Science Cannot Conquer the Laws of Nature

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

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Prabhupada: ...If one successful yogi can walk on the water.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes.

Prabhupada: Is there any process in the science? No. Then? That is called laghima. Laghima-siddhi. Laghima-siddhi, you become so light that you can walk on the water, you can fly in the air.

Bali Mardana: There was one yogi who advertised just recently that he was going to walk on the water. And he sold tickets. So all the people came to see him walk on the water. Then when he got on the water he went straight down. [laughter]

Svarupa Damodar: In India?

Bali Mardana: It was in the West I think.

Svarupa Damodar: No, there was one...

Bali Mardana: There was an article in the Los Angeles paper yesterday.

Svarupa Damodar: No, in India also, about ten years ago, there was one... India. In Bombay. But he didn't, he couldn't walk. But it was sold. The tickets was about five hundred rupees or so.

Prabhupada: Only?

Svarupa Damodar: But a... Big, big people were invited and actually he didn't walk. He fell down in the water.

Bali Mardana: Maybe Krishna took his power away.

Svarupa Damodar: He was almost beaten. [laughter]

Prabhupada: The same thing...

Svarupa Damodar: He said he missed something.

Prabhupada: So many birds are floating on the sea. Nobody's interested. But one rascal will advertise that "I can walk." They purchase five hundred rupees ticket. [laughter] People want to see magic.

Jayatirtha: Yes.

Prabhupada: And if somebody can show magic, then he becomes God.

Jayatirtha: God is showing so much magic but people don't recognize it.

Prabhupada: No, this [pointing to the ocean] is also magic. But the scientists will say, "Water is combination of this chemical, that chemical." And wherefrom so much chemical came? That is a magic. But that magic he'll not see. Eh? Dr...?

Svarupa Damodar: That magic, they will say it was produced by nature.

Prabhupada: So anyway, it is magic for him.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes, but they don't say it is magic.

Prabhupada: No, no. It is magic for him because he cannot produce so much water. In the laboratory he can produce water just to fill up a test tube. But wherefrom this water came? That is magic.

Svarupa Damodar: It is so much beyond their concept that they just, they just don't want to think about it.

Prabhupada: Means, that is animal propensity. The same thing, example. As a rabbit is going to be killed, he closes the eyes. "There is no danger. [laughter] There is no danger." He's thinking.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes, there are thousand things they are taking for granted without...

Prabhupada: That is not science. Science should not take anything granted.

Svarupa Damodar: Something which is beyond their experimental knowledge...

Prabhupada: Then where is the difference between the scientists and the devotees? The devotees, devotee accepts what Krishna says. That's all. Granted. In the shastra [scriptures] it is said that achintya khalu ye bhava na tas tarkena yojayet, yojayet. "Things which are beyond your conception or perception, don't bring it in arguments and logic."

Svarupa Damodar: This is from Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu?

Prabhupada: Eh?

Svarupa Damodar: Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu? Achintya khalu ye bhava...?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Svarupa Damodar: If they think a little carefully. Then there is no reason why they can't accept Him.

Prabhupada: That you have to do, to convince them that "You think little carefully. You are advertising yourself as scientist, but you are talking without any care."

Svarupa Damodar: Srila Prabhupada, we have statistical data about the creation of the material universe, the material world. For example, like in a...

Prabhupada: We have got also.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes, yes. Four yugas [ages, spans of time], the four yugas comprise four million, three hundred thousand years. The yugas together, four. The...

Prabhupada: Forty-three hundred thousands of years, four yugas.

Svarupa Damodar: No, four million, three hundred twenty thousand.

Prabhupada: No, no, four yugas. Do you mean to say? Yes. Altogether. All yugas—Satya, Treta, Dvapara, Kali—the total years are forty-three hundred thousands of years.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes. The calculations by the biologists for the beginning of life, they say it is about four billion years.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Svarupa Damodar: About four billion years ago, the small species like unicellular species like the bacteria and these started about four billions years ago. And the human life started...

Prabhupada: Well, where started? Bacteria?

Svarupa Damodar: Yes. In the earth.

