“God and Nature” (SB 2.10.45)

TRANSCRIPT:  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 2, Chapter 10, Text 45. “God and Naturer.” Alachua – October 5,1994 / (075)

[Text 45:

There is no direct engineering by the Lord for the creation and destruction of the material world. What is described in the Vedas about His direct interference is simply to counteract the idea that material nature is the creator.]

[repeating back and forth]

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: 

The Vedic direction for the creation, maintenance and destruction of the material world is this: yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante; yena jātāni jīvanti; yat prayanty abhisaṁviśanti — i.e., everything is created by Brahmān, after creation everything is maintained by Brahmān, and after annihilation everything is conserved in Brahmān. Gross materialists without any knowledge of Brahmān, Paramātmā or Bhagavān conclude material nature to be the ultimate cause of the material manifestation, and the modern scientist also shares this view that the material nature is the ultimate cause of all the manifestations of the material world. This view is refuted by all Vedic literature. The Vedānta philosophy mentions that Brahmān is the fountainhead of all creation, maintenance and destruction, and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the natural commentation on the Vedānta philosophy, says, janmādy asya yato ’nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ, etc.

Inert matter is undoubtedly energy with potential to interact, but it has no initiative of its own. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam therefore comments on the aphorism janmādy asya by saying abhijñaḥ and svarāṭ, i.e., the Supreme Brahmān is not inert matter, but He is supreme consciousness and is independent. Therefore inert matter cannot be the ultimate cause of the creation, maintenance and destruction of the material world. Superficially material nature appears to be the cause of creation, maintenance and destruction, but material nature is set into motion for creation by the supreme conscious being, the Personality of Godhead. He is the background of all creation, maintenance and destruction, and this is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.10):

mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ

sūyate sa-carācaram

hetunānena kaunteya

jagad viparivartate

The material nature is one of the energies of the Lord, and she can work under the direction of the Lord (adhyakṣeṇa). When the Lord throws His transcendental glance over the material nature, then only can the material nature act, as a father contacts the mother, who is then able to conceive a child. Although it appears to the layman that the mother gives birth to the child, the experienced man knows that the father gives birth to the child. The material nature therefore produces the moving and standing manifestations of the material world after being contacted by the supreme father, and not independently. Considering material nature to be the cause of creation, maintenance, etc., is called “the logic of nipples on the neck of a goat.” The Caitanya-caritāmṛta by Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī describes this logic of ajā-gala-stana-nyāya as follows (as explained by His Divine Grace Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja): “The material nature, as the material cause, is known as pradhāna, and as the efficient cause is known as māyā. But since it is inert matter, it is not the remote cause of creation.” Kavirāja Gosvāmī states as follows:

ataeva kṛṣṇa mūla-jagat-kāraṇa

prakṛti — kāraṇa yaiche ajā-gala-stana

(Cc. Ādi 5.61)

Because Kāraṇārṇavaśāyī Viṣṇu is a plenary expansion of Kṛṣṇa, it is He who electrifies the matter to put it in motion. The example of electrification is quite appropriate. A piece of iron is certainly not fire, but when the iron is made red-hot, certainly it has the quality of fire through its burning capacity. Matter is compared to the piece of iron, and it is electrified or made red-hot by the glance or manipulation of the supreme consciousness of Viṣṇu. Only by such electrification is the energy of matter displayed in various actions and reactions. Therefore the inert matter is neither efficient nor the material cause of the cosmic manifestation. Śrī Kapiladeva has said:

yatholmukād visphuliṅgād

dhūmād vāpi sva-sambhavāt

apy ātmatvenābhimatād

yathāgniḥ pṛthag ulmukāt

(Bhāg. 3.28.40)

[5:17]

