Prabhupāda: Yes, they are instruments.
Richard: Now if the...
Prabhupāda: Suppose if you see with your eyes, and then you see with microscope, then you see with telescope, different processes. Yes. But you see with your spiritual eyes, that is perfect.
Richard: Now suppose the brain dies, as in the case...
Prabhupāda: Brain dies.... Brain is part of the body.
Richard: Right, it's a part of the body. It can fail just as the heart or the lungs or anything else. Now suppose the brain dies, the soul...
Prabhupāda: You get another brain.
Richard: Pardon me?
Prabhupāda: You get another brain. Suppose, just like you are working with the glass, spectacle, it breaks, you get another spectacle. That's all.
Richard: In the same body?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Richard: Okay, now Karen Ann Quinlan, you know her?
Prabhupāda: We don't know anyone.
Richard: Okay, this is a, let me explain very briefly. Here is a girl in New Jersey, near New York, whose brain has died through a traffic accident. Her body is still alive. Her body is still alive, but her brain is dead, she cannot get up, speak, move.
Prabhupāda: This is already explained, the brain is an instrument. The instrument is not working, but that is not death.
Richard: Right, her soul is still alive, is that correct?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Richard: Her soul is still alive, and she is still functioning spiritually, even though her brain is dead. Is that what...?
Prabhupāda: That is possible because soul is there.
Rāmeśvara: The soul is always alive, but the fact that she's being maintained means the soul's still in that body, has not left the body yet.
Richard: Okay, now what...
Rāmeśvara: The soul is always living.
Richard: Okay, now what is.... Is the soul in a...
Prabhupāda: That is another proof. That instead of, in spite of the brain is not working, the soul is there.