Freud, Sigmund

Syamasundara: Today we are discussing the philosopher and psychologist Sigmund Freud.

Prabhupada: Hm.

Syamasundara: His thesis was that certain unconscious states must be repressed by a special mental mechanism which serves as a defense for the ego against painful or fragmental memories, emotions and desires.

Prabhupada: Hm. That is our brahmacari system.

Syamasundara: Our what?

Prabhupada: Brahmacari system. The psychology is that everyone has got sex appetite, everyone has got tendency for intoxication and everyone has got a tendency for meat-eating.

That these tendencies are already there. So when there is injunction in the sastra that one can have sex intercourse by marriage, by legal sex. We are prohibiting illicit sex but we are not prohibiting, I mean to say-legal sex. So just like in the Bhagavad-gita [Bg 7.11] also it is said that. Krsna says, dharmaviruddho' kamo 'smi, kamaḥ: sex indulgence which is not against religious principles. That is, "I am".

SSo religious principle means regulated sex life. People have got a livid tendency... Just like those who are not regulated by the Vedic injunctions they are also having sex. So what is the meaning of this legal sex? The legal sex means it is restriction, that is it. Restriction. Where there is no such injunction. Just like in Western countries, they are having sex without any, I mean to say-restrictions. But according to Vedic system, restriction. Just like eating meat, that is also restricted. You cannot eat meat from the slaughterhouse, but the injunction is that you can take a goat and in. In the presence of goddess Kali you can offer it, and then you can eat. And in the sastras it is called vrta mamsa. Vrta mamsa means meat which is not sacrificed. There are so many rules and regulations. Similarly, drinking also there is injunction. Ah Canḍi by worshiping Canḍi you can drink. So when sastra deals with this meat-eating, drinking and sex, which is already there... Psychologically everyone has got this tendency. Then why it is mentioned in the sastras in this way? The whole thing is to restrict.

Just like ordinarily in the state drinking liquor is also controlled by the excise department of the government. Government opens drinking shop, the price is enhanced. I know because I was dealing in rectified spirit, so because we are preparing medicine we are getting opium and this rectified spirits, ganja, very cheap rate. Very cheap rate. One smuggler came to me that, "You give me your license, you take one thousand rupees, sitting. I will manage." [laughs] So I told him that when I would be arrested, because after all will be arrested, then I'll be arrested and then the government will ask me that, "We have given you the license as a respectable gentleman, and you are doing this," then what shall I reply? So this restriction is that liquor... Rectified; every wine is made from rectified spirits, all brandy, whiskey, everything; I know all the formulas, how to make them. You see? And the government, the cost price of the rectified spirits is about Rs. 1,59 paise per gallon, and the government is selling at 60 rupees. For us it was five rupees, because we were manufacturers. So in this way, so why this 60 rupees? Restriction. Because unless government takes up this matter in the hands, people will distill... It is not very difficult. Distilling wine is valent there are many illicit distillers also. Excise is the duty of the excise department to arrest them.

So my point is that why government is increasing this price? So that restricting, that people may not pay so much price, they may not drink it. When government opens liquor shop, it does not mean that you, all of you become a drunkard. It is not an advertisement. Similarly, when sastra gives the permission that, "You can have sex life by marriage," or "You can eat meat by offering the goat before the goddess Kali," or "You can drink also by offering worship to Canḍi," it is restriction. Because nobody can worship Canḍi daily. Nobody can worship Kali daily. There is also fixed date... kali-pūja can be performed on amavasya. The amavasya comes once in a month. That means restricted-one can eat meat once in a month. But the restriction is not there for eating rice, dal, ghee or fruit or milk. There is no such restriction. But as whenever there is a question of this liquor, meat-eating and sex, immediately there is sastra injunction that, "You can do this under certain conditions." That means the whole idea is to restrict. That is, psychology is already there, but sastrataḥ because they know if people become implicated with all these things nonsense thing. Then his duration of materialistic way of life will increase, and he will have to accept material body birth after birth. So by restriction, restriction gradually just like we are restricting all these things, gradually the Western students they are coming to the point to become a pure devotee.

Syamasundara: His idea...

Prabhupada: These things are already there. Everyone knows. Mr. Freud does not require to study. It is already there. We know in the Vedic sastras. But they should be restricted.

Syamasundara: Hm. His idea is that certain memories or painful experiences or frustrations or desires are sometimes repressed by forgetfulness. That we forget them. They lie deep in our unconsciousness but we cannot even remember them because they cause pain by their memory. This mechanism he calls it, "Defense mechanism", forgetfulness.

Prabhupada: No. That is not possible. There is the system that is yogic process, mechanical system to control the senses. Yoga means indriya sam. Yoga indriya samyama. Yoga means to restrict-not restrict-rather controling the senses. Yoga indriya samyama. So by this mechanical process yogic exercises, one...

[aside:] you can open this side.

One may artificially check, suppress, these tendencies, but we have got many instances that even the greatest yogis like Visvamitra he also failed. Our process is as it is recommended in the Bhagavad-gita [Bg 2.59], param drstva nivartante. You give him better thing, he will forget it.

Syamasundara: Well but I mean, some... sometimes people forget experiences which cause them pain. For instance, a child may have had a very frightening experience which he does not like to recall, so that he forgets it. But it, it caused by his forgetting it. It causes an unhealthy state.

Prabhupada: Yes. So therefore we do not recommend such artificial means.

Syamasundara: But it's not artificial; naturally the body...

Prabhupada: No not naturally. The child forgets... Our formula is:

This fearfulness is created when he's, one is not Krsna conscious. This is a quality of the conditioned soul, ahara, nidra, bhaya, maithuna. So as soon as one becomes Krsna conscious these things becomes almost nil. Narayana-paraḥ sarve na kutascana bibhyati [SB 6.17.28].

One who is God conscious he doesn't fear anything. Just like Prahlada Maharaja. Such a giant, big giant father, he's threatening him. He is calm and void... He is calm and void. He doesn't care for his father's words. Although his father is asking, "Prahlada, how is it that you are so proud and fearless when I am trying to chastise you?" But he replied, "The person who has given you this power is protecting me." That was his reply. "You have power because it is gifted by Krsna. So that same personality is giving me protection." [laughs] He replied like that.

Syamasundara: But you say it's artificial to forget anything?

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: So forgetfulness is artificial?

Prabhupada: Artificial.

Syamasundara: So why don't we remember everything?

Prabhupada: Because you are not trained. Forgetful, what? I do not understand. What do you mean?

Syamasundara: Well forgetfulness means loss of memory. We, we I can't remember what happened when I was four or five years old.

Prabhupada: No, no, just like you might explain in your past life you had so many fearful incidences even you remember it, but you are not afraid of now. Why shall you try to forget? There is no use of forgetting. Even if I remember I don't, I am not afraid, rather I thank Krsna, that "Krsna, you are so kind that You have saved me from so many misgivings. Now I'm sure I am pure I'm here and in safety." So one should not be frightened by remembering his past incidences. He'll rather laugh that how I was fooled, I was afraid of all these things... he'll laugh.

Syamasundara: But what he is talking about is the natural instinct for people to forget painful experiences.

Prabhupada: That naturally he forgets. Just like you were in the womb of your mother. It was very, very painful situation. But you have forgotten.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: That is natural.

Syamasundara: So it's not artificial?

Prabhupada: No. That is natural. But when you were actually in the womb of your mother, that's a fact.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: Now you can, you can when you think of, you can understand how horrible condition was that. Therefore sastra says that even if you have forgotten, it does not mean that you have escaped the incidences. It is you are waiting for another painful situation like that.

Syamasundara: Well his idea is that many of our present unconscious wishes and conflicts have their origins in infantile or childhood experiences.

