Being capable of action, is that a good definition of substance?

Expressions researched:
"being capable of action, is that a good definition of substance"

Philosophy Discussions

Yes. Substance means the original cause, so He is completely able to act... To be means to be active. Without activity, what does it mean to be?

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Śyāmasundara: But when you come to the living entities, then the individual soul is also there.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Within the body. Both of them—Kṛṣṇa is also there, and the individual soul is also there.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the definition of substance is a being capable of action. Substance means to be capable of action, and that existence means action.

Prabhupāda: Substance is original. Other things are categories.

Śyāmasundara: So being capable of action, is that a good definition of substance?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Substance means the original cause, so He is completely able to act.

Śyāmasundara: He says to be is to be active.

Prabhupāda: Yes, to be means to be active. Without activity, what does it mean to be?

Śyāmasundara: He says that these monads change in their appearances because the inner desire impels it to pass from one phenomenal representation to another.

Prabhupāda: The monad does not change, but his mind has changed. But I do not know what this means, monads. He is complicating. He cannot express what is this monad.

Śyāmasundara: Monad is very vague. It means a small unit of oneness or unity, which is the substance behind everything else, even the atom.

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is fully independent.

Śyāmasundara: He says, for instance, that a monad changes its appearance according to its desires.

Prabhupāda: That indication is for the soul. But Kṛṣṇa is not that. Kṛṣṇa is kuta; means he does not change.

Śyāmasundara: He says just like this thing, (holding up an object) it will change to another thing, to another thing, to another thing, depending on its desire, which impels it to change. He says that even behind some object there is some ability to change.

Prabhupāda: That I have already said. Just like Kṛṣṇa, first of all He created the whole total cosmic energy, and then, by His plan, by His devices, He divides into so many things, changes, parts and parts and parts. It can be taken in that way. The material changes are going on according to the will of God, or Kṛṣṇa. Is that clear?

Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that each monad is like all of the others. They are identical, so that to know one is to know all, to know the whole world.

Prabhupāda: This individual monads can be taken as soul?

Śyāmasundara: Yes. And he sees soul even in matter.

Prabhupāda: Yes. If Kṛṣṇa is there, there is Supersoul.

Śyāmasundara: So he would say that each particle of Supersoul or each monad is self-contained, that there is no loss of gain of force.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Eternal.

Śyāmasundara: He says that even though these monads are always active, they do not contact each other, neither do they affect each other. For example, if a bat hit a ball, in reality the bat did not really affect the ball.

Prabhupāda: But some individual soul has taken the bat, he has hit it, not the bat has hit it.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the bat and the ball are independent.

Prabhupāda: How they are independent? I am holding the bat. I am hitting the ball. So how can the bat is independent?