Hayagrīva: Concerning the question whether karma is personal...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: ...he writes, "The crucial question is whether a man's karma is personal or not. If it is, then the pre-ordained destiny with which a man enters life represents an achievement of previous lives, and a personal continuity therefore exists. If, however, this is not so, and an impersonal karma is seized upon in the act of birth, then that karma is incarnated again without there being any personal continuity."
Prabhupāda: What is that impersonal karma? Karma is always personal.
Hayagrīva: Karma is always personal.
Prabhupāda: Personal.
Hayagrīva: He points out that Buddha was twice asked by His disciples whether man's karma is personal or not. Each time he fended off the question and did not go into the matter. To know this, he said, would not contribute to liberating oneself.
Prabhupāda: Because he did not, he did not teach about the soul. Therefore, how he could touch that personal?
Hayagrīva: He refused to respond to those questions.
Prabhupāda: Yes, because he did not accept the soul. That as soon as he denied the personal aspect of the soul, how there can be personal karma? So he wanted to avoid this; otherwise his whole philosophy becomes different.
Hayagrīva: Well this is Jung's conclusion on the matter. He says, "Have I lived before in the past as a specific person?" (break) (aside:) ...other track?
Hari-śauri: Yes.
Hayagrīva: This is a continuation of Jung. Concerning whether or not karma is personal, Jung concludes, "Have I lived before in the past as a specific personality, and did I progress so far in that life that I am now able to seek a solution?"
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is tle fact.
Hayagrīva: He says, "I do not know."
Prabhupāda: That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, tataḥ paurva-dehikaṁ yatate paurva-dehikam. This is individual.
Hayagrīva: He says, "Buddha left the question open, and I like to assume that he himself did not know with certainty."
Prabhupāda: (chuckles softly while Hayagrīva continues reading)
Hayagrīva: "I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer, that I had to be born again because I had not fulfilled the task that was given to me."
Prabhupāda: That is fact.
Hayagrīva: "When I die, my deeds will follow along with me. That is how I imagine it."
Prabhupāda: That is karma.
Hayagrīva: That's personal karma?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: "I will bring with me what I have done. In the meantime it is important to insure that I do not stand at the end with empty hands."
Prabhupāda: No. So you are, if you are regularly progressing, that then at the end it is not empty, it is completeness. To go back to home, back to Godhead, that is completeness; that is not empty. The Māyāvādī can not understand the posi..., positivity of God's kingdom, so they simply make empty. There is no positive concept, therefore...
Hayagrīva: No. He says... No. He says, "It is important that I do not stand at the end with empty hands."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That, that nobody has...
Hayagrīva: That, in others words, he has good deeds and...
Prabhupāda: No, not only good deeds, that is our aspiration. We don't want emptiness.
Hayagrīva: Yes.