Prabhupada: Well you are going to be again insect. Why you forget this thing? After this life, you will be put in another womb of mother, so that the same thing will again happening... happen. You are not finishing your business, so therefore it is the duty of guru and father and mother to save him from that situation again, gurur na sa syat, janani na sa syat, pita na sa syaj [SB 5.5.18] Eh?

Syamasundara: [aside:] Don't touch that wire. You'll pull this…

Prabhupada: Oh. So that is the opportunity of this human. They should know that I had such-and-such bad experience, janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi [Bg 13.9].

You will have to experience again the same thing at the time of death, horrible situation. Again after death, again enter, yavan maranam tavaj jananam. You have to again take birth in the womb. The same situation is repeating. You may forget. That is another thing. Just like you had some surgical operation in your body. That was very painful. So even if you have forgotten, it does not guarantee that there will be no more boil or no more surgical operation. That is not guaranteed. It will repeat again. What is the use of forgetting? Even if you forget, what is the benefit thereof? You will have again.

Syamasundara: He says there is no benefit in forgetting, but it is a natural tendency.

Prabhupada: That is natural, and everyone knows that's not a very difficult...

Syamasundara: So he says that the cure for many of our present conflicts is to try to recall these painful experiences and analyze them and try to correct them.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: Just like for instance a person may have a hatred toward a member of the opposite sex.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Prabhupada: Why is this hatred? By tracing back in his childhood we may find that there was some horrible experience with his father or with the mother which caused him to hate that particular sex.

Prabhupada: Just like some woman does not like to give birth to a child...

Syamasundara: Yes, because she was repressed when she was a child, or beaten by her...

Prabhupada: Not only that. She does not like to bear children; therefore this contraceptive method is there. It is botheration, painful. It is called pain. [Hindi].

Mataji: Prasava-vedana.

Prabhupada: Prasava-vedana, prasava-vedana, vedana means pain. So nature, nature is prohibiting..

Mataji: Prasava-vedana [Hindi].

Prabhupada: Prasava-child begetting.

Mataji: Delivery.

Prabhupada: Delivery. So the man is also given so much trouble. The woman is also given so much trouble. So why, why this trouble is there? The nature is prohibiting that don't be implicated in this sex life. If you simply tolerate a little itching sensation, then you'll save so much pain. Yan maithunadi-grhamedhi-sukham hi tuccham [SB 7.9.45].

The, this these ordinary men who are attached to the materialistic way of life, their only happiness is this sexual intercourse. So sastra says this sexual inter... happiness derived from sexual intercourse is very, very insignificant, maithunadi-sukham, tuccham. This is not happiness. It is very banaldom [sic] 10th class or even lower than happiness. But because they have no idea of other happiness, Krsna consciousness, the. The materialistic way of... I mean that is the happiness. Yan maithunadi- sukham hi grhamedhi-nam [sic]. That is a very insignificant happiness. Then why how this happiness is experienced? Kanḍūyanena karayor iva duḥkha-duḥkham. You have got itches, and if you, I mean scratch like this, so you pick some happiness, but after effects of that happiness is very abominable. So even if you have legal sex, so the mother has to undergo the labor pains and the father has to take responsibility for growing, raising the children nicely, give them education. Get them, of course one who is irresponsible like cats and dogs, that is another thing. But those who are actually gentlemen, for them is it not painful?

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: Therefore they are avoiding children by contraceptive methods, because they know to raise children is a very difficult job. So better, sastra enjoins them be simply to try to tolerate this itching sensation and you save so much pain. This is real psychology. That itching sensation can be tolerated if one practices this Krsna consciousness. Then you will not be very much attracted by this sex life.

Syamasundara: I don't think we, we are talking about the same things here. I haven't made clear, perhaps, what…

Prabhupada: What is that?

Syamasundara: Philosophy.

Prabhupada: What is that philosophy?

Syamasundara: His philosophy is that people have neuroses or disorders of their total personality, that there is conflicts, there is anxiety, there is frustrations, and that all of these have origins...

Prabhupada: But I am, I am telling you that all these are due to sex.

Syamasundara: That's what Freud is also saying.

Prabhupada: That we also say. Therefore out process... Freud is encouraging and our process is to stop. That is the difference. Freud says when there is sex impulse enjoy it, never care what it is.

Syamasundara: No. He says that... He doesn't say one way or the other. He is merely trying to analyze the sex impulse. And he says that due to repressed childhood sex desires that these neuroses arise in a person's personality, and that by analyzing...

Prabhupada: Our process is not repression. We don't repress. Therefore we give facility that, "You have got sex impulse. All right, you have it, but with your wife, legalized wife."

Syamasundara: But he thinks more in terms from the very beginning of birth there is sex impulse.

Prabhupada: That is admitted. When as soon as... We say that as soon as there is living, embodied living being, he must have hunger, he must have sex impulse. What is that? Ahara, nidra, bhaya and even we find in the animals these impulses are there, so why so much philosophy? They are already there. What is the use of philosophizing?

Syamasundara: Well he analyzes that besides this id, or these impulse-sex impulses, there is the ego, which is the moral self, which tries to adjust these, adjust these impulses, these sexual impulses, and tries to...

Prabhupada: That we have already discussed so, that because just to adjust the sex impulses you are giving him some facility that, "You have sex life with your married wife." This is real adjustment. Not less they are joined men because I have got sex impulse, I can catch-up anyone, never mind mother or sister, and I have sexual. That is not very nice.

Syamasundara: No. He doesn't, he doesn't condone that. He is a scientist. He doesn't make any recommendations one way or the other. He is merely trying to analyze what is the cause of...

Prabhupada: And the truth is that, that our solution is this: that your this materialistic life is painful. That's a fact. This materialistic life is painful, trikala yantra. As soon as you have got this material body, then you must suffer these three kinds of miserable condition of life. So our whole program is to stop. Everyone is seeking after happiness. So we say that unless you stop your materialistic way of life, repeated birth and death, there is no question of happiness. So the whole Vedic civilization is based on this, that how one can get out of this disease. This is a disease-repetition of birth and death. So we are trying to cure this disease. Then all other symptoms will automatically vanquish. If you are a diseased fellow, you are feeling sometimes headache, sometimes leg ache, sometimes some pain in the stomach. But if your disease is cured, then there is no more symptoms. That is our program.

Syamasundara: He says that these neuroses or disorders of the personality are due to repressed sex impulses in childhood and that these cause traumatic and shock experiences. For instance, he says that at a certain age, around four or five, the son becomes jealous of the father and his attention...

Prabhupada: These are all right, but what is the remedy he is suggesting? That the child should be allowed to have sex life?

Syamasundara: No. The remedy is, is... well this tension that is created by repressing the sex desire...

Prabhupada: There are so many dala, we established some of them. There are so many other problems.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: But our, our, our program is that threefold miseries, everyone who has accepted this body he has to undergo the threefold miseries. So you may describe in a...

[break]

Syamasundara: ...psychoanalysis that by releasing these emotions, which have been built up due to tension, frustration. Then the original shock can be relieved through admitting, confessing, remembering...

Prabhupada: Why not?

Syamasundara: It can. [laughs]

Prabhupada: What is the guarantee that he will not get another shock?

Devotees: [laughter]

Prabhupada: This is nonsense. He is getting shock after shock. You try one and another is present.

Syamasundara: He attributes all, all of our personality conflicts in this, at this stage of the child...

Prabhupada: Just like. But the thing is that he is trying to cure one kind of shock, but there is no guarantee that he will not have shock. So our program is total cure-no more shock. That is our program. No more shock of any kind. So the his treatment is useless because he cannot guarantee another shock.

Syamasundara: But he says.

Prabhupada: But our is gurunapi duḥkhena na vicalyate yasmin sthitaḥ.