The original fire, its flame, its sparks and its smoke are all one, for fire is still fire yet is different from the flame, flame is different from sparks, and sparks are different from the smoke. In every one of them, namely in the flames, in the sparks and in the smoke, the integrity of fire is present, yet all of them are differently situated with different positions. The cosmic manifestation is compared to the smoke because when smoke passes over the sky so many forms appear, resembling many known and unknown manifestations. The sparks are compared to living entities, and the flames are compared to material nature (pradhāna). One must know that each and every one of them is effective simply because of being empowered by the quality of the original fire. Therefore all of them, namely the material nature, the cosmic manifestation and the living entities, are but different energies of the Lord (fire). Therefore those who accept the material nature as the cosmic manifestation’s original cause (prakṛti, the cause of creation according to Sāṅkhya philosophy) are not correct in their conclusion. The material nature has no separate existence without the Lord. Therefore, setting aside the Supreme Lord as the cause of all causes is the logic of ajā-gala-stana-nyāya, or trying to milk the nipples on the neck of a goat. The nipples on the neck of a goat may seem like sources of milk, but to try to get milk from such nipples will be foolish.

om ajñāna-timirāndhasya

jñānāñjana-śalākayā

cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena

tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ 

śrī-caitanya-mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale

svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam

Translation again: 

There's no direct engineering by the Lord for the creation and destruction of the material world. What is described in the Vedas about his direct interference is simply to counteract the idea that material nature is the creator.

This is continuing from the previous verse, which says, 

The great transcendentalists thus describe the activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the pure devotees deserve to see more glorious things in transcendence, beyond these features. 

We have a lot of information here about the way in which Kṛṣṇa is controlling the material energy. So, this verse states that Kṛṣṇa is not directly engineering the creation and destruction of the material world. It says that, when it’s said in the Vedas that He's directly interfering, that simply is to counteract the idea that material is the creator. 

If material nature is not the creator, and Kṛṣṇa is not directly engineering things, then how are things coming about? So the answer would be Kṛṣṇa's indirectly engineering things. And in fact we have many different descriptions of that. Also, Kṛṣṇa is directly concerned with many other activities and that's what this previous verse is telling us. They are Kṛṣṇa's transcendental pastimes in the spiritual world. So Kṛṣṇa is really involved with those things and He's not directly involved with the running of the material creation, but He indirectly makes all the arrangements for the material creation and also annihilation. 

One way in which Kṛṣṇa does that is through, for example, the creation of Brahmā. So Brahmā is created by Garbhodaka-śāyī Viṣṇu, with the interesting procedure of having a flower come out from His navel. And when Brahmā awakens to consciousness, initially he doesn't know where he is or what he's doing, but later, after he meditates for some time, he is given inspiration through the heart in the methods of carrying out the creation of the material universe. And he then proceeds to do that. 

There are two things involved there. One is the construction of Brahmā's body, which is done within the lotus flower, and the other is giving Brahmā information on how to create. So, Brahmā, given this facility, then carries out the engineering of the material creation. So, this is really being done by Kṛṣṇa, but it's being done indirectly through Brahmā who acts as Kṛṣṇa's servant.

[10:31]

You can make a comparison there with a computer. Of course, Brahmā's a living being, so he's not completely comparable to a computer, but we can still in some degree make a comparison there. Namely, first you build the computer, then you provide some software and once that is done, the computer will do all kinds of complicated things for you. So you're not directly doing those things yourself, the computer's doing them, but indirectly you're doing them because you've provided the software, you also built the computer. So without either of those two things, those complicated actions wouldn't be taking place, such as Windows coming up and producing all kinds of confusing things, different icons appearing and disappearing and so on. 

Of course Brahmā had trouble with the creation also, it's explained. At one point he created Rakṣasas and they tried to eat him. So experience with Word for Windows would be similar to this. Occasionally my text is eaten up in a strange way, and just as Brahmā would have to solve the problem with the Rakṣasas by taking out a new body and dropping his own body, I've had similar experiences with Word for Windows. So the analogy goes through quite nicely.

Question:  [unclear]

Answer:  Pardon me? 

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Let me see. Well, this is because the computers cannot yet pass the Turing test. We'll come to that later. Anyway, so this is an example of indirect engineering. So Śrīla Prabhupāda describes here that, according to the Vedas, everything is created, and maintained; and after annihilation, everything is conserved in Brahman. So, there are many different descriptions of the material creation.

But the interesting and curious thing that you have with the material creation is that matter looks as though it is something that operates independently, according to its own laws. And it seems to be a sort of more or less uniform stuff that is spread out in space and it seems to function and interact according to certain principles. Śrīla Prabhupāda made the comment here: inert matter is undoubtedly energy with potential to interact, but it has no initiative of its own. 

