Freud and the Regulation of Base Desires
А. Ч. Бхактиведанта Свами Прабхупада
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Psychological repression and Vedic regulation
Today we're discussing the philosopher and psychologist Sigmund Freud.
His thesis was that certain unconscious states must be repressed by a special mental mechanism which serves as a defense for the ego against painful or frightening memories, emotions and desires.
That is our brahmacārī system. Brahmacārī system. The psychology is that everyone has that sex appetite. Everyone has that tendency for, for, uh, intoxication. And everyone has got, uh, uh, tendency for meat-eating.
Loke vyavāyāmiṣa-madya-sevā nityāstu jantor na hi tatra codanā. So these tendencies are already there.
So when there is, uh, injunction in the śāstra that one can have sexual intercourse by, uh, marriage, by, uh, legal sex, uh, we are prohibiting illegal, illicit sex, but we are not prohibiting, uh, I would say, legal sex.
So just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that Krishna says, "dharmāviruddho bhūteṣu kāmo 'smi bharatarṣabha": sex indulgence which is not against a religious principle, that is that.
So religious principle means regulated sex life. People have got clearly tendencies. Those who are not regulated by the Vedic injunction, they are also having sex. So what is the meaning of this legal sex?
The legal sex means it is restriction; there is restriction. Where there is no such injunction, just like in Western countries, they are having sex without any, I would say, restriction.
But according to the Vedic system, the restriction. They tell eating meat. That is also restriction. We cannot eat meat from the slaughterhouse.
But the injunction is that he can take a goat and in the, in the presence of goddess Kālī, he can offer it and then he can... vṛthā-māṃsa means meat which is not sacrificed. There are so many rules and like this.
Similarly, drinking also, there is injunction. Caṇḍī. By worshipping Caṇḍī, you can drink.
So when śāstra deals with this meat-eating, drinking and sex, which is already there, psychologically, everyone has got this tendency. Then why it is mentioned in the śāstras in this way? The whole thing is to restrict.
Just like ordinarily, in the state, drinking liquor is also controlled by the excise department of government. Government-purposed drinking shop, the price is enhanced. I know because I was dealing in rectified spirit.
So because we are preparing medicine, we are getting opium and this rectified spirit at a very cheap rate. Very cheap rate. Once a man came to me, that "If you give me your license to take, one thousand rupees sitting."
"I'll manage." So I told him, "When I will be arrested, because after a while we will be arrested, then I will be arrested.
And then the government will ask me that we have given you the license and the respect to the gentleman as you're doing this." "Then what shall I reply?" So this restriction is that, uh, liquor, rectified...
Every wine is made from rectified spirit. All brandy, whiskey, everything. I know all the formula ultimately. Okay.
And the government... the cost price of the rectified spirit is about, uh, one rupee 50 naye paise per gallon. And the government is selling at 60 rupees. For us it was five rupees. Because we are manufacturers.
See in this way. So why these 60 rupees? Restriction. Because unless government takes up this matter in the hand, people will distill. It is not very difficult; distilling wine is not... there are many illicit distillers
also. The excise... it is the duty of the excise department to, uh, arrest. My point is that why government is increasing this price so that, at last, that people may not pay so much price, they may not drink it.
When government opens liquor shops, it does not mean that you, all of you, become a drunkard. It is not an advertisement.
Scriptural restrictions on sense gratification
Similarly, when Shastra gives the permission that you can have sex life by marriage, or you can eat meat by offering a goat before the goddess Kali, or you can drink also while offering, uh, uh, worship to Chandi.
It is restricted. Because nobody can, uh, worship Chandi daily, nobody can worship Kali daily; there is also a fixed date. Kali-puja can be performed on Amavasya. Amavasya comes once in a month.
That means restricted one can eat meat once in a month. But the restriction is not there for eating rice, dal, ghee, or fruit or milk. There is no such restriction.
But as when there is a question, this legal meeting can say, immediately there is a junction that you can do this under certain conditions. That means the whole idea is to restrict. That is, psychology is already there.
But śāstrakāras, because they know if people become implicated with all these things, nonsense things, then his duration of, uh, materialistic way of life will increase and will have to accept material body, etc.
So by restriction, restriction, gradually, uh, just like we are restricting all these things, gradually, uh, the Western students, they're coming to the point to become a pure devotee.
These things are already there, everyone knows. Mr. Freud does not require to study. It is already there. We know in the Vedic śāstra. But they should be restricted.
His idea is that, uh, certain memories or painful experiences or, uh, frustrations or desires are sometimes repressed by forgetfulness, that we forget them.
They lie deep in our unconsciousness, but we cannot even remember them because they cause pain by their memory. This mechanism he calls a defense mechanism: forgetfulness. No, that is not possible.
That is the system, there is a yoga process, mechanical system to control the senses. Yoga means indriya-saṁyama. Yoga means to be restricted, uh, not restricted, rather controlling the senses. Yoga indriya.
So by this mechanical process, yogic exercise, one of the—one may artificially check, suppress these tendencies. But we have got many instances that even the greatest yogi like Viśvāmitra, he also failed.
Our process is, as it is recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā: paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate, if we find better... But I mean, some, uh, sometimes people forget experiences which cause them pain.
Uh, for instance, a child may have had a very frightening experience which he does not like to recall. So he forgets it. But it is caused by his forgetting it; it causes an unhealthy state. Yeah.
Therefore we do not recommend that artificial means. But it's not artificial, naturally, the body... No, no, sir. Actually, our problem is this: fearfulness is created when one is not Krishna conscious.
This is a quality of the conditioned soul: āhāra-nidrā-bhaya-maithuna. So as soon as one becomes Krishna conscious, these things become almost nil. Nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve na kutaścana bibhyati.
One who is God conscious, he doesn't fear anything. Just like Prahlāda Mahārāja. Such a big giant father, he's threatening him. He is calm and quiet. He's calm and quiet. He doesn't care for his father's words.
And his father is asking, "But you are so proud and fearless when I'm trying to chastise you." And he replied, "The person who has given you this power is protecting me.
That you have got power because it is gifted by Krishna. So that same personality is giving me protection." He replied that. But you say it's artificial to forget anything? Yeah. So forgetfulness is artificial?
So why don't we remember everything? Because you are not trained. Forgetfulness? What do you mean? Well, forgetfulness means, uh, loss of memory. I can't remember what happened when I was four or five years old.