If you are situated in real Krsna consciousness, the heaviest type of miserable which is facing you; you will not be disturbed. No shock. No shock at all. We are giving that Krsna consciousness. And he is trying to cure the resultant action of one kind of shock, but there is no guarantee that another shock will not come. He will get them, one after another, one after another. That is called:

You are trying to solve one problem; another problem is there, immediately. You solve that problem, another problem is there. So how can you check them? So long you are under condition by the material nature, the shocks after shocks will come. Mam eva ye prapadyante mayam etam. If one is Krsna conscious, no more shock. That we are going to.

Syamasundara: His idea is that the, the one basic instinct which is the most important to, to the human personality is the drive to procreate, or sexual energy-libido.

Prabhupada: That we already discussed, that everyone has got. Animal has got the sexual proclivities.

Syamasundara: So, so he says that the present state of the personality has grown about because of childhood or infancy as uses of this libido-this sexual energy, and if it has been misused then there is a disorder in the personality. But by healing that original shock in childhood, then in the future will all be healed. There will be not more fluctuations in the personality. That by healing this one original shock, that there won't be any more fluctuations or disorders, neuroses.

Prabhupada: So that-that we have prescribed. We are trying to make boys as brahmacaris. So of course there is tendency, but by practicing the brahmacarya system, by diverting one's attention to Krsna consciousness [coughs] for Krsna's service, there will be very little chance for this shock.

Syamasundara: Yes he said that, there are sexual instincts are often thwarted by social constraints, so in a society which does not have a brahmacarya system, I could see that this would, be to...

Prabhupada: Therefore this Vedic system is so scientific, varnasrama-dharma. But these things are automatically adjusted and checked, our life becomes very peaceful and he makes progress from Krsna consciousness.

[break]

... varnasrama society then these things will not come. I mean bothered.

Syamasundara: This, this sexual energy, or this libido energy, he sees as not only sexual intercourse but associated with a wide variety of pleasurable sensations relating to body activities, just as pleasures of the mouth, of the other different organs. He says it's all sexual energy-eating, sucking.

Prabhupada: But that is, that is already stated, that the only happiness in this material world, yan maithunadi, maithunadi, adi. Adi means the basic principle is maithuna, sexual intercourse. And now there are some sub-etiquettes: maithuna-adi. Or you can take it that one is very happy-just like one gentleman proposed to Bhagrahala [?] "Give me a son." But that is also maithunadi. Eh? By sexual intercourse. He's, he is thinking that, "I will have a son and I will get him married; he will also begin maithunadi-and I'll have grandsons." So whole system, this materialistic way of life, just like Vidyapati sings that:

This is happiness, suta-mita. Suta means-son and mita means-friend. Ramani-wife, mother, sister, they are enjoying this life. Tatala saikate-just in the desert, one drop of water. Desert require ocean of water, but with a, in a hot desert if there is one drop of water, you can say, "Here is water." But what is the value of this water? What is the value of this water [laughs]? You can say, "Here is water." Similarly, this sexual pleasure society, there is some pleasure, but what is the value of that pleasure? That is compared with like one drop in the ocean... I mean-the desert. You are seeking after unlimited pleasure, anandamayo 'bhyasat [Vedanta Sūtra 1.1.12].

You are seeking that pleasure. What this pleasure will give? Therefore nobody is satisfied. He is having sex in different way, dressing the woman in different way. Especially now the young girls they are almost naked. They are attracting. But they do not know that how society is degrading. Now this woman population is greater everywhere. So how to solve? As soon as there is woman population, they say, "Where is the man?" There must be disaster. Because every woman, every girl will try to attract man. But where is man? And the man will take advantage, that cow is. "Milk is available on the market. What is the use of keeping a cow?"

Syamasundara: Oh. Yes.

Prabhupada: So they will decline to keep a cow, because milk is so cheap. So this is social disaster. And the more the man will become attached to woman, the woman population will increase. This is psychology. This is psychology. The whole world is increasing woman population. Therefore there is disaster, especially in the Western countries I see, practically.

Revatinandana: How is that? Prabhupada.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Revatinandana: How is..

Prabhupada: The same principles-if milk is available in the market, what is the use of keeping a cow?

Revatinandana: How does that result in more women?

Prabhupada: Eh?

Revatinandana: How does that result in more women?

Prabhupada: Oh. It is that when you have more sex, then you will have no power to beget a male child.

Revatinandana: Oh.

Prabhupada: When the man is less powerful, a girl is born. When the man is powerful, a boy is born. That is Ayurvedic.

Revatinandana: I see.

Prabhupada: In our country, in Punjab, there is less woman because there the men are very stout and strong. This is the subject. When there is discharge, if the man's discharge is larger, then there is a male child; if the woman's discharge is larger, then there is female child. So when women will be very easily available, the man will be weak. So what will he beget? He will beget female child, because he has lost his power. Sometimes he becomes impotent. There is so many disasters. If you don't restrict sex life, there will be so many disasters. And that is happening-impotency, no marriage, woman population more. But they did not know-how things are happening, how human psychology can be controlled and this is the perfect system is Vedic system.

Syamasundara: So, he says that, "All pleasures, all bodily pleasures have a sexual origin."

Prabhupada: That we have already discussed, maithunadi. Adi means in the beginning, the sex impulse. That is already there in the sastras.

Syamasundara: Even, he says, "Satisfaction of the eating and sucking tendencies," ah everything...

Prabhupada: That we have discussed, maithunadi.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: The central point is sex.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: Yan maithunadi-grhamedhi-sukham hi tuccham [SB 7.9.45].

Syamasundara: After, he says after, "After a period of childhood indulgence in these sexual appetites, he begins to learn that by giving up satisfaction he can please and influence others so as to gain more emote favors." Just like sreyas and preyas you were talking about.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: So that the pleasure principle becomes replaced by the reality principle.

Prabhupada: Yes. So that is stated in Bhagavad-gita [Bg 2.59], param drstva nivartante.

If your consciousness is changed, if you become Krsna conscious, then there is a verse by Yamunacarya, he says,

yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ krsna-padaravinde.

Revatinandana: Oh.

Prabhupada: Krsna-padaravinde: since I have engaged my life to enjoy the transcendental bliss by serving the lotus feet of Lord Krsna,

"I am getting newer and newer pleasures. And because his past life, he said, "And at that time when I think of sex pleasure," bata nari-sahgame smaryamane, bhavati mukha-vikaraḥ.

Syamasundara: [Laughter]

Prabhupada: But, "Oh I was enjoying like this."

Devotees: [Laughter]

Prabhupada: Susthu nisthivanam, susthu nisthivanam. The same man, this is the method. Not by adjustments, susthu nisthivanam.

Syamasundara: Later on...

Prabhupada: But he was king. He had on his command so many girls, but he said, "No I, if I think of that sex pleasure, oh my mouth becomes. I mean to say-deformed and I spit." That is Krsna consciousness. Bhaktiḥ paresanubhavo viraktir anyatra. [SB 11.2.42] No more... Yes?

Prabhupada: Why nonsense Freud would analyze? He is not krsna-bhakta. What does he know? He's a rascal, that's all.

Devotees: [Laughter]

Prabhupada: What rascal will analyze? He's, he is a big man amongst the rascals. A big rascal, that's all. He is a rascal, but a big rascal, that's all.

Mataji: [Bengali] quad. [?]

Prabhupada: What these people will...

Mataji: ...quadrant. [?]

Prabhupada: They do not know.

Syamasundara: What is the purpose of discussing?

Prabhupada: Eh?

Syamasundara: What is the purpose of discussing?

Prabhupada: Just to proving that he is a big rascal.

Syamasundara: Ah.

