geological excavation to the most simplest forms of life, and they see that in the...


Prabhupāda: What is the simplest form of life?


Śyāmasundara: They find at the lowest bottom of the soil layers which have built up through the years, they find small one-celled animal forms, sea shells, like that.


Prabhupāda: So how is it forming?


Śyāmasundara: Gradually, through the ages, they have become more and more complex to this age when...


Prabhupāda: What is the beginning?


Śyāmasundara: In the beginning they have found only the one-celled animals.


Prabhupāda: They found, but beyond that they do not know. They found it. It was already there. So wherefrom it came?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Another definition that is raised by most so-called modern scientists, research scientists, they try to find out the meaning of what is research 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, or somebody invented such-and-such thing, it is not really an invention.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say it cannot come out of nothing. It is already there.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: We did not know it, that it was already there. Foolishly we say that we invent these things.


Prabhupāda: You see, the action is already going on. You see all of a sudden something comes. But that is not perfect knowledge.


Śyāmasundara: Then how do you explain that...


Prabhupāda: We explain that everything, the source, the original source of everything is Brahman, Absolute Truth, Kṛṣṇa.


Śyāmasundara: What we are discussing is this doctrine of natural selection, or survival of the fittest.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That natural selection, that law is made by Kṛṣṇa.


Śyāmasundara: So there is a law of...


Prabhupāda: Yes. Certainly. The scientists say that we do not know wherefrom it is coming. All of a sudden I see something and you say that invention. It is not invention. It is already there. You could not see before, and now you can see. That's all.


Śyāmasundara: Just like dinosaurs, these huge animals once existing in...


Prabhupāda: That is his imagination.


Śyāmasundara: Well, they found bones...


Prabhupāda: Bones, that's all right. There are many... We also say from the Vedic śāstra there is fish, timiṅgila, which can swallow up big, big whales, you see. That is also very big. And there is Varāha incarnation, He picked up the whole earth on the tusk. How much big the Varāha animal was to show that it can pick up the whole earth, earthly planet just like a ball. He cannot imagine such big animals.


Śyāmasundara: But my point is they excavated down into the ground and they found that gradually, through the years, animals are evolving towards more and more complex forms, from very simple forms in the water to land animals, plants, and these big dinosaurs, then they died out.


Prabhupāda: 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 monkey.


Śyāmasundara: They are related; they come from the same...


Prabhupāda: Related? Everything is related. That is another thing. But if the monkey's body is developing into human body...


Śyāmasundara: Yes. Apelike man.


Prabhupāda: Then after development of human body, why is the monkey species does not cease? Why not it does not cease?


Śyāmasundara: They are like branches of the same tree, he calls them.


Prabhupāda: 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 being.


Śyāmasundara: They find no evidence of them.


Prabhupāda: Why no evidence?


Śyāmasundara: In the ground. There's no evidence in the ground.


Prabhupāda: In the ground? That means that in the ground is the only evidence? There is no other evidence?


Karandhara: 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's proven by their own sensuous experience.


Prabhupāda: But they cannot prove that there was no human being wherefrom they are starting their study. They cannot prove.


Śyāmasundara: It appears from the evidence that there are apelike men in certain layers of...


Prabhupāda: The apelike man or manlike ape is already existing. If you say development, just like from this, it has developed this, then there should be no existence of this. Kārya-kāraṇam. That's all. Now when I see still both are existing...


Śyāmasundara: The former doesn't exist any more.


Prabhupāda: No, no, no. If from monkey, man is coming, so then when monkey develops into man, the monkey should not exist. Kārya-kāraṇam, kārya-kāraṇam, cause and effect. When the effect is there, the cause is finished now.


Śyāmasundara: The monkey didn't cause the man; they came from the same common ancestor. That is their explanation. They had the same common ancestor.


Prabhupāda: That is, we say that all we come from God, the same ancestors, the same father. What is the difference?


Karandhara: Everyone has the same ancestor.


Prabhupāda: The same ancestor. What is the new thing?


Śyāmasundara: But if I am a Darwinist, your explanations are still not satisfactory to me. I'm not convinced because I see...


Prabhupāda: My explanation is that the original father is Kṛṣṇa. As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya: [Bg. 14.4] "As many forms are there, I am the bīja pradaḥ pitā, I am the seed-giving father." So what is your objection to this?


