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Reality (Lectures, Other)

Lectures

Nectar of Devotion Lectures

The Nectar of Devotion -- Bombay, December 28, 1972:

Try to understand this. Because this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the consciousness of the spirit soul. That is reality. Therefore as the soul is eternally, his advancement in that consciousness, that also becomes an eternal asset. That will never be lost. Even if (he) falls down in this life, he could not execute cent percent the duties in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, even he falls down, so whatever he has done in this life, that becomes a permanent asset. So that, from next life, he'll be given chance. In... In ordinary karmi's life, there is no guarantee that he'll get next life a human body. According to his karma he'll get a body. Maybe animal body or maybe demigod's body. But there is no certainty that he'll get a human body. But this man, who out of sentiment joined in Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, and immaturely falls down, he's guaranteed to get a very nice human body.

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures

Lecture on CC Adi-lila 1.5 -- Mayapur, March 29, 1975:

So for simply to relish a little bit of brahma-sukha, these saintly persons, great, great saintly persons, they are giving up everything. Tyaktvā sva-dharmam. Sva-dharma means the regulated division of the society: brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra. So they give up everything, brahma-sukhānubhūtyā, to understand... Tapo divyaṁ putrakā yena śuddhyed sattva (SB 5.5.1). For purifying the existence. Because we are after happiness, every one of us. But we are seeking happiness in the perverted reflection. That is not possible. Therefore one has to give up this perverted happiness and come to the real fact. So our point is that "Because Kṛṣṇa is Paraṁ Brahman, so how He can take pleasure in this material world?" This is the argument. So those who are wrongly thinking, foolishly thinking, that "Kṛṣṇa enjoyed with the gopīs like we enjoy in the company of many girls," they are great fools. They have no knowledge. They are misled because it appears, perverted reflection, it appears like that. But the reflection is different from the reality. So we should not take in that way. We should follow the footsteps of Caitanya-caritāmṛta kar, that we should understand that this praṇaya-vikṛtiḥ, this transformation of loving affairs between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, this is not like this, the ordinary boy and girl. It is ahlādinī śakti. If we take that, then we are misled.

Lecture on CC Adi-lila 7.149-171 -- San Francisco, March 18, 1967:

So chiefly the impersonalists and the void philosophers, they are called Māyāvādī, because they have no other information. They want to simply negate, nullify, but they have no positive information, so they are called Māyāvādī. So the Śaṅkarites... Śaṅkarites, of course, they give positive information. Brahma satya jagan mithyā. They say that this world is false and Brahman is reality. But because we want reality in variety, therefore impersonal philosophy, although we take it as a matter of sectarian philosophy, it does not appeal to the heart because by nature we want enjoyment. And whenever there is question of enjoyment, there must be variety. Variety is the mother of enjoyment. So philosophically or theoretically, we may accept voidness, negation, out of frustration. When we are frustrated in these material varieties we adopt the suicidal policy, "Let me commit suicide, finish." This is called Māyāvāda. Actual spiritual variegatedness, unless one is informed about it and one is situated in spiritual varieties, there is no satisfaction.

Lecture on CC Madhya-lila 20.142 -- New York, November 30, 1966:

Now, we are aspiring after possessing something, possessiveness. What we should possess? The possession is Kṛṣṇa, and desire is reciprocation between Kṛṣṇa and myself, and the ultimate end is love. That's all. Just like we have got perverted reflection of that love here between the two lovers. They don't want anything. He wants she, and she wants he. That's all. That is desire and their reciprocation of loving affairs and the ultimate end, that they are peaceful in love. This is only perverted reflection of the real love, which is reciprocated with Kṛṣṇa. Here there is no possibility of love. This is all lust. But we call it love because it is just a reflection. Just a real... That is real, and this is unreal. Just like shadow and reality. There is gulf of difference between the shadow and reality. So whatever love we see in this world, that love is only a perverted reflection of that real love with Kṛṣṇa.

Lecture on CC Madhya-lila 20.358-359 -- New York, December 29, 1966:

Amṛṣā. It is false. But it appears to be just like real. Foolish living entities, under the spell of illusory energy, they have accepted this false exchange of material elements as reality. This is called materialism. One who has accepted this false representation of reality, they are called materialists. And one who knows the real position of this material world, he's spiritualist. That is the difference between materialism and spiritualism. So this, this material representation, false representation, are temporary. The Vaiṣṇava philosophy, they do not say false. Why they will say false? God is real. His energy is real. You cannot say material energy as unreal, because God is there, and His energy is there. Just like the fire is there, the heat is there, the temperature is there. You cannot say temperature false. It may be manifested at some time. Or it may not manifest. Just like the temperature of sun is not perceived nowadays because it is due to the (?) cold season. But the temperature is the same, but it is manifested during June-July. It is very strongly, and other seasons, it is not manifested. Similarly, this material energy, you cannot say that it is false. It is false.

Lecture on CC Madhya-lila 20.358-359 -- New York, December 29, 1966:

Only through Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There is no other way. You cannot understand the Supreme Lord. That Supreme Lord is dhāmnā svena sadā. Sadā means always, eternal. Dhāmnā svena. In His own abode. His own abode. Dhāmnā svena nirasta-kuhakam. Where there is no illusion. Nirasta-kuhaka. Kuhaka means illusion. Just like here we, everything is kuhaka. Everything is made of earth, water, temporary things. Just like a doll. Doll is the... You find, you sometimes find in store, storefront of big mercantile firm, there is nice girl standing with dress. So that is kuhakam, illusion. That is illusion. Those who know, "Oh, it is a doll." Similarly, that is the difference between a man in knowledge and man in ignorance. They are accepting this material doll as reality. That is materialism. And those who are in knowledge, they know, "No, it is doll." The reality is different. So sadā nirasta, there is no, kuhakam... That doll illusion is not there. Sadā nirasta-kuhakam. There, satyaṁ param, and there exists the Supreme Truth.