This idea of energy with potential to interact, this is really the subject matter of physics. Physicists had a lot to say about this. In fact, they have very definite meanings that they assigned to such words. Potential refers to a sort of law of force.

Let's see, now an example would be gravity. Now, we know that things tend to fall down. This can be demonstrated experimentally. So, that's the nice thing about physics – you can demonstrate everything experimentally. Then if I want to talk about Kṛṣṇa, I can't demonstrate it experimentally. This puts the theologian at a disadvantage. So, the physicists demonstrate all kinds of really simple things experimentally and then they wave their hands and they say: Everything in reality takes place according to these principles, and nothing else. And we've proven it experimentally.” Then the theologian comes along and he says these very abstract and almost incomprehensible things about the supreme absolute truth and Personality of Godhead and so forth. You can't demonstrate anything. And so he comes up as a second runner to the physicists. At least that's the way things have been happening for the last couple hundred years. But it may not continue that way. 

[15:18]

Here's another demonstration. This is a harmonic oscillator. Now, what is happening here? Well, you can analyze this. This motion can be explained by a sine wave and you can calculate this using physics. The idea is that when the kartal swings up, it's moving upward. So it's going up against the gravitational potential. So it's storing energy and the idea is when it's moving, it has kinetic energy. So as it goes up, it moves slower and slower because it stores more and more energy in the gravitational potential, until finally it gets up here and all the energy it had is now stored in the gravitational potential and there's none left for movement, so it stops. Then it begins going back, and as it goes down, energy comes out of the gravitational potential and is turned into energy of motion again. So it moves faster and faster until it gets to the bottom. It keeps on going back up and repeats the same thing on the other side and in this way, it is swinging. So this is physics. Physicists reason in this way. And they explain everything in terms of numbers.

I won't give you all the numbers, it really gets bad if I start doing that. But this is an explanation of how this thing is moving. So, this is energy with potential to interact. Interaction means that you have a give and take. In this case, the energy goes into the potential form and the thing stops and then the energy goes back into the kinetic form and the thing is moving and it keeps doing this alternately. So, what the scientists will tell us is that everything in reality is happening according to these principles and nothing more. Basically, you've got energy in different states and it's interactive, which means as time goes on, it's changing its state in a simple way according to certain laws, like the example that I gave. And of course, a lot of things are happening; here you've got one degree of freedom.

This is another thing we've talked about, degrees of freedom. There's one degree of freedom for the movement of this thing because it just moves back and forth, which is one way to move. Of course you can get two degrees of freedom. We can get it like this, cause now it's moving this way and this way at the same time. So, there are two degrees of freedom. So, the scientists will say that if you take a typical chunk of matter, it's got about something in the order of 10²³ degrees of freedom. Now let's see, how many is that? I had to think of these things myself. Well, let's see, 10²³. Well if you take a million, million, million, that's 10¹⁸ and then another hundred thousand to get you up to 23. So a hundred thousand million, million, million is 10²³. So that's how many degrees of freedom there are in the average chunk of matter.

If you imagine this kind of thing going on, except it's happening in a million, million, million, hundred thousand different ways all at once. That's what's happening in a chunk of matter according to the science. And the scientists will say that if you could understand all the details of this, you know, all one hundred thousand, million, million, million details, then you'd know everything that's happening in that piece of matter. And you'd realize that there's no need to bring in God to explain it because everything is explained in terms of these interactions.

This is the basic principle. Now you might ask, are the scientists able to actually do that? Can they calculate a hundred thousand, million, million, million things? Well, the answer is “No.” They can't do that anymore than any of us can. Even with big computers. Now there are some pretty big computers doing these things. Actually, computers are getting more powerful. These little laptops that we have now are more powerful than computers that would occupy this entire room back in the 1950s. So back in the 1950s, actually, when the computers were bigger, people were more impressed with them in those days. Because of course, even computers today have flashing lights, but the computers in those days would have whole banks of flashing lights, and they were big lights too. So they would flash on and off like anything, and people would call these computers "giant electronic brains."

