“Life Doesn’t Come from Matter” (SB 2.10.34)

TRANSCRIPT:  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 2, Chapter 10, Text 34. “Life Doesn’t Come from Matter.” Alachua – September 26,1994 / (074)

[Text 34]:

Therefore, beyond this [gross manifestation] is a transcendental manifestation finer than the finest form. It has no beginning, no intermediate stage and no end; therefore, it is beyond the limits of expression or mental speculation and is distinct from the material conception. 

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: 

The gross external body of the Supreme is manifested at certain intervals, and thus the external feature or form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not the eternal form of the Lord, which has no beginning, no intermediate stage and no end. Anything which has a beginning, interim and end is called material. The material world is begun from the Lord, and thus the form of the Lord, before the beginning of the material world, is certainly transcendental to the finest, or the finer material conception. The ether in the material world is considered to be the finest. Finer than the ether is mind, intelligence and false ego. But all eight of the outward coverings are explained as outer coverings of the Absolute Truth. The Absolute Truth is therefore beyond the expression and speculation of the material conception. He is certainly transcendental to all material conceptions. This is called nirviśeṣaṇam. One should not, however, misunderstand nirviśeṣaṇam as being without any transcendental qualifications. Viśeṣaṇam means qualities. Therefore nir added to it means that he has no material qualities or variegatedness. This nullifying expression is described in four transcendental qualifications, namely unmanifested, transcendental, eternal, and beyond the conception of mind or word. Beyond the limits of words means negation of the material conception. Unless one is transcendentally situated, it is not possible to know the transcendental form of the Lord.

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: 

Therefore, beyond this [gross manifestation] is a transcendental manifestation finer than the finest form. It has no beginning, no intermediate stage and no end; therefore, it is beyond the limits of expression or mental speculation and is distinct from the material conception.

We're coming to the end of the description of the universal form of the Lord. And after the description of this universal form, there is now a record as to the transcendental features of the Lord. It is completely beyond the material conception. The next verse will also record this; it says, 

Neither of the above forms of the Lord, as just described unto you from the material angle of vision, is accepted by the pure devotees of the Lord who know Him well. 

There is the eternal spiritual form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī  Kṛṣṇa. This eternal form is existing in the spiritual world and is completely transcendental to anything material. So the material manifestation is created by the action of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And these verses describing the universal form of the Lord are giving us some details on how this comes about. 

Basically what you have is that matter is one of the energies of Kṛṣṇa, and this material energy by its nature does not assume any particular form. It can assume many different forms, but it doesn't tend to retain any particular form. So you could compare it, for example, to clay. Clay can be molded into statues by a sculptor, but clay by itself doesn't tend to retain any particular form. Therefore you could make any desired statue out of it. And then later on you could destroy that statue, return the clay to its amorphous form, and then make different statues. So that's the nature of the material creation. That's the basic summary describing what is happening.

[5:09]

The spirit souls are described as being of the same nature as Kṛṣṇa. They are conscious living beings who are parts and parcels of Kṛṣṇa. But the conditioned spirit souls are linked up with this material energy so that they only see the material energy. They don't see Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa is therefore completely beyond the perception of the conditioned spirit souls. 

The situation of the conditioned spirit soul is somewhat similar to that of a person who's, I’m going to say, watching a movie and becoming identified with it. Let's say you're sitting in a theater watching the screen and seeing different images being projected on it. And when you do that, you may identify with the images. For example, you may become wrapped up in the activities of the hero of that movie. So then when you see that the hero is about to be attacked from behind by some villain, then immediately you feel great anxiety. And one might ask: Well, why do you feel anxiety? After all, all you're doing is sitting in a chair looking at some images on the screen. So why should you become involved with that emotionally? Well, it’s due to a process of identification. You see the image on the screen, and you become identified with what's going on there.

Similarly, this material world is like the movie. It's an arrangement of flickering forms that come and go. But our senses are linked up with these flickering forms. So therefore we become attached to them. However, the technology behind the material universe is much more highly developed than that of the movie.

