BENGALURU: Srila Prabhupada discusses about the possibility of scientific understanding of the soul with Dr Gregory Benford, an associate professor of physics at the University of California.
Srila Prabhupada: What is the current scientific knowledge about the spirit soul?
Dr Benford: We have virtually no scientific knowledge about the soul.
Srila Prabhupada: Therefore you have actually made no advancement in scientific knowledge.
Dr Benford: Well, scientific knowledge is a different class of knowledge.
Srila Prabhupada: Perhaps. There are so many departments of knowledge: the medical study of the body, the psychological study of the mind, and ultimately spiritual, transcendental knowledge. The body and mind are simply the coverings of the spirit soul, just as this shirt and coat are coverings for your body. If you simply take care of the shirt and coat and neglect the person, do you think that this is advancement of knowledge?
Dr Benford: I think that there is no category of knowledge that is useless.
Srila Prabhupada: We don’t say that scientific knowledge is useless. But the central point is atma-pleina...self-knowledge, the knowledge of the soul.
Dr Benford: The only form of knowledge that is verifiable for everybody to agree with it, is the one proved logically or experimentally.
Srila Prabhupada: The science of the self can be verified logically.
Dr Benford: How so?
Srila Prabhupada: Just consider your body. You once had the body of a child, but now you have a different body. So your body has changed, but you are still there.
Dr Benford: I am not so sure if it is the same “I.”
Srila Prabhupada: Yes, you are the same “I.”, just as the parents of a child say after he has grown up, “See how our son has grown!” Your mother will deny that you are a different person, even though you have a different body.
Dr Benford: But I may not be the same being that I was.
Srila Prabhupada: Correct. “Not the same” , for example, that a young child may talk nonsense now, but when he gets an adult body, he does not speak foolishly. Along with his change in body, he has developed different consciousness. But the spirit soul, the person, is the same. “When this body is finished, the soul gives it up and accepts another body.” This is our knowledge from the Bhagavad-gita. When the spirit soul is injected into the womb of a woman, it forms a little body. Gradually, through the emulsification of secretions, the body develops to the size of a pea because of the spirit soul. The body then develops nine holes-eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, genitals, and rectum. In this way, the body is developed to completion in seven months. Then consciousness comes.
Dr Benford: At seven months?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. The child wants to come out. He feels uncomfortable; therefore he prays to God to kindly release him from the bondage. He promises that when he gets out, he will become a devotee of God. So after nine months he comes out. But unless his parents are devotees, due to circumstances, he forgets God. Only if the father and mother are devotees, will he continue his God consciousness. This God consciousness is real scientific knowledge
