By Suresvara Dasa
"Scientists say that water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen," writes Srila Prabhupada, the founder and spiritual guide of the Hare Krsna movement, "but when they see a vast ocean they are puzzled about where such a quantity of hydrogen and oxygen could have come from. They think that everything evolved from chemicals. But where did the chemicals come from? We actually see that chemicals are produced from living entities. For example, a lemon tree produces many tons of citric acid. The citric acid is not the cause of the tree; rather, the tree is the cause of the acid. Similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the cause of everything. He is the cause of the tree that produces the citric acid. He is the cause of the chemicals." Jaded by an impersonal, mechanistic view of nature, materialistic scientists deny that rain is ultimately an energy of God. Ultimately, they say, we cannot be certain about rain or anything else. And ultimately, if all we do is listen to them, they certainly seem to be right. During a bad drought in California a few years ago, one scientifically-minded politician proposed towing in icebergs from the Arctic. In the meantime rain mercifully came. And when it did I happened to be in Santa Barbara, where I met a man named Zeus. He worked with the local weather bureau. "Man is a function of his genes and environment," Zeus told me, "but [whispering] he has incredibly more potential to control them than he knows." "And now man is also going to control the weather?" I asked. "Going to! Why, just last week we seeded some clouds over Catalina, and it rained buckets." I pointed to the tempest outside. "Can you make it stop?" Zeus opened his eyes and mouth wide, raised a forefinger high and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. He could no more stop the rain than he could the common cold.