Modern education builds magnificent structures while ignoring the eternal soul—the foundation upon which everything rests.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Lecture to Technology Students [M.I.T.] — May 8, 1968, Boston 680508LE-BOSTON [93:17 Minutes] [kīrtana] [Announcement] [indistinct] [break] [05:12] Prabhupāda: ...ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ [I offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master, who, with the torchlight of knowledge, has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance.] This prayer is offering respectful obeisances to the spiritual master. Why? Because the spiritual master is the person who opens our eyes, complicated in ignorance, with the torch of transcendental knowledge. Timirāndhasya.
Every one of us born ignorant, and we require specific education and training for seeing things as they are. Today I am very glad to meet you. You are all students of technology. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is also another technology. Unfortunately, in the modern state of civilization there are different department of knowledge.
There is department of teaching medical science, there is department of teaching engineering, there is department of educating—so many other departments of knowledge. Unfortunately, there is no department for distributing knowledge in the science of the soul. But that is the important, most important thing, because the soul is the mainstay, is the background of all our movements. In the Bhagavad-gītā there is a nice verse: indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ manasas tu parā buddhir yo buddheḥ paratas tu saḥ [Bg. 3.42] [The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence.] The idea is that in the present consciousness I am thinking that I am this body, although actually I am not this body. This is ignorance.
And body means the senses. I am acting means... Just like I am talking. That means I am using my tongue for vibration. So these bodily activities means sensual activities.
But if you go deep into the matter, the senses can only act when the mind is sound. If the mind is not sound, a crazy man or a madman cannot use his senses properly. Therefore higher science. First of all technology of the senses, and then, next higher technology is of the mind, which is known as psychology.
Thinking, feeling, willing. They are trying to understand how they are working. And above this mind, mental science, there is the science of intelligence. And above the science of intelligence, the background is the soul. Unfortunately, we have got technology for the bodily senses, we have got technology for psychology, but we have neither any technology for intelligence nor for any technology in the science of the soul.
The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is the technology of the science of soul. There is a nice story. You'll appreciate it. In India, especially in Bengal, there are many rivers. The land is full of rivers.