B.F. Skinner and Behavioral Conditioning
А. Ч. Бхактиведанта Свами Прабхупада
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Critique of behavioral psychology and conditioning
So this philosopher is, uh, B. F. Skinner. He's actually a psychologist, but he has a philosophy also. And that philosophy is bad. That philosophy... Whatever, I'm like for...
Anyway, the philosophy is that the Christian ideal that inside the body there is a person is outmoded.
This is... but the science has discovered that a person's behavior or his reactions are simply a product of his environment, his conditioning; that he can make a fool out of a wise man or a wise man out of a fool simply by changing the surroundings and conditions.
This is his problem. Why the man has not been able to change the surroundings of that? What is this surrounding? Well, you said that problem can never be solved.
I would say you better make... He only talks about behavior and behavior, yeah. What about behavior and ultimate goal? Everyone is dying. But how man can change this condition?
Then he can say that there is no God, there is no soul. His idea is that he has one idea, that is to be able to control human behavior. By demanding behavior, man is eating. How do you conquer?
Well, by what they call a method of reinforcement. Supposing you said that man has become too free, so our whole society culture is ruined, being ruined because men are too free. We are not free.
We, according to our Vedic civilization, we have control by the Vedic knowledge. We are not free. Yeah, he, uh, he says that in a way; he says that everyone is conditioned by their environment.
No, he's conditioned by nature, not by environment. Just like there is excessive heat, excessive cold. He is conditioned by nature. He cannot avoid it. Then why is he molding this environment?
You cannot make winter season into summer season or summer season into winter season.
No, but he says you can train men to accept certain, uh, values by reinforcing, rewarding them when they are right and punishing them when they are wrong. That
means they are already conditioned; you want to make them further conditioned. Yes, that is there. Perfect control over everyone. So that is already there.
The Vedic injunctions have made the authority condition, so that under condition they also can decrease you.
Vedic injunctions versus modern social engineering
What is his idea? For instance, the society he wants, he says society should be full of love and security, harmony, everyone should work in unison.
But because people have freedom to choose this or that, they have too much freedom, the society is going apart. That is Western society. Not the society controlled by Vedic literature.
This is just like marriage in Vedic society. That is a religious obligation. They cannot cancel. The freedom, the so-called freedom is allowed in the upstart Western society. So he says we have to change all this now.
Then they have to take to the Vedic principles. That is the way. He works—his idea is taken from his work with rats and pigeons. His authority is rats and pigeons.
Our authority is Krishna, our authority Rāmāyaṇa, the Bhagavad-gītā, you know. And he'll tell you that some people—that is the difference between the list and it—
he's shown scientifically that you can train a rat to push many buttons; he will push the one that gives him food. If he pushes one button and the food comes, then he will continually press that button.
So you can—he says you can condition a man by rewarding him when he is right and punishing him when he's wrong. Yeah. That is the whole Vedic literature. The heaven and hell. If you do like this, then you go to heaven.
If you do like this, you go to hell. If you do like this, you go to the other. And this is very Krishna. He's already there. I'll ask. That if one chants like this, he goes—that's the home, back to Godhead.
He says if you insist that individual—this morning I was writing—if he goes to the Mecca and you will have three. One Vaikuṇṭha, Vraja, and Vṛndāvana. And if you want to serve Krishna, go to Vṛndāvana.
This is there and things are there, already in the Vedic because the controlling. That is real controlling. Real controlling means there is no mistake. And these rats and cats are controlling.
Then maybe you take rats and cats' authority, others may take some tigers and other authority. The authority must be fixed, yes. Skinner isn't, um, he isn't saying how we should control people.
He is simply putting forth the argument that people, uh, should be uh, controlled.
He doesn't say, he doesn't give his, uh, opinion fact, he admitted, but he doesn't know what the aim or goal is, or how exactly we should control them.
