Karl Marx and the Question of God
А. Ч. Бхактиведанта Свами Прабхупада
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Critique of atheism and accidental creation
And Shyamasundara discussed the politics of Karl Marx with you, but not the religious attitudes of Marx. He has any religious attitude? Uh, well, he was... his father was a Jew, but he became converted to Christianity.
His father. His father. Marx's father. And Marx's mother, however, remained Jewish. And Marx was raised a Christian. But at the age of 23, after having studied some philosophy at the university, Marx became an avowed atheist.
And Hegel—it was Hegel who wrote, "Because the accidental is not, God or the Absolute is," and Marx commented on this: "Obviously the reverse can also be said, that is, because God is not, the accidental is." God is not.
Yes. So everything is accidental. Accident. Hegel said because the accidental is not, because nothing is accidental, God exists. Marx says you can say it the other way around. How—
how any sensible man can accept accident? He thought it accidental. Just like a child takes birth. Is it accidental? Beginning, probably, child.
So it is not accident that there is a father and mother, a unity, and then as the child is born, then how we can say accident? The man... it is only man who gives reality to God, or he said "the gods."
The reality must be there. That we... this line... Mr. Marx, he certainly did not like to die, but he was forced to die. Why it takes place unless there is some, uh, superior force? We
do not wish to, uh, have some accident, but there is accident, so how you can check it?
See, in this way, uh, the good conception of God, there is always some superior. And there are many other things, common sense we discuss daily.
Uh, that, uh, as the nature things are going on so nicely, they are not accidentally. There are so many planets in the sky; accidentally they are not colliding, but they are remaining in that position.
The sun is rising in due course of time, in the morning, exactly in time; there is nothing accident. And because things are going on very systematically, there must be some brain behind it, and that supreme brain is God.
How can you deny it?
Marx felt that true philosophy would say, in simple truth, "I bear hate for any and every god" is its own avowal, its own judgment against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the supreme divinity.
There must be no other on a level with it. Human intelligence, unless he comes to the point of the absolute truth and the original cause of everything— then how is his intellect perfect? One must make progress.
Progress means to go to the ultimate goal. If the human being does not know what is the ultimate cause, ultimate goal, then what is the value of this intelligence?
Marxist views on religion and happiness
Marx felt that religion is a symptom of a degraded man.
He wrote, "Religion is the sigh of the distressed creature, the soul of a heartless world, as it is also the spirit of a spiritless condition. It is the opium of the people."
The more a man puts into God, the less he retains in himself. But practically we see that the communists are also equally a failure, even without God. Now these, the Chinese and Russians, they are not in agreement.
It's the same thing as those who believed in God and those who did not believe in God. The difference existed, and now amongst the communists, there are coming out so many sections.
So the difference of opinion is still there, even denying God. Without God, that is not improvement. The real purpose is to understand what God really is; that is required both by the communist and the capitalist.
Denying God and acting independently, that has not brought any peaceful condition to human society. He felt, like Kant, that the proletariat, the worker, would eventually eliminate religion.
And he wrote, "The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, the religious man in general, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity and from religion generally,"
so that the worker would become the savior of mankind in emancipating or freeing man from a religion that worships a supernatural being. But that has not actually happened. Marx is dead and gone.
The communist theory is already there, but they are not in agreement. The Russians are not in agreement with the Chinese men. Why it has happened? The God is not there, the working class is there.
But why there is dissension and disagreement? Marx felt that religion stood between man and happiness. He said, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.
The demand to abandon the illusions about their condition is the demand to give up a condition that requires illusion.
Hence, criticism of religion is an embryo or beginning of a criticism of this veil of tears whose halo is religion."
So religion was like a millstone around the neck of man, and that man must free himself of this illusion.
Uh, system deteriorates, and without any understanding on philosophical basis, uh, then, uh, it is, uh, apt to reject religion.
But we understand, and that is fact, that there is God on the top of all cosmic manifestation activities, and the law given by the Supreme Head on the cosmic manifestation, that is religion.
Religious system on sentiments only, uh, that will, uh, create troubles only, and there will be misunderstanding. But actually, uh, it is a fact that there is some brain behind all this cosmic manifestation.
And if we know what is that brain, how it is working, that is scientific understanding, and the law given by God is religion. That is our simple definition. Religion cannot be manufactured, as law cannot be manufactured.
So if we do not know what is God, how He is acting, what, what are His words, how we have to follow that, that kind of religion will be failure.
He felt... Marx writes: "The alien being to whom labor and the product and the produce of labor belong, and in whose service labor is done, and for whose benefit the produce of labor is provided, can only be man himself."
