Svarūpa Dāmodara: For that matter, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when one comes to that stage, there is no difference between animate and inanimate. Is that true?
Prabhupāda: Highest stage?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Highest stage, everything animate.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. So a stone... Even a stone has soul.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes, yes. Just like this tree. You cut; it does not protest. The consciousness is not developed. That is the... But it has got life. You scientists, you do not believe that stone has also life?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, they say it's just matter.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: They say there's no life there.
Prabhupāda: No, there is life.
Nitāi: Every stone has life?
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, dead stone has no... But there are many mountains, they are increasing. You know, at Benares there is a stone? Tila-bandhesvara. (?)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I don't know.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That increases. If you go, see today, and go ten years after, you'll see—take the measurement—it has increased. They'll go...
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But they will say that because of the position of the dust particles the size will increase. Even a small...
Prabhupāda: No, no, no. It is clean. There is no... It is being washed even. Its name is Tila-bandhesvara. (?) So there is no uncleanliness. Still, the body increases. There is still Tila-bandhesvara. (?) There is temple of Tila-bandhesvara. People go to see.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: But the consciousness is covered there.
Prabhupāda: Covered, yes. Dullness means consciousness is covered. You put a child in open air. He'll not feel much cold. You see practically. He'll not feel. Because consciousness is not developed. Animal, they will not feel cold. But we feel.
Bahulāśva: But Prabhupāda, there are still such things as dead matter?
Prabhupāda: Not dead matter. The soul is there.
Bahulāśva: Suppose something, well, something like this shoe that I'm wearing...,
Prabhupāda: It is now dead matter. But when you go, the higher understanding, it is a composition of atoms. So we learn from Vedic śāstra that within the atom there is life. Aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-sthaṁ govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi (Bs. 5.35). There is, there. If within the atom there is life, then what to speak of anything else.
Bahulāśva: That's a jīvātmā?
Prabhupāda: No, no. Govinda is there.
Bahulāśva: Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: When Kṛṣṇa is there, then Kṛṣṇa is there with everything. Kṛṣṇa cannot be alone.