Lecture on CC Madhya-lila 20.391-405 -- New York, January 2, 1967:

So we have to rectify ourself. Unless we approach to the spiritual stage... That is the process. Just like a diseased man, he cannot imitate the healthy man. A healthy man eats as he likes, but a diseased man, if he eats as he likes, he'll die. Death is sure. So he has to be restricted, not the healthy man. So if you want really happiness, if you want really freedom, and if you really want everything is reality, then you have to transfer yourself to the spiritual world, in association with Kṛṣṇa. That is the whole process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And for that purpose, just like a student for getting a degree in the university, he, I mean to say, tolerates all kinds of inconveniences—"Never mind. Let me pass and go away"—similarly, we have to make use, the best use of this bad bargain, this material body, and continue in Kṛṣṇa consciousness just to achieve the highest perfection of life, freedom, love. This is the process. And if we imitate... The same example. If we, in diseased state, if we imitate a healthy man's activities, then death is sure. Death is sure. Nobody can say, "Oh, Kṛṣṇa enjoyed with so many girls. Oh, let me enjoy also." You cannot, because you are in diseased condition. If you do that, then you continue your diseased life and you'll die.

Lecture on CC Madhya-lila 25.19-31 -- San Francisco, January 20, 1967:

So the Bhāgavata says, simply to understand "This is not Brahman, this is māyā, this is not Brahman," if you go on speculating and without any interest for devotional service or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then teṣām eṣa kleśala eva śiṣyate. So their advancement in self-realization is simply troublesome. Troublesome. They simply take the trouble of discriminating that "This is māyā, this is Brahman. This is false, this is reality." Because they have no other engagement. For a devotee there are so many engagements, but the Māyāvādī philosopher takes it for granted that these devotees' activities... "They are cooking for Kṛṣṇa or they are offering prasādam to Kṛṣṇa, they are decorating Kṛṣṇa, or they are singing for Kṛṣṇa, glorifying Kṛṣṇa—these are all mayic activities," they say. Because this bhakti-mārga is not appealing to them. They simply want to... Similarly, the bhaktas also say that "You are simply wasting time. Real thing is Kṛṣṇa. Just engage yourself in the service of Kṛṣṇa."

Festival Lectures

Sri Rama-Navami, Lord Ramacandra's Appearance Day -- Hawaii, March 27, 1969:

So I must go even if You go to hell." This is ideal wife. She could have refused: "Oh, Your father has ordered to go to forest. You can go. I shall go to my father's house or I shall remain here." No. This is ideal wife. She must be prepared to accept any circumstances of the husband. Not that when the husband is rich the wife is very faithful, and when he has come down to be poor or he's going to forest the wife gives up his company. No. Wife means better half. She must abide. Just like, it is said, just like a shadow follows the reality, similarly, the wife is the shadow of the husband. Wherever the husband goes, she must go. Whatever the husband wants, she must carry out. Of course, in this country this interpretation is taken differently, that wife is made a slave. But actually, it is not so. When Sītā was kidnapped in the jungle, Rāmacandra expected that, that she was beautiful, she was young, and "We shall be in open jungle. It may be some demons may come," and actually it so happened. So for Sītā, Lord Rāmacandra massacred the whole family of Rāvaṇa. Only for Sītā. So as the husband, so the wife. The wife was so faithful that she could not remain alone. She must accompany the husband even in the forest. And the husband was so faithful that, "Oh, my wife has been kidnapped." So He massacred the whole family of Rāvaṇa.

Gundica Marjanam Cleansing of the Gundica Temple, Lecture (the day before Ratha-yatra) -- San Francisco, July 4, 1970:

One who does not know its proper use, for them it is false. They are after something false. But those who know the value of this world... Hari-sambhandhi-vastunaḥ. Everything has got some connection with the Supreme Lord. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam (ISO 1). Everything is in connection or has relationship with the Supreme Lord. That is our philosophy. We don't say that this speaker, microphone, is false. Why it is false? The microphone is produced out of the energy of Kṛṣṇa. This matter, this iron, or this wood, that is a production of Kṛṣṇa's energy. If Kṛṣṇa is true, Absolute Truth, then His energy is also true. And anything produced of His energy, that is also truth. But as the energy is utilized for the energetic, similarly anything produced by Kṛṣṇa's energy should be utilized for Kṛṣṇa. That is our philosophy. So we don't say that false. We say reality. Therefore in Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we accept everything, but accept everything for service of Kṛṣṇa. Nothing for my sense gratification. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We do not say that "This world is false. Give up."

Lord Nityananda Prabhu's Avirbhava Appearance Day Lecture -- Bhuvanesvara, February 2, 1977:

What we'll do with university education or born in big family or... This will not help. This is not possible. Vidyā-kule ki karibe tār. Why they're accepting this false? Ahaṅkāre matta hoiyā, nitāi-pada pasariya, asatyere satya kori māni. On account of being misled by false prestige and false egotism, asatyere satya kori māni, we are accepting this body which is asat, which will not exist. That we have taken as reality. Ahaṅkare matta hoiya, nitāi pada pasariya. But if we take shelter of Nityānanda Prabhu, then you get the enlightenment. Asatyere satya kori māni. Nitāiyer koruṇā habe, braje rādhā-kṛṣṇa pabe, dharo nitāi-caraṇa du'khāni.

Therefore Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura advises that... Today is Nityānanda Prabhu's āvirbhāva appearance day. Let us at least remember today nitāi-pada-kamala. That is wanted. Nitāi caraṇa satya, tāhāra sevaka nitya. The reality is nitāi-caraṇa, and anyone who is servant of Nitāi... So nitāiyer caraṇa satya, tāhāra sevaka nitya. One who has become the dog of Nityānanda Prabhu, he gets his eternal life.

Arrival Addresses and Talks

Arrival Lecture -- Los Angeles, May 18, 1972:

This young boy and young girl trying to unite for happiness is the natural inclination of the living entity. It is there in the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the Vedānta-sūtra it is said, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). Everything that we see in this material world is there in the spiritual world. Janmādy asya yataḥ. Wherefrom everything is coming? The original source, the original source of this love, is there in the Absolute. Rādhā-kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtiḥ. It is the manifestation of the pleasure potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So the thing as it is originally is perfect, but here, the same thing is only perverted reflection. Here, the boys and the girls meeting, because it is simply a reflection... Just like a reflection of the tree on the river, it is just topsy-turvied, similarly, that reflection, reality, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa love, is topsy-turvied here.