Actually, there's a book called Brave New World by a fellow named Aldous Huxley, a famous materialist who described movies of the future, which he called “feelies.” In these movies, all of your senses would be engaged in the experience. So instead of just looking at images on a screen, and hearing, you would also feel sensations and experience tastes and smells and so forth. So therefore the illusion of the movie would be much more persuasive. 

Then of course you can go to the computer generated virtual reality idea in which the movie becomes interactive. So normally if you watch a movie, you just see the thing going from beginning to end, and you have no influence over what is happening in that movie. It's just a fixed sequence of images. But one can set up a computer generated movie in which you see different things happening, and then according to your will, you can influence what happens. So you become a participant in the movie. And this creates an even more impressive illusion because when you see that you can act within the movie, you really think you're there and that this movie is the reality of your existence. So this can be done with something called a virtual reality machine. These are now becoming commercially available. But basically, as I've described on some other occasions, you link up the senses of the person with a computer generated reality so that the person has a computer generated body, and in that body he's moving and acting within the computer generated reality.

The Bhāgavatam is describing the creation of the material world, and it's actually describing here how the virtual reality system of the material world is working. So we've gone through a whole series of verses describing the universal form. So basically the universal form is the material control system for all the bodies of the living entities throughout the universe. So there is a central intelligent control of all these different material bodies. So the universal form is therefore described in terms of different organs, different senses, different controlling deities of senses, the sense objects, which are what the senses interact with, and the different material elements which are connected with the sense objects. 

[10:42]

For example, you have water, which is a material element; and connected with water there's taste, which is the sense object related with water. Then there's the tongue, which is the sense which interacts with that sense object. So the tongue perceives taste, or registers taste, and then there's the presiding deity of the water element. So all of these different elements are being described. The entire system of the material world as described in the Bhāgavatam exists in relation to the living entities. This is a very interesting point.

If you look at the modern scientific concept of reality, you find the idea that the universe is made of matter, which by nature is non-living, and life is sort of an incidental byproduct that occurs under very special circumstances. But basically, the universe is just non-living. You have a vast void of empty space with planets and stars and so forth floating in it. And these are made of gas, liquids, and rock, and so forth, and most of it is non-living – that's the picture that's given in modern science. 

According to the scientists, in this solar system, the earth is the only planet where there is life. If you go to the other planets such as Mars, Mercury, Venus, and so forth, there's no life there. They will say that recently Jupiter was bombarded by comets and gigantic explosions occurred and these huge rocks plummeted into the atmosphere of Jupiter. But, don't worry, there's no life there. So this was simply a material phenomenon, a rock mashing into some gas and heating it up and producing a huge explosion. But there was no living being there to experience that. If we hadn't seen it with our telescopes and so forth, no one would have seen it. There would be no perception of that phenomenon. That's the scientific picture.

The picture that is being presented in the Bhāgavatam is quite different from this. According to the Bhāgavatam, the entire development of the material creation is oriented towards life. So you start with the prādhana, which is the undifferentiated material energy. When Mahā-Viṣṇu glances over the prādhana, it goes through a series of stages of development and different elements are produced. But these elements are all existing in relation to life.

The first element that is produced is false ego. And of course, the very name of that indicates that it has something to do with life. It has to do with ego, or the sense of self. False ego indicates that this element that is developed from the prādhana has the function of putting the spirit soul into illusion. This element is the thing which causes the spirit soul to identify with something else as the self. So therefore, the false ego is actually the cause of false identification. Then you have goodness, passion, and ignorance being manifest within false ego. So those are also described in relation to life because obviously goodness has to do with life. It's a psychological state. Also passion, ignorance… ignorance refers to a state of consciousness of a living being. So these are material principles, but they are in relation with life. 