[20:19]

Now it's just a little laptop word processor. So it's not a big deal. Even though it swallows up your files and these things. But it used to be called a giant electronic brain. Now the difference between the modern day laptop and the giant electronic brain is the laptop can do much more than the giant electronic brain could do. You could never do even WordStar on one of those giant electronic brains, it would be too slow, you know. 

In those days, if they had the computer control a TV screen, and they did – this started pretty early on – you'd hook up this giant thing that's bigger than this room loaded with a huge number of air conditioning units. This is another factor. These computers, big old computers, generated a lot of heat, so you'd have all kinds of air conditioning units. And the early ones used by the military would have a group of soldiers assigned to them whose job was to replace the vacuum tubes, because vacuum tubes would be burning out at the rate of one every few minutes or so. So they'd walk up and down little hallways inside the computer looking for burned out vacuum tubes and replacing them. Occasionally even an insect would get into the computer, and it would lodge on one of the circuits and short it out. And this was known as a bug in the computer. And that's actually where this came from, in case you wonder. If you say there's a bug in the computer, this is where it came from. 

But these computers were very slow. If you tried to run WordStar, let’s say, on such a computer, you'd sit there and wait, you know, and become totally impatient while it slowly put things on the screen. What to speak of these other programs? But anyway, with these computers, can you calculate a hundred thousand million, million, million different things? The answer is no. Can you handle 10 different things? Not very well, to tell you the truth.

Once upon a time I asked a famous physicist about this. I asked him: Well, could we use, you know, the theories of physics – quantum mechanics and things like that – to calculate what an amoeba will do in a drop of water? In other words, we've got to imagine that drop of water and an amoeba. An amoeba is a little single-celled creature, and it's like a little blob of Jelly, but it's alive. What it does is the amoeba puts out pseudopods. Now we shouldn't make the wrong kind of joke here. Pseudopod. But, actually… [unclear]... the word pseudopod is already there in the science dictionaries. It means false foot. You see in Latin, they also have the word pada. It means the same thing as in Sanskrit. Because in fact, Latin and Sanskrit are related. This is another subject to discuss.

But anyway, pod means foot, and pseudo means false. So the amoeba will stick out a protrusion that they call a false foot. And instead of stepping on it the way we do it flows into it. So it's as though you put your foot forward and then you flow into it and then you're there. Then you put another foot forward and flow into that one. This is how amoebas move and they eat by flowing around things. So if something is there that the amoeba wants to eat, it just goes like this and just flows around it. So, these are amoebas. So, they're very tiny though. You have to look at them under a microscope.

So I asked this physicist whose name was Hans Bethe. He was a famous physicist at Cornell University. And when I met him, he was a little bit old at that time, and he's probably not around anymore, but he was quite something in his day. He helped create the atomic bomb and did many other things like that. So I asked him if with the equations of physics, you could calculate what the amoeba is going to do, let's say one minute later. Let's say you know exactly the situation of the amoeba right now. Can you say using the laws of physics, what will happen next? And he said: Well, that's a ridiculous question. He was about to throw me out of the office. And he said: Well, that's totally absurd. Why do you ask such a crazy question? 

[25:38]

So then I said: Well, if using the laws of physics, we can't calculate what the amoeba is going to do in the next few moments, how do we know that the amoeba is really operating according to the laws of physics? Because we can't test it. We can't say what... well according to the laws of physics… So we don't know whether it's obeying the laws of physics or not. And, he became a bit flustered at that. And he said: Well, of course it's obeying the laws of physics. And of course you can't tell whether it's doing it or not. You just have to accept that it is, because physics is based on objective, scientific knowledge, not faith, like you have in religion.

In any case, actually, there's a real mystery there as to how it's really all working. And what you find is that Kṛṣṇa is really behind the whole thing. So, one way, as I mentioned, that He controls everything is He creates Brahmā, gives Brahmā instructions, and then Brahmā is controlling things. But his way of controlling things is pretty mysterious also. 

Of course, He creates various demigods, and they're given power to control things. Now when you come to the description of the demigods, then you go from persons to extended fields of energy. For example, Vāyu is in control of air. Well, air is an extended field of energy just spread out in space. But Vāyu is in control of that. We have different demigods in control of different things. You have Agni who's in control of fire, and Agni can actually manifest as fire. For example, once Agni was… it's actually described as the Mahābhārata that Agni was feeling indigestion because he'd been getting too much ghee in fire sacrifices. And you know, if you eat too much ghee, this can cause indigestion. So this was happening with Agni. 