Just like, uh, suppose in your past life you had so many fearful incidents. Even in this life, but you are not afraid now. Why should you try to forget? There is no use of forgetting. Even if I remember, I'm not afraid.
Rather, I thank Krishna. Krishna, You are so kind that You have saved me from so many miseries. That's all. So one should not be frightened by many past incidents. He rather laughs that, "I was fooled.
I was afraid of all these things. We love. What Freud is talking about is the natural instinct for people to forget painful experiences. That's naturally forgot. That's like you are in the womb of your mother.
It was a very, very painful situation. But you forgot. Yes. That is natural. So it's not artificial. No, that is natural. But when you were actually in the womb of your mother, that's a fact.
Now you can, when you think of it, you can understand how horrible a condition was that. Therefore, śāstra says that even if we have forgotten, it does not mean that we have escaped the incidents.
Materialistic trauma and spiritual healing
His idea is that many of our present unconscious wishes and conflicts have their origins in infantile or childhood experience. Well, you are going to be again an infant. Why you forget this thing?
After this life, you will put in another womb. So that same thing will again happen. You are not finishing your business. So therefore it is the duty of guru and father and mother to save him from that situation again.
Gurur na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt pitā na sa syāt. So that is the opportunity of this human. They should know that I had such and such bad experience.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, we'll have to experience again the same thing at the time of death, horrible situation. Again after death, again punar api jananam. You have to again take birth in the womb.
The same situation is repeating. You may forget. That is another thing. Just like you had some surgical operation in your body that was very painful.
So even if we have forgotten, it does not guarantee that there will be no more pain and no more surgical approach. That is not effective. It will repeat again. What is the use of forgetting?
Even if you forget, what is the benefit there? You lie again. He says there's no benefit of forgetting, but it's natural that everyone knows that.
So he says that the cure for many of our present conflicts is to try to recall these painful experiences and analyze them and try to correct them.
Just like, for instance, a person may have a hatred toward a member of the opposite sex. Why is this hatred?
By tracing back in his childhood, we may find that there was some horrible experience with his father or with his mother which caused him to hate that particular sex.
Just like some woman does not like to give birth to a child. Because she was repressed when she was a child and beaten, so she does not like to bear children. That's why the contraceptive method is very modern, painful.
It is called pain. Prasava-vedanā... Prasava-vedanā... Prasava-vedanā... Prasava-vedanā. Vedanā means pain. So, prasava... Prasava is... Prasava... Prasava, child-getting. Delivery.
Delivery. So the man is also given so much trouble. The woman is also given so much trouble. So why? Why is this trouble there? The nature for everything is that don't be implicated in the sex life.
If you simply tolerate a little itching sensation, then you save so much trouble. Yan maithunādi-gṛhamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham...
These ordinary men who are attached to the materialistic way of life, their only happiness is this sexual intercourse. So Shastra says this happiness derived from sexual intercourse is very, very insignificant, tuccham.
This is not happiness; it is very many tenth-class or even lower than happiness, but because they have no idea of other happiness, they have no consciousness. They are materialistic; that is the happiness.
This is a very insignificant happiness. Then how is this happiness experienced? Kandūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham. We have got an itch, and if you scratch like this, you feel some happiness.
But the after-effect of that happiness is very bad. So even if we have legal sex, so the mother has to undergo the labor pain and the father has to take responsibility for raising the children nicely, give them education.
Of course, one who is irresponsible like cats and dogs, that is another. But those who are actually gentlemen, for them, is it not painful? Therefore they are avoiding children by contraceptive method.
Because they know to raise children is a very difficult job. So śāstra says, you simply try to tolerate this itching sensation and you save so much pain. This is real psychology.
That itching sensation can be tolerated if one practices this Krishna consciousness. Then he will not be very much attracted by this sex life. I don't, I don't think we were, uh, talking about the same things here.
Uh, I, I haven't made clear perhaps, uh, what's, uh, what is that philosophy. Philosophy is that people have neuroses or disorders of their total personality.
That there's, uh, conflicts, there's anxieties, there's frustrations. And if all of these have origin... But I'm, I'm, I'm telling you that all these are due to sex. That's what Freud is also saying. That we also say.
But for our process, Freud is encouraging. And our process is to stop. That is the difference. Freud is when there is a sex, uh, impulse positive.
No, he says that he, he, he doesn't say one way or the other, he's merely trying to analyze the sex impulse.
And he says that, uh, due to repressed childhood sex desires, that these neuroses arise in a person's personality and then by analogy... Our, our process is not repression. We don't repress.
Therefore we, we give facility that you have got sex impulse. Alright, you have it. But with your wife, legalized wife. But, but he thinks more in terms from the very beginning of birth there is sex influence.
That is admitted. Well, as we say that as soon as there is a living embodied living being, he must have hunger. He, he must have sex impulse. What is that? Āhāra-nidrā, even we find in the animals, these impulses are there.
Why is so much philosophy? They are already there. What is the human philosophy?
Well, he analyzes that besides this id or these impulses, sex impulses, there is the ego, which is the moral self, which tries to adjust these, adjusts these impulses, these sexual impulses, and tries to adjust.
That we have already solved that, because just to adjust the sense impulses we are giving him some facility: that you have sex life with your married wife. This is the analogy.
Not as that drunk man, because I've got sex impulse, I can catch up anyone, even my mother or sister, and I have sex with it. That's not very nice. No, he doesn't, he doesn't condone that. He's a scientist.
He doesn't make any recommendations one way or the other. He's really trying to analyze what is the law, that our solution is this: that your this materialistic life is painful. That's a fact.
This materialistic life is painful. Tāpa-trayam. As soon as you have got this material body, then you must suffer these three kinds of miserable conditions of life. So our whole problem is to stop.
Everyone is seeking after happiness. We say that unless you stop your materialistic or birth and death, there is no question of happiness.
So the whole Vedic civilization is based on this: how one can get out of this disease. This is a disease, repetition of birth and death. So we are trying to cure this disease.
Then all other symptoms will automatically vanish. If you are a diseased fellow, you are feeling sometimes headaches, sometimes legs, sometimes some pain in the stomach.
But if your disease is cured, then there are no more symptoms. That is our problem.
He says that these neuroses or disorders of the personality are due to repressed sex impulses in childhood, and that these cause traumatic and shock experiences.
For instance, he says that at a certain age, around four or five, the son becomes jealous of the father. His attention. These are all right. But what is this everything?
