Man Must Transcend Animal Nature
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Chapters
Refining natural instincts through rationality
This is John Stuart Mill.
In his essay on nature, Mill writes: "The order of nature, insofar as unmodified by man, is such as no being whose attributes are justice and benevolence would have made with the intention that his rational creatures should follow it as an example."
It could only be as a designedly imperfect... So Mill concludes in... mainly... not with any other limit. Only man.
Well, Mill concludes that conformity to nature has no connection whatever with right and wrong, and that man must amend nature. He must not act according to nature, but must... uh, the word he uses is "amend". Yes, amend.
Not only amend. The nature is... what that's we discuss almost always, the nature is animal nature. But man must be above the animal nature. That is rationality. And I mean, a man is called a rational animal.
So he should, uh, advance in rationality. This part: eating. Eating is common to the man and to the animal. Well, man should be advanced. What kind of eating it should be? Not only natural. Although natural tendency is, uh...
just like man, some monks, not all, some of them want to eat meat. The rationality is that if I have got better food stuff, what's like ghee and rice? But because he can eat meat, he can kill animals.
He should go on killing animals? That is less intelligence. God has given so many nice foodstuff. Take for fruits, and variety of fruit Kṛṣṇa has given to the mankind. And we can utilize milk in so many nice preparations.
And so the fruits are not eaten by the animals. The dogs, cats, they do not eat fruit. It is meant for human beings. Similarly, that must... "Discrimination is a better part of valor." Is that not an English proverb?
So man should have discrimination. And especially for eating. I think George Bernard Shaw: "You are what you are eating." "You are what you eat." Huh? You are what you eat. Yes. But the eating, how that must be rationality.
Not to be carried by the nature's, um, uh, way. Nature's way, man can eat anything. And they're eating also at the same time.
The other day I saw in the airplane, one man was sitting next to me, he was eating the intestine of the hog. What is called the what? Intestine of the hogs, intestines. What is that called? Hogs' intestines. Yeah.
People eat pigs' feet also. That's a very favorite. The feet of pigs. Pig's trotters. Pig's feet. That's considered a delicacy. So this way, they have developed that consciousness.
Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura said, "nānā yoni bhramaṇa kare, kadarya bhakṣaṇa." This cycle of bhramaṇa is that he comes through species of life, he eats the most abominable food.
So that is to be purified in human life, that is checking the natural instinct and to become rightly rational: what to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex, how to defend. This is also animal purpose.
And above that, he should search out about the Absolute Truth. Then his rationality is properly used. Otherwise, he remains an animal.
Vedic education and divine guidance
He further writes: "The truth is that there is hardly a single point of excellence belonging to human character which is not decidedly repugnant to the untutored feelings of human nature."
So he felt that virtues are not instinctive in man. Virtues like courage, cleanliness, self-control. These virtues have to be cultivated. Yes, therefore in the human society there is education and system.
Man has to be made a light, rational animal, not always an animal. He has to be educated in a nice way. That depends on education, system of education.
But in that connection, studying the whole world's education system, the basic education is perfect.
Therefore, everybody should be educated as they are instructed in the Vedic literature, and the summary of Vedic literature is Bhagavad-gītā. So every man should read it as it is without any, uh, unnecessary interpreter.
That is made the man perfect educated. Mill envisions God at war with evil. And man's role is in aiding or helping God in this war.
He writes, "If Providence or God is omnipotent, Providence intends whatever happens, and the fact of its happening proves that Providence intended it.
If so, everything which a human being can do is predestined by Providence and is a fulfillment of its designs.
But if, as is the more religious theory, Providence intends not all what happens, but only what is good, then indeed man has it in his power by his voluntary actions to aid the intentions of Providence."
Providence desires only good. The man, the living being, is in this material world on account of his imperfect will. God
is very kind that even though he is willing imperfectly to enjoy this material one, God is giving him a directed facilities.
Just like a child wants to play in certain way, still the child is guided by some nurse or some servant, by engaged by the parent. So our position is like that.
We have come to this material world to enjoy, uh, giving up the company of God.