Arrival Conversation -- Los Angeles, June 20, 1975:

Jayādvaita: We can publish it?

Prabhupāda: So we should... Yes, here is the... What is that?

Brahmānanda: "Illusion and reality," two essays...

Prabhupāda: He has presented very nicely. So we should encourage our men.

Jayādvaita: Publish it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. And our men, all our men should write. Otherwise how we shall know that he has understood the philosophy? Writing means śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam. Śravaṇam means hearing from the authority and again repeat it. This is our business, śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam viṣṇoḥ (SB 7.5.23), about Viṣṇu, not for any politician or any other man. Śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ, about Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu. So that is success. Hear and repeat, hear and repeat. You haven't got to manufacture. Any one of us, simply if you reproduce the purport which I have given in the Bhāgavata, you become a good speaker. What I am doing? I am the same thing, writing the same thing so that modern man can understand. Otherwise we are repeating the same thing.

Initiation Lectures

Sannyasa Initiation Lecture -- Calcutta, January 26, 1973:

So stop that sound. So renouncement, simply giving up something, is not very good idea. You must have something better. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). If you get something better, then you give up something inferior. Our Vaiṣṇava philosophy, renouncement means renouncement of sense gratification. The Māyāvāda sannyāsa means karma-tyāga, simply reading Vedānta philosophy, sāṅkhya philosophy, and everything given up. But our Vaiṣṇava philosophy is giving up the wrong thing and accepting the right thing. Side by side. Simply if I give up, it will not stay very long time. If I simply by sentiment give up, brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā, "This world is false and Brahman is the real, reality," so there are so many sannyāsīs, we see, they give up the so-called mithyā world and come to the Brahman realization by meditation, by meditation, meditation... Then meditation means hospital and school. Because there is no Brahman, there is no reality. So after much meditation, (he) comes to the conclusion that "Now I am a sannyāsī. I must open schools, college and daridra-nārāyaṇa sevā and goat-nārāyaṇa killing." This kind of sannyāsa has no meaning. Daridra-nārāyaṇa sevā. By killing goat nārāyaṇa. Goat is not Nārāyaṇa. Simply daridras are Nārāyaṇa. If you accept one as Nārāyaṇa, why should you not accept the other as Nārāyaṇa?

General Lectures

Lecture Excerpt -- Montreal, July 18, 1968:

So āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padam (SB 10.2.32). After accepting sannyāsa and all this renunciation, because he has no shelter to render service to the Supreme Lord, he comes down to render service to this nonsense thing which he left. Mithyā, it is false. He again comes to the false. I have seen one sannyāsī in India, very learned, very good scholar. Now he's rotting in the jail. He has taken to political movement. He wants to make, nullify this Pakistan and so many things. Now he has become a politician. Vivekananda came here to preach in 1893 to Vedānta. Now he learned the business of opening hospital. If you have taken sannyāsa, that brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā, "The world is false; Brahman is reality," then why you come to the false platform again? He has to, because he has no information of the reality. He wants to render service, but because he has not found out where to render service, he has to come to engage himself in this mithyā platform, which he has rejected as mithyā. So āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adho (SB 10.2.32). Even by their austerity and penances they go so up... Just the same example. A very nice sputnik, and running 20,000 miles an hour... (end)

Lecture Excerpt -- Montreal, July 20, 1968:

We have not dogmatism. We have got reason, philosophy, and everything, science. If you want to understand this Kṛṣṇa consciousness on the basis of philosophy, logic and science, we are prepared to present to you. But the ultimate goal is to surrender unto the Supreme. So although you will find some of the students joining us, they are not very great philosopher or great scientist or great educationist, but they have accepted the reality, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they are the highest yogis. They are highest yogi. Just like if somebody is offering one million dollars, one may understand it or may not understand it, what is the value of one million dollars. But if one has got that one million of dollars, then he is rich man undoubtedly. Similarly, the boys and the disciples and the followers of this movement, who are accepting Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Lord, oh, they have already got that millions of dollars. They are richest. They may not understand it, that what is the value of Kṛṣṇa, but because... Just like fire. If you touch knowingly or unknowingly, it is fire and it will burn your body. Similarly, if Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then one who has taken Him, then he will derive the highest benefit undoubtedly.

Class in Los Angeles -- Los Angeles, November 15, 1968:

So there are twelve kinds of reciprocal exchange—seven secondary and five primary. So all these rasas... Rasa means rasa. Rasa means humor. All these humors are present even in this material world in different way, as perverted reflection of the spiritual rasa. Nothing can be new here, but here it is a reflection only. Reality is there. So the five primary principles of loving affairs is there in the Vaikuṇṭha world. And Kṛṣṇa consciousness means to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness while we are in this material body, and after giving up this body, we enter into the spiritual realm for factually participating with Kṛṣṇa. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So if you want to enter into the rasa-līlā, if you desire like that, so you love Kṛṣṇa in that way, as the gopīs. Then you'll have the same perfection. There is no difficulty. It is not at all difficult. Simply you practice. But you have to forget the rasa-līlā of this material world. (chuckling) Otherwise there world then you play havoc. That risk is there. Yes. "Kṛṣṇa enjoyed with so many girls, so let me also become Kṛṣṇa and enjoy." That is finished everything. (laughter) (pause) (baby laughs) Oh, she is appreciating. (chuckles) Yes. Thank you. Come on. Reach. So we'll have kīrtana or this record or we'll close our meeting?