He suggests that a child should be allowed to have sex life? No, the remedy is, is, uh, well, this tension that is created by repressing this sex is... There are so many theories. Yes, there is some of them.
There are so many other policies. Yeah. But our, our, our program is the threefold miseries. Everyone who has accepted this body, he has to undergo the threefold miseries.
You may describe in an analysis that, uh, by releasing these emotions, which have been built up through, due to tension, frustration, any original shock, can be relieved through, uh, admitting, confessing, remembering that.
What is the guarantee that he'll not get another shock? He's getting shock after shock. He tried one and another display. He, he attributes all, all of our personality conflicts in this stage.
But the thing is that he is trying to cure one kind of shock, but there is no guarantee that he will not have shock. So our program is total cure, no more shock. That is our point. No more shock of any kind.
Because his treatment is useless. Because he cannot guarantee another shock. Yasmin sthito na duḥkhena guruṇāpi vicālyate. Tite.
If you are situated in real Krishna consciousness, the heaviest type of misery which is facing him, he'll not be disturbed. No shock. No shock at all. We are giving that Krishna consciousness.
And he's trying to give out the resultant action of one kind of shock, but he, there is no guarantee that another shock will not come. He'll get it. That is called daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā.
You're trying to solve one problem, another problem is there. You solve that problem, another problem. So how you can check that? So long we are conditioned by the material nature, shocks after shocks will come.
Mām eva ye prapadyante, no more shock. Back to that point. His idea is that the base, one basic instinct which is, uh, the most important to, to, uh, the human personality is the drive to procreate or sexual
energy in the... But it's already discussed that everyone has got, animal has got, the sexual proclivities.
So he says that the present state of the personality, it has grown about because of childhood or infancy as uses of this libido or this sexual energy.
And if it has been misused, then there's a disorder in the personality. But by healing that original shock in childhood, then in the future we'll all be healed.
There will be no more fluctuations in the personality; that by healing this one original shock, that there won't be any more fluctuations or disorders, neurosis. That's why we are to scale.
We are trying to make bias as brahmacārī.
So of course there is tendency, but by practicing the brahmacārī system, by diverting one's attention to Krishna consciousness, Krishna's service, there will be very little chance for this shock.
Yes, he said that our sexual instincts are often thwarted by social constraints.
Varnasrama dharma and social stability
So in a society which does not have a brahmacārī system, I could see that this would lead to that, but this Vedic system is so scientific, varṇāśrama-dharma.
But these things are automatically adjusted and checked, and life becomes very peaceful, and it makes progress to all Krishna consciousness. But if you were not in society, then these things will not come out.
This sexual energy or this libido energy he sees as not only sexual intercourse but associated with a wide variety of pleasurable sensations relating to bodily activity, just as pleasures of the mouth, the other different organs; he says all sexual energy.
Eating, sucking. But that is already stated. That the only happiness in this material world, yan maithunādi, maithunādi-ādi. Adi means the basic principle is maithuna, sexual intercourse.
And now there are some samāja-maithunādi. Or you can take it that one is very happy, just like one gentleman proposed to Bhagavān, "Give me a son." That is as maithunādi, by sexual intercourse.
He's thinking that "I will have a son and I'll get him married. He'll also begin maithunādi. I'll have grandson."
So whole system, this materialistic way of life, just like Vidyāpati sings, "tātala saikate vāri- bindu-sama." This is happiness. Suta-mita. Suta means son. And mita means friend. Ramani, wife.
Mother, sister — they are enjoying this life. The tatal of saikate — just in the desert, one drop of water. Deserts require ocean of water.
But in the hot deserts, if there is one drop of water, you can say, "Here is water." And what is the value of this water? What is the value of this? You can say, "Here is water."
Similarly, this sexual pleasure society, there is some pleasure, but what is the value of that pleasure? That is compared with like one drop in the ocean, in a desert. You are seeking after, you are seeking that pleasure.
But this pleasure is so spicy that nobody is satisfied. He's having sex in different ways, dressing the woman in different ways. Especially young, the young girls, they're almost naked. They are attracting.
But they do not know how society is degrading. Now this woman population is greater everywhere. So how to solve? As soon as there is woman population as well as the match, there must be disaster.
Because every woman, every girl will try to attract man, and the man will take advantage that, "Cow is... yeah, milk is available in the market. What is the use of keeping a cow?"
So they'll decline to keep a cow because milk is so cheap. So this is social disaster. And the more the man will become attached to woman, the woman population will increase. This is psychological.
This is psychology: the whole world is increasing woman population and therefore there is disaster, especially in the Western countries I see practically how is that problem. And the same principle:
"The milk is available in the market, what is the use of keeping a cow?" Well, how does that result in more women? Huh? How does that result in more women?
Oh, they say that when you have more sex, then you will have less power to beget a male child. When the man is less powerful, a girl is born. When the man is powerful, a boy is born. That is Ayurvedic.
In our country, in Punjab, there are less women because there the men are very stout and strong. This is the... when there is discharge, if the man's discharge is larger, then there is male child.
If the woman's discharge is larger, then there is female child. So the... the woman will be very easily available, the man will be. So what he'll be get? He'll be get a male, female child. Because he has lost his power.
Sometimes it becomes important. There are so many disasters. If we don't restrict sex life, there will be so many disasters. And that is happening. Impotency. No marriage. Female population more.
They do not know how things are happening, how human psychology can be controlled. And this is the perfect system, Vedic system. So he says that all pleasures, all bodily pleasures, have a sexual origin.
Sublimating desires for higher pleasure
Well, that we have already discussed. Adi means "in the beginning." The sex impulse. That is how Freud is there. In the beginning, he says satisfaction of the eating and, uh, sucking tendencies.
After, he says, after a period of childhood indulgence in these sexual appetites, he begins to learn that, uh, by giving up satisfaction, he can please and influence others so to gain more remote favors.
Just like śreya and preya you were talking about. So that, uh, the pleasure principle becomes replaced by the reality principle. Yes.
So that is, uh, stated in Bhagavad-gītā: paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate. If your consciousness is changed, if you become Krishna conscious, then there is a verse by Yamunacharya.
He says: yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt tad-avadhi bata nārī-saṅgame smaryamāṇe bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṁ ca.
So he said, "Since I'm taking pleasure in the service of Lord Krishna..." Yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde.
Kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde, since I have in this my life, tinja, the chance and please by serving the lotus feet of Lord Krishna.
Yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt, I am getting newer and newer pleasure.
And because he said, and at that time when I think of sex pleasure, tad-avadhi bata nārī-saṅgame smaryamāne, bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ... But oh, I was in time. Suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṃ ca. This is not my adjustment.
Suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṃ. Spitting. Yeah, and his comment, some... some... So he said, "Oh, I think of that sex pleasure, my mouth becomes deformed and I spit." That is Krishna. Bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra ca. Nava... Yes.
Freud would analyze that as a... one nonsense. Freud will analyze. He's not a Krishna bhakta, what does he know? The rascal. That's all. What rascal will analyze? He is a big man among the rascals. A big rascal. That's all.
He's a rascal, but a big rascal. That's not... Exactly. But these people, they do not know. What is the purpose of discussing? What is the purpose of this? Just to prove that he's a big rascal.
He may be very... a big man among the other rascals, small rascals. Jīva Gosvāmī, this is Jīva Gosvāmī's language. I think I have mentioned somewhere in my Bhagavad-gītā.
Big rascal, that's the analysis of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. How you can approach that with little knowledge? What improvement he has got after his period in the Western country? Well, he has degraded more.
He has put their attention more on sex. Yes, sir. But actual benefit is derived from me.
He's... he's made... he's made the impression, the modern impression, that all of our troubles are due to frustrated sex life in our childhood.
And that by analyzing these activities of childhood, we can rectify our present situation. This is the rectification. But that's why young boys and girls are having free sex and they're becoming hippies. That's all.
What benefit is this? He has degraded the whole nation. I think we have many clothes out on the line, clothesline of this.
Well, I, I don't think, uh, that in this book or in this discussion that we can convince in any way, uh, a college student, I think, the invalid aspects of Freud if we simply call him a rascal. Yeah.
We have to scientifically discuss. We don't tell right. But there are aspects of Freud's philosophy and his psychology which they, which they feel have proved beneficial for mankind.
So many cases of example, like someone like, let's say, stutters all their life from stuttering, or someone is paralyzed, they have no... they can't find any direct physical reason why the person can't walk.
And through analysis they're able to trace down that it's due to some repressed, uh, uh, trauma, what they call trauma in their early... Oh, they're spelling? Shock. Shock. Shock. Shock. Strong. Strong.
Therefore the person reacts on a physical level, and they can't... by psychoanalyzing them and having them recall that event... In the beginning of life, teaching brahmacarya, restraint.
And when he is grown up, he's about twenty, get him married. In the beginning he learns how to restrain.
If, if you teach a child, uh, to, uh, become restrained, he becomes healthy, he saves his semen, his brain becomes fertile, he can understand things, you see, because a semen... wasting of semen means less intellect.
So from the beginning, if he is brahmacārī, if he, I would say, stops misuse of semen, then he becomes intelligent and strong and fully grown. For want of this education, everything is being stunted.
Brain, bodily growth and everything. So after he is still that brahmacārī, if he thinks that he still will have sex, then get him married.
And because in that strength of body and brain he will beget a child, immediately there will be mention. This is practical now. And because he has been trained from the boyhood to renounce this material enjoyment.
So when he is 50, 50 years old, naturally his child, firstborn child, must be twenty-five years old. So he can retire from the sex life. Because household life means a license for sex life. It is not required.
But one who cannot restrain, he is given a license: "Alright, you have sex life by marriage." As I explained in the beginning. So that is the real program. That will save the society.
Not by, uh, speculating on some Freud and this and that. They cannot find out the root disease. But you give him all indulgence, then he will study the Freud. What is that?
You should take information from the standard knowledge. The disease is sex. That's why we have discussed: the sex, the sex, the, uh, impulse is already there. Drinking impulse is already there.
Meat-eating impulse is already there. So from the very beginning we have to restrain. That is it. Doing it from the beginning necessarily always going to work.
Remember in Nairobi, Dr. Patel, he came that evening with his wife and seed. We are getting so many seeds every moment. So one who is fortunate, he gets the seeds of bhakti. Bhakti, māyā, Krishna and guru.
Guru-kṛṣṇa-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja. This bīja is there. That seed. And if he nourishes that seed by watering, śravaṇa- kīrtana-jale karaye secana, then it grows, he becomes kṛṣṇa-bhakta. Everything is seed.
Either bhakti or sinful life or anything. It grows gradually. So brahmacārī means from the very beginning sowing the seed of goodness. And if one becomes a devotee, then automatically other things are lost.
So the Western, the Western system of bringing up children is, uh, artificial, because they, they, they allow the child unrestrained, uh, freedom to either repress or to enjoy his sex desire.
That, that is not a bad program. Vedic program is a social program. Social, yes, social.
Education and habit formation in children
Just like Cāṇakya Paṇḍita says—he's an experienced moralist with his, uh, uh, ethical laws. He says, uh, "lālane bahavo doṣās"—if you indulge freedom, if you indulge freedom,
"lālane bahavo doṣās tāḍane bahavo guṇāḥ"—and if you restrict them, restrain them, that is very, very... it makes quality. "Tasmāc chiṣyaṃ ca putraṃ ca tāḍayen na tu lālayet."
Therefore, one should take care of his disciples and sons by chastising them, not giving them indulgence.
Freud, Freud would say that this system of repression by saying "don't do this" is harmful—to repression, of course, uh, his idea of repression is different. Our idea is repression defined.
Ours is training with knowledge. How are you presenting it? You must rise early in the morning. You must attend. But it's with knowledge. Knowledge will come later on. But in the beginning, must.
Otherwise he will not be habituated. Even if there is no knowledge, by the order of the spiritual master or superior, he must do it.
Freud's idea being is he came from the Victorian age when there was great, uh, restraint of sex desire by the... so social structure was that if you tell a child, "Don't look at a woman, don't look at a woman," that this will... No, we don't say like that.
"Don't look at woman." We have, uh, here is a woman sitting. Yeah. So, no, I'm... I'm looking. Does it mean they immediately become polluted?
No, but they say there's a, a conflict between a child's natural, uh, uh, desire to enjoy women. They are born—I use that, a strong word—with ignorance. They are not like that; they are actually fools.
You see, they do not know how to do things. That's why I say they're actually big, big fools. The Freudians do not know. The Freudian method would be to think back to those seeds and rectify them.
Think back and back and back and try to remember those seeds. Then it's not... What about if someone doesn't have a big...? Seed means it has already grown up. Rectified. Where do you find the seed? That would be nonsense.
