13. Freud. 14. Sartre

13. Freud

The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) spent most of his life in Vienna investigating the intricacies of the human mind and formulating ideas that have largely guided the treatment of mental illness in the West up to the present day. Here Ś rī la Prabhupā da points out that because Freud ignores the real craziness of materialistic life - the misidentification of the self with the body - all his analyses and treatments are ultimately futile.

Disciple: Sigmund Freud's idea was that many psychological problems originate with traumatic experiences in childhood or infancy. His method of cure was to have the patient try to recall these painful events and analyze them.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But he did not know that one must again become an infant. After this life, one will be put into another womb, and the same traumatic experiences will happen again. Therefore it is the duty of the spiritual master and the parents to save the child from taking another birth. The opportunity of this human form of life is that we can understand the horrible experiences of birth, death, old age, and disease and act so that we shall not be forced to go through the same things again. Otherwise, after death we shall have to take birth in a womb and suffer repeated miseries.

Disciple: Freud treated many people suffering from neuroses. For instance, suppose a man is sexually impotent. By recalling his childhood, he may remember some harmful experience with his father or mother that caused him to be repelled by women. In this way he can resolve the conflict and lead a normal sex life.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: However, even in the so-called normal condition, the pleasure derived from sexual intercourse is simply frustrating and insignificant. For ordinary men attached to the materialistic way of life, their only pleasure is sexual intercourse. But the ś ā stras say, yan maithunā di-gṛ hamedhi-sukhaṁ hi tuccham: the pleasure derived from sexual intercourse is tenth class at best. Because they have no idea of the pleasure of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness, the materialists regard sex as the highest pleasure. And how is it actually experienced? We have an itch, and when we scratch it, we feel some pleasure. But the aftereffects of sexual pleasure are abominable. The mother has to undergo labor pains, and the father has to take responsibility for raising the children nicely and giving them an education. Of course, if one is irresponsible like cats and dogs, that is another thing. But for those who are actually gentlemen, is it not painful to bear and raise children? Certainly. Therefore everyone is avoiding children by contraceptive methods. But much better is to follow the injunction of the ś ā stras: Simply try to tolerate the itching sensation and avoid so much pain. This is real psychology. That itching sensation can be tolerated if one practices Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness. Then one will not be very attracted by sex life.

Disciple: Freud's philosophy is that people have neuroses or disorders of their total personality - various conflicts and anxieties - and that all these originate with the sexual impulse.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That we admit. An embodied living being must have hunger, and he must have the sex impulse. We find that even in the animals these impulses are there.

Disciple: Freud believed that the ego tries to restrain these primitive drives, and that all anxieties arise from this conflict.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Our explanation is as follows: Materialistic life is no doubt very painful. As soon as one acquires a material body, he must always suffer three kinds of miseries: miseries caused by other living beings, miseries caused by the elements, and miseries caused by his own body and mind. So the whole problem is how to stop these miseries and attain permanent happiness. Unless one stops his materialistic way of life, with its threefold miseries and repeated birth and death, there is no question of happiness. The whole Vedic civilization is based on how one can cure this materialistic disease. If we can cure this disease, its symptoms will automatically vanish. Freud is simply dealing with the symptoms of the basic disease. When you have a disease, sometimes you have headaches, sometimes your leg aches, sometimes you have a pain in your stomach, and so on. But if your disease is cured, then all your symptoms disappear. That is our program.

Disciple: In his theory of psychoanalysis, Freud states that by remembering and reevaluating emotional shocks from our childhood, we can release the tension we are feeling now.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But what is the guarantee that one will not get shocked again? He may cure the results of one shock, but there is no guarantee that the patient will not receive another shock. Therefore Freud's treatment is useless. Our program is total cure - no more shocks of any kind. If one is situated in real Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness, he can face the most severe type of adversity and remain completely undisturbed. In our Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness movement, we are giving people this ability. Freud tries to cure the reactions of one kind of shock, but other shocks will come, one after another. This is how material nature works. If you solve one problem, another problem arises immediately. And if you solve that one, another one comes. As long as you are under the control of material nature, these repeated shocks will come. But if you become Kṛ ṣ ṇ a conscious, there are no more shocks.

