Life Comes From Life

From 1970 to 1973, I was involved in my Ph.D., yet I would always find time to visit Srila Prabhupada whenever he came to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles temple [New Dwarka] was like headquarters for Srila Prabhupada in the 70's and he used to be in Los Angeles every year for an extensive period of time. During those times, every day I would drive about sixty miles from the University to be with Srila Prabhupada for the morning walks. These morning walks became a forum for animated discussions on scientific preaching.

Srila Prabhupada liked argument. He would ask somebody to present the scientific viewpoint and then he will challenge it from different angles. Often he used strong words against the scientists calling them 'rascals' because they claim that life is a chance combination of chemicals or that by scientific advancement one day they will create life in laboratories. His criticisms, however, were not malicious. Rather, they were very humorous and everybody was enlivened upon hearing Srila Prabhupada's comments. Often he would narrate stories to ridicule the fallacies of materialism and then joke about it. His intentions however were always serious. He was concerned that the scientists by their false claims they will one day create life are misleading the ordinary mass of people and we must challenge the scientists to refute their atheistic views. The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT) later published these discussions as a book called Life Comes From Life. After the morning walk, we would all go for the Srimad-Bhagavatam class. Even here, often Srila Prabhupada would talk about science preaching. Sometimes he would call me in the audience, and would ask, 'What does our scientist say?'