[15:15]

Then you have the manifestation of mind from the mode of goodness, intelligence from the mode of passion, the different senses also from the mode of passion. And then the different elements and sense objects are manifested from the mode of ignorance, and all of these are connected together. So these can be described in an abstract way in terms of their particular properties. And you find that in the Third Canto, for example. They can also be described in terms of a total body, which is the universal form of the Lord. 

These elements don't just exist in isolation, but they exist in relation to one another in the form of an organized body. And that organized body, through its action, then generates all of the living bodies of the different living beings throughout the universe and also controls them at every stage. So, what do you have then is a universal control system.

Now the scientific conception is that certain elements develop which don't have anything to do with life. So you have carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, and so forth. And then these elements combine in a way that is not controlled by any kind of higher intelligence. And somehow or another they produce living organisms. And this is always a great mystery. But one is told one is supposed to accept it. And one is told that shortly the scientists are going to demonstrate how this works by doing it in the laboratory. They will take… basically the real challenge is, you give the scientist some jars of chemicals. You have a jar full of carbon. Now carbon is like what you have in pencil lead, right. So imagine a jar of powdered pencil lead. So you're given this jar, and then you have a jar of oxygen. Maybe if you get enough oxygen, maybe you should have it under pressure in one of these sealed tanks. So you have a tank of oxygen, another tank of hydrogen. And then let's see, what else do we need? We need Nitrogen. This is important, another gas that you could have in a tank. And then we need a dash of sulfur. In solid form that's a yellow substance, which smells rather badly. And then, let's see, what else do you need? There are various trace elements that can be… a bit of iron. You could pick some rusty nails also. So given these substances, the scientist has the task of making a living cell. At least you should be able to make it an amoeba. 

By the way, have the boys ever been… the gurukula kids ever been shown single-celled creatures under the microscope?

Audience:  [unclear] 

RLT:  Well, you’d have to have a microscope to do it, of course. So, because you have a great source of little creatures around here, like in that pond, behind the gurukula. Just take a little bit of water from that, put it on a slide and look at it under a microscope. You'll see all these little critters swimming around. Very interesting creatures. They're quite amazing, they're very small, but they act just like living beings.

They have a tendency to swallow one another. Actually, I don't think the life of microorganisms is something to look forward to. Because it's a life of swallow or be swallowed. In fact, one of these creatures, it's quite amazing. It's sort of a sphere with a mouth, and the mouth can open up to be quite wide so it can actually swallow something bigger than it is… just sort of fits itself over whatever it’s swallowing. And, once it manages to close at the other end, then whatever it swallowed is now inside, so it begins the digestion process. And, [unclear]... well while he's digesting something that's in him, a slightly bigger one swallows him. And this is the life of the microorganisms.

[20:12]

But, you see them moving around as though they have some intelligence. For example, they have a sense of smell, and they can swim towards a creature that they'd like to eat because they can smell them from a distance. So certain things they don't like: if you put a chemical that they don't like in the water, they'll swim away from it very quickly. So they have some degree of sensitivity. So what the scientist has to do then is take these chemicals and make one of these creatures. That's the task. 

Actually Śrīla Prabhupāda gave the task of making a chicken. But actually a chicken is much more complicated than one of these single-cell creatures. Because the chicken has billions and billions of cells and each cell in the chicken is as complicated as one of those creatures. So that's a much more difficult task. But anyway, their idea is that these chemicals just come together somehow in nature and they produce these living cells. But they don't explain how it works. And this is a real problem.

Now the version given in the Bhāgavatam is that you start with intelligent control at the highest level. So before you have the universal form, you have the original form of Kṛṣṇa, which is completely transcendental to matter. And this original form generates the universal form. So all the different organs and elements and so forth that go into the universal form are there because the original form of Kṛṣṇa has organs and limbs and so on and so forth. 

However, the material universal form is made of a different kind of substance than the original form of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's original form is made of pure spirit, and it has transcendental characteristics. Some of these are described here. It's unlimited, it's eternal, it has features that are in fact beyond words. For example, every limb of Kṛṣṇa can perform all of the functions of any other organ or limb of Kṛṣṇa. So, how is that possible in material terms? 