Also, let's like there's an example: we have got arrow and the bow. Now, so long it is in your hand, it is your land. But when it is strung, you cannot control it; it is out of your hand. So by thinking...
Another example is they call: "Kancha na noale bash, pakle kore tash tash." You have seen bamboo, and then green, you can bend it. But when it is yellow, that is not with breath.
But it's proven practically, in practical experience, practical psychoanalysis, that by remembering some traumatic or shocking experience in the person's life, it relieves the tension, emotional tension which has caused the disorder in his personality, and he becomes healthy again.
So this may be, but if you call it seed, the seed when fructified, grown into a tree, and then it is no one. He doesn't call it a seed, he calls it a shock, shocking experience, which we repress because it causes pain.
And this repression makes a tension in our—give you a practical example. For instance, a person grows up with a great hatred of—let's say if I'm a man—a great hatred of a woman, of women. Oh, I hate all women.
That is a particular class, but a person, particular person. Yeah, the other way, let's say when the child was very young, the mother became angry and locked him in a room for too long and he was crying, locked up.
So then that person for the rest of their life, as soon as the windows are closed, he'll be afraid. Because he remembers, or even he's forgotten, the original experience. He's always afraid of that, claustrophobic.
So this Freud says by remembering this experience you can explain—answer this. Suppose the child locked up and his brain becomes deranged, then how can that work?
So that, let's say he's grown, he still has that fear, and Freud or one of his doctors, he will start to think back: "What do you remember from your childhood?
Do you remember?" And then the doctor will say: "Oh, that is the spirit." That's all right. You can find out that is the cause, but only the cure.
He does by remembering and explaining to him: "Well, you see, you were only a child, it wasn't really a bad situation like this," and then the patient loses the tension which has caused the disorder and he becomes healthy again.
Psychic, psychothermal. Yes, psychoanalysis. Psychotherapy. Well, actually the idea is that a child is sometimes unable to adjust to certain very, uh, trying experiences called a trauma.
They're very shocking and the child can't understand it. He's simply, uh, very much stunned. So through his life, he's affected by that. He can't remember exactly what it is because he wants to forget it. It's so painful.
But it manifests in some symptoms, some aberrant symptom later on. This is... he's afraid when the windows are closed. But by finding out what is the root of his pain... Yeah, I, I became a hospital.
Yes, just like in that, uh, hospital, hospital. It was so nice, everything was so nice, but because I was thinking, "Oh, I cannot go out, I cannot walk." It was giving me too much suffering.
But by a higher power, that I cannot go out. See, the defect is that sometimes they can't trace out the history of a particular case.
The idea is that if they can find out, just this person remembering back when they were young, they had been locked in a room, then at this elder stage, the person is able to understand the significance of that incident, that it was really very small.
Then it, then it loses its importance in his life. He's been unable to resolve it because he's repressed it. But I don't think when a man's brain is already dense, he can be rectified by finding out the cause.
It's not that the trauma makes him crazy so that he doesn't function in the society. He could be a business executive who has claustrophobia, who can't stand getting in an elevator.
A regular... he's leading a normal sort of life in society, but he has this problem which causes him a great deal of trouble. Why not divert his attention to Krishna nonsense?
But a higher type of knowledge, if one realizes he's not this body, then all those things disappear. That is the treatment, real treatment. This is why we're doing social service. To divert his attention.
Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate. Very understanding. And nice thing. That is our bhakti: bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra ca. Actually, one increases. He becomes neglectful of all this material. That is the prime remedy.
Panacea for all this. Very well.
Analyzing Freudian theory and false ego
This Freudian philosophy is an offshoot from Darwin's philosophy. Freud also takes it that man is a biological organism only.
Therefore his biological functioning should, should measure up to certain norms of biological behavior. If it doesn't, then there's something wrong. If it does, then everything is alright.
So he makes some animal behavior good and some animal behavior substandard, and he wants to bring everybody to a certain standard of animal behavior. But he has no conception of spiritual life.
And therefore it might be a great task. It is hard. We have to convince the students. Well, you have to convince them as I am convincing him. That is your business.
Later on Freud began to accept that certain non-sexual factors might produce these unconscious conflicts also. And he divided the personality into three separate systems called the ego, the superego, and the id.
Now the id is these unconscious instinctive animal drives to enjoy sex, desire, everything animalistic. The ego is that part of the mind concerned with adjusting efficiently to external realities.
In other words, it's a moral segment of the personality which tries to adjust or protect. We are trying to clear these policies. Everyone has got some. That is our treatment.
Just like Freud is thinking that he's American or he's here. This is false equation. We are giving everyone the intelligence that this identification, that this material body, that is ignorance.
Due to ignorance, I'm thinking that I'm Indian, I'm American, I am Hindu, I am Muslim. This is false. As it is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, this is inferior quality of egoism.
The superior quality of egoism is ahaṁ brahmāsmi or anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam. So if he is taught the superior egoism, then automatically this false egoism becomes stopped.
He says this ego is concerned with self-preservation by organizing and controlling against neurotic conflicts and the demands of the id.
In other words, if the id sees something like some foodstuff, it automatically demands, it gives the urge to eat it, kill it, eat it.
So the ego is concerned with controlling that desire in order to preserve the individual. And this, for instance, becomes restraint, voluntary restraint, controlled by the personality.
And the superego are the authoritarian values of the society or the parents who say, "No, you do not kill like that, you do not eat this like that."
So those three systems are functioning in the personality and they're always in conflict, and this develops the person as he progresses.
The basic principle is formed, as Hayagrīva said, that he is following the principles of Bharat, who has no conception, uh, of the soul which is existing beyond the body. So they are taking consideration of the body.
So according to this, our Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, anyone within the concept of this body, he is no better than an ass. So I have... these very words are used.
One who is identifying this body of three elements, kapha-pitta-vāyu, as the self, then he is an ass, sa eva go-kharaḥ.
These three types of reactions to anything — the id reaction, the ego reaction, the superego reaction — these are all bodily reactions. Yes. The unbodily... What, each is the other subtle? Huh?
Each one is more subtle than the other. Since the id is the most gross. Mind, mind is the beginning of subtle. It's like mind, senses, and gross. But the mind... senses are being controlled by the mind.
The mind is the subtle, isn't it? And mind is controlled by intelligence. And intelligence is controlled by ego. So if the ego is false, then the whole thing is false.