Lecture at Harvard University -- Boston, December 24, 1969:

Student (2): ...question you stated. If (we devote) time trying to figure out our relationship to God, perhaps that takes time away from trying to figure out our relationship with all men. And I think I would anticipate your answer, I think, upon the... You're talking about ātmā, and if one clearly has perception of the reality of their own ātmā, he would also see others as himself. Right? And to know his self and his God through others. But that doesn't really answer. It doesn't mean we'll be able to decrease that condition. A lot of people suffer in this world, and they suffer for pretty indefiable(?) reasons: economic exploitation, racists trying to put structures, militaristic powers. And it seems somehow we might be able to do something to attack those kinds of evils and suffering in the world, other than telling a man to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and the world will be solved.

Prabhupāda: That is automatically solved. If you chant, if you come to this God consciousness, those things will be automatically solved. Just like if you get million dollars, then your fifty dollars' business will be automatically solved.

Lecture to International Student Society -- Boston, December 28, 1969:

Prabhupāda: No. There is natural, of course...

Indian man: But no one person having no control on it. One may get there sooner than the other, but in reality there may not be any control that one really has on this...

Prabhupāda: No, it requires, it requires. Otherwise why Kṛṣṇa is teaching? Why Kṛṣṇa's teaching is required?

Indian man: Kṛṣṇa, in the Gītā it says the student comes to the teacher.

Prabhupāda: If it is natural, then why it was needed that Kṛṣṇa would teach Arjuna? It is not natural. You have to select by getting knowledge from superior person. Otherwise there is no meaning of teaching, Kṛṣṇa's to Arjuna. Arjuna was perplexed. He could not understand whether he should fight or not. So that is the position of everyone. Everyone is perplexed. He requires a guidance like Kṛṣṇa. Then you can find out the... It is not natural. Natural means up to the animal life it is natural. Then come to the human form of life. Then it is discretion. As you like, you make your choice. If you like Kṛṣṇa, you can go to Kṛṣṇa.

Lecture Excerpt -- Los Angeles, June 8, 1972:

The person in knowledge, he must see that "I cannot avoid death, I cannot avoid birth, I cannot avoid old age, I cannot avoid disease so long I have got this material body." But Kṛṣṇa says, janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ: "Anyone who understands Me in reality, what I am, then he immediately becomes immune from these four things." Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). After giving up this... This body we have to give up. And then next body, tathā dehāntara-prāptir... So a devotee at least is not going to be cats and dogs or trees. The nondevotees, they are. Now they are... Now the modern advancement is to be naked. So these people are going to be trees. You know Yamalārjuna. You have seen the picture. They were dancing and they were taking bath naked, and they were not ashamed when Nārada Muni was passing. So he cursed them that "You are so fool, you have lost your sense. All right, next life you become a tree, immediately." So these senseless, shameless persons who are advancing in their knowledge by becoming naked, they are going to be tree next life. The naked tree is standing naked for many thousands of years. Or animals—they have no shame. So if human being becomes so shameless, then next life is to become animal and trees. But in the universities they say that "What is the wrong if I become an animal?" I asked them, "Do you like to be animal?" "Yes." "Then all right, next time you become animal. (laughter) This is your... I give you this blessing. That's all." (laughter) Flatly said, "Yes, yes, I will be happy." All right, say it. Kṛṣṇa is so kind: "You want to be naked? All right, you become naked for ten thousand years and stand up."

Lecture -- Jakarta, February 28, 1973:

So this is the statement of Bhagavad-gītā, and we should try to understand this verse very nicely. Kṛṣṇa says, "I existed." That means Kṛṣṇa existed as the Supreme Lord, not like us. Similarly, we existed also in the past as His servants. That is the explanation of this verse. Because we are eternal servant of God, and that service attitude, being misplaced, we have divided our service spirit in so many ways. Everyone is trying to render service. Big, big leaders, they also want to give some service. So this is our service attitude. It is our eternal attitude. It cannot be changed. Just like faith. Today I am Muslim and tomorrow I may become Hindu. Today I am Christian and tomorrow I may become Muslim. Faith can be changed, but my character is still that I am servant. That cannot be changed. It does not mean... Suppose you are working in office. Now today you are Hindu or tomorrow you become Muslim. Does it mean in the office you be, become master? No. The service is there. Either you change your faith or don't change your faith, your character is still to serve, will continue. That is the reality. That is sanātana. Sanātana means eternal. Try to understand.

Lecture on Gurvastakam at Upsala University -- Stockholm, September 9, 1973:

Same thing. These are only reflection of the spiritual world. The same thing is there. Kṛṣṇa is also good lover of the animals, calves and cows. As we love here dogs and cats, Kṛṣṇa loves there cows and calves. You have seen the picture of Kṛṣṇa. So the propensity to love even an animal is there. Otherwise how it can be reflected here? This is simply shadow reflection. If, in the reality, there is nothing like that, then how it can be reflected here? So everything is there. Therefore, that mellow, to understand, you have to practice. Here we have got frustration. Here we love. A man loves a woman or woman loves a man. But there is frustration. After some time, they are separated, they divorce, because it is perverted reflection. There is no real love in this material world. It is simply lust. Real love is in the spiritual world between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Real love is between Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs. Real love, the friendship is there between Kṛṣṇa and His cowherds boys. Real love between animal and man is there. Kṛṣṇa is loving the cows and calves. Real love between trees, flowers, water, simply that is the platform of love. That is spiritual world. Everything love.

Lecture at St. Pascal's Franciscan Seminary -- Melbourne, June 28, 1974:

Guest (5): Your Grace, all of us who are attached to a transcendental religion, I think we face a common problem, and I would like to hear you say how you see the answer to the problem: the problem of evil. If I put it in these terms, that all energy, all reality, is from God, the spiritual and the material. And material is good when we use it towards God consciousness, use it properly. But the thing that makes a difference is ourselves, the way we consciously use things differently. And the trouble is that in this consciousness, this is how we come closest to God, our consciousness in itself. Now, some people would say that the source of evil is individual consciousness, our consciousness as persons. Others would have other ways of answering. I was wondering how you yourself would say.