In material terms, we can imagine a hand that is built so as to grasp things, but that's not built for seeing. The eye is constructed for seeing. So it's hard to imagine how one organ could perform the functions of all other organs. So that is possible though in the spiritual form. So spiritual form has features that are inconceivable and actually we can't describe them or properly understand them. But at the same time we can understand many things about the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We can only understand these things though, if we have information coming from Kṛṣṇa describing what He's like.

In the production of the universal form, the different bodies of the living organisms are produced. And this is a process whereby patterns or information that are there in the spiritual world are imposed on the material substance. So you can compare it, as I mentioned before, to a sculptor who molds clay into different patterns. But these patterns also include transmissions of information describing what the spiritual world is like. So as a result of receiving these patterns or this transmitted information, it is possible to understand the whole process of creation. And it is also possible to understand the original creator, namely, Kṛṣṇa. So, that is the basic description given in the Bhāgavatam.

Briefly, one could make a comment here concerning the laws of physics. According to the scientists, there are certain principles or laws which they can write down on pieces of paper. They call these the laws of physics. And these laws describe how matter acts. So, a simple example of a law of physics would be Newton's law of action and reaction. Namely, you push something with a force and the object moves. So here we see an illustration of this law that applying a force into this microphone here and it moves. And you can say that the rate at which it moves is proportional to how big the force is. If I apply a bigger force, it will move faster and so forth. So that's an example of a physical law. 

[25:42]

So the physicists have worked out certain laws. And one concept that people sometimes have is that actually nature is running according to these laws. But the description given here in the Bhāgavatam indicates that actually that's not quite true. Some things that happen in nature are running according to these laws. But there are many additional principles involved in material nature above and beyond the laws known to physicists. So this description of the universal form involves many different features, which you won't find in any way described in physics textbooks. And yet this is essential to the functioning of the bodies of the living beings.

One example would be the control of the different organs by demigods. So it is described here, for example, even an evacuation is controlled by Mitra. The hands are controlled by Indra, so all the different organs and senses of the body are controlled by different demigods who are operating on a subtle platform. And this control is something very real. For example, there's the story of what happened when Hanumān tried to devour the sun when he was a little child. He was a little bit rambunctious as a child. And since he was equipped with tremendous mystic powers, which also don't exactly fit into the laws of physics very well, he jumped up into the sky and tried to swallow the sun. And Indra, who has the job of maintaining law and order in the universe, zapped him with a thunderbolt, and he fell down and broke his jaw. He was lying unconscious. 

So his father, who happens to be Vāyu, who's the god of air, became very disturbed, and he blocked up the life air in the bodies of all the different living beings within the universe. Perhaps not deliberately, but just because he was so distressed over what happened to Hanumān. And so, all the demigods found their life air being choked up. They were feeling great distress. So of course, they appealed to Brahmā, who appropriately intervened, and Hanumān was brought back to a healthy condition, and Vāyu was satisfied, and he stopped blocking everyone's life air. But that shows how the different elements within the body are controlled by different demigods.

In fact, in the ordinary manifestation of karma, these control functions are being exercised. For example, a certain person will get sick, let's say. Another person doesn't get sick. Why is that? You could say, well, it's due to the person's karma. How is that actually controlled? Well, there are demigods and so on, controlling all these things. It's not just a matter that there's some bacteria floating around and one person happens to inhale some of them and another person somehow misses them. But actually there's higher control going on, which is exercised by the demigods. And ultimately the demigods are controlled by the overall control system of the universal form. And that is controlled by the Supersoul, which is the expansion of Viṣṇu. And so the entire cosmic manifestation is going on under the Supreme Controller. So I'll stop there. Any questions or comments? Yeah.