If the ego... if I am thinking "I am this body," this false identification, ego, then all other things which are coming out of this false figure, they're all false. Then is that what is called māyā or illusion?
Because they are standing on a false platform. And our whole basic education is that you be relieved from this false platform, come to the real platform. That is called brahma-jñāna. Real platform.
And it is Bhagavad-gītā stated, from Bhāgavatam, when one comes to that knowledge that I am spirit, so that immediately he becomes happy. All these troubles due to this false... should have immediately śānta.
Bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇam — what do you mean? Bhava-mahā-dāvāgni — fire, fire, blazing fire of material existence immediately extinguished.
These philosophers, they're simply describing about the blazing fire of material existence. We are trying to get him out of the prison. That's all. Immediately he feels relief. Oh, I am out of the fire.
And within the fire, however he tries to make him happy, how will he be happy? The fire is already there. Save him from the fire. Then he's... Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Bhagavad-gītā...
Bhagavān, and Bhagavad-gītā says: brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā, na śocati na kāṅkṣati. Prasannātmā, 18th chapter. Yes. Yadṛcchā-lābha-santuṣṭo dvandvātīto. Yadṛcchā-lābha-santuṣṭo. So someone says...
So we have more to discuss and we continue. Exactly, find this body as this soap. And our preaching is different, that we are not this body. Our first principle of understanding is to know that we are not this body.
I am different from this body, but I am transmigrating from one body to another. That they cannot explain. They're... they're explaining this body is, uh, evolving from this body to that body.
That is the basic misunderstanding. In Freud's case, it's interesting that he formed all of his conclusions by his observations of what he called the neurotic and psychotic patients.
He observed the mentally ill people, neurosis and psychosis. And he drew his conclusions about both, uh, sick and normal psychology from his observation of abnormal.
So he observed the abnormal behavior of neurotic people, psychotic people, crazy people. And from their behavior he tried to infer all about human psychology.
So not only he was on bodily platform, but his only subject matter was the insane. So how he can draw valid conclusions about behavior? What do I answer? Yes. Very nice.
Yes, his observation is correct, at the same time it doesn't validate, uh, Freud's, uh, use of, uh, psychology uh, for supposedly normal people.
He didn't... he didn't analyze only crazy people, he also analyzed his friends, his mother, his himself, his wife, other people also, healthy people.
The point is then, in Brahmānanda Mahārāja's argument, is we have to decide then what is crazy and what is sane. He's saying that he has studied only some crazy people. No. No. But that is not the fact.
He analyzed some sane people. But one, one, uh, psychiatrist's opinion is... That is... it is a... you are subpoenaed, Civil Surgeon.
Civil Surgeon, you are subpoenaed to give evidence in a case where the criminal is pleading to have pleaded so that he became insane when he committed the murder.
So the Civil Surgeon was called to test him, whether actually he was insane or what is there, any trace of his insanity state.
So he gave evidence that: "I have tested so many persons, and I have seen that more or less everyone is insane. More or less. Maybe degrees."
So in that case, insanity is the only plea that he should be excused; he can be excused. But so far I know, everyone is more or less it. And that is our conclusion.
We say: piśācī pāile yena mati-cchanna haya, māyā-grasta jīvera sei daśā. Anyone who is infected with this material nature, so he's more or less insane, crazy. He's crazy, not more or less.
Anyone who has got this material body must be crazy. And that one, everyone is picking in different ways. Yes.
Spiritual therapy and mental control
As a result of Freud's philosophy, he prescribed, and many of his students, they prescribe certain activities—this is one thing we forgot to mention—prescribe certain activities to help relieve the patient of these traumas, and it's called therapy.
And actually, the highest therapy... but actually, what Freud's students would say is that we are all involved in therapy in Krishna consciousness, which we are. And that therapy is chanting Hare Krishna.
Therapy is a certain kind of activity which will relieve the anxieties and the stresses of the mind. And in the therapeutical circle, later on, later on they developed that theory.
They take that and support them on the moment. Yeah, they don't mind that. According to our philosophy, everybody in this world is under the spell of the material nature. Māyā. Māyā, that which is not.
So Freud observed that not only in crazy people, but in so-called normal people, everybody's lives are based on some types of illusions.
So his psychoanalytic therapy is to trace out how I have come to this illusion or that illusion, that due to some childhood experience with my mother and father, or my mouth, or my genitals, something like that.
All of these experiences are contributing to my unreal perception of the world.
But the point which you made is that although he may work out what is one particular illusion, who is to prevent that there will not be another illusion?
So our process is not to bother, uh, tracing out each and every illusion that we have, but to become free from the whole process of being controlled by illusory energy. That is our—not to be affected by any more illusion.
Yeah. He was analyzing the details of the particular illusions, but we are becoming free from the whole influence of māyā. Yeah.
Take him out of the fire, then he's really... But his point is that Freud's theory underwent many changes in the beginning. Change must be there because that is imperfect. Yes. It must be changed.
But his first, uh, doctrine was that we should indulge the senses, that this would help.
But later he reformed that idea, that instead of indulging the gross senses, we should sublimate our natural instincts for some higher cause.
So his idea was that instead of actually indulging in gross sex life, we should channel this, uh, sexual impulse for some higher cause, such as for developing the culture.
So that we have explained by quoting Śrī Yāmunācārya's verse: "Since I have taken to Krishna consciousness, whenever I think of sexual intercourse, my mouth becomes deformed. I want to spit at it." Yes.
Or we also say that whatever talent you may have, use it in Krishna consciousness. But Freud, let's say if somebody... Freud says if somebody has the impulse to kill, he should become a surgeon.
If somebody has the impulse to stab someone, then he should be directed to become a doctor and a surgeon. And then by that, same cutting is there, but that is—and that will be, uh, beneficial in that. And what then?
All modern heirs will be sent to medical college to become surgeons. And it should have condemned it. Why not? Or put them in the army. Or put them in the army. Actually, they do like that now. Yes.
They recruit for the army from the prison, the high criminals. Yeah. But we have the higher... To some extent it's all right. Because if therefore the church clear races there... The Vikings pretty.
So what another part of Freud's theory is that there's a life instinct and death instinct. That we all have these two instincts. And that the death instinct is the impulse toward aggression and destruction.
Whereas the life instinct is the impulse toward self-preservation and sex procreation.