Now his solution was a little bit unique. I don't think we can follow this particular cure for indigestion caused by ghee. He wanted to eat lots of flesh and fat in order to cure the problem. And so, Kṛṣṇa said that, well, he could devour the Khāṇḍava forest. This was one of the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna in the Mahābhārata. So Agni began devouring the forest in the form of a gigantic forest fire and all kinds of things happened there. But, the interesting thing is that this personality, Agni, can manifest as a fire. And this is a controlled fire. This is fire that is acting intelligently. Also air, under the direction of Vāyu, acts intelligently and it does different things. And the same is true of all the different elements of matter.

So that's one way in which the control and direct manipulation of matter is being carried out through these different demigods who act as servants of Kṛṣṇa. Of course, Kṛṣṇa is also there as the Supersoul. The Supersoul is also an indirect manifestation of Kṛṣṇa because that's an expansion of an expansion of an expansion of Kṛṣṇa. But the Supersoul is pervading matter and is the superintendent of all the different material manifestations. So just like the superintendent in a factory, he's actually in charge of what's going on. So he sees if everything is going on properly, and if it's not, then he corrects it. And he says: No, you should do like this. So the Supersoul is the superintendent of the material nature. So, let's see here.

[30:00] 

Yes, there's the analogy of the nipples on the neck of the goat. Various examples are given. One point to make about the control of material nature is that material nature is acting as an instrument. And one way to illustrate that is: imagine taking a stick and writing some letters in the sand. So you can do that with a stick. Now the letters are not directly being written by you. The letters are being written by the point of the stick, but then you're moving the other end of the stick. And that's why the point of the stick is making those letters. So you can make letters using a stick. So the stick is the instrumental cause and you're the remote cause. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda uses these terms. The sand and also the stick can be thought of as the material cause because the sand is what forms the actual letters, and the tip of the stick is what is pushing the sand directly. So the stick is the instrumental cause and also that… plus the sand – they make up the material cause. You're the remote cause because you're moving the other end of the stick.

Now imagine trying to write in the sand with a piece of wet spaghetti. Could you be able to do that? So you have a piece of wet spaghetti. You might be able to do something but you probably couldn't make very nice letters with it. And that's because the spaghetti doesn't transmit the motion of your hand because it's so flexible, it bends too easily. So in order for matter act as an instrument of Kṛṣṇa's will, it has to be connected to Kṛṣṇa in such a way that it directly enacts his will. And in fact that is the case according to the Vedic literature. 

Now there's a philosophy that some people have in the area of religion, modern day Judeo-Christian philosophy, for example, which says that everything in nature is happening according to the laws of physics and God is sustaining the laws of physics. And in that sense, God is making everything happen. But that would be like saying that you're using the wet spaghetti to write the letters because there is no linkage there that works.

If you look at the laws of physics, you see no linkage there by which an intelligent being could control matter through those laws. There's no such facility. So, what you need is something with more rigidity, something that has the right linkage. So, the Vedic literature is describing all of these different energies, but all of the different energies, even though they are energies distributed through space, they're linked up to personality in such a way that the personality can manipulate the energy according to desire. And furthermore, these energies operate in a way that is quite... Let's say it goes far beyond what the physicists know about.

This brings one to the topic of the paranormal. And this is an interesting term. Basically, in modern science, if anything is said to happen which the scientists can't explain, then that is called paranormal. And on the other hand, if they can explain it, it's called normal. So, that's basically the distinction. Paranormal is a relative and subjective term because it refers to what the scientists are able to understand. It doesn't really refer to the thing itself. 

Of course, the scientists will say – this is often the case – they will say this… that nothing happens that we don't understand. At least nothing happens that we don't understand in principle, according to the laws that we've figured out. So therefore, if you say that something does happen that we can't understand according to the laws that we've worked out, then we say that that's an illusion that never happened. So that's the basic principle that is followed. So what kinds of things are we talking about?

