Spirit animates matter; the living soul sustains creation, not inert material elements.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 7.4 — December 19, 1972, Bombay 721219BG-BOMBAY [42:24 Minutes] C-089 Bg-07.04_721219BG-BOMBAY Prabhupāda: …vāyuḥkhaṁ mano buddhir eva ca ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā [Bg. 7.4] So shall I speak in English? Devotees: Yes. Prabhupāda: Because if I speak in Hindi, these people cannot understand. So this is very scientific proposal. How these material elements—earth, water, fire, air, sky—and subtle material elements—mind, intelligence and ego—are growing from Kṛṣṇa. But if we give little attention, it is not very difficult to understand. Just like you sow one little seed on the ground, just like a banyan tree.
Gradually that seed becomes a very big banyan tree. So matter does not produce living energy. From the living energy the matter is produced. That is the fact. The theory that…, Buddhist theory, they say that living symptom grows under certain condition of material combination.
That is not the fact. We don't find such things. Then the scientist would have been able to produce life in the laboratory by combination of matter and chemicals. So far it has not been possible, neither it is possible at any time, because from Bhagavad-gītā we understand that two energies are working: material energy and the spiritual energy.
Here is the description of the material energy: bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ, and the next verse it is clearly said that apareyam, all these material energies, they are inferior quality. And besides this inferior quality material elements there is another prakṛti, or nature: jīva-bhūtāṁ, that is living entity, mahā-bāho. Yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat. Practically the spiritual energy is maintaining this cosmic manifestation, not the material energy. Unfortunately, the material scientists, they do not understand it, and they put different theories, that from matter spiritual energy grows.
No. That is not the fact. The practical example is, just like our, this body: this body is produced when the living entity is there within the womb of the mother. The living entity is injected through the semina of the father within the womb of the mother. Karmaṇā-daiva-netreṇa jantur dehopapattaye [SB 3.31.1].
According to our karma, we are put into the semina of a particular type of father, and the living entity is injected in sex life within the womb of the mother. And if there no, I mean to say, disadvantage for the living condition of the living entity within the womb of the mother, then it grows body. The modern contraceptive method is to destroy the favorable condition for the living entity: it is not allowed. The living entity does not die, na jāyate mriyate vā [Bg. 2.20]; living entity has no death. But because a living entity ordained to live under certain conditions in the womb, and that is checked, that is violating the order of the Supreme.
By Supreme, daiva-netreṇa, by superior management… There is a big management, superior management. By superior management a living entity is put to accept a certain type of body. When it is disturbed, that means it is neglecting the order of the Supreme; therefore it is sin. The contraceptive methods adopted by the modern civilization is sinful activity, because it is not allowed to accept a certain place which was ascertained, or allotted, by the Supreme Will. Not the living entity dies, but it is refused the place.