Soul is the Cause, Body the Effect

Prabhupada: But the size of the body has changed.

Brahmananda: The size has changed. It has grown, increased.

Pusta Krsna: It looks different, completely... It looks different. There is no similarity.

Prabhupada: Yes. There is no similarity. Why the child... There was no mustaches. Why you have mustaches? How you can say "The same body"? You shall have to give your own argument. Child had no mustaches; you have got now mustaches. How you can say the same body? The child had no sex desire; now you have got sex desire.

Brahmananda: They would say all these things are dormant within the child's body, and now they are coming out.

Prabhupada: That we also say, but that body not... That "dormant" means dormant in the soul, not in the body. That is the knowledge. Dormant it is, but dormant in the soul, not in the body.

Pusta Krsna: They have to admit that it's a different body because if the body is simply made of food and they are eating so much and evacuating so much, then it has to be a different body.

Prabhupada: No, it is different body, undoubtedly. If they foolishly argue, that is different thing. Therefore rascal. Their argument has no value. How you can be the same body? So many changes. The body is changed. So this argument, how he can refute, that he has died twenty-two years?

Pusta Krsna: Well, he can also say that he has lived twenty-two years, because he has no perception of any life before that time. He can't remember living before.

Brahmananda: "Before, I was not alive. Now I am alive, so I have lived for twenty-two years. Before, I was dead; I was not alive. Now I am alive, so I've been alive for twenty-two years."

Prabhupada: So before, you were not alive. Then how your life came?

Pusta Krsna: The combination of...

Prabhupada: Do it. Again foolishness. These rascals... [laughs] Then, if you can create life, then where is the question of dead body? You create again. Give life again. If you are so competent that you can give life, combination, then this dead body is there. You bring chemicals and inject.

Pusta Krsna: The same chemicals are there, too. The same chemicals, living body, dead body—five minutes before, five after—is the same chemicals. But they can't explain why there is such a drastic difference.

Prabhupada: What is that same chemical?

Pusta Krsna: In the living body, two minutes before death and two minutes after...

Prabhupada: So what is that? Name that, what is that chemical. Then bring it.

Pusta Krsna: Let him try and make life. Not possible.

Prabhupada: If you know the chemical, then you bring it. Chemical is available. Why this is dead? What they will answer? What this chemical is wanting, that it is dead?

Brahmananda: Well, we may not know...

Prabhupada: Then, you rascal, why you are talking? You do not know. [laughter]

Brahmananda: But, then, neither do you know.

Prabhupada: Huh? No...

Brahmananda: You can say soul, but you don't...

Prabhupada: No. But you cannot answer my question; therefore you are more rascal than me. You cannot answer. You are...

Harikesa: You have the position. He's in a position. He cannot answer.

Prabhupada: Yes. You say that chemical is missing. I say what is that chemical?

Pusta Krsna: No, but the chemical is not missing.

Prabhupada: Then?

Pusta Krsna: The same chemical is there. Two minutes before death and two minutes after death, the body chemistry has not changed so much.

Prabhupada: No. What is that missing that it is dead?

Pusta Krsna: They can't answer.

Prabhupada: Therefore they are fool. You cannot answer.

Pusta Krsna: Because it's not a question of chemical. Actually they don't know what life is.

Prabhupada: Therefore they are foolish. Therefore he has to take knowledge from Krishna: dehino 'smin yatha... "Within this body there is soul."

Brahmananda: You say there's a soul, but we've never seen a soul. It may be your imagination.

Prabhupada: You may not see. You have not seen your forefather. That does not mean... This is all bad argument. Why do you believe? Your eyes are so imperfect; still, you say, "I did not see. I want to see." What is the value of your eyes? You see the sun globe—a small disc. But is it so? Then how do you know that it is so big?

Pusta Krsna: By hearing.

Prabhupada: By hearing. That is important, not by seeing. Therefore shruti, Veda, is important, not your eyes.

Harikesa: When people die, though, there is usually some cause. Like they have a heart attack or they get hit by a car or some disease. So that death is caused by the disease...

Prabhupada: That is not the cause. That is the effect. You foolish, do not know. You are taking it, cause.

Harikesa: Well, when you get hit by a car, that's a cause.

Prabhupada: Just like one man becomes insolvent, loses everything. So he said that "I had no money. Therefore I become insolvent." But that is not the fact. He could not manage; therefore there was scarcity of money and he became failure. So that is effect. On account of his bad management, he came to a position that he could not pay to his creditor, and his business is failure. So that insolvency is not the cause. It is the effect.

Pusta Krsna: Bhishma was able to remain in his body even on a bed of arrows.

Prabhupada: So when you are going to die, these are the... On account of imminent death, these are the effects.

Harikesa: But that means that the body breaks down.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Harikesa: The body breaks down.

Prabhupada: At a certain period it will break.

Harikesa: So that is the cause, the body breaking down.

Prabhupada: Yes. So you say heart failure is the cause. No. The body is breaking; therefore heart failure.

Harikesa: So death means the body breaks.

Prabhupada: No, no. First of all your answer... You say the heart failure is the cause. The man is dying. I say that because the man is dying, the heart is failure. So heart failure is not the cause. It is the effect.

Harikesa: That's very difficult...

Pusta Krsna: Because his karma in that body is running out, he has to leave.

Brahmananda: But if I can get some machine that will make the heart keep on beating, then the man won't die.

Prabhupada: No. That you are failure. You have got so many machines. You go on, keeping the heart going on. That is not possible.

Harikesa: Finally they just pull out the plug. The doctor kicks the plug one day.

Prabhupada: [laughs] Yes.

Brahmananda: At the present moment, I was reading, there is one girl in America, New Jersey, teenage girl. And for some unknown reason she went to sleep one night, and in the morning she did not wake up. So they then rushed her to the hospital, and they have an artificial machine that is keeping her alive, and this has been going on for one month. All of her bodily functions are becoming more and more diminished, but still, by this machine, she is alive. Now this has gone on for one month. So now they don't know what to do with her. Should they keep her like this, just running on the machine, or should they stop the machine and then she will die? This is a big legal problem. They don't know what... If they stop the machine, they'll be accused of manslaughter.

Pusta Krsna: Some Catholic priest said that better to let her die, because this is God's way.

Prabhupada: Then he has to accept the God's way and give up the machine.

Pusta Krsna: But in a situation like that, isn't it more valuable to preserve human life because there's the chance...

Prabhupada: What is the use?

Pusta Krsna: There's a chance that somehow or another, they might be...

Prabhupada: [sarcastically] Why should you take the chance? You are perplexed with overpopulation. And why you want to stay? One side, you are perplexed with overpopulation. Let him die.

Pusta Krsna: But they can use the argument that you're saying that human life is simply for Krishna consciousness or God consciousness.

Prabhupada: No, from his argument, why should you try to keep it? Let him die.

Cyavana: They are afraid of death. No one wants to die.

Pusta Krsna: They are afraid someone will take them off the machine, too.

Cyavana: We want to live as long as we can.

Prabhupada: Then you have to accept that your killing child, abortion, that is sinful.