Disciple: Freud's idea is that the basic instinct in the human personality is the sexual drive, or libido, and that if the expressions of a child's sexuality are inhibited, then his personality becomes disordered.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Everyone has the sex appetite: this tendency is innate. But our brahmacarya system restricts a child's sex life from the earliest stages of his development and diverts his attention to Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness. As a result there is very little chance that he will suffer such personality disorders. In the Vedic age the leaders of society knew that if a person engaged in unrestricted sex indulgence, then the duration of his materialistic life would increase. He would have to accept a material body birth after birth. Therefore the ś ā stras enjoin that one may have sexual intercourse only if married and only for procreation. Otherwise it is illicit. In our Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness society, we prohibit illicit sex, but not legal sex. In the Bhagavad-gī tā (7. 11) Kṛ ṣ ṇ a says, dharmā viruddho bhū teṣ u kā mo ‘smi bharatarṣ abha: " I am sexual intercourse that is not against religious principles. " This means that sex must be regulated. Everyone has a tendency to have sex unrestrictedly - and in Western countries they are actually doing this - but according to the Vedic system, there must be restrictions. And not only must sex be restricted, but meat-eating, gambling, and drinking as well. So in our Society we have eliminated all these things, and our Western students are becoming pure devotees of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a. The people at large, however, must at least restrict these sinful activities, as explained in the Vedic ś ā stras.

The Vedic system of varṇ ā ś rama-dharma is so scientific that everything is automatically adjusted. Life becomes very peaceful, and everyone can make progress in Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness. If the Vedic system is followed by human society, there will be no more of these mental disturbances.

Disciple: Freud says that sexual energy is not only expressed in sexual intercourse, but is associated with a wide variety of pleasurable bodily sensations such as pleasures of the mouth, like eating and sucking.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That is confirmed in the ś ā stras: yan maithunā di-gṛ hamedhi-sukham. The only pleasure in this material world is sex. The word ā di indicates that the basic principle is maithuna, sexual intercourse. The whole system of materialistic life revolves around this sexual pleasure. But this pleasure is like one drop of water in the desert. The desert requires an ocean of water. If you find one drop of water in a desert, you can certainly say, " Here is some water. " But what is its value? Similarly, there is certainly some pleasure in sex life, but what is the value of that pleasure? Compared to the unlimited pleasure of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness, it is like one drop of water in the desert. Everyone is seeking unlimited pleasure, but no one is becoming satisfied. They are having sex in so many different ways, and the young girls walking on the street are almost naked. The whole society has become degraded. Every woman and girl is trying to attract a man, and the men take advantage of the situation. There is a saying in Bengal: " When milk is available in the marketplace, what is the use of keeping a cow? " So men are declining to keep a wife because sex is so cheap. They are deserting their families.

Disciple: Freud says that as the child grows up, he begins to learn that by giving up immediate sensual satisfaction, he can gain a greater benefit later on.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But even this so-called greater benefit is illusory, because it is still based on the principle of material pleasure. The only way to entirely give up these lower pleasures is to take to Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness. As Kṛ ṣ ṇ a states in the Bhagavad-gī tā (2. 59), paraṁ dṛ ṣ ṭ vā nivartate: " By experiencing a higher taste, he is fixed in consciousness. " And as Yā munā cā rya said, " Since I have been engaged in the transcendental loving service of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a, realizing ever-new pleasure in Him, whenever I think of sex pleasure I spit at the thought, and my lips curl in distaste. " That is Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness. Our prescription is that in the beginning of life the child should be taught self-restraint (brahmacarya) and when he is past twenty he can marry. In the beginning he should learn how to restrain his senses. If a child is taught to become saintly, his semen rises to his brain, and he is able to understand spiritual values. Wasting semen decreases intelligence. So from the beginning, if he is a brahmacā rī and does not misuse his semen, then he will become intelligent and strong and fully grown.

For want of this education, everyone's brain and bodily growth are being stunted. After the boy has been trained as a brahmacā rī, if he still wants to enjoy sex he may get married. And because he has been trained from childhood to renounce materialistic enjoyment, when he is fifty years old he can retire from household life. At that time naturally his firstborn son will be twenty-five years old, and he can take responsibility for maintaining the household. Household life is simply a license for sex life - that's all. Sex is not required, but one who cannot restrain himself is given a license to get married and have sex. This is the real program that will save society. By speculating on some shock that may or may not have occurred in childhood, one will never discover the root disease. The sex impulse, as well as the impulse to become intoxicated and to eat meat, is present from the very beginning of life. Therefore one must restrain himself. Otherwise he will be implicated.