So God has allowed him all that to enjoy and experience; when he will experience that this material enjoyment is not good, then he will even come back.
So He's guiding the enjoyment of the, uh, living being, especially, uh, the human being, uh, so that, uh, he may again come back to home, back to Godhead. Uh, nature is the family agent under the instruction of God.
So if he too much addicted to misuse the freedom, then he's punished. And that is also according to his desire. It is not God's desire that a human being become a pig, but he develops such mentality to eat everything.
So God allows him to do everything, uh, to eat everything up to stool in the body of a pig. That is God's concession. But he wanted to eat all this nonsense above things.
So God gives him the chance that you take this body, a pig, you can eat up to stool. Uh, you'll not find any difficulty to eat stool.
In this way, uh, God is seated in everyone's heart, He's noting down his desires, and to fulfill his different types of desire, God is ordering material nature to give a particular body and his repetition of birth and death in different species.
And this is the continuation of Mill. He writes a limit as on this showing, the divine power must be by inscrutable and insurmountable obstacles due to the existence of evil.
Divine omnipotence and transcendental action
Mill concludes that the existence of evil in the universe, or what he considers to be evil—pain and death—excludes the existence of an omnipotent God.
He sees man in a position to aid the intentions of providence by surmounting his evil instincts. So God is not all-powerful, infinite in His power. If He were, there would be no evil according to Mill. No. God...
Evil is created by God undoubtedly, but it was necessary on account of the human being's misuse of free will. God gives him good direction. But when he is disobedient, then naturally the evil power is there to punish him.
Therefore the evil is not created by God, but still it is created. It is necessary, just like the government constructs the prison house. So this prison house creation is not the government's intention.
Government wants that university is sufficient, people may be educated and highly enlightened.
But because some, not all, misuse the independence, little independence, he creates evil circumstances and he is compulsorily put into the prison house.
Similarly we suffer on account of our own evil activities, but God being supreme, He punishes us or rewards us. For God does... when we are under the protection of God, there is nothing evil, only a good thing.
There is no evil. So God does not create evil, but man's evil activities oblige God to create an evil situation. To create what? Evil situation.
The Christian—there's a Christian conception of God as being at war with Satan, and it appears also that Krishna was at war on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra, and there were wars between the demigods and the demons.
But in the Vedic literatures, these wars do not seem to be taken as serious confrontation between God and God's enemies, but Krishna seems to fight the demons in a playful mood. Uh, this isn't the case in Christianity.
Krishna— Krishna is all-powerful. So his fighting with the demons is actually, it is play. Uh, it doesn't affect his energy. Just like a small child is fighting with his strong father.
So one slap by the strong father is amusement to the small child. Similarly, the fighting of the demons with God is like that.
He gives some chance to play fighting, but one strong slap to the demon, he's finished. So there is no
question of fighting with God. He is omnicompetent, omni... but the demons are there disobeying. When the living being becomes too much disobeying and harassing to the obedient persons or devotees, then it is necessary that God kills them.
That two business is going on: to chastise severely the non-devotees and to give protection to the devotees. That is the idea of fighting with the demons and the demigods.
Whenever there is a fight, God takes side of the demigods. Milton pictures it more like a struggle, but there's no struggle. And
the struggle is there because the demon means they are always against God's ruling. That is demon. And demigod means who accept the rulings of God. That is the difference.
In the śāstra it is said that there are two kinds of human beings: one is called demigod and the other is called demon.
The demigods are those who are abiding by the Lord's order, of Vishnu, and just the opposite, they are called demons. And he pictures God as struggling. God has nothing to struggle.
He is so powerful that He has nothing to do. That is the Vedic injunction: na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. The Vedic description of God is like this. He has nothing to do. That is right.
Because just like a big man, a big leader, a king, personally he has nothing to do. He has got so many servants, secretaries, ministers, soldiers. Why he has got to do? And He has nothing to do.
That is described in the Vedas: na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. There is nothing to do, actually. That we see in the Kṛṣṇa picture, the Supreme Lord. He is playing on His flute and enjoying. That is ānamandamayo 'bhyāsāt.