He is simply putting forth, uh, what, uh, according to, uh, Vedic system is, it's very clear that people can be controlled. Uh, man is already controlled. Yeah, right. Already controlled.
Uh, Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that you are already under the stringent laws, under the control of the stringent laws of material nature. And you are feeling an agony.
Just like that threefold miserable conditions that you can sit down there. You want this one. I, I like it. Yes. Come on, you can come this side. So there is no doubt about it that we are controlled.
Nobody can say, "I am free." We are controlled. But when we are being controlled, we are feeling some incognito. So we are advising that we be under the control of peace.
One, one, uh, extension of Skinner's, uh, idea that's saying now we have so many criminals and they're causing a disruption within society.
When he said that that's our fault, he said that rather everyone from childhood should be trained in a controlled environment and they should be conditioned according to a certain pattern, so that they will not commit what's considered a crime and only do what's considered good.
In other words, they become what, robots? They only do a program. Like a robot, you program to do a certain thing. You only transgress that program. And that program is, uh, a big idea.
But we, we create, create your own program. We do not follow the standard program. That is the defect. His program is this: Skinner himself believes in Judeo-Christian ethics combined with the scientific tradition.
But he fails to answer how it is possible to accept those ethics without accepting something like an inner person with an autonomous conscience.
In other words, he, he says we can program society to be good to your neighbor, to love one another, to be honest, upright, and fashion. But he's still not sure how it will be possible without accepting a free will.
That point before... If they would have been followed by a perfect man, then he would have acted right.
Perfect leadership through scriptural authority
Now one rascal is followed in some program, another rascal next time; this is true. This is going on in the West. Because according to Bhāgavatam, these belong to the category of dogs, hogs, camels.
So what is the meaning, either? A dog's program is superseded by a camel's program. Either way, basically they are nothing but dogs, hogs, camels, and asses.
Suppose a dog has given some program and the camel says, "No, this program is better than this." And the ass can present another program: "But this program is better than this program."
Either of these programs, because they are made by dogs, hogs, and camels, they cannot be perfect. Take a program from a real human
being. Where there is something, the defect is there. Uh, one philosopher is there and he's performing something; another philosopher is perfect. That is everywhere, especially in Western countries.
They are doing so in India. But the Vedic civilization, there is no individual. They must follow the Vedic injunction. As I said several times, the Vedas say that this stool of a cow is completely pure.
They do not argue that, "Formerly we said that the stool of an animal is impure. Now we are saying the stool of an animal, a cow, is pure." Now, can I accept? And there is no such thing.
The Vedas say, actually, even it is truth. But the Vedas say the stool of a cow is perfectly pure. No contradiction. Our presentation of Krishna consciousness is like this. What Krishna said, that is what it is, as it is.
There is no question of altering it, changing it according to circumstances. You know, Krishna is perfect. Whatever He has said, it is for all circumstances. That is our view. We do not differ.
Similarly, if the direction is taken for training from the perfect, then results; and if the direction is taken from the classes of hogs, dogs, camels, and asses... How can it be?
Today you put something, left, and then put something, left, and then put something. So the whole society is puzzled. He has some some knowledge. He says everyone is conditioned anyway. Everyone is conditioned.
Yes, everyone is conditioned. That is, that is an area. Unless he is conditioned, there's no question of material life. Material life means conditioned life. There is no question of freedom. Just like, uh, prison life.
Prison life means conditioned life. You may be a first-class prisoner or a second-class prisoner, but as soon as you are put within the walls of the prison house, you are conditioned. That is the fact.
Similarly, anyone who has accepted this body... Deha-yogena. Nāyaṁ deho deha-bhājāṁ nṛloke kaṣṭān kāmān arhate viḍ-bhujāṁ ye. Viḍ-bhujām. Everyone is conditioned, accepting this material body.
But he says, but those who have accepted this material body in the human society, for them it is not good to be engaged in sense gratification like dogs, hogs and camels.
