Our Real Life 27

touch is soft. And then again, from water to fire, still finer.
After fire or electricity the air is still finer; and after air, the
sky, ether, is finer still. Beyond ether, the mind is still finer;
and beyond the mind, intelligence is still finer. And, if you go
beyond intelligence to understand the soul, it is finer still.
From these elements people have discovered so many sciences.
There are many scientists, for example, who are soil experts;
they can say, by analyzing a particular type of earth, what kind
of mimerals are there. Somebody seeks out silver, somebody
seeks out gold, somebody seeks out mica. This is knowledge of
gross things—the earth. If you go to finer substances, then you
study water, or liquid things, such as petrol and alcohol. Go
still finer, and from water you will go to fire and electricity. If
you study electricity, you have to study all sorts of books.
And, from this finer fire, you will come to air. We have so
much advancement in our airplanes; we are studying how they
move, how they are made—now sputniks and jets—so many
things are being discovered.

Next comes the study of the ethereal: electronics, ethereal
transformations from one thing to another. Then, finer still, is
the mind—psychology and psychiatry. But for intelligence,
rationalism, there is only a little philosophical speculation. And
what about the soul? Is there any science of the soul? The
materialists have none. Material science has advanced to the
study of the ether, or the mind and intelligence, but there is no
advancement beyond that. Beyond intelligence, they do not
know what exists. But here in the Bhagavad-gita you can find
this.

The Bhagavad-gita begins at the point after intelligence.
When Arjuna was perplexed at the outset, his intelligence was
perplexed—whether to fight or not to fight. Krsna begins the
Gita from the point where intelligence fails. How does know-
ledge of the soul begin? It is just like a child is playing. You
can understand this child’s body is now so small, but one day
