The conclusion is that the spirit soul is the basic principle for growing matter. Not that from matter living symptoms are grown. That's not a fact. From the living body, from the living entity, this matter grows. We have got so many instances, just like from the seed of a banyan tree a big tree grows. And Kṛṣṇa says, bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ (BG 7.10), "I am the bīja, I am the seed." "I am the seed." He claims to be the seed. So why not when He says that "These material elements are My energies," so what is the difficulty to understand? Just like this material body, it has grown up out of my energy. I am a fragmental spiritual spark, part and parcel of the Supreme. We are... I am the same quality, but very, very small. That smallness is also described in the Vedic literatures:
- keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya
- śatāṁśaḥ sādṛśātmakaḥ
- jīvaḥ sūkṣma-svarūpo 'yaṁ
- saṅkhyātīto hi cit-kaṇaḥ
- (CC Madhya 19.140)
The dimension of the living entity is there. It is a false theory that the soul has no form or God has no form. God has form and the soul has form: nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13), these are the Vedic information. Every one of us, we have got form, but the form is so small and minute that we cannot see with these gross material eyes.
Therefore we have to take information from the Vedic literature about the form. Śruti. Things... Just like in the present age also, we are accepting so many things simply by hearing. Just like these people are advertising that they are going to the moon planet. You do not go to the moon planet; you simply hear from the newspaper and believe it. That's all. So it does not require experiment. If you hear from the authoritative source you have to accept it as fact, not that in every instance you have to use your senses directly.
So therefore hearing is very important thing, and the Vedas are called śrutis. Śruti means the knowledge from the Vedas received by hearing: śrotreṇa, by hearing. The hearing also we get so many knowledge. Just like here we are speaking from Bhagavad-gītā: you are hearing. So unless you think that by hearing you shall get the knowledge, then why do you take so much trouble of hearing? So hearing is very important, and according to Vedic system there are three kinds of evidences: śruti, aitihya and anumāna—no—pratyakṣa, anumāna...
(break) ...atyakṣa. That is actually happening, just like we are seeing: directly we are seeing the sun planet, but we are seeing just like a disk, but actually it is fourteen hundred thousand times bigger than the sun. So this knowledge we get by hearing from the expert astronomer, that the body of the sun is so big. Therefore śruti is very important thing.
So our Vedic system is that you hear from the Vedas the exact knowledge, exact information, and you get exact knowledge. We cannot change it. We give so much importance to the writings of the Vedas, śruti-pramāṇa. Śruti-pramāṇa, evidence by hearing, by the Vedas. So here we are hearing from Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that matter grows out of the energy of the spirit soul. This is a fact. Therefore the spirit soul, jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat (BG 7.5), the spirit soul has been given more importance than the material elements, aparā.