Crutch of Religion

[ancient_paztriot]

Hayagriva dasa: Still, Freud considers belief in God as infantile. In The future of an Illusion, he writes: “Man cannot remain a child forever; he must venture at last into the hostile world.” Instead of continuing to dwell in such a nursery, man should try to rid himself of the psychic crutch of religion.

 

Srila Prabhupada: What is his definition of childishness? Everyone must be a child, and everyone must have a father. Just as we cannot deny our biological father, we cannot deny the ultimate Supreme Father.

 

Hayagriva dasa: It is not that he is denying biological fathers, but the idea of a Supreme Father, which he felt arouse out of man’s initial helpless state.

 

Srila Prabhupada: Helplessness is always there, because the threefold miseries will always exist in material life. There will always be miseries arising from the body and mind, miseries inflicted by other living entities, and natural catastrophes. In addition, there is always birth, old age, disease, and death. it is only a fool or a rascal who hopes against hope and makes plans to overcome all these difficulties. However we may plan, nature is so strong that it will smash our plans to pieces with the kick of death. Man hopes against hope to adjust material things so that he can be happy in this world, but this is foolishness. Man is helpless at every step.

 

Hayagriva dasa: Freud felt that belief in God the Father is “so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that to one whose attitude to humanity is friendly, it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.”

 

Srila Prabhupada: So what is his reality? Belief in god may be infantile to him, but what is he except a child? How is it that he is more than a child? Can he give an ultimate solution that will rid man of his helplessness?

 

Hayagriva dasa: Well, he personally hoped that psychoanalysis would provide the answers.

 

Srila Prabhupada: How can a common man understand psychoanalysis? The fact is that there is a suprem controller who is present everywhere. Psychoanalysis should begin with this point. Why is he defying this fact?

 

Hayagriva dasa: He sincerely believed that the maturation process necessarily entails ridding oneself of religion. He writes: “If one attempts to assign religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition as a parallel to the neuroses which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.”

 

Srila Prabhupada: He has reached this conclusion because he has seen so many sentimental religions, but first of all he must understand what religion actually is. Religion is not possible without an understanding of God, and a religion without God cannot truly be called a religion. According to the Vedic system, religion refers to the orders of God; therefore if we have no conception of God, we cannot be said to have a religion. If we do not know God or His nature, how can we know the orders God is giving?