[Posted April 2, 2008]

Dare to ask the question "Who is behind it all?"

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

No brain behind the universe? Or no brains to understand it?

excerpt from conversation with disciples, Honolulu, May 30, 1976

PRABHUPADA: Three millions miles, sun is, eh?

HARI-SAURI: That's what they say.

PRABHUPADA: So from so far distant place the heat is coming, and there is no brain behind it?

DEVOTEE (4): It takes five minutes for the sunlight to reach us, and light travels at, what, 193,000 miles a second? I don't know. Whatever it is.

PRABHUPADA: Whatever it may be, such a wonderful things is there, and there is no brain behind it? Is it very reasonable proposal—"It has come automatically, there is a chunk"? Childish.

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The mechanism called Nature

Whose Nature is it, after all? A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and disciples
PRABHUPADA: You see the minute fibers on this flower? No other manufacturing process in this world can do this—such small fibers. And how brilliant is the color! If you study only one flower, you will become God conscious.

There is a mechanism that we call "nature." And from it is coming everything we see around us. Now, how is it that this mechanism is so perfect? And who is it that has devised this mechanism?

DISCIPLE: Once in London you said, "People do not know that flowers are painted. Krishna paints them with thoughts."

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Most people think that by itself, unconnected with a painter, this flower has become beautiful. This is foolishness. "Nature has done it." Whose nature? Everything is being done by the natural mechanism of Krishna. Parasya shaktir vividhaiva shruyate: [Chaitanya-charitamrita Madhya 13.65, purport] the Lord is orchestrating everything by His innumerable, inconceivable energies. more

Obliged to the source

DEVOTEE (1): Because it's too much beyond their conception, they say that it's simply imagination.

PRABHUPADA: Ha?

DEVOTEE: They say that simply because it's too much beyond their conception...

PRABHUPADA: It's a fact. You see the heat and light. It is not the imagination. So who arranged so much heat and light? That is the question. It is not imagination. We have to manufacture a small bolt. It requires a big, big factory's brain. And this has come by chunk? Nonsense. And you have to accept it? These crazy fellows propose and we have to accept.

DEVOTEE (2): The scientists say that simply the universe always was, and that it always will be.

PRABHUPADA: Whatever is the state of nature, there is brain behind. That is the proposal. Why there is, that doesn't matter. But it will continue. World is and will continue. That's a fact. But who made it? That is the question.

DEVOTEE (3): Karandhara and I were at a scientists' meeting, and he used that argument with the scientists. He said "The universe always has been." So Karandhara used your argument that "Yes, the sun has been there, and the sun rays are there along with it. Still, the sun is the source of the sun rays." The scientists could not answer. And everybody in the crowd...

PRABHUPADA: What they will answer? Simply speculators, misleading the laymen.

DEVOTEE (1): Well, the next proposition is that "If God is there, then let Him stay there, and we are here, let us stay here. Why do we have to be concerned with Him?"

PRABHUPADA: But you will die, you rascal, you'll die. If there is no sun, you'll die. Therefore you must be obliged, feeling every moment that God is giving sun, you're living. God is so kind that you're given sun so that you can live. So you must be obliged to God. Bhutani, bhutani jayanti. So samsanti, samklesha [indistinct] santi.[?] You are living on mercy of God. You're so ungrateful. You're so rascal, you do not give Him thanks. Even the sun.

Sri Guru and Gauranga