Prabhupāda: This matter . . . you can understand by the finger. This matter, this nail, is production of this part. This part is life and this part is not life. But it is a production of this life. When you have cut your nails, you don't feel pain. But same instrument you touch your little . . . half inch down, immediately you feel pain. So therefore although qualitatively . . . this is also produce of matter, as produce of this part. But where there is feeling, that is spiritual, and where there is no feeling, that is matter. What is Kṛṣṇa consciousness? The human being is the same. But as soon as he feels that, "There is Kṛṣṇa," he is spiritualist. As soon as he does not feel, he is materialist. That is the difference.
It is the question of feeling. Matter, matter means where there is absence of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In other things there is also consciousness. Because there is not Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it is material. And so far we are concerned, we have got the same consciousness, but Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore we are superior, spiritual. So this material world means this part, and spiritual world means this part. This is the difference. Here you have got feeling. So that means the conclusion is when you have feeling in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that is spiritual, that is superior. When you have no feeling of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that is inferior. The same thing can be turned into superior and inferior by the change of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So matter can be converted to spirit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Just like expert electrician—the same energy, electric, converting into heat, converting into refrigerator. The energy is the same. Both places the electricity is working, but by his expert management, one is heater, one is cooler. But heat and cool completely different, just opposite. That is stated in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa: parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate . . . (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8, CC Madhya 13.65, purport). Ah. Viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā. Both matter and spirit, they are energy of the Supreme. So the energy or the energetic—nondifferent. But by His arrangement, one is working as superior, one is working as inferior.
The same example, that the same electric energy is acting as cooler and acting as heater. But the energy the same. Similarly, originally the energy is God's energy. So God's energy and God, there is no difference. But by His manipulation one is working as material energy, another is . . . (indistinct) . . . this is difference. Therefore originally it comes all spiritual energy, life. Therefore we have to take everything from life, not from the dead. Same example—the finger is first coming, life, and then the nail is coming, matter. Not that first of all nail is coming. You can study. This is meditation.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: So in any case, everything is controlled by the superior energy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That superior energy is life.