Deductive Knowledge Superior to Inductive

Founder-Acharya of the world-wide Hare Krishna Movement, Brahma Sampradaya Acharya

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Inductive reason: Making it up as you go

Deductive knowledge is always imperfect

Svarup Damodar: One of our godbrothers asked why the inductive knowledge is so successful, especially to scientists?

Prabhupada: Inductive knowledge always unsuccessful.

Svarup Damodar: But science finds out these laws and so many things. So to some extent it's working.

Prabhupada: No, they can extend... Just like inductive knowledge is like this: you study man. You see, first man dies, second man dies, third man dies. In this way, you can go to hundred or thousand man. But I can say that "You might not have seen that man who does not die." I can challenge that. You cannot say... Simply by studying hundred thousand man, you cannot say that all men die. I can challenge that "You have not seen the..., beyond that. So how you can conclude like that?" There may be somebody. As you say, "May be," we can say, "may be somebody who does not die." [laughter] What is the answer?

Svarup Damodar: That argument is different though from the way the science does. For example, they work so hard...

Prabhupada: The science does... They conclude something, and next man changes. So that is your science. So how you can make a conclusion?

Svarup Damodar: But how so many things are working under the laws...?

Prabhupada: Working, that's all right. You have seen that so many people are dying. That's all right. But I am challenging that you have not seen the next man who does not die. That you cannot answer.

Svarup Damodar: For example, they find the laws of motion, Newton's laws of motion. They utilize that concept in shooting rockets. And they use exactly some mathematical formula and apply it.

Prabhupada: That's all right, but sometimes the shooting of the rocket missing.

Svarup Damodar: No, what we are saying is that the law that they find out by their own effort is working...

Prabhupada: So you effort is limited. How you can conclude?

Svarup Damodar: So inductive knowledge is true to a certain limit.

Prabhupada: Certain extent, that's all. It is not conclusion.

Svarup Damodar: But to a devotee, though, there is nothing like inductive knowledge because knowledge gives by Krishna. So it must be deductive.

Prabhupada: Deductive always. And that is easier. Krishna says that "I come as death and take away everything." So we know that nobody can be immortal; everyone must die. Simple conclusion.

Brahmananda: We don't have to test it because Krishna says it.

Prabhupada: Yes. You take that...

Ravindra-svarup: We could never know ourselves unless we knew all cases.

Prabhupada: No, we do not require to know. We hear from Krishna, the Supreme Person. That is perfect.

Devotee: That's our logic. You said that once.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is our logic.

Gurudas: But also you said once that we feel it. That is our proof.

Prabhupada: No, feel, you may wrongly feel because you are imperfect. That is not good argument. Our argument is that the message is coming from the most authorized personality; therefore it is perfect. And we receive guru-parampara [knowledge descending through disciplic succession]. That is our process. Evam parampara-praptam imam rajarshayo viduh [Bhagavad-gita 4.2]. The rajarshis, means very, very, big, big, stalwart persons, they accept it. Just like Arjuna gives evidence that "I accept You. You are Parabrahma." So he, next line, he says, "It is not that I am saying. But big, big personalities like Vyasadeva, he has said. Narada has said. Asita has said. And You are personally saying, so I have no doubt." This is our process. Deductive knowledge is always imperfect.

Svarup Damodar: What about jñana-yogis?

Prabhupada: Jñana-yogis, they are also imperfect.

Svarup Damodar: Their knowledge is speculative.

Prabhupada: Yes. Anyone who is speculative on the strength of his own knowledge is imperfect. Because we are imperfect, speculation is imperfect.

Ravindra-svarup: The same criticism that you made of induction was also made by John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, but they became skeptics. They said, "Therefore there's no knowledge at all."