And he felt that throughout history, that the working man has labored so hard for the construction of temples to God, and this should be changed, that man should work not to build temples to God but for the benefit of man.
Leadership authority and spiritual consciousness
So unless one understands that, uh, abiding by the orders of God is the benefit of man. There is any organization, even in a communist country. Uh, there are many men working, but there is one director.
And in the state also, there is one dictator, either Stalin or Lenin; a leader is wanted. So the supreme leader is called God. So the communist cannot do without a leader. Karl Marx, he is giving leadership.
So the leadership is wanted. There you cannot change. A person, a society is working under the leadership of God, of Krishna, and a society working under the leadership of, uh, Marx. What is this? Marx?
Marx and Engels and Lenin. They were Lenin. So the leader is wanted. Now the question is: who will be the leader? Krishna or Lenin? That is to be understood.
Without a leader, either the communists or the, uh, thieves cannot work. So as far as accepting leadership, the philosophy is one. Now the question will remain: whose leadership is perfect? That is to be decided.
But the communist cannot avoid leadership. Like Kant, Marx believed that atheism was unnecessary because it was negative denial. And he felt that socialism is positive assertion.
He says atheism no longer has any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God and postulates the existence of man through this negation. But socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation.
It proceeds from the practically and theoretically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence.
Socialism is man's positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the annulment of religion, just as real life is man's positive reality through communism.
So that communism really has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. Our point is that religion is not sentiment. Leadership has to be accepted.
Otherwise, whether the communists or the theists or atheists, there is leadership. So when the leadership is selected and the direction given by the leader, you can take it as some ism. The religion is the same thing.
When we accept the leadership of God and His direction, that is religion. I don't think on principle the communists can change this idea.
The same leader is Lenin or Stalin, and he is giving his direction and people must follow it. So where is the difference of philosophy? Similarly, Krishna is there, His instruction is there, and we are following.
So where is the difference in fact? In either case there's authority. Huh? In either case there is authority. With authority. So where is the difference in principle? There is no difference.
But everyone will say that "I am the best leader." But we'll select the best leader. What is the criterion of the best leader? Well, the basic difference is that Marx believes that there is nothing spiritual.
Everything is material. He says an incorporeal substance is just as much a contradiction as an incorporeal body. That is his ignorance, because this body is dead.
What is the difference between the dead body and the same Lenin who was lying? But because there is no spirit soul, it was considered dead.
This is an imperfect understanding of the body. Otherwise, to a man of sense, studies show there must be spiritualism and materialism. Spiritualism, spirit means the force behind the matter.
It can be understood very easily that matter as it is, it is inactive. A machine may be very well made, but without a person, a living being, the machine is useless. So that is the difference between spirit and matter.
Matter can be active only in touch with the spirit. Similarly, the body is active when there is a soul within the body; this can be easily understood. Unless one is very dull, spirit cannot be denied.
He says, since only what is material is perceptible, known, nothing is known of the existence of God. I am sure only of my own existence. He feels that material life is precedent and gives rise to consciousness.
He says, "Look." But he does not believe in the spirit soul. Is that that? He says life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. So what is that life?
Why the life is absent, why the body, his body is dead stone on death, has he got any understanding of that? What is it like? He felt that consciousness is basically social.
He says consciousness is from the very beginning a social product and remains so as long as man exists at all. Why is he finished? Why does he not exist? What is his answer to this?
So long as man exists, but why he ceases to exist, why he stops his existence, he becomes a dead matter, his body?
Material industry versus laws of nature
Marx had very little to say about death. He thought death is a fact. He's talking so loudly that as soon as he's dead he cannot speak anymore. And he would say, what is the difference? Why he becomes completely dumb?
If somebody kicks on his face, he cannot say anything. Well, if light, if consciousness is dependent on light, when light ceases, consciousness also ceases. That's all right. What is that life? Does he know anything?
Without life we cannot speak. He has not studied, what is that life? Marx opposed Kant's view of the worship of women, and he also opposed the worship of God in nature.
He writes: "There is no question of modern sciences which, alone, along with modern industry, have revolutionized the whole of nature and put an end to man's childish attitude toward nature as well as to other forms of childishness; the position as regards to the worship of female is the same as nature worship."
But how the science or the scientific brain surpass the laws of nature? Has man stopped the nature's action: birth, death, old age and disease? Then how the scientists have conquered over nature?
What is the meaning of this? Conquering. Nature's law is going on. Before Marx, his father died, his mother died and he also died. How he has conquered all the nature? The death is continuing. What is improved?
What is the improvement? He thought there has been no improvement because religion has kept... It's nothing to do with religion. It is a work of nature. That a man takes birth and he dies.
So what this science has revolutionized in this matter? Has this science stopped birth and death and old age and disease? Then what improvement has it done?
