Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: (break) ...diminution on this path of devotional service, nehābhikrama-nāśo'sti (BG 2.40). So does that mean that once one enters the material world, there's only progress in going back to Godhead, although it may be slow, over many lifetimes?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. One is going slow, one is finishing very rapidly. If one is serious, he can finish very rapidly. If one is not serious, it will take time.
Rāmeśvara: (break) ...contests and get all sorts of awards and recognition. Because no one has such beautiful books.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's a fact.
Rāmeśvara: We have also won awards for Back to Godhead, the cover design.
Prabhupāda: Cover designs?
Mahendra: They like the cover, but they're afraid to look inside.
Rādhāvallabha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, at the time of death, when the soul leaves the body, at that time the body is destroyed. So at the time of sleeping, when the soul leaves the body, how is the body maintained?
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Rādhāvallabha: At the time of sleeping, when the soul leaves the body, why is the body not destroyed at that time?
Prabhupāda: Why? Suppose you have left the car; does that mean it is destroyed? You are going again.
Rādhāvallabha: But at the time of death it is destroyed when you leave it.
Prabhupāda: Death is different. When the car is no more usable, that is death. But we are returning to the car because we know that it is usable. And if we know that it is useless, we don't go to that car. That is death.
Yadubara: Śrīla Prabhupāda. At the time of sleeping, there is a subtle reality that the subtle body enters into?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Reality means as you take this awakening vision as reality, similarly, the dream vision is also real.... Nothing, none of them are reality. They are all temporary.
Yadubara: But that subtle reality is just as real as this gross reality?
Prabhupāda: Yes. They'll not stay. This reality will not stay.
Hari-śauri: It's all a dreamlike existence.
Prabhupāda: Yes, simply a long duration dream. Do you think this skyscraper building will stay? Nothing will stay. It may stay for five hundred years or five thousand years. But is it not permanent. Anything you take—the trees, this land, nothing; even this ocean. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). It appears again and again disappears, that's all. Everything. The material world means that. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate. Vyaktāvyaktam. Sometimes manifested, sometimes not manifested. This town is manifested, and one big wave of sea, it will be nonmanifested, immediately.
Yadubara: So that subtle reality is existing side by side with this gross reality.
Prabhupāda: Reality is in the spiritual world. This is imitation reality. Real reality is in the spiritual world.
Hari-śauri: We have to go left here, Śrīla Prabhupāda. (pause) The material universes are like a produce of Mahā-Viṣṇu.