Devotees: [Laughter]

Prabhupada: He may be very big man amongst the other rascals, small rascals. Jiva Gosvami-this is Jiva Gosvami's language. I think I have mentioned somewhere in my Bhagavatam. Big rascal, that's all. The analyzis of Srimad-Bhagavatam, how you can approach there-little knowledge? What improvement he has done; after his philosophy in the Western countries?

Syamasundara: Well...

Prabhupada: He has degraded more.

Revatinandana: He has put their attention more on sex.

Prabhupada: That's all.

Syamasundara: He, he has...

Prabhupada: What actual benefit is derived from him?

Syamasundara: He's made, he's made the impression. Modern impression that all of our troubles are due to frustrated sex life in our childhood, and that by analyzing these activities of childhood we can rectify our situation ourselves...

Prabhupada: But this is the rectification process.

Devotee: That is why young boys and girls have free sex life.

Prabhupada: That's all. They are becoming hippies...

Devotee: Free.

Prabhupada: That's all. What benefit is there? He has degraded the whole nation.

Syamasundara: [aside] I think we have many clothes out on the line. The clothes line, we have been...

[break]

Bhavananda: I don't think that in this book or in this discussion that we can convince in any way a college student.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Bhavananda: I think we invalid aspects of Freud; if we simply call him a rascal...

Syamasundara: Yeah, well we say...

Prabhupada: Edit it. We shall edit it.

Syamasundara: We have to satirically discuss.

Devotee: We don't tell lies.

Bhavananda: But there are aspects of Freud's philosophy and psychology which they... Which they feel have proven beneficial for mankind. So many cases of... For example like someone like let's say has suffered all there life from stuttering or someone is paralyzed and they have... They can't find any direct physical reason why a person can't walk, and through analysis they are able to trace down that it is due to some repressed... trauma, what they call trauma. In their early...

Prabhupada: What is that spelling?

Syamasundara: Shock. Shock.

Prabhupada: Trauma means shock.

Bhavananda: And therefore the person reacts on a physical level and they can't modify it. Psychoanalyzing him and having him recall that event, ah then, then they are free...

Prabhupada: Therefore, therefore our prescription is that in the beginning of life, teach him brahmacari-restraint, and when he is grown up, he is above twenty, get him married. If in the beginning he learns how to restrain. If you teach a child to become... he becomes healthy, he saves his semina, his brain becomes fertile, he can understand things, you see. Because semina wasting your semina means less intelligent. So from the beginning, if he is brahmacari, if he I mean to say, stops misuse of semina, then he becomes intelligent and strong and fully grown. For want of this education, everything is being stunt. Brain, bodily growth, and everything. So after he is trained-up as a brahmacari, if he thinks that still he will have sex enjoyment, all right, get yourself married. But because in that strength of body and brain, he will beget a child, immediately there will be male child. This is practical remedy. And because he has been trained from the boyhood to renounce this materialistic way of enjoyment. So when he is as fiftieth, fifty years old, naturally his child first-born child must be twenty-five years old, so he can retire from the sex life. Yan maithunadi, because household life means a license for sex life. That's all. It is not required. But one who cannot restrain, he is given a license, "All right, you have sex life by marriage," as I explained in the beginning. So that is real program. That will save the society. Not by speculating on some shock and this and that. They cannot find out the root disease. But if you give him all indulgence, then he will study the shocks. What is that? You should take information from the standard knowledge. That this is the cycle just like we have discussed that sex indul.. sex impulse is already there. Drinking impulse is already there. Meat-eating impulse is already there. So from the very beginning we have to restrain. Otherwise he will be implicated.

Bhavananda: Is doing it from the beginning necessarily always going to work? Remember in Nairobi...

Prabhupada: Eh?

Bhavananda: Dr. Patel he came that evening with his wife and two [break]...

Prabhupada: .. we are getting so many seeds, every moment, so one who is fortunate, he gets the seeds of bhakti by the mercy of Krsna and guru. Guru-krsna-krpa paya bhakti-lata-bija [Cc Madhya 19.151]. This bija is there, that seed and if he nourishes that seed by watering: sravana-kirtana-jale karaye secana [Cc Madhya 19.152].

Then it grows, he becomes a great devotee. Everything is seed. Either bhakti or sinful life or anything-it grows gradually. So brahmacari means from the very beginning sowing the seed of goodness, and if one becomes a devotee, then automatically other things are lost.

Syamasundara: So the Western, the Western system of bring up children is artificial, because they. They allow the child unrestrained freedom to...

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: Either to repress...

Prabhupada: No, no.

Syamasundara: Or to enjoy his sex desire.

Prabhupada: No. That is not Vedic program.

Syamasundara: Vedic program is social program.

Prabhupada: Social, yes. Social, just like Canakya Panḍita says. He is experienced moralist, aethiest... eh? What is called? Ethical laws. He says, lalane bahavo dosas, if you indulge freedom, lalane bahavo dosas taḍane bahavo gunaḥ and if you restrict and restrain them, that is very, very it makes qualified.

Therefore one should take care of his disciples and sons by chastising them, not giving them indulgence.

Syamasundara: So Freud would say that this system of repression, by saying "Don't do this," is harmful to the child.

Prabhupada: But harm repression of course-his idea of repression is different. Our ideas repression is different.

Syamasundara: Ours is repression with knowledge.

Prabhupada: Just like... our repression is you must rise early in the morning, you must attend mahgala arati.

Syamasundara: But it's with knowledge.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Syamasundara: It's with, with knowledge.

Prabhupada: Knowledge will come later on. But in the beginning, "Must"; otherwise he will not be habituated. Even if there is no knowledge, if by the order of the spiritual master or superior, you must do it.

Syamasundara: But Freud's idea, being as he came from the Victorian age, when there was straight restraint of sex desire by the social structure, was that if you tell a child, "Don't look at a woman. Don't look at a woman," that this will...

Prabhupada: We don't say like that, "Don't look at a woman." We are... Here is a woman sitting, so I mean to say, I am looking. Does it mean that immediately become polluted?

Syamasundara: No but they say that there is a conflict between a child's natural desire to enjoy women.

Prabhupada: Therefore I used that strong word what Bhavananda did not like; that they are actually fools. You see? They do not know how to do things. Therefore I say they are actually big, big fools... They do not know.

Yasodanandana: The Freudian method would be to think back to those seeds and rectify them. Think back and back and back and try to remember those seeds.

Prabhupada: But it is already grown up. Where is the seed? What nonsense. That is nonsense.

Devotee: But what if someone doesn't have a...

Prabhupada: The seed means it is already grown up, fructified. Where do you find the seed? Therefore it is nonsense.

Revatinandana: Also.

Prabhupada: Just like, there is example you have got arrow and bow. Now so long as it is in your hand, it is all right, but when it is thrown, you cannot control it. It is out of your hand.

Syamasundara: So by, by thinking.

Prabhupada: Another, another example is, they call kancayna wale mas bhas korbe tash tash.[?] You see, you have seen bamboo. Bamboo when they're green, you can bend it.

Syamasundara: Yeah.

Prabhupada: But when it is yellow, they resolve it, it will break.

Syamasundara: Yeah. But it is proven practically.

Prabhupada: It will break...

Syamasundara: It is proven practically, in practical experience, practical psychoanalysis that by remembering some traumatic or shocking experience in the person's life it relieves the tension. The emotional tension which has caused the disorder in his personality, and he becomes healthy again. So this...

Prabhupada: Well that may be, but if you call it seed, the seed when fructified, grown into a tree, then it is no more possible.

Syamasundara: No he doesn't call it a seed; he calls it a, a shock. Shocking experience which we repress because it causes pain...

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: ..and this repression makes a tension in our...

Prabhupada: But give a practical example.

Syamasundara: For instance, a person grows up with a great hatred of... Let's say if I'm a man, a great hatred of a woman...

Prabhupada: Ah.

