Hayagrīva: This is the additional notations on Plato. For Plato, the spiritual world is not a mental conception. For Plato, truth is the same as the ultimate reality, the ideal or the highest good, and it is from this that all manifestations and cognitions flow. Plato uses the word "idea" in order to denote a subject's primordial existence, or maybe it's archetype. I think that Kṛṣṇa uses the word bījam.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Hayagrīva: Bījam, seed, "I am the seed of all existence"?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Hayagrīva: For instance...
Prabhupāda: Bījāhaṁ sarva-bhūtānām. In Bhagavad-gītā it is said, mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate, that even the spiritual world and material world, everything is emanation from Him. The difference is, in the material everything is created and maintained then annihilated. In the spiritual world that is not the case. Just like material world this body, and spiritual world the soul. The body is created, maintained and annihilated; the soul is not. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). After the destruction of the body, the spirit soul is not destroyed. What happens to him? He takes another body. And one who is perfect, he goes directly to Kṛṣṇa, tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti (BG 4.9). So we can make this life... Because we are preparing for the next life, so why not take advantage of going back to home, back to Godhead? This is our mission. You have to prepare yourself either for going to the higher planetary system, yānti devān deva-vratāḥ... You can go to the higher planetary system, you can go lower, and you can go to Godhead. So they, therefore, if I have to change this body and go elsewhere, why not go to God? That is intelligence. Now what is the advantage? If you go to God, then you will have..., haven't got to change any more this body. That is eternal, blissful. Therefore our intelligence should be utilized how to go to back to home, back to Godhead. That is intelligence.
Hayagrīva: Now you said to Śyāmasundara that water existed before our mental conception of H2O. We conceive of H2O, we think of well, what is..., we begin to analyze water, and we say, well, it's two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. But before we even began to think of this, water existed.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Therefore H2O is not the permanent essence or the primordial existence of water, but what Plato is saying is that everything that exists has its seed or essence or idea.
Prabhupāda: Seed is originally with Kṛṣṇa.
Hayagrīva: Yes. The seed is, then, Kṛṣṇa says bījam, "I am the seed..."
Prabhupāda: Bīja ahaṁ sarva-bhūtānām. Whatever is manifest, the original God had.
Hayagrīva: That... Is that the bījam is the unmanifest...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: ...is the unmanifest essence of an object.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Uh-huh. That...
Prabhupāda: Just like the tree. Before manifestation it is a seed, but within that seed the whole tree is there.
Hayagrīva: Plato would call that the idea or the archetype.
Prabhupāda: That is not idea; that is fact.
Hayagrīva: Not idea, fact.
Prabhupāda: Fact. If you sow a seed of rose flower, it will come as rose tree. If you grow a seed of mango tree, it will come as mango tree. So it is not idea; it is fact. Simply it is in nascent state, but it is a fact. You cannot make your idea, "Now here is a seed, let it be mango tree." It will not make. If it is rose tree it will come rose tree. So your idea has no value. Seed means the nascent state.
Hayagrīva: The na..., the...
Prabhupāda: Nascent. What is called?
Hayagrīva: Neh...?
Prabhupāda: Nascent.
Hayagrīva: Nescient?
Prabhupāda: Yes, nascent. What is the...
Hayagrīva: (sic:) Nescent.
Prabhupāda: What is spelling?
Hayagrīva: (sic:) N-e-s-c-e-n-t. To be..., not yet developed.
Prabhupāda: Manifested, yes, yes.
Hayagrīva: Plato states that the material world is restricted to limitations of time and space, whereas the spiritual world transcends time and space.
Prabhupāda: Yes.