That is Vedic description. That God is always enjoying. And, uh, He has nothing to do. Oh, uh, because na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate, He has nothing to do, because na tat-samaś cābhyadhikaś ca dṛśyate.
Because nobody is greater than Him. Nobody is equal to Him. Then how things are happening? Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate, He has got multi-energies. The energies are acting. And they are acting so nicely.
Svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca. As if naturally it is happening, so systematic, so nice.
It's like by God's order, the sun has to rise early in the morning; exactly in the time, you watch your watch and you find exactly in time there is sunrise and there is light, uh, there is seasonal changes, uh, everything in order, uh, that is godly arrangement.
So, uh, He hasn't got to struggle, He hasn't got to fight, but there is fight by His different agents to kill the evil element of the world. In
Spiritual authority and moral discipline
his "Utility of Religion", uh, Mill writes about the power of authority and the enormous, what he calls the enormous influence of authority on the human mind: "Authority is the evidence on which the mass of mankind believe everything which they are said to know, except facts of which their own senses have taken cognizance.
It is the evidence on which even the wisest receive all those truths of science, or facts in history, or in life, of which they have not personally examined the proofs.
Whatever is thus certified to them by authority, they believe with a fullness of assurance which they do not accord even to the evidence of their senses when the general opinion of mankind stands in opposition to it."
Hmm. Authority. That is authority. You cannot defy it, or you cannot deny it. That is authority. We are presenting our Krishna consciousness movement on this principle: that you should carry out the orders of the authority.
And Krishna, our God, is the supreme authority. But while He is speaking, He is attracting to the human society; they must accept it without any wrong interpretation. That will make them happy.
So those who are sane persons, they do not hesitate to accept the authority of God, and they become happy simply by abiding by the orders of the authority.
And those who are following exactly the instruction of the Supreme Authority, they are also authority. That is the difference between the Supreme Lord and spiritual master.
Spiritual master is servant of it, and God is the master of it. This government officer is servant of the law, and the king is the master of the law.
So if one follows the instruction of the authority and teaches the people in general the same principles, then he becomes servant authority of the spiritual one.
Concerning morality, Mill writes: "Belief, then, in the supernatural, great as are the services which it rendered in the early stages of human development" — that is, for children —
because he says early religious teaching has owed its power over mankind rather to its being early than to its being religious. That is, you can train a child early, that means, to carry out the orders of God.
This is the simple definition of religion. But the power over man, he says, is due to early training. Yes, that I have already said, that there are two authorities.
One God, the master authority, and God's representative is the master of the servant authority. So it is the duty of the servant authority to preach the instruction of God that will make the human society happy.
And these instructions should be taught from the very beginning of life. That is said in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by Prahlāda Mahārāja.
Prahlāda Mahārāja was teaching, God told us that when he was five years old only and he was teaching amongst the class friends.
The class friends wanted to play in the tiffin hour, and Prahlāda asked them to sit down and to learn God consciousness. So the class friends protested: "My dear friend, why you are insisting now?
We are now children, let us play." Then Prahlāda said: "No, no, no. You should not waste your time playing. Because this God consciousness should be learned from the very beginning of life."
Kaumāra ācaret prājño dharmān bhāgavatān iha — from the very childhood, Krishna consciousness should be learned. Why from so early? Durlabhaṁ mānuṣaṁ janma, tad apy adhruvam arthadam.
He says that this human form of life we have got after many, many millions of births. So we should not misuse this opportunity.
We do not know when we shall meet next death, but before meeting the next death, we must make our life perfect in Krishna consciousness. That is the special boon to this human form of life. We should utilize it.
He says belief in the supernatural, great as are the services which it rendered in the early stages of human development, cannot be considered to be any longer required either for enabling us to know what is right and wrong in social morality or for supplying us with motives to do right and abstain from wrong.
That is, God is not actually necessary for a sense of morality. And in communist countries today we see that they instill a social morality in their citizens that is devoid of any conception of God.
Morality means to abide by the orders of God. That is real morality. Other things which we manufacture, that you will find different in different countries.