Everyone, everyone who has got this material body is conditioned. But when one gets the body of a human, he should not be so conditioned like the dogs or cats. This is the truth.
Human responsibility and spiritual solutions
We are conditioned. We have got the body. We have got the body's necessities. We have to eat. We have to sleep. We have to, uh, we must, senses, must protect ourselves from uh, fear.
So conditions are there, but still you can make your condition better. And how? You have to undergo tapasya. Just like we, yes. We don't say no sex life, but no illicit sex. This is better.
Skinner also believes we have to control activities, uh, but he himself is not willing to undergo the austerity. That's why he's useless. Right. Uh, he speaks, "Example is better than precept." By example he cannot prove.
But that's why his precept has no value.
Another problem with his precept from Baku is that his utopian society's goal is comfort, material comfort, is peace, and relationship of man to man to benefit one's own self on a very false legal level.
And he then humanitarian cause, humanitarian. Yeah. What is that humanity? And that's what is the I-cheating, you-cheating.
No, he says that now the conditions that control us are haphazard; some are designed by a selfish man to exploit others. Why do we prove that these buttons?
He says we can design a culture that will survive due to its being moral, upright, honest, hard-working— only America, a typical American. Who will set the standard? Someone has to be God in order to set the standard.
The conditioning. He said, between God and I, I must admit that God takes the superior. I give that quote. He says,
between himself... says there's a curious similarity between himself and God, adding, however, that "perhaps I must yield to God in point of seniority." He wants to play God. He wants to design the culture.
What is this conception of God? Senior, a senior colleague. That's right. We accept that. Nityo nityānām. We accept that. That is Vedic. That is Vedic. Vedic: He is also a living being. But He is the superior, chief living.
Just like we are also living beings. But you accept me as chief of the society. Similarly, there are innumerable living entities all over the universe, and He is the chief of them. That is our leader.
He is to follow the leader. But he has no idea that there is an actual representative of God on earth that can set up such a perfect society.
Therefore he is dreaming about setting up one in the future, while the representative is actually thinking of now. He's thinking of the future.
Well, when he was thinking, he's thinking that someday, he's thinking that it can be done. He's living now. He's living now. This is his picture. He says Skinner playing the organ.
And he quotes him saying, "Yes, yes, I don't have your head that God's supernaturity." He's expecting God's supremity, alright. No, no. Man's inability to understand his world is that man no longer needs such a fiction.
Then one has to believe in? Yeah. Well, well, this is that we have the capacity to take matters into our own hands.
We don't have to, we don't have to elude that there's some controller far away which we have no control over. But that we cannot do. We cannot tax because it's not about to get all that in your hand. How do you say?
Map out here. Well, most and most scientists like to accept those problems as inescapable problems, but we'll deal with this life. While we are here, let us have the best life we... But we, we can be a better life.
But there is no death, there is no old age, there is no disease. But is that accepting? Accept that if it's within this life here, if this life can be made eternal.
They have no vision beyond this life, nor are they willing to accept the other thing. But this, that, that is your conclusion: this cannot be corrected. This cannot be corrected. They cannot leave. They accept it.
But there, after that, it is darkness. But if he gives them, "Oh, then after that you can attain," why don't you try it? After that, indeed, is a life of blissful and blissful jñāna. So what is it taking?
Well, scientists, a lot of scientists consider that to be a, a, a, uh, a psychological way of avoiding the issue now.
You say, "Let us take the matters into hand right now," but the idea that we have not been able to take the matter in hand, stop death. That is not possible. But they think by endeavoring they will.
They say so long this idea that we have a life after this life has kept people complacent without working for their own improvement.
Now if you cast off that idea, give up that idea of an afterlife, work here and now, then you'll become what kind? The dogs and the hogs, they are walking, they are nice, but what have they achieved?
You say if you work, they're already working, they're already working, like animals. Day and night, we sing that: śīta-ātapa-bāta-bariṣaṇa e dina yāminī jāgi re. They are only what they see.