Prabhupada: That is another nonsense. That is also speculation. (laughter) "Because I have failed, therefore there is no knowledge." This is also imperfect because how I can conclude like that? I am imperfect. I cannot decide this way or that way. So that is also. Vedic knowledge says that a conditioned soul has got four defects: illusion, mistake, imperfectness and cheating. Any conditioned soul. Even Brahma, he is receiving knowledge from Krishna. Tene brahma hrida ya adi-kavaye [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.1]. Adi-kavi means Brahma. He is the most perfect person within this universe, Lord Brahma. So he is also receiving knowledge from Krishna. Any conditioned soul, beginning from Brahma down to the ant, they are defective in four ways: illusion, mistake, imperfectness and cheating. They know that "I am imperfect." Just this Darwin. He knew that he is imperfect, and he cheated so many persons—by false theory, which he cannot explain. He simply gives, "Perhaps millions of years' gap...," this, that. That is not knowledge. So the imperfect person is prone to become a cheater. So we should not take knowledge from the cheaters. What do you think?

Svarup Damodar: We should take knowledge from Krishna.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Svarup Damodar: And Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Yes. Prabhupada is giving you the same knowledge, that's all. There is no question of cheating. I have received this knowledge from Krishna, and you take this. That's all. My business is finished.

Kirtanananda: Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the duty. Parampara system means the spiritual master shall not give anything which is not spoken by Krishna. That is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's order: Yare dekha, tare kaha 'krishna'-upadesha: "You become guru under My order." "But I do not know anything nicely, how can I become guru?" "No, you have no botheration. You simply take Krishna's word and say, and you become guru."

amara ajñaya guru haña tara ei desha
yare dekha, tare kaha 'krishna'-upadesha [Chaitanya- charitamrita Madhya 7.128]

If the child says to another man, "Father said, 'This is this,' " then he is perfect. He has learned from the father, and the father is perfect, then whatever he says, it is perfect. Why should he take so much botheration? So our, process is that, that we become guru not like that rascal Guruji, no. We speak whatever Krishna has spoken. That's all. Of course, we try to impress upon you with your reason, logic, but we shall speak the same thing, not anything else. Krishna says, "I am supreme;" We say, "Krishna is supreme." That's all. Where is the botheration? I haven't got to find out by my logic and induction whether Krishna is supreme. That I have already done. So Krishna is supreme. There is no doubt about it. Now, whatever Krishna says, it is all right. That's all.

Svarup Damodar: That saves a lot of time.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is intelligence. That is intelligence. These, all these rascals, they are unnecessarily wasting. Shrama eva hi kevalam. Simply they are wasting time. That's all. That is stated in the Srimad-Bhagavatam,

dharmah svanushthitah pumsam
vishvaksena-kathasu yah
notpadayed ratim yadi
shrama eva hi kevalam [SB 1.2.8]

You are executing your duties as scientist or as anything, but if you don't have faith in the words of Vishvaksena, then you are simply wasting your time.

Svarup Damodar: That's one of the chapters in our book that Madhava is working, that inductive knowledge, there is nothing like inductive knowledge. It's all maya; it's illusion.

Prabhupada: Yes, it is illusion. [break] ...western countries it is full of inductive knowledge. That's all. [break][Speaks of Dr. Radhakrishnan, well-known translator of Bhagavad-gita who liked to give his own interpretations as to the meaning of the verses, often contradicting the obvious intent:] Dr. Radhakrishnan used to say, on sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam... [Bg. 18.66: "Just surrender unto Me"], "It is too much." [laughter]

Svarup Damodar: He died just a few months ago.

Prabhupada: Yes, he died, and brain fag. All his knowledge, last five, six years—he could not recognize his own men.

Gurudas: When we went to see him, he hardly could speak.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Svarup Damodar: Because of his inductive knowledge.

Prabhupada: That's all. He became a victim of the western people. Because the Oxford University was paying him very nicely, he became a servant of the western thought. [break]

Svarup Damodar: ...in the evolutionary cycle, the transmigration of the soul, we were inquiring whether there's any specific details in the Vedas about the step-b-step transmigration of the spirit, of the soul.

Prabhupada: Yes. From the aquatics to the plants, and then insect, then bird, then beast, then human being.

Svarup Damodar: Then it's the same with the Darwin's Theory.

Prabhupada: Darwin has taken from here, and he has tried to explain in a hodgepodge way so that he may get the credit, that's all.