Śyāmasundara: Well, if I examine the layers of earth, I find no evidence in any of the layers below of any...


Prabhupāda: You are packed up with the layers of the earth, that's all. That is your boundary of knowledge. That is not knowledge. That is not knowledge. There are many other evidences.


Śyāmasundara: But certainly, if there were men living millions of years ago, they would have...


Prabhupāda: But man is still living. Man is still living.


Śyāmasundara: But they would have left evidence in the earth. They would have left evidence behind them, tangible evidence, that I could see the remains of their civilization.


Prabhupāda: So if I say that the human society, man after death is burned into ashes, so where does he get the bones?


Śyāmasundara: Well, that's possible, but I don't find...


Prabhupāda: According to our Vedic system, when a man is dead, he is burned into ashes. Why the rascal will get the bones?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: There are no bones.


Śyāmasundara: But there are no other... There's no cities, tools...


Prabhupāda: The animals, they are not burned. They remain. But human being, they burn into ashes. So he cannot find the human bones.


Karandhara: 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.


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: 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.


Karandhara: They say it's been millions of years, but how do they prove it's been millions of years?


Śyāmasundara: Through radioactivity.


Karandhara: But that is an imperfect method, devised by imperfect senses.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is limited. It is limited. It is very hard to find about five thousand or six thousand years back.


Karandhara: They don't even agree amongst each other about what the age of things are.


Śyāmasundara: Just like if you go down a hundred feet below the soil, that soil has been down there a long time. But there is no evidences of men, actually civilized creatures.


Prabhupāda: Why he is trying to find out men's bones there? What is the...


Śyāmasundara: 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 man, civilized man.


Prabhupāda: From where it began?


Śyāmasundara: It began with the simplest forms.


Prabhupāda: What is that simplest form?


Śyāmasundara: Small one-celled animals, then bivalves, then mollusks, then simple forms of aquatics.


Karandhara: So the one-celled animals must be God.


Śyāmasundara: 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.


Prabhupāda: 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.


Śyāmasundara: But they find no evidence in the earlier times that these complex forms existed.


Prabhupāda: No, no. Earlier times or modern times, when I see the 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, 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.


Śyāmasundara: But then it is simply a matter of one opinion against another, because the scientists say...


Prabhupāda: 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?


Śyāmasundara: No. But I don't see evidence that all these complex forms...


Prabhupāda: I have said that one, this, by evolution, one after another, the human form is there. Now Darwin's theory is that some forty thousand years ago there was no human being.


Śyāmasundara: Several million years.


Prabhupāda: But we don't see that. Because at the present moment we see that all the species are there existing, including human beings.


Śyāmasundara: But he says they evolved. That's because they evolved.


Prabhupāda: 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...


Śyāmasundara: Because there is not evidence that they exist.


Prabhupāda: Evidence, this is the evidence: if now all the species of life are existing, why not millions of years ago? What do you say?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. It was existing, but simply we did not know.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is one-sided test.


Śyāmasundara: You can say they existed, but show me. I don't see any proof.


Prabhupāda: You do not see the animals, the aquatics, the birds, bees, trees—everything—is existing?


Śyāmasundara: Yes. But ten million years ago, according to my excavations, there were no beasts; there were all aquatics.


Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. That is nonsense. Ten millions of... 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 you can go... There is no history in the human civ... There is no history, ten millions of years.


Śyāmasundara: If I dig far into the ground, layer by layer...


Prabhupāda: 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 you speak of ten millions, twenty millions? Where you were there? It is all imagination. You were existing(?), so existence was not there. How can you say that ten millions, twenty millions 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 millions. It is fifty millions."


Śyāmasundara: They have a scientific way of testing that things disintegrate at a certain rate.


Prabhupāda: But here is a scientist, and he does not agree with that.


Śyāmasundara: What about the half-life of certain elements?


Svarūpa Dāmodara: 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 carbonate. And normally 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 in which 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 Kṛṣṇa 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 applicable to all findings also, and a test, a very reliable test (indistinct) to about five thousand, six thousand years old but beyond that it is very doubtful whether the findings are really true or not. [break] It is empiric so we cannot fully convince that such-and-such species lives such-and-such long just from that finding. You need more evidence to prove it (indistinct) was existing and it disappeared from such-and-such time but it gives a relative value from so-called modern scientific point of view.