Prabhupāda: Individual consciousness and the supreme consciousness, God and we... We are all also the same principle. God is also living being, we are also living being, but He is the supreme living being. That is stated in the Vedas. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). Nitya means eternal. God is eternal; we are also eternal. But because we have fallen down in this material existence, we have forgotten our eternity; we are changing body. We are thinking, "I am this body." This is our misgivings. But God does not fall down. He is eternal. We are also eternal, but because we are very small fragment, sometimes we fall down. Therefore God's another name is Acyuta—"Never falls down." We cyuta, we fall down sometimes. When we fall down, then God comes to save us. So this is the difference between God and us, that we are also eternal and God is also eternal. We are also cognizant, God is also cognizant. In this way, qualitatively, you will find God and we are the same. But quantitatively we are different.

Subha Vilasa Home Engagement -- Toronto, June 19, 1976:

So we have a choice now whether to follow a representative of God, Kṛṣṇa, who can bring us to the internal potency of the Lord. This internal potency is not dry. It is the origin of bliss, sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). It is not impersonal, void, lifeless, without any happiness. It is what everyone is actually looking for, simply pervertedly within this material world. So this opportunity is here. Before Prabhupāda came to the Western countries, actually there was no hope. There was no hope at all. There was no such knowledge, there was no such opportunity to choose between material life and something else. There was no reality other than this body, and for everyone it was simply a very hopeless, distressful situation. But Prabhupāda personally, even at advanced age, he's coming simply to give this opportunity to the Westerners and to everyone throughout the world, that besides this material life, there is another, eternal life, and if you utilize your independence very carefully to transfer your attachment to this internal potency of devotional service and service to the Vaiṣṇavas and to Kṛṣṇa, then you can become free forever from the encumbrance of repeated birth and death and go back to home, back to Godhead.

General Lecture -- (location & date unknown):

They do not know." Paraṁ bhāvam ajānantaḥ. Mama bhūta-maheśvaram: "That I am the Supreme Lord." Because they do not know, therefore, simply by superficial observation, that "He is playing just like ordinary man," that "He is the chariot driver of Arjuna..." Now, somebody may say, "How Kṛṣṇa can be the Supreme Personality of Godhead? He was ordinary chariot driver of Arjuna. He was ordinary cowherds boy." Muhyanti yat sūrayayaḥ. Very great sages, great saintly persons, also sometimes become bewildered. But to understand Kṛṣṇa, that is explained also in the Bhagavad-gītā. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti (BG 18.55). Not by learning, not by education, not by scholarship. Bhaktyā. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ: "In reality what I am, that can be understood by the devotees, not by others." And in the beginning also, of the Bhagavad-gītā teaching, He said Arjuna that "I am teaching Bhagavad-gītā to you because you are devotee." Bhakto 'si priyo 'si: (BG 4.3) "You are My very dear friend and devotee. Therefore," rahasyam hy etad uttamam, "I am delivering this mystery of Bhagavad-gītā-yoga to you."

General Lecture -- (location & date unknown):

So bhakti is above the liberated stage of life. And bhakti, when, if one is fortunate enough to come to that stage, above the liberated stage, then bhaktyā mām abhijānāti (BG 18.55), then through that para bhakti, pure devotional service, one can understand Kṛṣṇa in reality, tattvataḥ. And in another place He said, manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye: (BG 7.3) "Out of many millions of persons, somebody is interested for self-realization." Kaścid yatati siddhaye. Siddhi. Siddhi. Siddhi-labha means perfection of human form of life. So nobody is interested. But there are some who are interested how to make this human form of life perfect. So, brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā (BG 18.54). Manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu kaścid yatati siddhaye, yatatām api siddhāṇām: (BG 7.3) "Out of many persons who are actually engaged in the matter of that perfection of life," kaścid vetti māṁ tattvataḥ, "somebody may know in reality what I am," because that reality can be understood by the devotee. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti (BG 18.55). He has not mentioned anything like jñānī or yogi or karmī. No. He has simply mentioned one thing, bhaktyā. And that is the process. (aside:) He is going. Give him prasāda. (Hindi) Give him prasāda, distribute. Yes.

Philosophy Discussions

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Prabhupāda: Yes. As soon as there is a process, there is a link of everything, one after another, one after another. That is nature's way. Just like in the creation, the first creation is mind. We have got it in the Bhagavad-gītā, first creation is mahat-tattva, the sum total of material energy. Then there is interaction of the three guṇas, qualities, and then mind comes out, ego comes out, intelligence comes out, in this way, one after another. That is explained in the Second Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, how creation takes place. So the Veda says, sa aikṣata. Sa aikṣata. The Supreme Lord, simply by glancing over... In Bhagavad-gītā also it is said that. But just like we impregnate a woman by sex behavior, but here it is said that He simply glanced over the material nature, total material energy, and the creation begins. Sa aikṣata. So because He is omnipotent, He can impregnate the material nature not by sex behavior but simply by glancing, and the material nature immediately becomes agitated, and things begin to happen. So the original cause is glancing over material nature by God. But we materialists, we cannot think how by simply glancing, the material nature is set into motion. That is material conception.

Śyāmasundara: He says that space and time are mere appearances, but the ultimate or genuine reality is different.

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa, sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam (Bs. 5.1), cause of all causes.

Philosophy Discussion on Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Eternal.

Śyāmasundara: He says that even though these monads are always active, they do not contact each other, neither do they affect each other. For example, if a bat hit a ball, in reality the bat did not really affect the ball.

Prabhupāda: But some individual soul has taken the bat, he has hit it, not the bat has hit it.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the bat and the ball are independent.

Prabhupāda: How they are independent? I am holding the bat. I am hitting the ball. So how can the bat is independent?

Śyāmasundara: That this is the function of the bat.

Prabhupāda: No. If I don't hit..., bat in my hand, the bat cannot hit the ball. How is the bat independent?

Śyāmasundara: Let's take another example. Say a rock falls from a cliff into the water and makes the water move. He would say that the rock's falling and the water's moving, that the monad involved in the rock and the monad involved in the water did not really affect each other, that the water parted and the rock went through the water, but that this was the inherent nature of the water and the inherent nature of the rock, so that they did not really affect each other.