Uh, scientists, scientists also think that, uh, we cannot avoid accidents. We cannot avoid accidents; one cannot avoid accidents. So I cannot predict that one can have it in five minutes, or we have... They
understand that you cannot control these, um, this force of nature any more.
So they're the ones who have actually neglected, uh, taking, uh, uh, taking into consideration the real problems; they slide over the real problems, that is, first, that there'll be disease, and they, they are fiddling around in very small areas.
So social problems, political problems. The social problem will be automatically solved. If one becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious, social problems will be solved automatically.
The fact is that we are offering the spiritual solution, but our spiritual solution also includes all other solutions. Our material solution. And they are trying to solve material problems. Yes.
And they are not—they are unable. This is just a fringe benefit. That means lazy intelligence. And that philosophy, and they have never succeeded in any company. They, they call the process "social engineering."
For instance, they say a criminal does not become bad because of his... that he's naturally bad, but it's because of his environment. So that if, if he's trained in such a... The
killing of animals, it is, it is... they cannot agree. Mm-hmm. In other societies it is taken as bad. Then how to help them? There are two contradictory societies. One society says that nonviolence is nice, better.
But, uh, in another society they say, "No, violence is better," then how will you adjust? Which society is good, which society is bad, how will you decide? They have no, they have no way of deciding.
No, no, no, there is a way. If you come to the Vedic platform, then there's a way. Yeah, so we should propose this to Skinner. We'll accept your process if you take direction from us. Yeah.
He accepts that there should be some prophet. He doesn't know what it is. He obviously is not what it is.
Rather, they don't... just like we say, being in the guru... what we have said, he must have a guru. His idea is that the process should be man-controlled. The process is controlled. Man-controlled.
Society is being controlled by me.
But the outcome is, he says that the best way to release the good, beneficial energy of the people is to build a world in which people are... build a world in which people are naturally good, in which they are rewarded for wanting what is good for their culture.
Yeah, this is Krishna society. Here it is. Let him study. Let him come. Let him understand. These critics... the critics of this theory that we can condition everyone to a certain program... Yeah.
They're fearful that, well, someone unscrupulous will be writing the program.
Guidance through the parampara system
No, that we cannot get... Haven't we accept guru and unscrupulous? Therefore we say paramparā. He is coming directly from God. He is perfect. Therefore, this paramparā system is good.
We cannot accept any last man to become guru. Guru must be in the paramparā system, who is receiving the knowledge directly from God. This, this is their dilemma now. They cannot find any standard of behavior.
Formerly people's behavior was motivated by deprivation. They wanted more economic gain because it was hunger. But now we have everything. So no one wants to work anymore.
So now there's nothing to satisfy people enough to make them... But that, that for the Vedānta gives: athāto brahma jijñāsā. Now we have got enough to eat, enough to enjoy, now inquire about Brahman.
This is... this is our Krishna consciousness movement. We are giving knowledge about Brahman, about the Supreme. Now we are not concerned about giving you some scientific inventions and some this invention, that invention.
We are giving the ultimate benefit. Now, just like I come to America with this hope, that Americans are not poverty-stricken and they have no problem.
If I go there, if I speak to them about Khan Sasha, they will be able to tell. So human society has come to that standard.
Then the next point is now they should eat peacefully, sleep peacefully, have sense gratification peacefully and making the mind peaceful, enquire about the self. Absolutely. This is ideal.
So this will provide the stimulus so that people will react favorably to, behave favorably, simply by the stimulus actually. We have got experience that this material world is full of misery. Everyone is otherwise how?
Why is it transgressed? Now we have got information from Bhagavad-gītā. mām upetya punar janma duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
Krishna says, anyone who comes to me, back to home, back to Godhead, he does not come again to this material world which is full of misery. mām upetya punar janma duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam nāpnuvanti. But
But then what is the stimulus? Why will they? This is stimulus. You are bothered with any miserable condition of life. We are offering that you turn to Krishna consciousness. punar janma duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam.