Disciple: So the Western system of bringing up children seems artificial because the parents either repress the child too severely or don’t restrict him at all.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That is not good. The Vedic system is to give the child direction for becoming Kṛ ṣ ṇ a conscious. There must be some repression, but our use of repression is different. We say the child must rise early in the morning, worship the Deity in the temple, and chant Hare Kṛ ṣ ṇ a. In the beginning, force may be necessary. Otherwise the child will not become habituated. But the idea is to divert his attention to Kṛ ṣ ṇ a conscious activities. Then, when he realizes he is not his body, all difficulties will disappear. As one increases his Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness, he becomes indifferent to all these material things. So Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness is the prime remedy - the panacea for all diseases.

Disciple: Freud divided the personality into three departments: the ego, the superego, and the id. The id is the irrational instinct for enjoyment. The ego is one's image of his own body, and is the instinct for self-preservation. The superego represents the moral restrictions of parents and other authorities.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: It is certainly true that everyone has some false egoism, or ahaṅ kā ra. For example, Freud thought he was Czech. That is false ego, or identifying oneself with one's place of birth. We are giving everyone the information that this identification with a material body is ignorance. It is due to ignorance only that I think I am Indian, American, Hindu, or Muslim. This is egoism of the inferior quality. The superior egoism is, " I am Brahman. I am an eternal servant of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a. " If a child is taught this superior egoism from the beginning, then automatically his false egoism is stopped.

Disciple: Freud says that the ego tries to preserve the individual by organizing and controlling the irrational demands of the id. In other words, if the id sees something, like food, it automatically demands to eat it, and the ego controls that desire in order to preserve the individual. The superego reinforces this control. So these three systems are always conflicting in the personality.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But the basic principle is false, since Freud has no conception of the soul existing beyond the body. He is considering the body only. Therefore he is a great fool. According to bhā gavata philosophy, anyone in the bodily concept of life - anyone who identifies this body, composed of mucus, bile, and air, as his self - is no better than an ass.

Disciple: Then these interactions of the id, the ego, and the superego are all bodily interactions?

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Yes, they are all subtle bodily interactions. The mind is the first element of the subtle body. The gross senses are controlled by the mind, which in turn is controlled by the intelligence. And the intelligence is controlled by the ego. So if the ego is false, then everything is false. If I falsely identify with this body because of false ego, then anything based on this false idea is also false. This is called mā yā, or illusion. The whole of Vedic education aims at getting off this false platform and coming to the real platform of spiritual knowledge, called brahma-jñ ā na. When one comes to the knowledge that he is spirit soul, he immediately becomes happy. All his troubles are due to the false ego, and as soon as the individual realizes his true ego, the blazing fire of material existence is immediately extinguished. These philosophers are simply describing the blazing fire, but we are trying to get him out of the burning prison house of the material world altogether. They may attempt to make him happy within the fire, but how can they be successful? He must be saved from the fire. Then he will be happy. That is the message of Caitanya Mahā prabhu, and that is Lord Kṛ ṣ ṇ a's message in the Bhagavad-gī tā. Freud identifies the body with the soul. He does not know the basic principle of spiritual understanding, which is that we are not this body. We are different from this body and are transmigrating from one body to another. Without this knowledge, all his theories are based on a misunderstanding.

Not only Freud, but everyone in this material world is under illusion. In Bengal, a psychiatrist in the civil service was once called to give evidence in a case where the murderer was pleading insanity. The civil servant examined him to discover whether he was actually insane or not. In the courtroom he said, " I have tested many persons, and I have concluded that everyone is insane to some degree. In the present case, if the defendant is pleading insanity, then you may acquit him if you like, but as far as I know, everyone is more or less insane. " And that is our conclusion as well. Anyone who identifies with his material body must be crazy, because his life is based on a misconception.

Disciple: Freud also investigated the problem of anxiety, which he said was produced when the impulses of the id threaten to overpower the rational ego and the moral superego.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Anxiety will continue as long as one is in the material condition. No one can be free from anxiety in conditioned life.

Disciple: Is it because our desires are always frustrated?

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Yes. Your desires must be frustrated because you desire something that is not permanent. Suppose I wish to live forever, but since I have accepted a material body, there is no question of living forever. Therefore I am always anxious that death will come. I am afraid of death, when the body will be destroyed. This is the cause of all anxiety: acceptance of something impermanent as permanent.

Disciple: Freud says that anxiety develops when the superego represses the primitive desires of the id to protect the ego. Is such repression of basic instincts very healthy?

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Yes. For us repression means restraining oneself from doing something which, in the long run, is against one's welfare. For example, suppose you are suffering from diabetes and the doctor says, “Don’t eat any sweet food. ” If you desire to eat sweets, you must repress that desire. Similarly, in our system of brahmacarya there is also repression. A brahmacā rī should not sit down with a young woman, or even look at one lustfully. He may desire to do so, but he must repress the desire. This is called tapasya, or voluntary repression.