Question:  [unclear] 

[30:12] 

Answer:  It's interesting, this idea that maybe not all living entities have a heart. Of course, they don't… only humans… Well, if you look at that question it's interesting. Of course the physical blood pump that you find in the human body can be found in the bodies of various other animals. All the vertebrates have hearts in the same sense that people have, although the number of chambers in the heart will be different depending on the kind of creature. For example, I think frogs have a heart with three chambers, and fish would have a heart with two chambers. So, earthworms, let's see, what do they have? They have an arrangement of contracting tubes as I recall. I think they have about eight hearts, if I'm not mistaken: eight contracting tubes, and Supersoul must accompany that soul also. [?...Inaudible 31:16].

So one suspects that the plant also must have a heart region of some sort. The plant also has a mind, intelligence, and false ego, that's there. Because mind, intelligence, and false ego are there in all conditioned living beings. The soul is first covered by mind, intelligence, and false ego and then by the gross physical body. So when it is said that the mind is in the region of the heart, it makes one think that even in a plant there must be something corresponding to the heart, even though you don't find a single pump unit within a plant. It's interesting, by the way, this is an experiment you can also try to do in the gurukula. Well, ultimately you could try to do it.

The scientist, Indian scientist named Jagadish Chandra Bose, did experiments showing that plants have activities quite similar to those of animals, but they occur on a different timescale and they involve very slight movements. So he rigged up machines that would amplify the movements of plants and he found the plants had a sleeping and waking cycle, just like animals or humans. That is, a plant will be moving in a certain way during the daytime and then at night that movement stops. It's as though it's gone to sleep. And also the plants react to pain. If you tear the leaf of a plant, you can find an agitated motion in the plant as though it's suffering in that. Now unfortunately, he really got into testing this aspect of the plants. And so he would plunge a branch of the plant into boiling water and things like this. He got a little bit gruesome with his experiments. But in any case, he demonstrated that there is some indication that the plant is sentient,  just like an animal. Of course, that's in agreement with the Vedic idea. 

Q:  [unclear]

A:  It could be said that in some form, all living entities have these things. That's the basic concept that I would have. So there are these different organs, developed to different degrees in different living entities. Now, for example, legs. You could say: Well, many creatures don't have legs, of course the Bhāgavatam itself describes the situation of creatures with no legs, creatures with many legs, those with two legs and so forth. So there's considerable flexibility in form among different organisms. But it seems that, I would suspect that all organisms have counterparts of these different organs, at least at some level. For example, even the roots of the plant could correspond to its legs because that's how it holds itself up. Although plants don't normally walk around the way we do. That's what I would suggest there. 

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  Yeah. So you have feet and shoes. Yeah?

[35:07]

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yeah. All of these organs clearly are not manifest to the same degree or in the same way in different organisms. And the human form is the most highly developed form. So all of the different organs are manifesting in the human form. You might say: Well, what about wings? Interesting enough wings aren’t mentioned in the list. Do wings count as a type of arm? In any case... actually, even if you look at the creatures in a drop of water, it's amazing how many different features they exhibit, which you also find in more highly developed beings, even though they look like a little oval glob when you first look at them. Any questions? Yeah? 

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  To what extent are the demigods free? Evidently, they also have an element of freedom and you can see that in the entire Vedic system of sacrifice and so forth in which people try to please them. In one sense, if they have no freedom at all, what would be the point of trying to please them? Of course, it is also said it's better to worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead who's the ultimate controller. But evidently, just as we have some free will, so we can make decisions to act in one way or another, the demigods who’re in the position of controllers also have such freedom. And they can exercise that.

Sometimes they can misuse their freedom. Of course, Kṛṣṇa demonstrated that in the case of Indra, when He provoked Indra into attacking Vṛindāvana with the tremendous rain storm. So evidently Indra was acting according to his own free will there. Although again, of course Kṛṣṇa knew he would do it in advance. But he did it and he used his power to control the weather and produce this tremendous storm. So the demigods evidently can make free choices to some degree. Yeah.