The highest planets of the material world down to the lowest, all the places of misery, are in repeated birth and death take place. And the one who attains to My abode never takes birth again.
There are many planets, that is a fact. So there is a planet. But it's not this. And if you go there, you are trying to go to the moon planet, but here it is like ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino 'rjuna. What is that?
So if we have to condition people that every time they press our button, Krishna button, they get some pleasure. Yeah. Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam. Every time he gets higher knowledge and his dirty heart becomes clean.
And therefore his spiritual beliefs become simple. Mm. So we have to, whereas in the material world, what you said, ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ. Again return, Arjuna.
In the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all the places of misery, where in repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode never takes birth again.
In the material world, uh, there are planetary systems, low planetary and systems. Sometimes low, high planetary, sometimes down, according to your dharma.
But wherever you remain, you cannot avoid birth, death, old age, and disease. But if you come to My planet... What is the objection? And understand...
Skinner, he he only wants to find out, he doesn't know himself, what is the satisfaction. He doesn't know anything. He's at the food. What does he know? He has to learn. Yeah.
I... he he, um, he's more or less advanced, but he is not a perfect personality. He says, "I'm not happy." I'm not happy. Huh? He says, "I am not happy." Nobody is happy. How we can be happy?
Nobody in this country is kind of happy. How you can? You are also one of them. Why you are claiming a better position? Nobody can be happy. We say nobody can be happy. Duḥkhālayam, anyone who is living in this material...
It seems like Skinner would, um, should be very right, or that he's very right, because he wants there to be a, uh, society where there's control, and it and and, uh, uh, you should make... let him come and study this society.
He's a philosopher and an intelligent. What what about this statement?
Education and transcendental knowledge
He says that, "I I can take any person at at young age, any person, give me any person, and I can at random, and I can train him to become any type of specialist I might select: doctor, lawyer, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents or his nature, his tendencies, his abilities."
Mm-hmm. So that means training should be given, um, um, yeah, childhood. That is the whole idea. But is that is that true? Is that we can train anyone to become anything? Anything. Just like the story, the Tarzan.
Tarzan, Tarzan. Tarzan? Yeah. He was living in this... had a monkey, and he learned how to jump from one to the other. No, no, that's... anyway. Anyone can become Vishnu. Anyone. Vaiṣṇava, yes.
Very... but he... but he doesn't draw. How can we become Brahmās? No? Everyone's become śūdra now. Everyone's... you say everyone is born śūdra. Yeah. Yeah. In Vedic age, when everyone wants to become a brāhmaṇa?
Why, why change some out to see it? Progressive, he's progressive. It takes time. That's a whole progressive path. That's a whole Vedic culture that everyone, no matter what station...
And all these śūdras can be made brāhmaṇa. But why, why are the śūdras coming? And the śūdras are ready to become brāhmaṇa? Then how you can... We are inviting everyone to become different.
He's just saying that it's possible that you can mold anyone into anything. Well. Yeah. But if they won't accept, if they won't accept, maybe it's got them off.
But he says there's no possibility of them not accepting if you form the conditions in such a way. Yes. But they must accept by conditioning. Yeah. That is, that is also possible. But who is going to do that? Make that.
How could they control the environment with that? By punishment and reward for... for his... by punishing and say you had a house and you were doing that and all of a sudden there was a flood came and the house came.
And he was a... huh? How can he... he can control the environment, the environment of the person, not as a house. That's what I mean.
But how can he control the environment so that person is only going to be punished or rewarded when he wants to be punished? No, he... he says one child. He's talking about a child. He says some child, infant. Infant.
Yeah, that's all. Here's... Here's a picture of... here's a picture of his child. He put his child in a box when it was born. Now this is her today. twenty-seven years later.
He conditioned her in this box for... for a year, some time.