Prabhupāda: But one thing is that when rocks were thrown on the sea by Lord Rāmacandra's will, they began to float. Therefore the Supreme Will is the ultimate cause. Supreme Will wants that the rock may go down in the water, then it goes; if He does not wants, then the rock floats. Therefore rock is not independent. The Supreme Will of God is independent. There are so many other examples. The same example as I cited the other day, that the cow eats the dry grass and it gives so nutritious, full of vitamins milk. But the same dry grass, if a woman eats, she will die. Therefore the plan of the Supreme that the cow, by eating dry grass, she can deliver nicely. It is not on the dry grass she is producing milk; it is the will of God that is producing it. Similarly the stone falling. Because the will of God is there, therefore "You stone, go down in the water!" But when God wills that it floats, it will float. So that in that case the monad theory did not act.

Philosophy Discussion on David Hume:

rabhupāda: Beyond this idea?

Śyāmasundara: He denies the existence of any ultimate reality. Only the phenomena of senses.

Prabhupāda: So wherefrom do these phenomena come, unless there is noumena?

Śyāmasundara: Well, he says that it is possible that all this existed since eternity and there was no cause. It's possible that there is no cause, that it's just existing.

Prabhupāda: What about the manifestation—past, present and future?

Śyāmasundara: He says that this may be an eternal existence of things, but there may not be any cause.

Prabhupāda: Then why death takes place, if there is no cause?

Śyāmasundara: It's just like any machine which is born and dies.

Prabhupāda: When you say machine, machine is made by somebody. You cannot compare it to a machine. A machine is created by somebody. There is beginning of the machine.

Philosophy Discussion on David Hume:

Śyāmasundara: His idea is that this law is not ultimate reality, that it is a mere probability.

Prabhupāda: But it is a physical law. And he says that the sequence of the law may be different. So that is possible also, because law means made by some person, somebody. So if he likes, he can change the law, just like if the legislature assembles and some law is passed today, next day or next month or next year this law is nullified. So that supreme legislative council is responsible for this law-making. Similarly, there is a supreme will who makes this law and who can nullify this law. So we have to come to the supreme will. You cannot change or you cannot make any new law. If you think that by friction of hands there may not be any heat-producing effect, that you cannot do. Therefore you are also under the supreme will. He has given you a chance to talk all nonsense, but he can stop immediately. Your tongue and you will be a dead body, is it not? He is talking all nonsense, but if the supreme will desires, he'll stop immediately his tongue moving, and he'll be considered a dead body, all philosophy finished. But he cannot stop it. Therefore the supreme will is the ultimate cause of all causes.

Philosophy Discussion on David Hume:

Śyāmasundara: As far as his philosophy of religion, he rejected the idea of absolute matter and the concept of a soul as substance. He rejected the utility of scientific laws, and he rejected moral principles as objective realities. He says all religious ideas are relative. There is no certainty and anything religious may be merely probable but never certain.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That also he says. Therefore religion means love of God. The means may be different in different processes of religion, but ultimately if one develops love of Godhead, that is the prima facie factor, love of God. So if any religious principle love of God is absent, that is simply show, it is not factual religion.

Śyāmasundara: He says that even the idea of God is merely probable but not certain.

Prabhupāda: That he cannot say. As soon as he speaks of authority, there must be a supreme authority. That is God.

Śyāmasundara: For him, the authority is the senses. His authority is the senses.

Prabhupāda: Then why does he say public opinion? Your senses may not be approved by the public opinion. Then where do your senses stand?

Philosophy Discussion on David Hume:

Prabhupāda: This, then the argument comes. If he does not believe in anyone's statement, why he is thinking his statement will be accepted? Then he is foolish. He is a child. Instead of becoming a philosopher, he is a child, talking all nonsense.

Hayagrīva: He maintains that man cannot know ultimate reality or possess knowledge of anything beyond a mere awareness of phenomenal sensory images.

Prabhupāda: That is sufficient. But if man cannot have any knowledge, so who is going to take your knowledge? Better you stop, don't talk. Is it not?

Hayagrīva: So much for Hume. (laughs) That's the end of Hume.

Prabhupāda: No, no, I mean is not that the conclusion? If he is skeptic, he does not take other's statement why he expects that his statement will be taken? Why does he propose any statement? Does he think that he is the greatest of all? Then everyone can think like that. That skeptic has no ground. He cannot say. If he is skeptic he should stop, he should not stand.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: He says the mind is aware that there is an ultimate reality, or a thing in itself, a noumenon, which produces each phenomenon, but the mind is not equipped to sense this ultimate reality. So the mind must remain forever content to be agnostic.

Prabhupāda: No. He should go to higher authorities. Why should he remain agnostic? If there is possibility, mind cannot go beyond this, but if the same thing, we say upon the roof there is some sound, now we speculate, but we cannot ascertain what is the sound. But if somebody is actually there, he says, "This sound is due to this." So why I shall remain satisfied with agnostic position, that I could not ascertain what is the sound, and therefore I shall remain satisfied? I shall say, "Is there anybody on the roof?" If somebody says, "Yes. I am here," "Will you kindly say what is the sound?" "Yes: this, that, this, that." Therefore Vedic injunction is tad vijñānārtham: that which is beyond your senses, you must approach a spiritual master. He will give you information. That is our system, accepting guru. Tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam (SB 11.3.21). One who is inquisitive to understand the transcendental subject, he must approach a guru. What is guru? Śābde pare ca niṣṇātam: guru, who is expert or well versed in the Vedic literatures, śruti. And what is the result? How can I understand that he is well versed in Vedic literature? Brahmaṇy upaśamāśrayaḥ. He has forgotten everything material; he is simply concerned with the spirit soul. That's all. Everything is there. So Kant here is imperfect in his knowledge.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: He says that although this ultimate reality appears unknowable, still the mind seeks to discover it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. He cannot be satisfied. He is seeking Kṛṣṇa.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. So he says that the real world or the ultimate reality becomes a reconstruction of the mind by speculationists; that they take the contents of this world and reproduce it into what they believe to be the real world.