But religion and morality, both are the same principle, because religion means to carry out the orders of God and morality means only the, I mean, the principle to fulfill the desires of God.
Just like in the Battle of Kurukṣetra, Arjuna was considering killing as immorality. But when he understood by the instruction of Krishna that this fight is necessary as it is designed by Krishna, so this is morality.
And so ultimately morality means to carry out the desire of Krishna or God. He knows what is morality.
Another example can be given: just as in the field, the soldier is there, the commander is there, the commander is asking to kill the enemy. I mean, if we consider that killing is bad, "Why should I kill the enemy?"
That is immorality. He should be immediately killed by martial law. He's disobeying the order of command. Similarly, what you get as orders from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, if you carry it out, that is morality.
Any other things manufactured by you, that is immorality.
Immortality and continuity of soul
He believed that there is no intrinsic value in the belief of the immortality of the soul because he said foolishness. That is not philosophical, not rational.
If he cannot understand immortality of the soul, then he treats himself in the animal kingdom. He's not even a human being, what to speak of his education and philosophy.
He concludes this because he says those who believe in the immortality of the soul generally quit life with fully as much, if not more, reluctance as those who have no such expectation.
But we have examples, so many classic examples of Socrates quitting, meeting his death courageously. And how could this be possible if he didn't believe in the immortality of the soul? Or that I want to say.
Immortality of the soul is the fact. If one does not understand this fact, then he is, is not in the human category. He is in the animal category.
He is experiencing daily how the soul is continuing, even if the body is being changed. In his family he's seeing that the body of the child is changed into the body of the boy.
But the father and mother know that the soul is the same. So where is the difficulty to understand the immortality of the soul? That means he is less intelligent.
Therefore, according to Vedic description, one who does not understand immortality of the soul, he remains in the category of animals. Sa eva go-kharaḥ.
Did, uh, well, he seemed to think that belief in the immortality of the soul, belief in knowledge or whatever... It is not a question of belief; it is a question of fact.
Just like a man, if he says, "I don't believe that I shall become old." That is his ignorance or foolishness. He must become an old man. Or the body must become old.
So if, if a man thinks that when I shall become old, that is immortality of soul. When I shall become old means when my body will become. He will continue. It is a common sense affair.
It is a fact where it is a question of belief and not belief. Well, wouldn't knowledge more tolerance... Yes. Wouldn't knowledge of immortality...
Somebody thinks that in future, uh, fifty years after I shall become an old man. This is knowledge. And if somebody thinks, "No, no, I shall never become old," that is ignorance. Although it is future.
A man of knowledge knows that this is the future. So I shall continue to live in future. And I was a child in the past, and I am a middle-aged man at this time, so in these three—past, present and future—I am existing.
Very significantly. In this simple truth, one cannot understand that, what kind of human being is he? I, I, I, I remained in the past as a child. The body is finished.
Now I am a middle-aged man or young man, the body is different. And in future as I become an old man, that body will be different. So I, as a child, as a young man, as an old man, I am the same. But the body is changing.
This is the fact. Who can deny it? Where is it difficult to understand it? And in the Bhagavad-gītā what Gītā is saying, Kṛṣṇa said, that both you, me and all the soldiers, they existed in the past.
And they are at present existing, and in the future they will continue to exist. This is amartya. He says, uh, friend, I mean very openly: na jāyate, mriyate vā kadācin nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ.
This living soul, he is never born. That body is changed; that is called birth. But the soul is immortal. So he never takes birth, he never dies. No, I see that he died. No, that is the annihilation of his body.
So take it from me that by the annihilation of the body, the soul is not dead. This is authority. This is—we have to accept this authority.
If you don't accept authority, if you have no reason to understand how the soul is immortal, then what we are except like the animals? So one who does not believe or cannot understand, he is no better than an animal.
He has no knowledge. This is the beginning of knowledge. Then I'll unlock it. First of all, one must understand what he is. If he does not know what he is, he is wrong from the beginning. He's taking care of the body.
Just like the cage and the bird: if you simply take care of the cage without taking care of the bird, is that very good knowledge? That is foolishness.