The work is going on in spite of talking all and theories by Marx or anybody; nature's law is still superseding them. Then how the science and others, they have surpassed the laws of nature?
Well, he felt that modern industry—industry, whatever you take, industry. Does it mean when a man takes to industry he does not die? How he has conquered the laws of nature? Say, how can he say?
He felt that industry or science could make man happier by emancipating man from... We don't think so, because in the industry the workers are not satisfied. They're observing strike. Why?
If there is happiness, why is there strife? People... Well, this of course Marx wrote before communism came into actual existence as a—as a political institution. So he's simply theorizing.
He's never saw—he never saw communist Russia, for instance, or any communist state. He felt that religion was the cause of antagonism between men.
He says, "The most persistent form of antagonism between the Jew and the Christian is religious antagonism." How does one solve an antagonism? No. By making it impossible.
Then you know the question of antagonism... If we actually know who is God and, uh, what he desires. I give always this example. If we know the government and the government laws, then there is no antagonism.
Government says that keep to the right. So there is no question of antagonism. Anyone must keep to the right. So there is no question of antagonism.
But the antagonism is there when the so-called religious system does not know what is God and what is actually the desire of God; then there cannot be any antagonism.
Social divisions and the supreme proprietor
That perfectness of understanding God and God's regulation or order is clearly described in the Bhagavad-gītā. We are therefore advocating Krishna consciousness, that here is God and here is God's instruction.
So if we deliver it and we propose that, and the Bhagavad-gītā, they're all practical.
That's why God says that we divide the society in four divisions: not only worker, but also the good brain, good administrator, and good producer of food—that is actually the division of the society.
So without division, and this, if you simply keep worker, we give them instruction to work. These are all imperfect ideas.
But the perfect ideas are given in the Bhagavad-gītā; if we follow that, then human society, humanity will be in perfect order. So either you call it religion or a system following which one can become peaceful.
The religion means to understand God, means a system. The system is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā in three principles. God says that he is the proprietor of everything: sarva-loka-maheśvaram.
So we see this planet and there are different proprietors: individual proprietor of the land, or the state proprietor, the king. So there is a proprietor of this. Either you divide it nationally or take it wholly.
Similarly, there are many, many millions of others, which they are called sarva-loka. So there must be a proprietor.
So if we know who is that proprietor and how he is working, that is also stated: that the Supreme Proprietor is the Supreme Friend of everyone.
So if we find out the Supreme Proprietor and Supreme Friend, and if we understand the proprietor is the enjoyer of everything, that is real religion. Then peace will prevail.
But if we do not know who is the proprietor, what is his function, what is our relationship with that, then we create antagonism. Somebody will say, "My religion is better," and somebody will say, "My religion is better."
But we must come up first of all to know what is religion. Religion, we say, is the order given by the Supreme Proprietor, and to lead according to that order, that is religion.
If we do not know what is religion, what is the use of criticizing religion or creating antagonism? Well, evidently Marx never got over the antagonism between his father and his mother.
His mother, who was Jewish, and his father, who was a Christian convert, he says, "As soon as Jew and Christian recognize their respective religions there is nothing more than different stages of evolution of the human spirit, as different snake skins shed by history, and recognize man as the snake who wore them, they will no longer find themselves in religious antagonism, but only in a critical, scientific, and human relationship."
"Science constitutes their unity. Contradictions in science, however, are resolved by science itself."
So that, in other words, science, material science, is to replace this religion, and religion is to be shed by mankind just as a snake sheds its skin.
And in this way the antagonisms created between Jew and Christian or Hindu and Muslim are reconciled. Because it can be only when we actually know what is God.
Simply by stamping one's hand Christian, Jewish, or Hindu and Muslim, without knowing who is God and what is His desire, that will naturally create antagonism.
Therefore, the conclusion is, as Mr. Marx is believing, science. So we should understand scientifically what is religion, what is God, then this antagonism will stop.
He felt that the state should eventually assume the role of Christ.
He said, "As Christ is the mediator on whom man unburdens all his own divinity and his whole religious burden, so also the state is the mediator on which man places all his unholiness and his whole human burden."
So, in other words, the Christ, of course, relieves man of all of his burdens and his sins through his message of salvation. And instead of Christ it would be the state that would assume this role.
So Christ gives the knowledge how one can be relieved of the material body. That is the business of all religious preachers.
The religious preacher should give information to the people in general the exact position of God or idea of God, and when people will learn scientifically about God's existence and his relationship with God, then everything will be adjusted.
That is one thing.
Universal brotherhood under one supreme father
Our Krishna consciousness movement is trying to give people exact idea of God, exact definition of God, and exact instruction of God. If we take that to that, then our religious life will be perfect.