Prabhupāda: By speculation, the real world for them is negation of this world. That is voidism. I am experiencing everything here material, so this material thinking and other material thinking induces him to conclude that it must be opposite. It must be opposite. This is material. So spiritual means not this form, or formless, or void. So that is also material thinking. Just the opposite number.

Śyāmasundara: He is still proceeding in his method. He comes to some good conclusions. He is trying to understand what makes men's minds work. He says that "Thus this real world becomes an ideal construction in the mind of man."

Prabhupāda: Yes. Ideal construction... Here we are frustrated because everything is temporary; therefore ideal is eternal. That much we can understand. Temporary. Just like I want to live; that is my tendency. Nobody wants to die. But I am hopeless, because this body is not eternal. Therefore ideal life is eternal body.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: He says, for instance, that this pure reason or this transcendental reason is there to guide man to an understanding of wider knowledge, to guide his understanding to knowledge, and that the aim of this pure reason is to find the totality of synthesis, in other words, to understand everything. By knowing the ultimate reality, one will understand everything.

Prabhupāda: So simply by understanding that he is spirit, gradually he understands that there is a spiritual world. This spiritual world is full of varieties. Everything is there, exactly like this, but that is eternal and this is temporary.

Śyāmasundara: He says that this pure reason has a regulative value, that is, by attempting to grasp the totality of conditions by connecting a particular phenomenon with the whole experience. In other words, for example, the idea of a supreme being is a regulative principle of reason because it tells us to view everything in the world in connection, as if it proceeded from the necessary cause, or the Supreme Being.

Prabhupāda: The Supreme Being is the cause of all causes.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: He says that phenomena are so endless that it is impossible to arrive at ultimate reality by the reason alone, because there are certain what he calls transcendental illusions.

Prabhupāda: Therefore you have to take Kṛṣṇa's assertion. I am puzzled with these varieties of phenomenal changes, and you cannot understand how these things are being done. But as soon as you come to Kṛṣṇa, He says that "I am behind this. I am doing it." Then your conclusion is perfect.

Śyāmasundara: He says that when you examine material phenomena by your reason, you come to certain contradictions, and he calls them antimonies. He lists four antimonies. An antimony means both sides are true.

Prabhupāda: In Sanskrit it is called bhiruda dharma-words that mean both "yes" and "no." He can adjust-yes and no, both.

Śyāmasundara: He says logically these are not fallacious; both sides are true. For instance, his first antimony is, "The world has a beginning in time and is enclosed in limits of space." This is the thesis. Then the antithesis is, "The world has no beginning in time and no limits in space, but is infinite with regard to both time and space." So he says reasonably both conclusions are true.

Prabhupāda: So how to adjust? How to adjust is there in the Bhagavad-gītā. It says this material phenomenal world is coming into existence and again annihilated. Again coming. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). So this material nature, coming in manifestation and again vanquished, this process, coming into existence and then vanquished, this is also true. Just like day and night, it is coming and going. This is true. But night is not day; day is not night.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Prabhupāda: That is possible.

Śyāmasundara: In fact he recognizes three such ideals of pure reason: one is the soul, two is the ultimate world or reality, and three is God. He says that these three ideals are a priori to the reason. They are born with us. We know these things.

Prabhupāda: That is also true. We also accept. Nitya siddha kṛṣṇa bhakti. Our tendency to offer service to the Lord, that is natural. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that He is eternal servant; therefore that tendency should be natural. But it is some way or another covered by material ignorance.

Śyāmasundara: He says whereas sense perception cannot provide the information about the soul and about God, pure reason can penetrate into the unknowable and provide us with conceptions in order to grasp the whole of reality.

Prabhupāda: This is not very clear, that sense perception cannot reach soul. But he says that reason is beyond the senses.

Philosophy Discussion on Immanuel Kant:

Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that we can grasp conceptions of God and soul and reality through the use of pure reason.

Prabhupāda: How the reason is exercised?

Śyāmasundara: He comes to the conclusion that these ideals of perfect knowledge are set up, but they are unprovable and unknowable. We can never know any more than that, that there is God, there is soul, there is reality, but we cannot know anything more than that. We don't have any more information than that.

Prabhupāda: Anything cannot be known more than that by his personal attempt. But they can be known through a process which is called paramparā.

Śyāmasundara: He says they cannot be known through pure reason alone. Later he admits they can be known in other ways. But purely through the exercise of reason, we cannot know that there is anything about God or anything about soul, even though we may know they exist.

Prabhupāda: When God speaks, then it is possible. That is our process. We hear from God—what, where, how He is—therefore our knowledge is perfect. According to Kant, one cannot reach by reason and senses. Avāṅ-manasā gocaraḥ. That's a fact. That is admitted in Vedas: avāṅ-manasā gocaraḥ. Vana means words, mana means mind. Neither by words, neither by the mind one can reach. But it is a fact that he is convinced there is God, so if God speaks, God descends by His causeless mercy and speaks, then you can understand about God.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Śyāmasundara: But he wanted to reverse this trend, from abstraction to concretion. He believed that every phenomenal object had its relationship with the whole and that the whole is reality. So in order to understand reality one had to examine every object and relate it to the whole, and to each other, then he would understand what is the truth.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that we are doing. The whole is Kṛṣṇa. And just like, take this material example. The whole is sun. The sunshine expanding, that is also in relation with this whole, and similarly Kṛṣṇa is the whole and everything is relative to Kṛṣṇa. That is our philosophy. We see everything related with Kṛṣṇa and because everything is in relationship with Kṛṣṇa that I do not give up anything. We try to utilize everything for service of Kṛṣṇa. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they, although they say everything is Brahman, they say this is non-Brahman. They say neti, neti, not this, not this. Just like Māyāvādīs, they also say Kṛṣṇa and māyā. This Kṛṣṇa worship is māyā. So we say there is nothing māyā, it is simply illusion; but they say also like that, one, but as soon as Kṛṣṇa actually comes they say Kṛṣṇa is māyā. So our philosophy is that everything is manifestation of Kṛṣṇa's energy. The energy and the energetic, they're one. So Nārada explains idaṁ hi viśvaṁ bhagavān ivetaro. The whole universe is bhagavān, Kṛṣṇa, but ivetaraḥ, it appears like separate. So how it is not separate, that can be understood through this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Otherwise, ordinary man, they think Kṛṣṇa and non-Kṛṣṇa. Actually there is no non-Kṛṣṇa, that is illusion, everything is Kṛṣṇa.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Śyāmasundara: This is a real fact, this table, that this is spirit itself.