Let me... uh, what he's saying here, that he doesn't believe that knowledge or belief in the immortality of the soul gives one courage at death, more courage at death. No. Knowledge means to understand the fact.
If you do not know the fact, then on this wrong background, all your knowledge is influence. And if the foundation is wrong, then what is the value of this knowledge?
Therefore, this first knowledge is one should understand that he is not his body. He should.
Achieving goodness through divine consciousness
Mill was not only a utilitarian but a humanist, and he says, "A religion of humanity can have as excellent an effect, perhaps even to a greater extent, than a supernatural religion."
The religion of humanity would cultivate unselfish feelings. That is a religion without God. Religion with man at the center. So without God, how can we have religion?
Religion means, I've already explained, the order of God. Finally, on immortality and miracles, he says that there is no evidence for the immortality of the soul, and not against it, but how can we be convinced?
There are so many evidences. That is the misfortune of the human society. A learned person like Mill, he cannot understand, what to speak of the others. This is simple truth.
Any child can understand, but due to misfortunes they cannot understand.
And finally he says the whole domain of the supernatural, the whole domain of the supernatural of religion is removed from the region of belief into that of simple hope. No, it is neither hope nor belief, it is fact.
To us, at least, Krishna conscious people, it is fact. Because Krishna is coming and giving instruction to Arjuna and that is recorded and we are reading that. So where is it belief or fiction or something? It is fact.
Uh, he believed that if man could not, by the exercise of his own energies, improve both himself and his outward circumstances, that is, if man could not improve the world, to do more good for himself and other creatures vastly more than God had in the first instance done, the being who called him into existence would deserve something very different from thanks at his hands.
In other words, that if man couldn't improve the world, then how it can improve? One man may be good, religious, uh, by the orders of God. And ninety-nine point nine percent, they're godless. So how it can be improved?
This material world as it is. It can be improved only by the increase of percentage of God-conscious men. Otherwise there is no percentage of improvement. Every man is independently conscious.
So you cannot bring them together. For example, these modern civilized nations that are struggling in the United Nations Organization. But they could not do for the last thirty, forty years. This is not possible.
That is futile attempt. Unless people become God-conscious, there is no improvement of the world. One last quote from Mill.
"I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet that is good to my fellow creatures. And if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." I could not follow.
Well, in other words, that God must be good in a relative sense as I would say, "Oh, this is a good man." If he could not call God good in that relative sense, uh, he would not call God good. God is always good.
If one does not know the goodness of God, then he's imperfect. God is always good, God is always great. That is the darśana of all Vedic literature. If one does not know God is good, then he is imperfect in his knowledge.
That's the end of Mill. He says this man is good. What does he mean by "this man is good"? What is the qualification that he has become good? Being a utilitarian is pretty much—let us say, is pretty much of a materialist.
And a good man would work for what he called the greatest happiness principle, that is the greatest happiness for all sentient beings on earth. So that would be how the good man would work.
Is there any man who can do good to all others? Is there any man? Any single instance? A man is finite. How can he do good for...? Then why does he say this man is good? He's bad in another sense.
Now, how he can say this man is good? Christ said that no man is good. Yes. There's only one good, and that's God. Yeah, that's a fact. You were thinking that this man is... how he's good? He's limited in
his power. He may think of his brother, of his nation, of his society, but what does he do of other living beings? How he can be good? A good man is speaking—even a man like Gandhi, he's a good man.
But when he was approached to stop cow killing, he could not do anything. Although he is advocating non-violence,
but the violence committed in the slaughterhouse, thousands and thousands of animals being killed—violence—what did he do? So-called good men. Nobody can be a good man. Only a pure devotee of Krishna. Yes.
Because he abides by the order of the Supreme Good. That's all. If Gandhi could not become a good man, so that as he was killed by an enemy, how then can a man be a good man? There is no good man.
Unless he is a devotee of the Supreme Lord, the All-Good. It is physically impossible to become a good man, even if he has got the desire. That's not possible. This is our mental concoction.
This is a "good man" or "bad man." Anyone who is not God-conscious, he's a bad man. And anyone who is God-conscious, he's a good man. This will be the...