Well, if you read the Bhāgavatam and see how the material energy is controlled and manipulated, you find that forms can be produced by higher intelligence in ways that, from the point of view of an ordinary human, seem completely miraculous. Things just appear and disappear. They take shape in a certain way. This occurs in a manner that is incomprehensible to us. Actually, this takes place according to the different linkages involving the different energies of Kṛṣṇa in a way that's quite understandable to one who has the real information of how things are working. But in the science that is known today, nobody knows how these things work. So they rule these things out.

[35:29]

Just to give an example, consider raising the dead, just as an example. Suppose somebody dies, and then some great saintly person comes along and brings them back to life. Lord Caitanya did that a number of times in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Also, Jesus Christ is famous for having done that. In fact, there are yogis who could do that. In fact, even fairly mundane personalities can do it in some cases. For example, Śukrācārya can do it. And Maya Dānava can even do it. 

There's the story of the three cities created by Maya Dānava. He built these three flying cities and gave them to the forces of the demons. And the demons flew in these cities. They were attacking the different heavenly planets from outer space, hurling down missiles on them. So, the demigods appealed to Lord Śiva to save them and he proceeded to shoot arrows at the three cities, and he wiped out many of the demons, destroyed them completely. So then Maya Dānava took the bodies of these demons and put them in a special tank that he had constructed and they all came to life again. In fact, their bodies were even stronger than they were before. So, this is a kind of a higher technology, you might say. This is a matter of bringing beings back to life.

There are reports of these things happening. And the scientific response to these reports is that: Well, this is nonsense because no such thing could ever happen. It's not possible according to the principles we know, therefore it does not take place. And if somebody says that it does, it just shows the lamentable, you know, condition of the human mind, that the people are prone to believe in such things. And if we, you know, develop our societies of rationalists and skeptics to a more highly developed degree, then we can counteract this kind of nonsense. So, this is the position in modern science.

Basically, there are principles by which matter can be organized and controlled in very complex ways by higher intelligence. And these principles are not at all understood by the modern scientist, but through these principles, Kṛṣṇa, as the remote cause, is controlling and manipulating matter so that the entire universal creation comes about. I'll stop there. Are there any questions? Yeah.

Question:  [unclear]

Answer:  Okay. We’d better answer this question. I think it would be quite a speculative step to say that this verse suggests that the Lord started everything going in the beginning and then had nothing further to do with it, because there's no reference here to things happening over the course of time at all. It says there's “no direct engineering by the Lord for the creation and destruction of the material world. What is described in the Vedas about His direct interference is simply to counteract the idea that material nature is the creator.” So that just says that He's not directly engineering it. It doesn't say that He directly engineered it in the beginning and then just let it run. In fact, this would say He didn't do that because it said that He doesn't directly engineer it. 

[39:56] 

The idea of setting things running in the beginning, and then letting them go was an attempt to reconcile religion with the physics. That's basically what it was. Because what happened historically was that after Newton and his followers, the laws of physics were worked out, and it was observed that in these laws there are no terms that allow God to do anything. One thing causes another and another thing causes another thing; another thing causes yet another thing. You just have these chains of causation, and they entirely are material. If A causes B, B is material, and A is also material. If A' causes A, well A' is material too, no matter how far back you go, it's all material. So one solution was to say: Well yeah, it's all material. As you go back and back and back until some point – it's so far back that we have no way to trace it out. And that's the time of the creation. And at that point there was a spiritual cause.

You have a temporal sequence: spiritual cause, and then from then on a series of material causes and effects going on from there. And that explains why we just see material causes and effects. Well, actually, the Vedas are describing in detail how you have material causes and effects, but you have spiritual causes all the time. In other words, right now, there are spiritual causes involved in what's happening. Even what's happening in this room, there are spiritual causes going on – spiritual causation right at this moment and resulting trains of material action and reaction taking place. So, that's the situation. 

So this verse by itself, I think to conclude from this, that it's admitting that the Vedas are a bunch of arguments simply created to counteract atheists. Well, no doubt that's true. Atheists should be counteracted; it's a question of what is right and what is wrong.

