The following is an excerpt form a morning walk in Paris wherein Srila Prabhupada challenges his disciples in a devils advocate: Man has created nothing (except war); Can we say otherwise? We are nothing laborers who have manipulated God-given materials for our sense gratification.
Prabhupada: Who has created death? Eh? Who has created death? Man creates everything, but who has created your death, Mr. Man? What is the answer?
Pusta Krsna: He has not created anything then.
Prabhupada: No, no, no. I accept that man has created anything..., everything. But who has created your death?
Pusta Krsna: God.
Prabhupada: Huh? Is there any answer?
Paramahamsa: Well, man has not created death.
Prabhupada: That means somebody has created. So how you can say that man has created everything? The fallacy, just see. How rascal they are. That I want you to see.
Paramahamsa: You have quoted a great English poet who said...
Prabhupada: Eh?
Paramahamsa: You have quoted a great English poet who says that "Man has created the city..."
Prabhupada: Ah, yes.
Paramahamsa: "...and God has created the country."
Prabhupada: This is the statement of Mr. Cowper. Man has created nothing. Suppose this building, man has created. But wherefrom the ingredient comes? Has man created? This stone, man has created? Eh? What do you think? Is this stone creation of man?
Paramahamsa: No.
Prabhupada: Then what... You have done the work of a laborer, that's all. You have taken ingredients from God and worked hard and transformed into a step. That's all. Your creation means just like carpenter creates a furniture. That's all. That is his creation. Then that is... Economic law says that man cannot create anything. He can simply transform. These trees, has man created these trees? Why do they claim man has created everything?
Pusta Krsna: But they will say that they made the garden.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Pusta Krsna: They will say that they made a very nice garden.
Prabhupada: That's all. That is the business of gardener, servant, not creator. That is the business of the servant. Just like I keep a gardener servant, and "Do like this. Do like that." That is not he is creator. It is my money which has created. Therefore it is Krsna's, everything. That is Krsna consciousness, that you have not created anything; you are servant. You are working, and Krsna is giving you your subsistence. That's all. So why don't you accept that you are servant of God instead of claiming that you have created? What you have created? This is our challenge. Am I right or wrong?
Paramahamsa: Right.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Paramahamsa: Right.
Prabhupada: Yes. What you have created?
Paramahamsa: Life becomes so artificial. In the big city, people don't see that they depend on God.
Prabhupada: No, no. City or country, that... I don't say that Mr. Cowper is perfect in his statement. City is also created by God. City is also created by God. God has given you the ingredients, He has given you the intelligence, and you create. Eh? Wherefrom you get the intelligence? Eh? Who will answer this? Wherefrom the man gets his intelligence?
Pusta Krsna: From Krsna.
Prabhupada: Yes. What is the verse?
Pusta Krsna: Mattah smrtir jnanam...
Prabhupada: Ah. Mattah smrtir jnanam apohanam ca. Sarvasya caham hrdi sannivistah [Bg 15.15].
[I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.]
So He is sitting in everyone's heart, and He's giving intelligence. And because the intelligence comes from God, therefore one is more intelligent, one is less intelligent. Because intelligence is not his. It is by the mercy of God one gets more intelligence, one gets less intelligence. So intelligence is supplied by God.
Yogesvara: Yet... But they claim to have found a way of making people biologically more intelligent now.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Yogesvara: The scientists claim that they have found a way of making babies more intelligent.
Prabhupada: That, they are dipping in so many things. Therefore we kick on their face, that say, promise, so many things, but cannot do anything. That is the defect of the so-called scientists. They are promising, "By scientific method, we shall make man deathless." Do they not say?
Devotees: Yes.
Prabhupada: But have they made him deathless? Simply a dream, that's all. Utopian dream.
Bhagavan: Even if they succeed in one area of doing something they promise...
Prabhupada: Yes.
Bhagavan: ...they create something that they didn't want to. They create some other problem that they didn't expect.
Prabhupada: What they have created? They are creating... But still dependent. Suppose they have created this horseless carriage. Now they are crying, "Where is the petrol? Where is the petrol?" So if God does not supply petrol, then all these horseless carriage will be pieces of tin. That's all.
Pusta Krsna: Maya-sukhaya.
Prabhupada: Can you create petrol?
Bhagavan: No.
Prabhupada: Then? What is the value of your this horseless carriage? You are dependent on God. What you have created? And what you can do? You can create war only to fight, man to man, and when you are in danger, then you go to church: "God save us. God save us." That you can create. And as far as peacefully living, accepting God as the Supreme, you can create war. That's all. That means... Like dogs, they create war.
Morning Walk – June 12, 1974, Paris
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