Ithihaasa

Book excerpt: Dr. Singh: '[Science] says that the different species were not created simultaneously, but evolved gradually. ...I came across a statement in the Bhagavad-Gita to the effect that all 8,400,000 species of living entities are created simultaneously. Is that correct?' Srila Prabhupada: 'Yes. Living beings move from one bodily form to another. The forms already exist. The living entity simply transfers himself just as a man transfers himself from one apartment to another. One apartment is first-class, another is second class, and another is third-class. Suppose a person comes from a lower class apartment to a first-class apartment, the person is the same, but now, according to his capacity for payment, or karma, he is able to occupy a higher-class apartment. Real evolution does not mean physical development, but the development of Consciousness. Do you follow? ...The apartment already exists, however it is not the lower-class apartment that becomes the higher class apartment. That is Darwin's nonsensical theory. He would say that the apartment has become high-class. Modern scientists think that life has come from matter. They say that millions and millions of years ago there was simply matter, but no life. We do not accept that. Of the two energies - life and matter - life, or spirit is the original superior energy and matter is the resultant inferior energy. Spirit is independent and matter is dependent...'. Dr. Singh: 'All that you have been saying completely contradicts Darwin's theory of evolution'. Srila Prabhupada: 'Darwin and his followers are rascals. If, originally, there were no higher species, why do they exist now? Also, why do the lower species still exist? For example, at the present moment, we see both the intellectual person and the foolish ass. Why do both these entities exist simultaneously? Why hasn't the ass form evolved upwards and disappeared? Why do we never see a monkey giving birth to a human? In Bhagavad-Gita ... the word yantra, or 'machine', means that in any species of life, we are traveling in bodies that are like machines provided by material nature'.