Disciple: But aren’t these desires given outlet in other ways? For instance, instead of looking at a beautiful woman, we look at the beautiful form of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Yes, that is our process: paraṁ dṛ ṣ ṭ vā nivartate. If you have a better engagement, you can give up an inferior engagement. When you are captivated by seeing the beautiful form of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a, naturally you have no more desire to look at the so-called beautiful form of a young woman.

Disciple: What's the effect of childhood experiences on one's later development?

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Children imitate whoever they associate with. You all know the movie Tarzan. He was brought up by monkeys, and he took on the habits of monkeys. If you keep children in good association, their psychological development will be very good - they will become like demigods. But if you keep them in bad association, they will turn out to be demons. Children are a blank slate. You can mold them as you like, and they are eager to learn.

Disciple: So a child's personality doesn’t develop according to a fixed pattern?

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: No. You can mold them in any way, like soft dough. However you put them into the mold, they will come out - like badas, capā tī s, or kachoris. Therefore if you give children good association, they will develop nicely, and if you put them in bad association, they will develop poorly. They have no independent psychology.

Disciple: Actually, Freud had a rather pessimistic view of human nature: he believed that we are all beset with irrational and chaotic impulses that cannot be eliminated.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This is not only pessimism, but evidence of his poor fund of knowledge. He did not have perfect knowledge, nor was he trained by a perfect man. Therefore his theories are all nonsense.

Disciple: He concluded that it was impossible to be happy in this material world, but that one can alleviate some of the conflicts through psychoanalysis. He thought one can try to make the path as smooth as possible, but it will always be troublesome.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: It is true that one cannot be happy in this material world. But if one becomes spiritually elevated - if his consciousness is changed to Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness - then he will be happy.

 

 

14. Sartre

The Frenchman John-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was the most prominent exponent of existentialism. His philosophy is explicitly atheistic and pessimistic; he declared that human beings require a rational basis for their lives but are unable to achieve one and thus human life is a " futile passion. " Here Ś rī la Prabhupā da challenges his claim that God does not exist and that the question of His existence is not important to man.

Disciple: Descartes and Leibnitz believed that before the creation the concept of man existed in essence in the mind of God, just as a machine exists in the mind of its manufacturer before it is constructed. Sartre takes exception to this. In The Humanism of Existentialism, he writes: " Atheistic existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and that this being is man, or, as Heidegger says, human reality. "

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But where does human reality come from? There are also other realities. Why is he stressing human reality?

Disciple: As for man's origin, Sartre would say that man is " thrown into the world. "

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Thrown by whom? The word " throw" implies a thrower.

Disciple: Sartre isn’t really interested in a thrower. “Existentialism isn’t so atheistic that it wears itself out showing God doesn’t exist, ” he writes. “Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing. There you’ve got our point of view. Not that we believe that God exists, but that we think that the problem of His existence is not the issue. ”

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But if you and others exist, why doesn’t God exist? Why deny God and His existence? Let them all exist.

Disciple: Since Sartre sees man as having been thrown into the world and abandoned, for him, God is dead.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Abandoned by God does not mean that God is dead. You have to admit that you are condemned to the material world, but just because you are condemned, you should not think that God is also condemned. God is always in Vaikuṇ ṭ ha. He is not dead.

Disciple: Sartre believes that because we have been abandoned, we must rely on ourselves alone.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But God has not abandoned us. God is not partial. He does not accept one person and abandon another. If you feel abandoned, it is because you have done something that has brought this condition about. If you rectify your position, you will be accepted again.

Disciple: But Sartre would deny God's existence, particularly that of a personal God.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But his denial should be based on some logic or reason. Why mention the word " God" if God does not exist? God is there, but Sartre denies God's existence. This is inconsistent. If God does not exist, why even mention the word? His proposal is that he does not want God to exist.

Disciple: He wants to set the whole question aside in order to place emphasis on man, on human reality.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If you believe in your existence, why not believe in the existence of another? There are 8, 400, 000 different species existing in multifarious forms. Why shouldn’t God exist? According to the Vedic understanding, God is also a living being, but He is different in that He is the chief, supreme living being. According to the Bhagavad-gī tā, mattaḥ parataraṁ nā nyat. (Bhagavad-gī tā 7. 7) There is no living being superior to God. We all experience the fact that there are beings more intelligent than we. God is the ultimate intelligence. Why can’t a person who exceeds all others in intelligence exist? There is no question of " if God exists. " God must exist. In the ś ā stras He is described as the superlative personality, as the superpowerful, superintelligent being. We can see in this world that everyone is not on an equal level, that there are varying degrees of perfection. This indicates that there is a superlative, and if we go on searching - either for wealth, intelligence, power, beauty, or whatever - we will find that God possesses all qualities to the superlative degree, and that every other living entity possesses His qualities partially. How, then, can we rationally deny His existence?

