The Soul's Fall... The Final Word

[Guest guest]

On 17 Jul 1999, Mahananda Dasa wrote:

> But this is not an absolute statement.

 

Please explain why.

 

> One has to understand what the whole

> truth is by hearing submissively and repeated from the realized soul. It is

a

> process that continues for the lifetime of the disciple. If he is sincere,

> then gradually he can understand what is meant by this. Not that we take the

> statement by itself and say "oh, see, this is an absolute"

 

There is no evidence suggesting that Srila Prabhupada's statement is

not absolute. Srila Prabhupada did occasionally make non-absolute

statements in his book. For example, in BG 4.1, Srila Prabhupada

notes, "a rough estimate is that the Gita was spoken at least

120,400,000 years ago; and in human society it has been extant for two

million years...That is the rough estimate of the history of the Gita,

according to the Gita itself." Perhaps some other source says that the

Gita has been in human society for 3 million or 4 million years, but

it doesn't matter, since the above statements are just a rough

indicator.

 

However, Srila Prabhupada does not hedge his statements like that when

speaking about the material activity of the living entity. He says

"the material activity of the living entity is beginningless", not

"roughly beginningless" or "beginningless or something like that" or

anything of the sort. If you want to claim that Srila Prabhupada's

statement about the beginningless material activity is not absolute,

you have to provide shastric evidence to prove it.

 

> Srila Prabhupada explains elsewhere the real explanation of this word

> 'beginningless'. The living entity's stay here is 'beginningless' because

time

> is defined as 'the duration of the creation of this particular universe.'

 

Please provide some evidence for the claim that "The living entity's

stay here is 'beginningless' because time is defined..."

 

Yours,

 

Vijay S. Pai