Syamasundara: Of women: "Oh, I hate all woman."

Prabhupada: That is particular case for a particular person.

Yasodanandana: The otherway, let's say when the child was very young, the mother became angry and locked him in a room for too long, and he was crying, locked up. So then that person for the rest of their life, as soon as the windows are closed, he will be afraid. Because he remembers, or even if he has forgotten the original experience...

Prabhupada: This is nice example.

Yasodanandana: He is always afraid of...

Syamasundara: Yes.

Yasodanandana: That's claustrophobia.

Syamasundara: So this.. Freud says by remembering this experience you can explain to the patient...

Prabhupada: No I can answer this. Now suppose the child locked up, and his brain becomes deranged. Then how can they claim?

Yasodanandana: So let's say he's grown, he still has that fear, and Freud or one of his doctors he will start to think back, "What do you remember from your childhood? Do you remember..?" And then the doctor will see, "Oh, that is thee point."

Revatinandana: All of a sudden he...

Prabhupada: But that's all right. He can find out that is the cause, but what is the cure?

Yasodanandana: [indistinct] by remembering.

Syamasundara: By remembering and explaining to him, "Well you see, you were only a child. It wasn't really a bad situation," like this, and then the patient loses the tension which has caused the disorder, and he becomes healthy again.

Prabhupada: That is psychoatis… psychoanalysis?

Syamasundara: Yes. Psychoanalysis, psychotherapy.

Prabhupada: Hm. What is this?

Devotees: [indistinct, several talking at once]

Devotee: But actually the idea is that a child is sometimes unable to adjust to certain very trying experiences. It is called trauma, it is very shocking, and the child can't understand; he is simply very much stunned. So through his life he is affected by that. He can't remember exactly what it is, because he wants to forget it, it is so painful. But it manifests in some symptoms, some aberrant symptom later on. This is, he is afraid when the windows are closed. But as, but by finding out what is the root of his fear...

Prabhupada: I become afraid. Yes, just like in that...

Syamasundara: Hospital.

Prabhupada: ..hospital, it was so nice, everything was so nice, but because I was thinking, "Oh, I cannot go out, I cannot walk," it was giving me too much trouble...

Syamasundara: Yeah. But by higher...

Prabhupada: ..that very thought that I cannot go out.

Yasodanandana: The defect is that sometimes they can't trace out the history of a particular case.

Devotee (2): [indistinct]

Devotee (3): The idea is that if they can find out from this person remembering back when they were young that they had been locked in a room, then at his elder stage the person was able to understand the significance of that incident, that it was really very small. Then, then it loses its importance in his life. He has been unable to resolve it because he has repressed it.

Prabhupada: But I don't think when a man's brain is already deranged he can be rectified by finding out the cause.

Bhavananda: It's not that the trauma makes him crazy so that he doesn't function in the society. He could be a business executive who has claustrophobia; who can't stand getting in an elevator. I recon he is leading a normal sort of life in society but he has this problem which causes him a great deal of...

Prabhupada: So why not divert his attention to Krsna consciousness?

Syamasundara: Ah, by a higher type of knowledge, if one realizes he is not this body, then all those things simply disappear...

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the treatment, your treatment...

Devotee: This is why we are doing social services.

Prabhupada: To divert his attention. Param drstva nivartante [Bg 2.59]. parasyanubhavo viraktir anyatra syat [SB 11.2.42]. material. That is the prime remedy-panacea for all diseases. That we are doing.

Revatinandana: This Freudian philosophy is an offshoot from Darwin philosophy. That Freud also thinks that man is a biological organism only; therefore his biological functioning should, should measure up to certain norms of biological behavior. If it doesn't, then there is something wrong. If it does, then everything is all right. So he makes some animal behavior good and some animal behavior substandard, and he want to bring everybody to a certain standard of animal behavior. But he has no conception of spiritual life.

Prabhupada: Therefore, if I say, "Great fools," what is the harm?

Devotees: [Laughter]

Syamasundara: Well we, we know he's a great fool, but we have to convince the students.

Prabhupada: Now you have to convince with this... as I am convincing you.

Syamasundara: Yeah.

Prabhupada: That is your business.

Syamasundara: Later on, Freud began to accept that certain nonsexual factors might produce these unconscious conflicts, also, and he divided the personality into three separate systems, called the ego, super-ego and the id. Now the id is these unconscious instinctive animal drives to enjoy sex desire, everything animalistic. The ego is that part of the mind concerned with adjusting efficiently to external realities. In other words, it's a moral segment of the personality which tries to adjust or protect [indistinct].

Prabhupada: We are, we are trying to create these falsities. Everyone has got some false egoism. That is our treatment. Just like Freud is thinking that he is American or he is European. This is false ego. We are giving everyone the intelligence that this identification with this material body, that is ignorance. Due to ignorance I am thinking that, "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim." This is false ego. Apareyam, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gita [Bg 7.5].

This is inferior quality of egoism. The superior quality of egoism is brahman or: "I am eternal servant of Krsna." So if he is taught to the superior engagement, then automatically this false egoism becomes stopped.

Syamasundara: He says, "This ego is concerned with self-preservation-by organizing and controlling against the neurotic.. against neurotic conflicts and the demands of the id." In other words the id, if the id sees something, like some foodstuffs, it automatically demands it gives the urge to eat it, kill it, eat it. So the ego is concerned with controlling that desire in order to preserve the individual. And this, for instance, this becomes restrained. Voluntary restraint, control, by the personality and the superego are the authoritarian values of the society, or the parents which say, "No, you do not kill like that. You do not eat this, like that." So those three systems are functioning in the personality, and they are always in conflict and this developes of course as he, as he progresses.

Prabhupada: That basic principle is called, as Revatinandana says, that he is following the principles of Darwin. Who has no conception of the soul which is existing beyond the body. So they are taking consideration of the body. So the.. according to this our philosophy, Bhagavata, anyone who is in the concept of this body-he is no better than an ass. Sa eva go-kharaḥ. This very words are used. Yasyatma-buddhiḥ kunape tri-dhatuke [SB 10.84.13]. One who is identifying this body of three elements, kapha, pitta, vayu-as the self. Then he is no better than an ass.

Syamasundara: These, these three types of reactions to anything-the id reaction, the ego reaction and the superego reaction-these are all bodily reactions.

Prabhupada: Yes. They all body-subtle reactions.

Syamasundara: What, what he...

Prabhupada: The cause of the reaction. Eh?

Syamasundara: Each one is more subtle than the other.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: Because the id is the most gross.

Prabhupada: Yes. Mind, mind, mind is the beginning of subtle.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Prabhupada: Just like my senses are gross, but my senses are being controlled by the mind. The mind is the subtle element, the mind is controlled by intelligence, and intelligence is controlled by ego. So if the ego is false, then the whole thing is false. If the ego, if I am thinking I am this body, this false identification, ego. Then all other things which is coming out of this false ego, they are all false. That is therefore it is called maya, or illusion, because they are standing on false platform.

Syamasundara: And, and...

Prabhupada: Therefore the whole Vedic education is that you be relieved from this false platform come to the real platform. That is called brahma-jnana, real platform. And it is Bhagavad-gita [Bg 18.54] stated, brahma-bhūta. When one comes to that knowledge that I am spirit soul, than immediately he becomes happy. All this trouble is due to this false ego. Immediately sunshine. Bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam [Cc Antya 20.12] What is the meaning, bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam?

Devotee: The fire, [indistinct] fire...

Prabhupada: That the blazing fire of material existence immediately extinguished. So these philosophers they are simply describing about the blazing fire of material existence. We are trying to get him out of the blazing fire. That's all. Immediately he feels relief: "Oh, I am out of the fire." And within the fire, however you try to make him happy, how he will be happy? The fire is already there. Save him from the fire. Then he will be happy. That is Caitanya Mahaprabhu, bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam. And Bhagavad-gita also it is said:

Prasannatma...