I mentioned the previous verse, because this verse of today has to be taken into context of the previous verse. You see we've just gone through a whole series of descriptions of the operation of the material universe, universal form, and so on and so forth. Then it said, the great transcendentalists thus describe the activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the pure devotees deserve to see more glorious things in transcendence beyond these features. And then it says there's no direct engineering by the Lord. So basically what it's saying is that the Lord is not acting as the clockmaker. He's not in there with a screwdriver and pliers and so on, monkeying with the machinery, but He uses more effective methods. But still He's the controller. So, Yeah.

Q:  [unclear]... you say the Lord doesn't directly interfere. It appears sometimes that He does interfere directly.

A:  Well, when He appears as an avatāra, yeah, to be sure. 

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Well, here it refers to the creation and destruction of the material world. 

Q:  [unclear] But within the function of the material laws, you can still interfere – that is not being ruled out.

A:  Well, you see, He's indirectly interfering all the time, because even what is happening in this room right now is being controlled by the Supersoul, but He's not controlling it directly in the sense that you see Him here pushing buttons and turning levers and so forth. But He is controlling it indirectly. But if Kṛṣṇa appears as an incarnation and lifts Govardhan Hill or something, then He's obviously doing it directly. That's pretty direct. So, any other question?

Q:  [unclear]... wonderful demonstrations of gravity and the pendulum, and so I suspect that that's the type of experimentation that they performed. You instituted it, you prompted that material to move. What do they refer to as the cause?

A:  Oh the cause? What is the cause of this pendulum swinging?

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Well, it's my hand. But you see, you have to understand that in my hand, although they're very small, there are lots of little gizmos in there that are just like this pendulum really. Lots of them. I mean that's why I was giving those big numbers: a hundred thousand million, million, million. So there are lots of these little gizmos in there, and they're all basically like this pendulum, and they're all working together, and that's what happens when my hand moves up like that. You see, and when I'm talking it's the same thing. And when you're asking the questions it's the same thing, and that's all that's going on. Yeah. 

[45:37]  

Q:  [unclear]... since it's working like that, sometimes they come up with the right answer, another time they come up with not the right answer, or sometimes they're speechless in response to what you say. [unclear]...

A:  Well, you see there are certain things you can say about what the hundred million, million, million, you know, etc. things are going to do. There are certain laws that would govern them. For example, suppose this kartal were to just float up into the air by itself. This is something that is sometimes reported; they report such things. Now the scientists will say, no. Now there's billions and billions of little molecules in this kartal, but they all have to obey the same law of gravity. So according to the physicists, you can tell what the whole kartal will do just by summing up the effects of the law of gravity applied to each little molecule. And all the effects are the same because they all say it's going to try to go down. So if you say, “Well, it goes up,” they'll say, “Well, it just doesn't do that. Sorry.” Yeah.

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yeah, that's true. When Kṛṣṇa's there as the Supersoul, He's also directly there because He is a Supersoul. Kṛṣṇa is nondifferent from His energy also – that's acintya-bhedābheda-tattva. And therefore He's directly present in His energy, but at the same time, it's indirect because bheda is also there. It's bheda-abheda. So it's directly and indirectly. So here he stresses on the indirect aspect. But because Kṛṣṇa's directly there, He can perform any miracle. 

For example, consider what happened when the brāhmaṇa, what was his name now? The very poor brāhmaṇa. Sudāmā. Yeah. When he gave the chipped rice to Kṛṣṇa and immediately his very humble little hovel turned into a palace, made out of jewels and so forth. And his wife became exceedingly beautiful and all these exceedingly beautiful servant people appeared out of who knows where. So Kṛṣṇa just manifested that, which He can do because He's right there in that energy. And if He wants, He can produce crystal palaces and beautiful servants and so forth, instantaneously – just like that. But normally He doesn't; it's just a matter of His normal mode of activity. Yeah.

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Well, you can say prādhana is the material cause, not mahat-tattva. Yeah.

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  Yeah, the word consciousness is applied to the mahat-tattva, contaminated consciousness specifically, which as far as I can understand, since the material energy is said to be unconscious, then why does one turn around and refer to mahat-tattva in terms of consciousness? As far as I can understand, that refers to the contaminated material that covers the consciousness of the living entities in the mahat-tattva. That seems to reconcile it. So, anything else? All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.