And, uh, she came out better, healthier and happier than normal children because they... they kept the temperature the same. It was, uh, uh... because it was germ-free, there was no disease, it was always clean by a... by a rotating belt.
That means he protected the child from all televisions. Yeah. So that is possible.
If you can protect that for... I repeatedly said that our dala centers should be taken very much, uh, important place; all our children must go. Make the environment perfect. That I am literally saying.
But even they throw the box, you cannot control the environment. That is another thing, but the perfection is equal. But his... his proposition of being able to control the environment completely is imperfect.
Because he can't control the environment, uh, perfectly. Even he builds his child a box, so there's a... a fire in the house and the box burns down. Oh, he controls that environment. No, he doesn't set down the wrong thing.
At least not even... sorry. Right now they're... the... the level of their experiments are rel... relatively small.
For instance, they've created teaching machines where a child is put in front of the machine and a question is asked, and if the child answers it correctly he gets a reward.
The thing that the basic conception of, uh, raising children, Brahmā... that's his thing is like not by machine. We are not by machine.
No, but he says that when the answer is given correctly by the child, then he is rewarded. There is a question and answer. But for, uh... I cannot understand the transcendent. We must go to guru.
Gurum evābhigacchet, we can say. And then what is the symptom of guru? Samit-pāṇiḥ śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham. Guru means who has learned knowledge, right?
But suppose we had a machine and one of our children was given the question: "Who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead?" And then there were three possibilities and she pushed "Krishna".
And then, oh, some reward came out. Then she was... I mean, he has to put some button. Yeah. To take out Krishna. To take the answer. He has three choices: Krishna, Durga, Kali. Which one is the Supreme Person?
So he chooses Krishna, and then he gets rewarded. So in future he will always think Krishna is the Supreme Person. Yes. He says that that can be done also.
It's just the position is that he's saying they should be rewarded when they say the right answer. Well, he said that this will solve the problem. There are not enough teachers in our school, public schools.
There are not enough teachers for the children. There are huge classes of children, only one teacher. So there's not enough individual time given to each student. So he said, "So why not produce many teachers?"
That, yes, trying to do. No one wants to teach anymore. No one wants to teach anymore. Why? Because they do not know how to teach. And their teaching has failed. They don't get enough pay.
So many reasons. Our teachers do not ask any payment. They go and freely... So don't you take... and one thing they referred to, Prabhupāda, uh,
when we speak in terms of Vedic culture and Vedic techniques, they say, "Well, if that Vedic technique and Vedic culture was previously existent, then why did it evolve? Why is it just falling apart and now we have to face some new way?"
Well, new way cannot. If you want perfection, we must take to the culture because it is not with the core defects of humanity.
Anything introduced for this... and we are pushing on this consciousness movement, and some of these students are falling back. What can we do? That is not the defect of the institution. That is some other fault.
So people might have fallen from the standard culture. But they cannot invent any new. Well, that's the same thing we say about the scientific process. The scientific process isn't imperfect.
It's just that our attempts to master it are imperfect. The empiric process. That's their claim. The empiric process is perfect. Yeah, we haven't understood it or we haven't developed it to perfection.
For instance, they would say if our students are falling back, it's because of the environment. Not all falling back. Some of them. Some of them.
But he said, "Ideally, if our environment was conditioned in such a way that they were rewarded for doing good things, punished for doing bad things, they would not go away." They don't care for punishment.
That's like, you say in the law book that he'll be arrested, but they don't care for your law book, they steal. What can you do? That independence is already there. You will be punished. And he is actually punished.
But if he doesn't care for punishment, then how can you do it? Punishment is already there.
For instance, he gives an example that, let's say in an institution there is lunch served for one hour between twelve and one, and at one o'clock the door is closed and locked sharply.
So that automatically everyone will want to come before one o'clock to eat. Otherwise they'll be punished and not eat. That's all. If anyone prefers to starve, he may not come.
