Hayagrīva: Hobbes compares man to a machine ultimately made by God, but he does not see this machine as controlled directly by God but by the Leviathan, by the, by the king, the ruler.
Prabhupāda: No. God is situated in everyone's heart, and He is seeing every minute action of the soul—what he is desiring, how he is manipulating the machine. This is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā: īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe arjuna tiṣṭhati (BG 18.61). Specifically it is indicated that God is situated in the heart of the living being and He is observing what he desires. So according to his desire, God is so kind He is supplying a machine. If he wants to enjoy this material world as a human being, God gives him opportunity to become a human being, and if he wants to enjoy this material world as a dog, He gives him the body of a dog. If he wants to enjoy as a hog, He gives the body of a hog. If he wants to enjoy as demigod, He gives him the body. So this is God's mercy. So long the individual living being wants to enjoy this material world, so according to his eagerness to enjoy in that way, He gives the facility, and that facility is the particular body. This body is material. It is supplied by the material nature, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). The machine is made by the material ingredients, upon the order of Kṛṣṇa, or God, for the enjoyment of the living entity. So he sits in that machine and travels. Just like we have got a car, we can travel, similarly we get particular machine and we travel in some species of life in some planet. There are innumerable planets, and 8,000,000 species of life. So according to the contact with material nature, the living entity is desiring something, and God is so merciful that He is giving him facility. But actually, because God is friend, when he is prepared to understand from God how he will be happy, He says that "You give up all this nonsense plan. You just surrender unto Me." Then he is perfect. Otherwise if he desires, God will supply him unlimited number of machine for going here and there, up and down, within this universe. There are two process: either you go up or come down, and the down means lower species of life; up means higher species of life. Just like demigods, Brahmā, his one day's life calculation is impossible to do. So there are different places of life, millions of years' living and a few moment living. So everything opportunity is given by God because He is supreme controller. We desire: Man proposes, God disposes. This is God's position. But so long he will go on proposing this and that, he will never be happy. When he agrees to the plan of God, then he will be happy.
Hayagrīva: Hobbes says that warfare is perpetual and that the struggle for existence goes on and on, and therefore the Leviathan is necessary. This... He believes in the divine right of kings, that the Leviathan is like God's representative, God's lieutenant, and he has his sovereignty under God.
Prabhupāda: Yes. If...
Hayagrīva: Like a Vedic monarch or a...
Prabhupāda: That is perfection of monarchy. God... The king is called nṛpa-deva, nara-deva. Although he is in human form of body, he is God.
Hayagrīva: He also said that this could be not only an individual but a group of individuals.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Group of individuals can remain, provided they are all devotees. But if the group of individuals, if they are all rogues and rascals, they cannot be representative of God. But either singular or plural, if all of them or single actually representative of God abiding by the laws... Laws means actual, dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat-praṇītam (SB 6.3.19). For God said that is actual religion or law. And if we manufacture in our own ways, without reference to the God's program, it will be useless and failure.