Devotee: Mrtyu-samsara-sagarat..

Prabhupada: Eh?

Devotee: The twelfth chapter.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Devotee: Mrtyu-samsara-sagarat [Bg 12.7]

Prabhupada: Ah, mrtyu-samsara-sagarat. Krsna says, mrtyu-samsara-sagarat, he's getting out. So our, our...

[break]

Mataji: [Bengali]

Prabhupada: [Bengali]

Syamasundara: So we have more to discuss. Shall we continue...

Prabhupada: He is identifying this body as the soul. And our preaching is different-that we are not this body. Our first principle of understanding is to know that we are not this body. I am different from this body but I am transmigrating from one body to another. That they cannot explain. They are explaining this body is evolving from this body to that body. That is the basic misunderstanding.

Revatinandana: Freud's case is interesting, that he formed all of his conclusions by his observations of what he called neurotic and psychotic patients. He observed the mentally ill people, neurosis and psychosis, and he drew his conclusions about both sick and normal psychology from his observation of abnormal...

Prabhupada: [aside:] Ah, sit down. Sit down during the stage, that's right.

Revatinandana: Ah, so he observed the normal behaviour of neurotic people, psychotic people, crazy people..

Prabhupada: Yes.

Revatinandana: ..and from their behaviour he tried to infer all about human psychology. So not only he was on bodily platform, but his only subject matter was the insane.

Prabhupada: That's it..

Revatinandana: So how can he draw valid conclusions about behavior?

Prabhupada: So what do you answer? No maunam. Yes.

Bhavananda: What do I answer? Yes.

Prabhupada: His observation is very nice.

Bhavananda: Yes, his observation is granted at the same time it doesn't invalidate Freud's use of psychology for supposedly normal people.

Prabhupada: From Freud cannot generalise that psychology.

Bhavananda: But he didn't..

Prabhupada: Not just study the psychology, group of puppets [?] [indistinct as Bhavananda also talking]..

Syamasundara: He didn't, he didn't analyse only crazy people; he also analyzed his friends, his mother, himself, his wife, other people also, healthy people.

Bhavananda: The point is in Revatinandana Maharaja's argument is that we have to decide, then, what is crazy and what is sane.

Prabhupada: Now he is saying that he had studied only some crazy people.

Syamasundara: No.

Devotee: So..

Prabhupada: But that is not the fact. He analyzed some sane people also.

Devotee: [indistinct]

Prabhupada: But one psychiatrist's opinion is that... Eh.. visited break... he was what is called? Civil surgeon. Civil surgeon he was called to give evidence in a case where the... I mean to say the culprit, criminal was pleading... His pleader has stated that he became insane while he committed the murder. So the civil surgeon was called to test him, that whether actually he was insane or what he said that it's stress of his insanity state. So he gave evidence that, "I have tested so many persons, so I have seen that more or less everyone is insane. More or less. There are degrees. So in that case, if insanity is the only plea that he should be excused, so he can be excused. But so far I know, everyone is more or less insane." And that is our conclusion. We say:

Anyone who is infected with this material nature, so he is more or less insane-crazy. He is crazy, not more or less. Anyone who has got this material body must be crazy. And therefore everyone is speaking in different ways. Yes?

Bhavananda: As a result of Freud's philosophy he prescribed, and many of his students, they prescribed, certain activities. This is one thing we forgot to mention-that they prescribed certain activities to help relieve the patient of these traumas, and that is called therapy. And actually then the highest therapy.. Then actually one of Freud's students would say that we are all involved in therapy-in Krsna consciousness, which we are, and that therapy is chanting Hare Krsna. Therapy is a certain kind of activity which will relieve the anxieties and the stresses of the mind.

Prabhupada: Yes. That is recommended by Freud?

Syamasundara: No. He wasn't a therapeutical psychologist.

Bhavananda: No, but as a result of his...

Syamasundara: Later on, later on they devised that theory of therapy.

Prabhupada: Then take that portion in support of our movement.

Devotee: Jaya

Prabhupada: Yes. He has recommended.

Giriraja: According to our philosophy, everybody is in this world is under the spell of the material nature...

Prabhupada: Maya.

Giriraja: …maya, "That which is not." So Freud observes that not only in crazy people, but in so-called normal people, everybody's lives are based on some types of illusion. So his psychoanalytic therapy is to trace out how I have come to this illusion or that illusion, that due to some childhood experience with my mother and father or my mouth or my genitals. Something like that, all of these experiences are contributing to my unreal perception of the world. But the point which you made is that thee... although he may work out what is one particular illusion, who is to prevent that there will not be another illusion? So our process is not to bother tracing out each and every illusion that we have, but to become free from the whole process...

Prabhupada: That is nice.

Giriraja: ...of being controlled by illusory energy.

Prabhupada: That is our treatment.

Syamasundara: Jaya.

Prabhupada: Not to be affected by any more illusion.

Giriraja: Yes.

Prabhupada: That's nice.

Giriraja: He was analyzing the details of the particular illusions, but we are becoming free from the whole influence of maya.

Prabhupada: Yes, maya.

Devotee: As [indistinct] kindling the fire we are extracting the fire..

Prabhupada: Yes. He is analyzing, we are taking out of the fire, then he is relieved.

Giriraja: But his one point is that Freud's theory underwent many changes. In the beginning...

Prabhupada: Change must be there because that is imperfect.

Giriraja: Yes. But his first doctrine was that we should indulge the senses, that this would help, but later he reformed that idea, that instead of indulging the gross senses we should sublimate our natural instincts for some higher cause. So his idea was that instead of actually indulging in gross sex life, we should channel this sexual impulse to some higher cause, such as for developing the culture.

Prabhupada: That we have explained by quoting Sri Yamunacarya's verse, that "Since I have taken to Krsna consciousness, whenever I think of sexual intercourse, my mouth becomes deformed, I want to spite [sic, spit] on it."

Giriraja: Yes.

Devotee: Freud would say that whatever talents you have, use it in Krsna consciousness. But Freud, lets says if somebody, Freud says if somebody has the impulse to kill, he should become a surgeon. If somebody has the impulse to stab someone, then he should be directed to become a doctor and a surgeon, and then by that same cutting is there but that is. That is for the benificient...

Revatinandana: [indistinct]

Syamasundara: Before I analyze...

Devotee: There is still a limited conception of what is better...

Syamasundara: Among, among Freuds analyzis...

Prabhupada: Then all murderers should be sent to medical college to become surgeons instead of condemning them. Why not?

Revatinandana: Or put them in the army.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Revatinandana: Or put them in the army.

Prabhupada: Why he is condemned to death?

Revatinandana: Actually they do like that now.

Devotee: Yes.

Revatinandana: They recruit for the army from the prison.

Devotee: They are hardened criminals.

Syamasundara: Pseudomania.[?]

Devotee: But we have, have the higher principles...

Prabhupada: Now, now that is said, to some extent is all right, because therefore the ksatriya race is there-the fighting spirit.

Syamasundara: So another part of Freud's theory is that there is a life instinct and a death instinct. That we all have these two instincts and that the death instinct is the impulse toward aggression and destruction, whereas the life instinct is the impulse towards self-preservation and sex-procreation. He said that people have these two impulses and those who have the death impulse to extreme often direct it against the self. So that you have acci.. people who have accidents and diseases, that is all self-inflicted; that because I get some disease or have some accident, that is my death instinct directed against myself. So he saw that disease...

Prabhupada: That suicidal policy.

Syamasundara: Yes but everyone...

Prabhupada: Eh?

Devotee: Some of them.

Syamasundara: If someone gets sick, it's because they want to get sick. Or if there is some accident, it is due to my own desire that that accident takes place. This is his theory.