But he said that people have these two impulses and those who have the death impulse to extreme often direct it against the self, so that you have acts, people who have accidents and diseases, that is all self-inflicted.
That because I get some disease or have some accident, that is my death instinct directed against myself. So that he saw that disease... Yes, we say that policy. Yes, that everyone, some of them.
If someone gets sick, it's because they want to get sick. Yeah. Or if there's some accident, it is due to my own desire that that accident takes place. This is his theory.
And you have told us that if we overeat, or if one overeats, one will get sick. And we've all experienced that if we overeat, but eating more is not my tendency to get sick. No, but it'd be the... this is the afternoon.
Yes. So therefore one should not overeat. And but still, even though we've all overeaten and gotten sick, we will still go ahead and overeat and get sick. Sometimes we would say we want to get sick.
Sometimes he analyzed that if there's a problem facing someone, that he will get sick and that will resolve the problem. Psychosomatic sickness. And he saw that accidents happen in the same way quite often.
It sounds like to me that what he calls life instinct is what we call rajas-guṇa.
And what he calls death instinct is what we call tamas-guṇa, but there's some people, let's say, what Freud never came across: people have the urge for mukti. People have the urge to go to death.
They still... they haven't touched bhakti. Well, that would be part of a life instinct, self-preservation. Self-preservation, one should live forever. So that's also to die for, want to die forever.
Die to live, these death instincts. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura said that. Vaiṣṇavas die to live. We're willing to die to live. That is another instinct. But we're what he in the Bhagavad-gītā said: tyaktvā dehaṁ. Tyaktvā dehaṁ.
And if giving up this body that is dead, punar janma naiti. Do you attribute accidents and disease to a self, a desire for, uh, self-destruction? No. Ultimately, we say there is no such thing as accidents.
But nothing can take place without God's sanction. So there is no position of accidents. They would have some information of the three kinds of miseries.
If they would have some information of the three kinds of miseries—adhyātmika, adhibhautika, adhidaivika—they should stop speculating on all these kind of incidents because they couldn't understand that all these different kinds of things are categorized in these.
Yeah. You mean, well, I thought I've heard you say before that some sicknesses and accidents are caused by the person. His desire. The person desires to be sick. The person desires to have accidents.
No, well, suppose somebody says, "Well, I want to be happy." Yeah. So we say, "Well, you just chant Hare Krishna and join us, then you'll be happy." So he'd say, "No, no, I want to keep my job, I want to do this or that."
So then we can say that actually, uh, he's not serious about becoming happy. If he really were serious about becoming happy, he would join us. So in a sense, he actually doesn't want to be happy. That's what he would say.
But that's because his conception... He wants to be happy, but he is misguided, is the word. He wants to be happy, but he's misguided in his search of happiness. Everyone wants happiness.
But when one is misguided, that is called illusion. That is good. He is searching happiness without any basis. There's more here, shall we do it tomorrow? Alex. So we're discussing Freud still.
It was his idea that each person, every person has a certain aggressive and destructive tendencies within them, and sometimes these are directed upon the self so that one will have accidents or sicknesses which are self-inflicted.
Does this happen? Well, when one commits suicide, that is not... insane confusion. Insane confusion.
He observed, for instance, when someone came up against a massive task that, uh, sometimes they got sick in order to escape the task. These kinds of things. He, he investigated slips of the tongue, different accidents.
Said that a lot of times they're caused by the self, the psychic. Yes, that is insanity. Not insanity. Another area of his investigation was the problem of anxiety.
He says that the source of anxiety is the id or the, uh, primitive instincts which are always forcing us to do this and do that. In other words, desire.
And these impulses threaten to overpower the rational or the moral self. So there's always a tension or an anxiety produced. Anxieties have continued so long you are in material condition. You cannot be free from anxiety.
Any other condition of life. Is it because we desire something and we're always frustrated by that desire? Frustration you must feel because you do not desire. So that's the cause, the basic cause of anxiety is desire? Yeah.
Desire something which is not permanent. That will cause anxiety. Suppose that I wish to live forever, but because I have accepted this body, material body, therefore there is no question of living forever.
So I am always anxious when death will come. I'm afraid of death and the body will be destroyed. This is ending. So that was the conclusion, is that anxiety is due to our acceptance of something which will not exist.
This is the right definition of anxiety. He says that the ego develops strategies of defense against this anxiety which is always entering from the id. And, uh, one of the strategies it develops is repression.
Whenever there is some strong animalistic desire, the ego represses that desire in order to preserve itself. Repression, yeah. We make plans in so many ways, but by nature it is frustrated. That is repression.
Is conscious repression advisable? Such repression? Yes, uh, of my basic instincts, my desires. Should I consciously strive to repress these desires? Repress desire—that's like if you're in a diseased condition.
So he desired to eat something which is forbidden by the physician. So constantly have to repress in order to be cured.
I heard you say once that we cannot really repress desire, but we have to channel it, control it, control it into other objects. Repression
means, suppose you have a disease, you're suffering from typhoid fever, the doctor says that you don't take any solid food. Now if you desire to take paratha... So you have to replace it. No. I cannot take paratha.
Suppose there is looseness of your body and if you want to take some, uh, what is called concentrated meal, condensed milk, so you have to replace it; it will go against you. You have to repress.
Repress means repressing something which is going against my welfare. So, this brahmacārī system also, there is a pressure. He should not see young women. He should not sit down with young women.
But his desire, his desire is that, "I see young..." all right. So you have to repress. That is called tapasya. Voluntary repression.
Aren't these, uh, aren't these repressions given outlet, these desires given... Instead of seeing a beautiful woman, we see the beautiful form of Krishna, like that. That is it. That is our process.
Param dṛṣṭvā nivartate: if we have got better engagement, we give up inferior engagement. When we are captivated by seeing the beautiful form of Krishna, we have no desire to see the beautiful form of the young woman.
Because the Buddhists, they also say repress desires. They mean total repression. Yes. We don't say that. I want to say that sometimes there is strong desire. We have to repress.
Just like my Guru Mahārāja used to say, "While you get up from bed, you beat your mind a hundred times with your shoes. And when you go to bed, beat your mind a hundred times with a broomstick."
Then you'll be able to control your mind. Sometimes, just like wild tigers, they are brought into control by repression; the circus players, they do that. Because it is a wild tiger, repression is required.
But when it is under control, there is no personal repression, he can play with the tiger. We go to your point. So repression is not always bad.