Disciple: According to Sartre, the first principle of existentialism is that " man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. " This can be true only if there is no God to conceive of human nature.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If man is what he makes of himself, why doesn’t man exist as a superman? If his capacities are completely independent of anyone else, why is he in his present situation?

Disciple: That is also Sartre's question. He therefore emphasizes man's responsibility. " But if existence really does precede essence, " he writes, “man is responsible for what he is. Thus existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him. ”

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If man is responsible, who gave him this responsibility? What does he mean by responsibility? You feel responsible to someone when someone gives you duties to discharge. If there is no duty, or overseer, where is your responsibility?

Disciple: Sartre sees man as being overwhelmed by his very responsibility. He is in anguish and anxiety because he has the freedom to change himself and the world.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This means that man is in an awkward position. He wants peace, but he does not know how to attain it. But this does not mean that peace is not possible. Peace is not possible for a man in ignorance.

Disciple: Anxiety arises from responsibility. Man thinks that he has to choose properly in order to enjoy something. If he chooses wrongly, he must suffer.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Yes, responsibility is there, but why not take it to transfer yourself to a safe place where there is no anxiety? It may be that you do not know of a safe place, but if there is such a place, why not ask someone who knows? Why constantly remain disappointed and anxious? The safe place where there is no anxiety is called Vaikuṇ ṭ ha. The word Vaikuṇ ṭ ha means " no anxiety. "

Disciple: Sartre believes that the task of existentialism is " to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him.... And when we say that a man is responsible for himself, we do not only mean that he is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. "

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Suppose I want to benefit you, and you are free. Your freedom means that you can accept or reject my good intentions. How can I be responsible for you if you don’t obey? How can you be responsible for me? Sartre claims that you are responsible for others, but if others do not follow your instructions, how can you be considered responsible? This is all contradictory. Unless there is some standard, there must be contradiction. According to the Vedic version, God is the Supreme Person, and we should all be His obedient servants. God gives us some duty, and we are responsible to carry that duty out. Our real responsibility is to God. If we reject God, society becomes chaotic. Religion means avoiding chaos and meeting our responsibility to God by fulfilling our duty. Responsibility rests on us, and it is given by God. If we make spiritual progress by fulfilling our duty, we can finally live with God personally.

Disciple: Sartre claims that the existentialist does not actually want to deny God's existence. Rather, “the existentialist thinks it very distressing that God does not exist because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him.... If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible. That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist.... ”

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This means that he does not know the meaning of God. As we have many times said, God is the Supreme Being, the Supreme Father who impregnates material nature with countless living entities. As soon as we accept material nature as the mother, we must accept some father. Therefore there is a conception of God the Father in all human societies. It is the father's duty to maintain his children, and therefore God is maintaining all the living entities within the universe. There is no question of rationally denying this.

Disciple: Well, Sartre at least makes the attempt. He writes: “Since we have discarded God the Father, there has to be someone to invent values. You’ve got to take things as they are. Moreover, to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: Life has no meaning a priori. Before you become alive, life is nothing; it's up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose. ”

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Therefore everyone invents his own meaning? If this is the case, how will people ever live peacefully in society? Since everyone has his own idea of life, there can be no harmony. What kind of government would exist?

Disciple: Recently, Sartre has turned to Marxism.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But in Communist countries, there are very strong governments. It is not possible for a people to avoid government or leadership.

Disciple: Regardless of the form of government, Sartre believes that man is basically free. In fact, Sartre maintains that man is condemned to be free, that this is a fate from which man cannot escape.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If man is condemned, who has condemned him?

Disciple: Man is condemned by accident, thrown into the world.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Is it simply by accident that one person is condemned and another blessed? Is it an accident that one man is in jail and another is not? What kind of philosophy is this? Such so-called philosophy simply misleads people. Nothing is accidental. We agree that the living entity is condemned to this material world, but when we speak of condemnation, we also speak of blessedness. So what is that blessedness?