Prabhupāda: But evolution we accept. Evolution we accept but it is not that there was no existence of human being. That we do not accept. Evolution we accept. Just like my childhood manifestation is extinct but there are many other child. Same time. So our point is all the species of life, they are existing simultaneously. Evolution there is, we accept that but it is not that one is missing, one has gone away, and another is come, ten million, thirty millions there was no human being. This is all nonsense. He cannot find in the layer, that is not evidence.


Śyāmasundara: For instance, there's no dinosaurs existing now. They're extinct now but where are they gone? Some other planets then? Is there some...?


Prabhupāda: No. Not in this planet, he has no chance to see it.


Śyāmasundara: There's dinosaurs existing on this planet?


Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, he has no chance to see it, or it is imagination only.


Śyāmasundara: That's very hard to accept. What about the dodo? It was a giant bird...


Prabhupāda: Our proposition is that there is an evolutionary process from aquatics to birds here, plants life, then insect life, then bird's life, then animal life, then human life. So this is a evolutionary process, we accept but it is not that one is extinct, another is surviving. All of them are existing simultaneously.


Śyāmasundara: But they are not all present at this particular moment on this planet, are they?


Prabhupāda: Particular, it is not that he has seen all the planets or all the universes. What he has seen?


Śyāmasundara: That's what I mean. They may be extinct on this planet but on some other planet they...


Prabhupāda: At least he has no power to see everything. That is a fact. He's not so powerful that he can see everywhere and everything. That you have to accept. He has limited power to see. By that limited power to see he cannot conclude that one species (is) extinct. That is not possible. No scientist will accept that. After all, your senses by which you are (indistinct), they're limited. So how you can say, "This is finished," or "This is that." That is not to be accepted. Because your senses are imperfect. You cannot see. You cannot search out. Have you searched out all the earthly layers or the 25,000 miles everywhere? That is not possible for you. The whole earthly planet is circumference is 25,000 miles, radius how many, has he discovered that all the places?


Śyāmasundara: No, representative samples in many places.


Prabhupāda: Our first proposition is that he says that there was no human beings some millions of years ago. That's not a 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.


Śyāmasundara: But we don't see any dinosaurs existing.


Prabhupāda: 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.


Śyāmasundara: But I don't see all the...


Prabhupāda: 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?


Śyāmasundara: No. But dinosaurs...


Prabhupāda: But simply by dinosaur missing you cannot say that what about other all species of life, other.


Śyāmasundara: Many, many, many, many are extinct, according to...


Prabhupāda: I am accepting many are extinct, but the evolutionary process, it means one extinct, and 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.


Śyāmasundara: Oh, I remember last time when we discussed this, you said, "Well, then, why don't we see men coming out of monkeys still?"


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: "Why hasn't some man been born out of a monkey?"


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: "In our experience..."


Prabhupāda: The monkey is existing, the man is existing.


Śyāmasundara: "So if men came from monkeys, why don't we see it still happening?" That's what you said.


Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our argument.


Śyāmasundara: So if you accept that there is an evolution, do you accept that the bodies change because of changing conditions of the natural surroundings?


Prabhupāda: Body is not changing. The body is already there. The soul is changing bodies, transmigrating from one body to another.


Karandhara: Darwin doesn't accept that there is a fixed number of species. Rather, the number of species may vary at any time, simply according to the natural selection. But he doesn't give any axiom that there are a certain number of species from which all other variations come. We are saying that there are 8,400,000 species to begin with.


Prabhupāda: 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."


Śyāmasundara: Their idea is that there's constant...


Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, within that eight millions, but you cannot give us list.


Śyāmasundara: They say that there is new species always evolving.


Prabhupāda: 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.


Śyāmasundara: Just like, let's say some condition changes suddenly in an environment...


Prabhupāda: Yes. Any condition changes, but within that 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.


Karandhara: 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...


Prabhupāda: Yes.


Śyāmasundara: ...and he may go away from the marketplace. So because he goes away, you can't say that that person doesn't exist any more because he's not observable there.


Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.


Svarūpa Dāmodara: 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...


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