Now the last point is, uh, and this is a point that most Marxists tend to ignore because communism, when communism comes to power, they... Oh, like in Tibet, I believe, when the communists came in, they abolished the...
Dalai Lama had to flee to India, I believe. And the Tibetan Buddhists had to... they had a temple in Delhi. Yeah.
Well, he says, Marx says: "The incompatibility of religion with the rights of man is so little implied in the concept of the rights of man, that the right to be religious according to one's liking and to practice one's own particular religion is explicitly included among the rights of man."
The privilege of religion is a universal human right. So he felt that man should at least be allowed to practice his religion.
Although he felt that the state should encourage the abolition of religion, that it is an inherent human right for man to be able to practice.
Always that state duty is, um, the freedom of religion, but the state must see that a person advocating particular type of religion, whether he is acting according to them.
But he felt that if this religion should be allowed, it should be individual and not communal.
He says: "Liberty as a right of man is not based on the association of man with man, but rather on a separation of man from man."
It is the right... No separation, there is no question of separation there if we accept God as the supreme father. The Christian uh, really, and believed God as the supreme father. The, the supreme father is there.
And if we become obedient to the Supreme Father, then where is difference of opinion? But we do not know the Supreme Father and we do not obey the Supreme Father. That is the cause of this dissension.
The son's duty is to become obedient to the father and enjoy father's property. So if we know the Supreme Father and if we live according to the father's order, so there is no question of antagonism in the center.
It is all harmony, father being the center. The difficulty is that we call Supreme Father, but we do not accept the Father's order or what is the order of Supreme Father. That is the defect.
Well, he felt that if man, if man is going to worship God, if man must worship God, he should do so privately, individually, and not communally. No. If God is a fact and man must worship God, then why not communally?
He is pleading that every individual man shall manufacture his own God and worship. Well, he would rather do away with the whole thing. No, that is impossible. God means, as I have explained, the Supreme Father.
He is the father of every man or every living entity. So how can the father be different? If man manufactures a different... Suppose there are ten sons in the family. The father is one.
It is not that one son says, "No, I shall select my own father." So what kind of father he is? So that is imperfect understanding of the Father. Nobody can say that "I can select my own father." How is it possible?
Father is one. Similarly, God is one. And if one is actually religious and obeying the same one father's order, then where is dissension? The difficulty is nobody knows who is that Supreme Father.
Neither they are prepared to obey the orders of the father. That is the difficulty. In one family there cannot be two fathers, but one father.
Similarly, when you speak of the Supreme Father, "O Father, give us our daily bread." He is father of everyone. Why one should select one father, another man will select another one? That means he does not know his father.
Well, he was hoping that this process would eventually lead to the total dissolution of religion. No.
Consequences of suppressing religious independence
If everybody worships—well, not everybody, but if you must worship God, worship Him in your own way, in your own home. So dissolution of religion means animalism.
That has happened actually, because one does not know what is God, so there is misunderstanding of religion.
If we, actually, anyone is serious about religion, then they should sit down together and that we call God our Supreme Father. Then why should we fight ourselves? Let us obey the order of the Supreme Father.
Then there is no dissension. But they do not do that. Neither they know who is the Supreme Father. That is the defect. Well, you have been to communist Russia, and was there any church worship?
The Eastern Orthodox Church used to be the standard Russian religion. Is there any church worship in Russia today? I, I, I did not see, but I saw some mosque-like building in the—what is called Red Square.
I saw that building. When that is vacant, they are worshipping—or Lenin, yes. They're worshipping Lenin's tomb that I have seen in the Red Square. And there was a church or mosque, I do not know.
The building can be called a church and mosque. Sure. That was vacant. It's more like a museum. Yes. They keep it as a museum. Yes. That I think. I don't think there is any worship in church.
But there must be some—there must be some people in Russia. Since God is... they may be doing privately. Or I did not see. Well, at least now some people are interested in purchasing your books in Russia. Yes, that is.
What does this mean? Huh? What does this mean? It may be because it is Indian culture and we have quoted from Vedic literature, the original Sanskrit.
So they are a little after the Indian culture; when they find that here is the original birth, in original letters, they may be interested in that, but
actually it's a fact that in Russia there aren't many people who still believe in God. No, believe in God—why, eighty percent, ninety percent, they believe in God. That can argue.
But don't the... the young people are communists, are very enthusiastic about communism, but as a person grows older and sees death as inevitable, don't the... don't the people, young men in the scene, they are after also God?
And they're unhappy because they're not allowed to go out of Russia. They want to see the world, but they are not allowed. Their independence is suppressed. So they are not happy. That's the end of the...