The idea of heart transplants was to simply replace a diseased heart to allow one to live a normal life, they are NOT just thinking by changing the heart they will increase the duration of life, no, they are replacing a diseased heart with a healthy one.
The doctors know they have no control over how long one lives, no one knows that. Therefore to say a heart transplant recipient does not live long is a contradiction by the devotees.
The following is an example that some of the conversation on heart transplants, especially by the young devotees of that time (youth in there early 20s) with Prabhupada, were LIMITED by the time, place and circumstance of medical and scientific knowledge of the early 1970s.
Here is what Prabhupada said about heart transplant just 5 years after the first one was done in 1968
Prabhupada's excellent example is the heart organ is like a seat one changes for another seat when it is damaged. The soul is simply given a new seat.
This example by Prabhupada still stands today and will for all time
Morning Walk -- December 2, 1973, Los Angeles:
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, what about the heart transplant? The spirit soul is within the heart, but when the... in the medical science nowadays, the old heart can be replaced by a new one. So what happens with the spirit soul with the old one?
Prabhupāda: But that does not mean that new ones will increase their duration of life. That is our challenge.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the personality is changed?
Prabhupāda: No.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Why not?
Prabhupāda: Why changed? Suppose if I sit from this chair to this chair, why I am changed? I can change my seat. It does not mean that I am changed.
Karandhara: Change the heart also. The heart can change.
Prabhupāda: The heart is seat, sitting place.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the new heart had spirit soul from the new one.
Prabhupāda: Spirit soul, new or old there is. But if you can prove by changing the heart you can increase the duration of life, then you can catch the spirit soul.
Karandhara: That they're not able to do.
Prabhupāda: That is their nonsense.
Bali Mardana: None of them have lived very long.
Prabhupāda: No, they cannot be. Because by karmaṇā daiva-netreṇa (SB 3.31.1), by superior arrangement, karmaṇā, you have got this body. So you have to live within this body certain age. So if you change the body, new, that doesn't mean you prolong your life. That is not possible. It is the duration of life, that is considered. They are thinking by changing the heart they will increase the duration of life. That is not possible.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So it is some sort of artificial transmigration?
Prabhupāda: Yes, like that. That transmigration taken... That is already explained in Bhagavad-gītā. Just like a baby becomes a child, child becomes boy, boy becomes youth, like that. Transmigration it is going on continually. This is another type of transmigration. So it is a fact that by changing the heart the duration is not...?
Bali Mardana: No, most of them, they have lived, a very short times. But still is it a fact that the soul is transplanted from one body to another body?
Prabhupāda: That can be done, yes. Sometimes yogis, they can perform that better body, he transfers himself into that body. Just Śaṅkarācārya did, yes.
Karandhara: What they do, though, they wait till someone's dying or dead, and immediately after they die, they take the heart. From somebody who had the weak heart they transplant, change the heart.
Prabhupāda: So what...? There is no benefit.
Karandhara: But that does not mean that the soul from the old heart, or the new heart is being changed into the new body.
Bali Mardana: The soul has already left. (break)
NOTE - Bali Madana's comment that Prabhupada agreed with, claiming heart transplant recipients do not live long, is no longer correct in today's world. Back in 1973 it was correct.
No one knows how long one will live for or how many breaths one has, so for Bali Madana to say heart transplants do not live long contradicts Prabhupada's comments that , "It is the duration of life, that is considered". But who knows that?
And in anycase, today they DO live a long time.
It seems the devotee's comments are based on out dated pioneering medical science of 1973, just 5 years after the world's first heart transplant.
Today it is proved heart transplants are successful with the example of thousands of heart transplant people today in 2019.
Only in the beginning in the late 60s and early 70s was it surround by doubt due to being a new science.
Most today live normal long lives like Fiona Coots who had her transplant in 1981and today and has lived a normal life for nearly 40 years.
The point is made that devotees claimed back in 1973 that a heart transplant recipient does not live long.
ReplyDeleteToday that is simply NOT true.
Yes that was true for that time of 1973 but today they live a full life, young children now can be given a new heart at 3 weeks old (or seat as Prabhupada calls it) and can live a full life.
My point is Bali Mandana' s comment is wrong for our time and place in 2019, read for yourself he says heart transplant recipient does not live long.
And Prabhupada clearly understood the karmic side of heart transplants that never existed before 1968.
Yes Prabhupada understands people are born into a situation of time, place and circumstance according to their karma where they get what they deserve according to Karma, no more, no less.
But no one knows how many breaths each of us have or who lives or who dies.
Therefore Bali Madana speculation that those who get a new heart do not live long is nonsense, he does not know what karma others have.
Do you understand my humble point?