Prabhupada: How? How this theory is?

Devotee: Death wish.

Bhavananda: We see practically. I think most of us have experienced this, and you have told us that if we overeat or if one overeats one will get sick, and we have all experienced that if we overeat we get sick.

Prabhupada: But my tendency for eating more, is not my tendency to get sick. That this cycle is different.

Bhavananda: No but thee.

Prabhupada: He said that this is the after result.

Bhavananda: Yes. So therefore one should not overeat and but still even though we have all eaten and got sick, we will still go ahead and overeat and get sick.

Syamasundara: Sometimes...

Bhavananda: Then Freud would say we want to get sick.

Syamasundara: Sometimes he analyzes that if there is a problem facing someone, then he will get sick, and that will resolve the problem. Psychosomatic sickness. And he saw that accidents happen in the same way. But ah...

Devotee: It sounds like to me that what he calls life instinct is what we call logical, and what he calls death instinct is what we call tamoguna. But if some people... Let's say with Freud never came across people have the urge for mukti. People have the urge to go...

Prabhupada: Neither death nor life...

Devotee: But still they have a touch book [?]

Syamasundara: Well that would be part of the life instinct, self-preservation.

Revatinandana: Self-preservation.

Syamasundara: One ship [?] forever.

Prabhupada: So there are others also, who die for. Want to die forever. Buddhists.

Syamasundara: Yes. Death instinct.

Devotee: Bhaktivinoda Thakura recites that, "Vaisnavas die to live," so willing die to live, that is another instinct.

Syamasundara: But what, what.

Prabhupada: The Bhagavad-gita [Bg 4.9] says, tyaktva deham, tyaktva deham and giving up this body, that is death, punar janma naiti.

Syamasundara: Do, do you attribute accidents and disease to a self, a desire for a self-destruction?

Prabhupada: No. Ultimately we say there is no such thing as accident. But nothing can take place without God's sanction. So there is no question of accidents.

Yasodanandana: If they would have some information of the three kinds of miseries...

Prabhupada: Hm?

Yasodanandana: If they would have some information of the three kinds of miseries adhyatmika, adibhautika, adi-daivika. They should stop speculating on all these kinds of instincts, because they could understand all these different kind of things are categorized in these...

Syamasundara: You mean... Well I thought I heard you say before that some sicknesses and accidents are caused by the person's desire-the person desires to be sick; the person desires to have accident.

Prabhupada: What is this nonsense [?] person desires to be sick?

Giriraja: No well. Suppose we, we somebody says, "Well, I want to be happy."

Prabhupada: Yes.

Giriraja: So we say, "Well you just chant Hare Krsna and join us, then you will be happy." So he is saying, "No. I want to keep my job. I want to do this or that." So then we can say that actually he is not serious about becoming happy. If he really were serious about becoming happy, he would join us. So in a sense he actually doesn't want to be happy. That's what he would say.

Revatinandana: But that is because his conceptions...

Prabhupada: He wants to be happy but he is misguided. That is disgust. He wants to be happy but he is misguided in search of happiness. Everyone wants happiness, but when one is misguided, that is called illusion. That is given. He is searching happiness without any basis.

Revatinandana: Hare Krsna.

Syamasundara: There is more here. Shall we do it tomorrow?

Prabhupada: All right.

[break-continues next day]

Syamasundara: So we are discussing Freud still. It was his idea that each person.. every person has certain aggressive and destructive tendencies within them, and sometimes these are directed upon the self, so that one will have accidents or sicknesses which are self-inflicted. Does this happen?

Prabhupada: Well when one commits suicide, that is not in sane condition-insane condition. In sane condition nobody commits suicide.

Syamasundara: And he observed for instance, when someone came up against a massive task, that sometimes they got sick in order to escape the task-these kinds of things. He investigated slips of the tongue and different accidents. He said that a lot of times they are caused by the self, the psychic.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is in sane condition, not insanity.

Syamasundara: Another area of his investigation was the problem of anxiety. He says that the source of anxiety is the id, or the primitive instincts, which are always forcing us to do this and do that. In other words, desire and these impulses threaten to overpower the rational or the moral self. So there is always a tension or an anxiety produced.

Prabhupada: Anxieties shall continue so long as you are in the material condition. You cannot be free from anxiety in your conditioned life.

Syamasundara: Is it because we desired something and we were always frustrated by that desire, is that...?

Prabhupada: Frustration you must be there, because you do not desire the right thing.

Syamasundara: Ah. So that is the cause, basic cause of anxiety is desire?

Prabhupada: Yes. Desire something which is not permanent. That we calls anxiety. Asad-grahat [SB 7.5.5] just suppose that I wish to live forever, but because I have accepted this body, material body. Therefore there is no question of living forever. So I am always anxious when death will come. I am afraid of death, when the body will be destroyed. This is enquiry. So therefore the conclusion is that anxiety is due to our acceptance of something which will not exist. This is the right definition of anxiety.

Syamasundara: He says that, "The ego develops strategies of defense against this anxiety which is always entering from the id, and one of the strategies it develops is repression. Whenever there is some strong animalistic desire, the ego represses that desire in order to preserve itself."

Prabhupada: Repression is always there. We make plan in so many ways, but by nature it is frustrated. That is repression.

Syamasundara: Is, is conscious repression advisable?

Prabhupada: Conscious repression?

Syamasundara: Yes. Of my basic instincts, my desires. Should I consciously strive to repress these desires?

Prabhupada: Repress desires, just like if you are in diseased condition. So you desire to eat something which is forbidden by the physician. So consciously you have to repress in order to be cured. That is the way.

Syamasundara: Yes. I heard you say once that we cannot really repress desire but we have to channel it...

Devotee: Control it.

Syamasundara: ...control it, into other objects.

Prabhupada: Repression means, suppose you are diseased, you are suffering from typhoid fever, and doctor says that you don't take any solid food. Now if you desire to take a paratha, so you have to repress it: "No, I cannot take paratha." Suppose there is looseness of your bile, and if you want to take some...Con.. What it is called? Concepted and milk? Condensed milk, so you have to repress. Which will go against you, you have to repress. Repress means which is going... repressing something which is going against my welfare. So the brahmacari system also there is repression. He should not see young woman, he should not sit down with young woman. But he desires. The desire is that, "I, I shall see young woman." So you have to repress. That is called tapasya, voluntary repression.

Syamasundara: So aren't these, aren't these repressions given outlet, for these desires given outlet in other ways? That we channel and desire to some other field? Instead of seeing a beautiful woman, we see the beautiful form of Krsna, like that?

Prabhupada: That is our process. Param drstva nivartante [Bg 2.59]. If you have got better engagement, you give up inferior engagements. When you are captivated by seeing the beautiful form of Krsna, naturally you have no more desire to see the beautiful form of a young woman.

Syamasundara: Because the Buddhists they also say repress desires, but they mean total repression.

Prabhupada: Yes. But now, we don't say that. I mean to say that, sometimes there is strong desire, we have to repress it. Just like my Guru Maharaja used to say that while you get up from bed, you beat your mind a hundred times with your shoes, and when you go to bed, you beat your mind hundred times with... What is called? Broomstick. [laughs] Then you will be able to control your mind. Sometimes, just like wild tiger, they have brought him to control by repression. The circus players, they do that. Because it is wild tiger-repression required. But when it is under control, there is no question of repression. You can play with the tiger; he becomes your friend. So repression is not always bad.

Syamasundara: Another field of investigation for Freud was the idea of projection. That this is a technique for attributing one's own unconscious attitudes onto other people. In other words, X calls Y a name, but actually Y is the object of that. In other words, for instance, X may regard Y as being jealous, but in fact X is jealous and he projects that attitude onto someone else.