That law will not be obligatory to a person who prefers to starve. That is the point. That's what his critics make a difference to. He said that free will can be essentially eliminated.
You'll no longer have the choice to be agreeable or not agreeable. Let's say in his childhood he was trained that if he ever misses a meal he'll be severely punished. Then he may never want to miss a meal.
Or maybe he may never want to take a meal out of her diet.
He said actually his idea is not so much to punish, but this is the concrete example: that if he has learned from the law books, from the religious book, that stealing is bad. If one steals, he will be punished.
Because in the human society, the scripture... they are not... No scripture will say that you steal. Neither the law book will say that you steal.
So he has heard from scriptures and from law books that stealing is criminal and by committing this criminal activity...
And he has seen also that anyone who has violated this law and stolen others' property has been arrested by the police and given to the jail. He has seen, he has heard, he's completely experienced.
He still steals. Why does he steal? What is that? The tendency is there in human beings. We have the tendency to have defects. The human beings have a tendency to defects. How to rectify these defects?
He says by changing the social environment, yes. By changing the social environment. But you cannot do it. But the highest sense, change the social environment. It's already there. But if you still, you will be pined.
But his idea is that if you reward them for not stealing, that they will not steal. If you reward them sufficiently, not stealing. He is determined to steal. But reward. Suppose you pay him more than he wants to steal.
That you cannot. His reward and punishment system, Śrīla Prabhupāda, is motivational. His reward and punishment is not that you pay him more or you pay him less or you punish him.
The thing is, he says that if you're not, even if you pay... Suppose I am going to steal and get one dollar. And if you pay me three dollars, I may not, may not steal.
No, you not. Then next point will be when there will be four dollars, I'll go and steal. No, he's not going to pay you three or four dollars.
What he's suggesting is the reason one steals is not so much that there are other reasons, like he likes to break the law because he's angry at the law. So therefore the question: why he likes to break the law?
That is the question. That's the good question. Because he's angry or he thinks that his friends would appreciate him more. And he thinks his friends are more important.
That's why he thinks that if you change the social environment, the rewards would come. How is that social environment? But that's his idea. Those rewards are quantitative.
Just like the pigeon, he gets a certain number of kernels of corn. Well, how you know? You don't say here. I have... this is what he said.
He said each time that a criminal is given, each time that he avoids doing bad, he's given some advantage, a material advantage. But we understand that material advantage doesn't satisfy them.
That's the difference between the pigeons and the men. The pigeons, they're satisfied with a few kernels of corn. They won't want more than they can eat. But a man wants more and more and more, infinite and more.
So this, this is my important point. And that he, if he... what do you think to earning just now? Real thing, it is insignificant. So what do I gain in the world? You are giving me five dollars.
If I steal, I earn twenty-five dollars by selling except you want. But what about if I don't steal, my friends will like me? If I do steal, my friends will hate me.
But if you have got friends only thieves, then you literally... "Oh, you are very nice." You are very expert. Why should we mix with such friends? Because he left his own friends.
He says there's three things that keep parts of the same together. He says there's three things that society has which keep people from disobeying: that is God... This is all speculating, he does not know.
God, the police, and what other people will think. What is God? And why are you expecting that you fear God? You do not know what is God, and you're talking of God.
And when he says social environment, in the highest essence, that has to lead to man controlling nature. The thing is that, uh, these are all, uh, childish proposals. The other thing is that he should be educated.
He should be educated. This is the body. He should be educated from the very beginning that you are not this body. This is the beginning of the... while talking, don't disturb that. Stop that. The education is different.
Without education, these things cannot be reformed. By rewarding, by this way, by that, by machine, by things... It's all nonsense. Education.
The education is, the first education is that every child should be taught from the very beginning that you are not this body. And you should be taught the nature of the soul. Then he'll gradually come to the Supreme Soul.
Then he'll gradually come to the relationship between the Supreme Soul and this individual soul. Then he, uh, when he develops love for the Supreme Soul, he will not violate the order of the Supreme.