Disciple: Sartre argues that man is condemned in the sense that he cannot escape this freedom. Since man is free, he is responsible for is activities.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If you are responsible, then your freedom is not accidental. How is it you are accidentally responsible? If there is responsibility, there must be someone you are responsible to. There must be someone who is condemning you or blessing you. These things cannot happen accidentally. His philosophy is contradictory.

Disciple: Man's nature is an indefinite state of freedom. Man has no definite nature. He is continually creating it.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This means that he is eternal. But the living entity does not change accidentally. His changes take place under certain regulations, and he attains specific bodies according to his karma, not by accident.

Disciple: But we have no fixed nature in the sense that today I may be happy and tomorrow unhappy.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That is true to some extent. When you are placed into the sea, you have no control. You move according to the waves. This means that there is a power that is controlling you. However, if you put yourself into better circumstances, you will be able to control. Because you have placed yourself under the control of material nature, you act according to the modes of material nature.

prakṛ teḥ kriyamā ṇ ā ni guṇ aiḥ karmā ṇ i sarvaś aḥ

ahaṅ kā ra-vimū ḍ hā tmā kartā ham iti manyate

" The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature. " (Bhagavad-gī tā 3. 27) Because you are conditioned, your freedom is checked. When you are thrown into the ocean of material existence, you essentially lose your freedom. Therefore it is your duty to get yourself liberated.

Disciple: Because we are one thing today and something else tomorrow, Sartre says that our essential nature is " nothingness. "

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: You are nothing in the sense that you are under the full control of a superior power, being carried away by the waves of mā yā. In the ocean of mā yā, you may say, " I am nothing, " but actually you are something. Your somethingness will be very much exhibited to you when you are put on land. Out of despair, you conclude that your nature is that of nothingness. Sartre's philosophy is a philosophy of despair, and we say that it is unintelligent because despair is not the result of intelligence.

Disciple: Although the basis of our nature is nothingness, Sartre maintains that man chooses or creates his own nature.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That is a fact. Therefore you should create your nature as something, not nothing. In order to do that, however, you have to take lessons from a higher personality. Before philosophizing, Sartre should have taken lessons form a knowledgeable person. That is the Vedic injunction:

tad-vijñ ā nā rthaṁ sa gurum evā bhigacchet

samit-pā ṇ iḥ ś rotriyaṁ brahma-niṣ ṭ ham

" In order to learn the transcendental science, one must humbly approach a spiritual master who is learned in the Vedas and firmly devoted to the Absolute Truth. " (Muṇ ḍ aka-upaniṣ ad 1. 2. 12)

Disciple: Sartre sees our nature as always in the making, as continually becoming.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: It is not in the making. It is changing, but man can make his nature in the sense that he can decide not to change. He can understand that changes are taking place despite the fact that he does not want them. Man can mold his nature by deciding to serve Kṛ ṣ ṇ a, not by dismissing the whole matter and, out of confusion and disappointment, claiming to be nothing. The attempt to make life zero is due to a poor fund of knowledge.

Disciple: Sartre sees that we are constantly choosing or making our life, but that everything ends at death. That is, man is always in the process of becoming until death. At death, everything is finished.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Death means changing bodies. The active principle on which the body stands does not die. Death is like changing apartments. A sane man can understand this.

Disciple: Although man has no determined nature other than nothingness, Sartre sees man as a being striving to be God. He writes: " To be man means to reach toward being God. Or if you prefer, man fundamentally is the desire to be God. "

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: On the one hand, he denies the existence of God, and on the other, he tries to be God. If there is no God, there is no question of desiring to be God. How can one desire to be something that does not exist?

Disciple: He is simply stating that man wants to be God. As far as God's existence is concerned, he prefers to set this question aside.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But that is the main question of philosophy! God has created everything: your mind, intelligence, body, existence, and the circumstances surrounding you. How can you deny His existence? Or set it aside as not relevant? In the Vedas, it is stated that in the beginning God existed, and the Bible also states that in the beginning there was God. In this material universe, existence and annihilation are both temporary. According to the laws of material nature, the body is created on a certain day, it exists for some time, and then is eventually finished. The entire cosmic manifestation has a beginning, middle, and end, But before this creation, who was there? If God were not there, how could the creation logically be possible?

Disciple: As far as we’ve seen, most philosophers are concerned with resolving this question.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Not all philosophers are denying God's existence, but most are denying His personal existence. We can understand, however, that God is the origin of everything, and that this cosmic manifestation emanates from Him. God is there, nature is there, and we are also there, like one big family.