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  Well, I don't know whether you'd want you to equate those two things or not. Because you can think of the covering potency as a function, whereas prādhana is actually a substance. So conceivably one could differentiate between the two in that sense, if you think of covering as an action or a function. So the first throwing and then covering. In that sense, you might say that prādhana is that which covers but the covering potency is the action of covering. So I don't know if I would want to directly identify them. Yeah.

Q:  I had a question, that you were challenging the scientists to create a single-cell organism from these different single elements. But actually they say in nature, you already have the water, hydrogen, and oxygen. You have carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They did that experiment where they zapped these different gasses – ammonia, water vapor, and stuff – and they got, like, amino acids. They might say: Well, what if we had amino acids; then we can build a cell? What do you have to say about that? 

[40:31]

A:  Well, sometimes this has been said. Well you see, amino acids are very simple molecules. So, compared with a single living cell, an amino acid is like a tiny little part of that cell. Now to give an idea of what I mean by “a tiny little part,” let's consider tinkertoys. Now, the gurukula kids here have experience with tinkertoys. They do. So well… actually let's imagine tinkertoys with velcro patches on them. You know that sticky plastic stuff, and instead of the little wooden pegs. I have a reason for wanting velcro patches here. So with tinkertoys equipped with velcro patches you could put together, let us say, a model of something which was pretty complicated. Here, especially if you've worked at it and made it as big as this room. Let's say you make a model of a 747 airplane made of lots of little tinkertoy pieces that are stuck together with velcro. Okay? So, you could build that.

Now imagine doing a different thing. You take a box, you put these velcro-covered tinkertoy pieces in the box – put in several thousand of them, a great big box – and shake it. And then open up the box and see what you get. Well, they're going to bounce into each other and stick together in little clumps. Well, the little clumps are like amino acids and the 747 airplane model is like getting a living cell. Now, we can easily understand why you'd get little clumps of things that stuck together. They're bouncing together, and they tend to stick in certain ways and naturally you're going to get clumps of pieces stuck together in the box. No problem. But the question is: How long would you have to shake the box in order for the 747 jet airplane model to come out? That's the question. And you might have to shake the box for a long time. So that's the difference between...

This is the experiment of Stanley Miller. You put ammonia and methane and hydrogen, water vapor and things like that in a flask and then you put sparks through it. So that's like putting the little tinkertoy parts together in a box and the sparks are the equivalent of shaking the box. And the result is you get to use different compounds such as amino acids, which you do find in the living body. But, you don't get such a thing as a living cell. You don't get anything that's all complicated. So that would be the answer: you were supposed to produce a cell, not just some black crud. Yeah.

Q:  [unclear] 

A:  Well, as a matter of fact, I was wondering if this verse was actually referring to Brahman. Because after all, the next one says, neither of the above forms of the Lord is accepted by pure devotees of the Lord who know Him well. And then the next verse after that says He, the Personality of Godhead, manifests Himself in a transcendental form, being the subject of His transcendental name, quality, pastimes, entourage, and transcendental variegatedness. So let's see.

I'm just looking here in the Sanskrit to make sure we're not interpreting. Well, forms are being mentioned here. Rupa appears twice in this verse, kriyā, pastimes. It's translated as pastimes. Karma, or akarmakaḥ, without being affected. So it seems as though what you have here is a reference to the Brahman feature of the Lord. And then after that you have a description of the transcendental form of the Lord. And the Brahman is quite real also. That's also there. So there's no reason to leave that out.

Furthermore, going from the material level to Kṛṣṇa, in between, you have Brahman. So it's logical to put things in that order. You describe the universal form, and that's dealing with the material universe, the manifest material universe. Then there's this exceedingly subtle, inconceivable level of Brahman. And then beyond that, there’s Goloka-Vṛindāvana, Vaikuṇṭha, and so on, and Kṛṣṇa in his eternal form. So that would be the... All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.