Another field of investigation for Freud was the idea of projection, that this is a technique for attributing one's own unconscious attitudes onto other people.
In other words, X calls Y a name, but actually Y is the object of that. In other words, for instance, X may regard Y as being jealous, but in fact X is jealous and he projects that attitude onto someone else.
That is accepted in: ātmavan manyate jagat. Everyone thinks others like himself. So he says that this desire to accuse someone else of being the same as me is sometimes repressed and replaced by the opposite expression.
In other words, someone may dislike someone, but they will inhibit that dislike and show overt symptoms of friendliness. Where in fact there is no friendliness there, but it's only a mock friendliness.
This is one of the psychological attitudes he was studying. Well, right?
And sometimes someone who may have dislike for someone may, instead of expressing dislike, he may express just the opposite: extreme fondness, where in fact he dislikes the person. This is called śāṭhya. Śāṭhya. Silly.
Silly. Silly is called silly. Silliness? What is that? Meaning of silly. Silly means frivolous or superficial. Śāṭhe śāṭhyaṃ samācaret. If the other party is silly, so you actually become silly. Tit for tat. That is human nature.
The child is, say, three or four years old, and then a younger child is born in the family. The four-year-old child sees that younger child as a source of competition for affection, and he doesn't like the younger child.
But then, in order to get—if he expresses dislike for the child, he'll be chastised by the parents. So he makes as if he likes the child very much in order to get approbation, but factually he dislikes the child.
See, that's another mechanism, but I don't think the elder child dislikes the younger child. Sometimes younger brothers as well. Yes, but this is... you would say this sometimes occurs.
He would... Freud would say that this sometimes occurs. Is that clear? Adjusted. But in American Western families this quite often happens. The older child becomes jealous of the younger child's favors.
But in order to gain the favor of the parents, he expresses overt love for the child, the younger child. Always... I don't think children are so clever that, you know, to win the love of parents they will cheat like that.
Yeah. But then the whole... then Freud put so much emphasis on the children and the mentality and the emotions of children, that how it, how what one is experiencing in youth is... and so it's all concocted.
Is that what you're saying? Children can be trained in a different way. Yeah. Yeah. As you train them, they become like that. It becomes understanding.
Well, Freud says that all children experience this if there's a younger child born into a family. Well, that's all they imitate. Children's position is imitation. I have seen in Agra children.
One child was two years old and another child was three years old. And they were imitating just like they have seen the sex intercourse of their father, mother, and seen.
They're playing, are lying down, and mounting and laying down. That's right. See, imitation. They do not know what is explained. But they are imitating. That's all.
So Freud analyzed that there are different defense mechanisms by which the ego... The conclusion is the children, they're really imitating. They do not know what is the value, but they imitate.
But he would say there are instinctive defense mechanisms in the psychological makeup of everyone, such as repression, such as projection, or excessive overt reactions of an opposite kind, different defense mechanisms that the psyche, the ego, employs to cover up, to protect itself from the impulses of the id, the primitive impulses.
It's like this: he says that from the social standards of conduct and moral codes, a person develops an ideal conception of himself. He wants to think himself ideal.
And this ideal conception fits the standard of the society and his environment. Then from inside, from his lower animal desire, sex desire, etc., he gets impulses which don't fit that standard. That, uh, he
feels some sex lust, but it should not be there, so he wants to say, "I don't really have that."
So he tries to repress that desire either by repressing it or by saying, "Well, I don't desire that, but somebody else desires like that."
Or in so many ways he tries to cover the fact that his own psychological makeup doesn't fit his standard.
That's what, and he calls a defense mechanism a way to, uh, pretend as if I still am ideal although I don't really have ideal desires and thoughts like that. See, that's the, I think that's the point.
So he postulated all these different mechanisms for defending the ego against these desires. Of this flip? Tarzan? Tarzan. Tarzan? He was brought up by monkeys. He was brought up and he, he, he, he got the monkey habits.
So children, if you keep them in good association, then they will come out very good. There will be psychological development in a good way. And if you keep them in bad association, then they will come out bad.
Just like in Boston, the priests regretted that, "These are American boys, they were so much after God, but we could not give them."
Actually, you American boys, before coming to Krishna consciousness, there was no God consciousness. There was no hint. And how this is changed due to association. So you are all grown up.
But even small children, if you keep them in good association, they'll come out nice. Devigods, they'll come out. And if you put them in the devil association, they come out devil.
So that blank slate, as you write, it will be. That is real psychology. You can mold children as you like. They have got the capacity to... therefore children are sent to the school for taking education, not old men.
So there's no fixed pattern of development of children's personalities. Yeah. This is wrong cycle. You can mold any and anywhere. As you put him into the mould. That's, that's very soft dough.
So actually Freud was speaking only of a certain set of children in a certain society, Western society, where they were all brought up a certain way. That's all right. He has got a one-sided experience. Yes.
He's been criticized. You don't find these, these, uh, neuroses in Indian families. When they studied subsequently primitive tribes, they found that these neuroses were not there.
They only existed in the social structure of Victorian Austria. This is the conclusion: that if you put children in right association, they go right. And if you put them in wrong association, they go wrong.
Perhaps his one, his one, uh, contribution was that he said that behavior must be understood in terms of a person's whole life history and the total history.
But in Ayurvedic system, it is forbidden that even a small child—before that small child, the husband and wife should not joke him. They, they, they should not talk jokingly. To the child? Before the child. Before the child.
Yes. To each other. Yes. To each other. It is not that it is a small child, they will not understand. And there is a—what to speak of having sex intercourse before the child, they will learn it. I have seen it.
They do not know what is extent to, but they have learned it from the rascal father and mother.
So Freud actually, his psychology depended upon a rather pessimistic view of human nature, that, uh, we are all beset with these uncontrollable impulses. Not only pessimistic, due to poor fund of knowledge.
He has no perfect knowledge. Neither he is trained up by any perfect man. So he's talking all nonsense.
He said his, uh, conclusion was that it was impossible to be happy in this material world, but we can alleviate some of the conflicts through this psychoanalysis.
We can try to make the path smooth as possible, but it is always one sense design that you cannot be happy in this material world. But if you are spiritually elevated, spiritually tender, then you'll be happy.
The same example: that's like an iron rod is not fire. But if you put it to the fire, it will act as fire.
Similarly, although there is no possibility of happiness in this material world, if you are spiritually turned up, if your consciousness is changed into Krishna consciousness, then it will be happy.