That is our Krishna consciousness movement. It's like Sarasvati, she thinks Krishna lives in her heart, yeah. She's always... she is... she is hearing, she is being educated in that point, okay. She is now feeling.
Similarly, we educate all of... you mean that would be me. Nice rule, Jilla.
Spiritual service versus secular utopias
There's an interesting comparison to be made. They have tried to set up a community along his philosophy, just near our New Vṛndāvana. This is—this is the place in the hills of Virginia.
Um, and, uh, some of the... it's—it's interesting to see what their code is compared to ours. Their code is that all are entitled to the same privileges, advantages, and respect.
Private property is forbidden except for such things as books and clothes, and even then there are—there's community clothing which is all shared.
No one is allowed to boast of individual accomplishments or to gossip or to have any negative speech or to be intolerant of any other's beliefs. It is simply a dream; it will never be fruitful.
But our philosophy is that everyone is thinking, "a servant of Krishna." Therefore, he has no competition. He has no competition. He wants to serve Krishna. Uh-huh.
He says that's the main difficulty, is that there's still competition going on. Much more. Because he has not changed the mind. He—the—the mind is how to become master.
So as soon as you want to become master, I want to become master, he wants to, then must be competition. But our teaching is different. We become servant. Servant of Krishna. Even there is competition.
So that competition is centering Krishna. So and so cleaned, that is your track. Putting sign work. Unless that is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's formula, cetodarpaṇa-mārjanam, cleansing the heart. That is it.
By putting sign work as they put a sign that "so and so cleaned this room today, he's a good boy." He'll clean automatically. Provided he's clean heart. That's the difference, you see, watching the question.
Yeah, or and another thing is that they reject, uh, the idea of modesty and—and sin. They say that sex is alright, it's a pleasant pastime like anything else. Alright, you have freedom of sex. Yeah, like animals. Okay.
Sex flag lag animals? What it says. You must say that. They do not reinforce sex, uh, sin, uh, the sin of sex life. Sex life, we don't say it is sin. But that is rules and regulation of sex life.
However, they, they have contraception. That is a difficult... these people are coming as philosopher-teacher rascals. That is the difficult as a presentation. They call out the self. Dogs, hogs, camels, asses.
They are taking the position of teaching. That is the defect of the model. We don't take it, accept like that. Dogs, hogs, we cannot accept teaching.
They're, they're making life into an equation like a mathematical formula and teaching like that. But it doesn't work. They proved it. It's that it, they have a seventy percent turnover.
That means the people get disgusted and leave, 70% of them every year. Me? Yeah. Wow. Because it says that those who are more competent, they still expect special recognition for their talent.
And, uh, they, so they make this demand, but we cannot reinforce that, that kind of behavior. So we deny them and then they go away. Then the point of the, uh, the whole material world is attached to the sex life.
So the whole thing is that all these philosophies are just invented so that they may have liberty in thinking that they're free and say they may act in a, in the animal. That's all, that's the whole thing.
All these philosophy, so I can have free sex life, so I don't have to think I would be punished, I can have this treatment in my mind.
But these fools, they do not know that by sense gratification you are, uh, entangling yourself. Uh, invitation of birth and death. The Skinner nonetheless, nonetheless allows himself some relaxation.
He drinks vodka and tonic in the late afternoon. He sees, he sees an occasional movie, he reads Georges Simenon detective novels once in a while, and enjoys the company of friends, his two children and his grandchildren.
Here is a note from his diary. The sun streams into our living room. My hi-fi is midway through the first act of Tristan and Isolde. A very pleasant environment. A man would be a fool not to enjoy himself in it.
In a moment I will work on a manuscript which may help mankind. So my life is not only pleasant, it is earned or deserved, and yet, yet I am unhappy. He wants to try—he's trying to understand. You cannot.
That is not the way of understanding. That is very good. Personally, it's all this question. Episode.