Prabhupada: That is accepted in Vedic, atmavan manyate jagat. Everyone thinks others like himself.

Syamasundara: So he says that this desire to accuse someone else of being the same as me is sometimes repressed and replaced by the opposite expression. In other words, someone may dislike someone, but they will inhibit that dislike and show overt symptoms of friendliness. Where in fact there is no friendliness there but it is only a mock friendliness. This is one of the psychological attitudes he was studying.

Prabhupada: Of prejudice?

Syamasundara: And sometimes someone who may have dislike for someone. May instead of expressing dislike, he may express just the opposite, extreme fondness for-where in fact he dislikes the person.

Prabhupada: This is called satham, satham-silly, silliness. Silly... is called silly?

Syamasundara: Sillyness.

Prabhupada: What is that meaning of silly?

Syamasundara: Silly means frivolous or superficial.

Prabhupada: Sathe sathyam samacaret [Niti Sastra]. If the other party is silly, so you also become silly, therefore tit-for-tat. That is human nature.

Revatinandana: He would.. Freud would use an example like this: The child has.. is say three or four years old, and then a younger child is born in the family. The four-year-old child sees that younger child as a source of competition for affection, and he doesn't like the younger child, but then in order to get... If he expresses dislike for the child he will be chastised by the parents, so he makes as if he likes the child very much in order to get approbation, but factually he dislikes the child. That is another mechanism that...

Prabhupada: I don't think the elder child dislikes the younger child. Sometimes he likes younger brothers, sisters.

Devotee: Yes. But this.. he would say this sometimes occurs.

Prabhupada: Eh?

Revatinandana: He would, Freud would say that this sometimes occurs. That...

Syamasundara: You don't notice it very much in Indian families because they are so well-adjusted, but in American, in Western families this quite often happens-the older child becomes jealous of the younger child's favors. But in order to gain the favor of the parents, he expresses overt love for the younger child, or his...

Prabhupada: I don't think children are so clever, [laughs] that in order to win the love of parents they will treat like that. This is all...

Bhavananda: Then, then the whole, then Freud put so much emphasis on these.. on the children and the mentality and the emotions of children and how what one is experiencing in youth, is from-and so it is all concocted, is that what you're saying?

Prabhupada: Children can be trained in a different rasa.

Devotee: Yeah.

Syamasundara: Yeah.

Prabhupada: As you train them, they become; like that. It becomes on the training.

Bhavananda: Well Freud says that all children experience this if there is a younger child born into the family. But that's all...

Syamasundara: No.

Prabhupada: They imitate. Children's position is imitation. I have seen in other children. One child was two years old and another child was three years old, and they were imitating just like they have seen the sexual intercourse of their father, mother. I have seen it. They are playing, they're lying down, and the male child is laying upon her. I saw it. So imitation. They do not know what is sex-pleasure, but they are imitating. That's all.

Syamasundara: So Freud analyzes that there are different defense mechanisms by which the ego protects itself.

Prabhupada: But the conclusion is that children generally imitate. They do not know what is the value, but they imitate.

Syamasundara: He would say there are instinctive defense mechanisms in the psychological make-up of everyone, such as repression, such as projection, or excessive overt reactions of an opposite kind. Different defense mechanisms that the psyche, that the ego employs to cover up. To protect itself from the impulses of the id, or the primitive impulses.

Revatinandana: Just like this.. he says that from the social standards of conduct and moral codes, a person develops an ideal conception of himself. He wants to think himself ideal, and this ideal conception fits the standard of the society and his environment. Then from inside, from his lower animal desires, sex desire, etc., he gets impulses which don't fit that standard. That, that he feels some sex lust, but it should not be there, so he wants to say, "I don't really have that." So he tries to repress that desire either by repressing it or by saying, "Well I don't desire that. But somebody else desires like that," or in so many ways he tries to cover the fact that his own psychological make-up doesn't fit his standard. That's what...

[break] That's what... and he calls it defense mechanism, a way to pretend as if I still am ideal, although I don't really have ideal desires and thoughts, like that. You see. That's, that's the I think that's the point. So he postulated all these different mechanisms for defending the ego against this desires of this id.

[break]

Prabhupada: You have seen that play?

Syamasundara: Tarzan?

Revatinandana: I never saw.

Syamasundara: Tarzan?

Bhavananda: Tarzan?

Prabhupada: Tarzan. Yes. So he was, he was brought up by monkeys.

Devotees: [Laughter]

Syamasundara: Yeah. [laughs]

Prabhupada: Ah. He was brought up and he... He got these monkey habits. So children, if you keep them in good association, then they will come out very good. There will be psychological development in good way. And if you keep them in bad association, they will come out bad. Just like in Boston the priest regretted that these our American boys, they were so much after God, but we could not give them. Actually you American boys, before coming to Krsna consciousness, there was no God consciousness; there was a hippie consciousness. And how this has changed, due to association. So you are all grown-up, but even small, small children, if you keep them in good association, they'll come out nice. Demigods they'll come out. And if you put them in the devil association, they come out devils. So they are blank slate. As you write, it is written. That is real psychology. You can mold children as you like. They have got the capacity to... Therefore children are sent to a school for taking education, not old men.

Syamasundara: So there is no fixed pattern...

Prabhupada: No.

Syamasundara: …of development of...

Prabhupada: No.

Syamasundara: ...children's personalities?

Prabhupada: Yes. This is wrong psychology. You can mold them in any way. As you put them into the mold, that's all. Just like you take a soft dough, and you can mold it as a paratha or capati, kacauri.

Syamasundara: So actually Freud was speaking only of a certain set of children in a certain society, Western society, where they were all brought up a certain way.

Prabhupada: That's all right. He has a got a one-sided experience.

Syamasundara: Yes.

Revatinandana: Oh! He has been criticized like that.

Syamasundara: You don't find these, these neuroses in Indian families.

Prabhupada: No.

Devotee: Or they studied subsequently primitive tribes they found that these neuroses were not there. They only existed in the social structure of Victorian Europe.

Syamasundara: Yeah.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Syamasundara: Austria and...

Prabhupada: Therefore this is the conclusion-that if you put children in right association, they go rightly and if you put them in wrong association, they go wrongly.

Devotee: Yes.

Prabhupada: They have no independent psychology.

Syamasundara: Perhaps his one, his one contribution was that he said that behavior must be understood in terms of a person's whole life history, in the total...

Prabhupada: Therefore in Ayurvedic system it is forbidden that even a small child, before that small child, the husband and wife should not joking. They should not talk jokingly.

Syamasundara: To the child?

Prabhupada: Before the child.

Syamasundara: Before the child.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Devotee: To each other.

Prabhupada: Yes. It is not that, "It is a small child. They will not understand." But they utilize[?] attention. So what to speak of having sex intercourse before the child? They will learn it. I've seen it. They do not know what is sex intercourse, but they have learned it from their rascal father and mother.

Devotee: Oh!

Syamasundara: So Freud, actually his psychology depended upon a rather pessimistic view of human nature-that we are all beset with these uncontrollable impulses...

Prabhupada: No, not only pessimism, but due to poor fund of knowledge. He has no perfect knowledge, neither he is trained up by any perfect man. So he is talking all nonsense. That's all.

Syamasundara: His conclusion was that it was impossible to be happy in this material world, but we can alleviate some of the conflicts through this psychoanalysis. You can try and make the path smooth as possible, but it is always...

Prabhupada: That is one, one such a design that you cannot be happy in this material world, but if you are spiritually elevated, spiritually trained up, then you will be happy. The same example. Just like iron rod is not fire, but you put it in the fire, it will act as fire. Similarly, although there is no possibility of happiness in this material world, if you are spiritually trained up, if your consciousness changed into Krsna consciousness-then you will be happy. [end]