Disciple: Sartre would not admit the existence of an originator, in whom things exist in their essence prior to creation. He would say that man simply exists, that he just appears.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: A person appears due to his father and mother. How can this be denied? Does he mean to say, " I suddenly just dropped from the sky"? Only a fool would say that he appeared without parents. From our experience we can understand that all species of life are manifest from some mother. Taken as a whole, we say that the mother is material nature. As soon as a mother is accepted, the father must also be accepted. It is most important to know where you came from. How can you put this question aside?

Disciple: Sartre believes that man's fundamental desire is the " desire to be. " That is, man seeks existence rather than mere nothingness.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That is so. Because man is eternal, he has the desire to exist eternally. Unfortunately, he puts himself under certain conditions that are not eternal. That is, he tries to maintain a position that will not endure eternally. Through Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness, we attain and retain our eternal position.

Disciple: Sartre feels that man wants solidity. He is not satisfied with being a mere being-for-itself. He also desires to be being-in-itself.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Nothing in the material world exists eternally. A tree may exist for ten thousand years, but eventually it will perish. What Sartre is seeking is actual spiritual life. In the Bhagavad-gī tā, Kṛ ṣ ṇ a speaks of another nature, a nature that is permanent, sanā tana.

paras tasmā t tu bhā vo nyo ’yakto ’vyaktā t sanā tanaḥ

yaḥ sa sarveṣ u bhū teṣ u naś yatsu na vinaś yati

" Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is. " (Bhagavad-gī tā 8. 20) After the annihilation of this material universe, that eternal nature will abide.

Disciple: This desire to be being-in-itself is the desire to be God, which Sartre maintains is man's fundamental desire.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This is more or less Mā yā vā dī philosophy. The Mā yā vā dī s believe that when they attain complete knowledge, they become God. Because man is part and parcel of God, he wants to be united with God. The conditioned soul is like a man who has been away from home for a long time. Naturally he wants to go home again.

Disciple: Sartre believes that this desire to be God is bound to fail.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Certainly, it must fail. If man is God, how has he become something else? His very desire to be God means that he is not God at the present moment. A man cannot become God, but he can become godly. Existing in darkness, we desire light. We may come into the sunshine, but this does not mean that we become the sun. When we come to the platform of perfect knowledge, we become godly, but we do not become God. If we were God, there would be no question of our becoming something other than God. There would be no question of being ignorant. Another name for Kṛ ṣ ṇ a is Acyuta, which means, " He who never falls down. " This means that He never becomes not-God. He is God always. You cannot become God through some mystic practice. This desire to become God is useless because it is doomed to frustration.

Disciple: Therefore Sartre calls man a " useless passion. "

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: A man is not useless if he attempts to be Kṛ ṣ ṇ a conscious. The attempt to be Kṛ ṣ ṇ a conscious and the attempt to be Kṛ ṣ ṇ a are totally different. One is godly, the other demoniac.

Disciple: Sartre then reasons that because it is impossible to become God, everything else is useless.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: That is foolishness. You are not God, but God's servant. You have chosen to attempt to become God, but you have found this to be impossible. Therefore you should give up this notion and decide to become a good servant of God, instead of a servant of mā yā, illusion. That is the proper decision.

Disciple: Sartre concludes that since things have no reason to exist, life has no essential purpose.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Nothing can exist without a purpose, which is given by the supreme being, the cause of all causes. The defect in such philosophers is that they do not have sufficient brain substance to go further than what they superficially see. They are not capable of understanding the cause of causes. Many modern scientists also maintain that nature, prakṛ ti, is the sole cause of existence, but we do not ascribe to such a theory. We understand that God is behind nature and that nature is not acting independently. Nature is phenomena, but behind nature is the numen, God, Kṛ ṣ ṇ a.

In the Bhagavad-gī tā, philosophy like Sartre's is called demoniac. Demons do not believe in a superior cause. They consider that everything is accidental. They say that a man and a woman unite accidentally, and that their child is the result of sex and nothing more. Therefore they claim that there is no purpose to existence.

asatyam apratiṣ ṭ haṁ te jagad ā hur anī ś varam

aparaspara-sambhū taṁ kim anyat kā ma-haitukam

" The demons say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. They say it is produced of sex desire and has no cause other than lust. " (Bhagavad-gī tā 16. 8) This type of philosophy is called demoniac because it is of the nature of darkness, ignorance.

Disciple: For Sartre, being-for-itself refers to human consciousness, which is subjective, individual, incomplete, and indeterminate. It is nothingness in the sense that it has no density or mass.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Because he is so materialistic, his senses cannot perceive anything that is not concrete. According to Vedic philosophy, the senses and their objects are created simultaneously. Unless there is an aroma, the sense of smell has no value. Unless there is beauty, the eyes have no value. Unless there is music, the ears have no value. Unless there is something soft, the sense of touch has no value. There is no question of nothingness. There must be interaction.