Prabhupada: Then the earth was there.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes, before that earth was formed.

Prabhupada: Then where is the creation?

Svarupa Damodar: When, they say, the earth, first the earth was formed, and after that, it took some time to make some living entities.

Prabhupada: That may be, but how the earth came into existence?

Svarupa Damodar: They have several theories about that.

Prabhupada: Not only one earth, but there are so many.

Svarupa Damodar: They speculate that at the most the human form of life started about five thousand, about fifty thousand years ago.

Bali Mardana: What?

Svarupa Damodar: That's what they think. From similar type of species like human beings, started about fifty thousand years ago.

Bali Mardana: No, there's just new findings. Three millions years ago.

Svarupa Damodar: No, that's about the... It's not the whole...

Bali Mardana: What?

Svarupa Damodar: There's all forms of species developing slowly.

Bali Mardana: No. Now they have just recently found a species of man three million years ago, and it's similar to modern man. So scientists... So now they have concluded that there are more than one species, a lower species and a higher species existing at the same time.

Prabhupada: This Darwin is a rascal. He cannot... He has taken some idea from this Padma Purana, and he has developed in a befooling way. There are different types of human beings, four hundred thousand species. [break]

[Speaking further of the fallacy behind scientific research, here referring to the objective of the scientists:]...is to conquer over the stringent laws of nature. Is it not?

Svarupa Damodar: Yes.

Prabhupada: No? What is the purpose of scientific research?

Svarupa Damodar: Yes.

Prabhupada: To conquer over the laws of nature.

Svarupa Damodar: Yes.

Prabhupada: Is it not? The laws of nature is already powerful. So you have not conquered over the laws of nature. Then how science is powerful?

Svarupa Damodar: You cannot conquer the laws of nature.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Svarupa Damodar: Science cannot conquer the laws of nature. That is why they try to think only about the body, the bodily concept. To give them comfort to the body by...

Prabhupada: Sense gratification. That's all. Everything ending in sense gratification. That's all.

Svarupa Damodar: It's like it is a fashion to try to violate the laws of nature. It is becoming very popular.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is childish. That a child says, "No, no." Mother says, "Sit down." "No, no." (laughter) One! "Ahhhh." [laughter] Mother is the nature, and child is trying to violate the orders of mother. This is the position. So who will take them very seriously?

Svarupa Damodar: That's why they suffer the result.

Prabhupada: Yes. Suffer is suffered(?). Taya sammohito jiva atmanam tri-gunatmakam. Yaya sammohito... There is a verse. Yaya sammohito jiva atmanam tri-gunatmakam, manute anartham ... [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.7.5].

Eh? Harer nama [Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 17.21].

Svarupa Damodar: The result of this violation of the laws of nature is that...

Prabhupada: No, they cannot violate. That is not possible. There is no question of violating. Simply childish attempt. That's all. You cannot violate it. That is not possible.

Svarupa Damodar: But they are... They are planning to make a... [laughter]

Prabhupada: That is childish. That is childish. "They are planning." That is childish. Although they are being repeatedly baffled, still trying. This is childish.

Svarupa Damodar: They have already timetable worked out.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is...

Svarupa Damodar: That in two thousand years they are going to make...

Prabhupada: Yes, so that he'll not live for two thousand years. Then the bluff cannot be shown. Violation is not possible, sir. That is not possible. Therefore Bhagavad-gita says, janma- mrityu-jara-vyadhi-duhkha-doshanudarshanam [Bhagavad-gita 13.9]. You are trying to violate, but here are the four principles. It is not possible. You cannot violate. There is death; you cannot violate this. As soon as the time will come, you must die. Finished, all your scientific research. Four millions, trillions, and you can say, at that time there was no civilized man. At that time man was dying and animal was dying. And at this time man is dying and animal is dying. So what improvement you have made? There is no improvement.

Svarupa Damodar: This is also called tampering.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Svarupa Damodar: Tampering with the machinery of God. They try to manipulate in a different way so that they can get some deviation from the normal.

Prabhupada: There is no deviation.