A Difficult Situation

ancient_paztriot · May 13, 2004

Hayagriva dasa: Freud admits that without religion man will “find himself in a difficult situation. He will have to confess his utter helplessness and his insignificant part in the working of the universe.” Yet he goes on to say that without religion, man will venture at last into the hostile world, and this venture is his “education to reality.”

Srila Prabhupada: And what service has Mr. Freud rendered? He has misled the world and mad it more difficult for people to accept the words of God. Men who are innocent accept the words of God, but now many have become “over intelligent,” and they think that sex is God. It will take some time to counteract this type of mentality, but man must eventually learn that his happiness is found in understanding and accepting the way of life defined by God Himself.

Hayagriva dasa: Christ pointed out that unless one bcomes as a little child, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God, but Freud advocates “growing up” and setting this illsuion aside.

Srila Prabhupada: He may advocate so many things, but if he does not know the meaning of God, or God’s nature, what is the value of his knowledge? According to the Vedic philosophy, we should receive knowledge from a person who knows God. If one has not known God, his knowledge is useless, or, even worse, misleading. It is a fact that there is a supreme controller, and real education means understanding how the supreme controller is working. Denying Him is useless. He is there beyond our control, and we cannot avoid His control. We may make plans to live here very happily, but today or tomorrow, we may die. How can we deny the fact that we are being controlled? Knowledge means understanding how the supreme controller is controlling. People who defy religion and deny the existence of a supreme controller are like the jackal that keeps jumping and jumping, trying to reach grapes on a high vine. After seeing that he cannot reach the grapes, he says to himself, “Oh, there is no need to reach them. They are sour anyway.” People who say that we do not need to understand God are indulging in sourgrape philosophy.

gHari · May 13, 2004

Maybe one big thread for the little quotes would be more manageable for the forum.

May 13, 2004

Please try putting your posts under a few subjct headings as much as possible. There are now 25 seperate ones on the first page, which push other topics off.

ancient_paztriot · May 13, 2004

Just bump em off then. I'm sure whoever is gonna read 'em has done so.

I'm on the last chapter in Dialectic Spiritualism. 'bout to finnish a major hurtle. I won't be posting them then.

Last DS post maybe within the hour!

I have many faults. One of them is pushing Prabhupada "too much".

May 13, 2004

It would be better if they were preserved in a few groups, like the Dialectic Spiritualism Highlights 1, 2 and 3 were. Then new people could read them all in one place, and continuously as they were updated.

ancient_paztriot · May 13, 2004

I agree. But I didn't want to repeat that. I'll just drop 'em. You should probably just delete them all. Most of them are under Dialectic Spiritualism threads.

I reminded to ask, what is the time limit on editing post(s)? My time seems really short.