Disciple: Since man's essential nature is an undetermined nothingness, Sartre believes that man is free to choose to be either a coward or a hero. Our situation is in our own hands.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If you are tossed into the world by some superior power, what can you do? How can you become a hero? If you try to become a hero, you will be kicked all the more because you are placed here by a superior power. If a culprit under police custody attempts to become a hero, he will be beaten and punished. Actually, you are neither a coward nor a hero. You are an instrument. You are completely under the control of a superior power.

Disciple: Well, if someone is attacking you, you have the power to choose to be a hero and defend yourself, or to run.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: It is not heroic to defend oneself. That is natural. If that is the case, even a dog can be a hero when he is attacked. Even an ant can be a hero. Heroism and cowardice are simply mental concoctions. After all, you are under the control of a power that can do what He likes with you. Therefore there is no question of your becoming a hero or a coward.

Disciple: Suppose someone is in danger, and you rescue him. Isn’t that being heroic?

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: All you rescue is the exterior dress. Saving that dress is not heroism. It is not even protection. One can be a real hero only when he is fully empowered or fully protected. Such a person can only be a devotee, because only Kṛ ṣ ṇ a can fully protect or empower.

Disciple: Being free, man is subject to what Sartre calls " bad faith, " a kind of self-deception. Through bad faith, man loses his freedom and responsibility.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: You certainly have limited freedom to choose, but if you choose improperly, you have to suffer. Responsibility and freedom go hand in hand. At the same time, there must be discrimination. Without it, our freedom is blind. We cannot understand right from wrong.

Disciple: A man in bad faith drifts along from day to day without being involved, avoiding responsible decisions.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This means that he has decided to drift. His drifting is a decision.

Disciple: Sartre believes that bad faith must be replaced by a solid choosing, and by faith in that choice.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But if he makes the wrong decision, what is the value of his action? Moths fly very valiantly and courageously into the fire. Is that a very good decision?

Disciple: Due to bad faith, people treat others as objects instead of persons. Sartre advocates rectifying this situation.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: He speaks of bad faith, but what about good faith?

Disciple: If bad faith is the avoidance of decisions, good faith would mean making decisions courageously and following them out, regardless of what these decisions are.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: But what if your decision is wrong?

Disciple: For Sartre, it is not a question of right or wrong.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Then whatever decision I make is final and absolute? This means that the moth's decision to enter the fire is a proper decision. This is the philosophy of insects. If man can do as he pleases, where is his responsibility?

Disciple: Sartre believes that the fate of the world depends on man's decisions. Obviously, if man decides properly, the world would be a better place.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Therefore we are trying to introduce this Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness in order to make the world into Vaikuṇ ṭ ha, into a place where there is no anxiety. But this is not a blind decision. It is the decision of a higher authority; therefore it is perfect.

Disciple: Many people call Sartre's philosophy pessimistic because he maintains that man is a " useless passion" vainly striving in a universe without a purpose.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Sartre may be a useless passion, but we are not. No sane man is useless. A sane man will follow a superior authority. That is Vedic civilization. If one approaches a bona fide spiritual master, he will not be bewildered. Sartre believes that the universe is without a purpose because he is blind. He has no power to see that there is a plan. Therefore, as I have already mentioned, the Bhagavad-gī tā calls his philosophy demoniac. Everything in the universe functions according to some plan. The sun and moon rise, and the seasons change according to plan.

Disciple: For Sartre, man stands alone in the world, yet he is not alone if he is a being-for-others. Man needs others for his own self-realization.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: This means that man requires a guru.

Disciple: Sartre does not speak of a guru but of interaction with others for self-understanding.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: If this is required, why not interact with the best man? If we require others to understand ourselves, why should we not seek the best man for our own understanding? We should receive help from the man who knows. If you take the advice of one who can give you the right direction, your end will be glorious. That is the Vedic injunction. Tad-vijñ ā nā rthaṁ sa gurum evā bhigacchet. (Muṇ ḍ aka Upaniṣ ad 1. 2. 12)

Disciple: Sartre feels that in the presence of others, man is ashamed.

Ś rī la Prabhupā da: Man is ashamed if he is not guided by a superior. If you are guided by a superior, you will be glorious, not ashamed. Your superior is that person who can lead you to the glory of Kṛ ṣ ṇ a consciousness.

 

 

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