"How then can we define life? To attempt an easy definition is to enter a quagmire from which many a writer has emerged considerably more muddy than when he began.” (laughter).

In other words, "We don't know." And then he concludes, he concludes, Perhaps it,
"Perhaps it might be better to simply admit that complex concepts such as life and love do not lend themselves to neat and orderly textbook definitions." Still... Listen to this, still, in keeping with our automobile analogy, and the mechanistic view of life, we can regard a living organism in terms of complex chemical reactions taking place at a specific level of organization of matter."

First he admits, they don't know what life is. They admit, "We don't know what life is." And then he says, still, because after all I have to make believe I'm a teacher, and still, after all we have to make believe, being teachers, that we know what we're talking about. “So, still, in keeping with our automobile analogy..." I mean here, an automobile analogy, you're comparing a living organism to an automobile, the automobile analogy here. Oh, you see, a car runs on gasoline and a person runs on food. What's the difference, right?" (laughter). Just a more complex structure. This is what is going on. They're talking about life, they're telling us this is, how it was created in the past, by accident, and they're trying to create it now. They don't even know what they're trying to create. They're saying that they're, it's going to be created in the future. Yet they don't even know what it is. And yet, even though they don't know what it is, they still say, "Still, even though we don't know what it is, this is what it is." (laughter) "We don't know what it is, but here, here, this is, you know, we may as well keep to the automobile analogy because after all, that's what has been passed down through our disciplic succession. Still, in keeping with our automobile analogy and the mechanistic view of life . . ." We're all just machines, you see, and that which appears living is just a more complex machine than that which is, appears non-living. Okay? “We can regard a living organism in terms of complex chemical reactions. Life is a creation of complex chemicals, complex chemicals coming together and reacting, producing or creating this thing we call life. “And when does this take place? This takes place at a specific level of organization of matter.” In other words, when matter is complexly organized, then it bumps and grinds and creates this offspring, this mirage called life, or something, okay? "Why then do we a-, we ask, why then is a corpse a corpse? When a minute ago it was alive, a living organism. Here you have a dead body, and the organization of chemicals and the organization of that physical structure, this complex organization of matter is present, and yet life is not present. So how can you say that life is caused by chemicals, or a complex chemical uh, machine, when you have a complex chemical machine here, and there is no life there? This is simply cheating.

Siddhaswarupananda - founder of Science of Identity Foundation