Lemon tree: Hundreds of Pounds of Citric Acid

Lemon tree

Now, take one lemon tree. It is a living entity, and it is producing at least hundreds of pounds of citric acid, lemons. Everyone knows. You take fifty lemons today, again take fifty lemons, and if you extract the lemons, you’ll find extensive quantity of citric acid. So wherefrom the citric acid chemical comes? Because the living entity’s there in the tree. Therefore the conclusion should be the chemicals come from life; life does not come from chemical. If life comes from chemical, then you produce. I give you the chemical, whatever chemicals you want. So chemical is produced. Just like you have got experience when there is perspiration. You taste the perspiration; there is salt. Wherefrom the salt comes? Salt is… what is the chemical name? Sodium carbonate, no?

Devotee: Chloride.

Prabhupada: Sodium chloride. Sodium chloride. So sodium chloride, wherefrom it comes? It comes from your body, and body comes from the soul. Therefore the original cause of sodium chloride is the soul. So as you can analyze a little quantity of chemicals from your body, from tree’s body, from any body, so you just imagine the unlimited body, gigantic body of Krsna, virat-purusa, how much chemical it can produce. Therefore, don’t take it that this is all imagination. Krsna says,

bhumir apo ’nalo vayuh kham mano buddhir eva ca ahankara itiyam me bhinna prakrtir astadha

“These eight kinds of materials, gross and subtle, they are My energy.” It is coming from Krsna. Krsna is not talking any nonsense. He’s not bluffing you. At least those who are advanced, why you are reading Bhagavad-gita? Because it is authoritative; Krsna is speaking. That is fact. The most exalted authority. We have to take knowledge from the authority; we cannot manufacture knowledge.

Bhagavad-gita 7.4
by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Bombay, February 19, 1974