Prabhupāda: This is not real fact. This is imitation of the real table. It is fact to a person who has no knowledge of the real. Because it will not exist; that, our reality means which will exist. Otherwise it is not reality.

Śyāmasundara: So this may be real for some time and then...

Prabhupāda: It is temporary, temporary. It is not real. It is some temporary manifestation. The same example, like dreaming; dreaming is not real but temporary hallucination, that's all. You cannot say this "dream-real". This word is used, svapna-draṣṭur ivāñjasā. Just like dream, it is very nice example. In dream everything appears to be real but it is not real, it is all false or temporary.

Śyāmasundara: So what I want to clarify is that you say...

Prabhupāda: He wants to say something.

Devotee: So actually we say there's a difference between reality and existing, even though it exists doesn't mean that it's real.

Prabhupāda: No, real means which exists eternally, that is real.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Devotee: But this exists only temporarily therefore it can't be classified as reality.

Prabhupāda: No, temporary, illusion we'll call it, reality means which exists eternally.

Devotee: That's the table on the spiritual platform.

Prabhupāda: Yes. There, Kṛṣṇa's abode, Kṛṣṇa's house, Kṛṣṇa's table, chair, furniture, they're all existing, ever-existing. Here they will not exist.

Śyāmasundara: So what is the distinction then between saying that spirit expresses itself in this object or the spirit is this object.

Prabhupāda: It is the expression of the energy of spirit. Everything is energy. Whatever is manifested, that is the energy of Kṛṣṇa. Thus one energy manifestation is eternal and another energy manifestation is temporary. Which is temporary manifestation, that is material, and which is eternal manifestation, that is spiritual.

Śyāmasundara: So you could say both, you could say this is made of spirit.

Prabhupāda: Yes, originally it is made of spirit in this sense, that Kṛṣṇa is whole spirit, and because it is Kṛṣṇa's energy, so factually it is Kṛṣṇa.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Śyāmasundara: But his idea is that to understand this reality or this truth is that one must examine all relationships of everything to each other.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That we are teaching. That original is Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's expansion in energy is everything. Parasya brāhmaṇaḥ śaktiḥ. Just like heat and light; practically whole physical existence is heat and light. So heat and light, there is a fire wherefrom the heat and light comes. Similarly two energies, heat and light, the spiritual and material, they are emanating from the fire, Kṛṣṇa, and everything is made of heat and light, material (indistinct). So one who has got to see, one has got the eyes to see, that is the spiritual, he can see it. And when he hasn't got the eyes to see, he thinks material.

Śyāmasundara: Another way of looking is that Hegel considered that his predecessors were abstract philosophers, in other words they were isolating or severing from the whole into parts and that each part was static, not moving, but he saw that the truth is dynamic, it is always changing that these dynamic or that these isolated factors, he called them moments, momentums, that the total of moments was a moving force, that truth was actually dynamic and always changing, not static.

Prabhupāda: That we can understand from our personal self, that I am the soul, I am existing, and the bodily features changes, changes. Then it is changing, therefore it is material. And the spirit soul, it is existing in all conditions. That is the difference between spirit and matter. Hm.

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Śyāmasundara: Through the world. The state is an organism. The state is real and its reality consists of the interests of the whole being realized in particular ends. The state is the world which the spirit has made for itself. One often speaks of the wisdom of God in nature, but one must not believe that the physical world of nature is higher than the world of spirit. Just as spirit is superior to nature, so the state is superior to the physical life. We must therefore worship the state as the manifestation of the divine on earth.

Prabhupāda: That is very nice idea. We agree to that. Therefore we have to see what is the duty of the state. It is accepted that the state is the representative of God. Therefore the state's first business is to make citizens God-conscious. That is the state's first business. Any state who is neglecting this duty, he immediately becomes unqualified to hold the state office, either he may be president or the king. Because if it is admitted, the king... We say that the king's name is naradeva, God in human form, and king is offered that respect. There are... King is respected, why? Because he is to be considered God's representative. So therefore, as God's representative... Just like we are working as God's representative. We present ourselves as God's representative, Kṛṣṇa's representative, then what is our duty? What is our business? What we are doing? We are trying to lead others to God consciousness. That is the proof that I am God's representative. I am not teaching them anything else. I am teaching everything, that is duty, but this is my prime duty. Similarly, if the state or the state executive head, the president or the king is taken, accepted as God's representative, his first and foremost duty is to train the citizens to become God conscious. If he's lacking in that duty, he's not fit to become executive head, king of the... What does he say about that?

Philosophy Discussion on Hegel:

Śyāmasundara: There's a, for instance in mathematics, advanced mathematics has to do with sets of formulas, equations, symbols which have no place in reality. They have no substance. They're merely ideas on paper or in my brain. What about these kind of ideas. They are, how to say, like the square root of minus one.

Prabhupāda: Ad infinitum, ad infinitum, like that.

Śyāmasundara: Like the square root of minus one. There is no substantial reference for that idea but there is an equation: the square root of minus one.

Prabhupāda: The ultimate understanding, if we have accept this formula janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), so everything is emanating from the substance, so without having a place of that idea in the substance, you cannot have... That is another thing (indistinct). Because you are also a product of that something. So whatever you are thinking, that must be there, in the original.

Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson:

Śyāmasundara: He says that since the reality is a living force, it is always becoming something else; therefore logical explanations or scientific explanations are ineffective because they deal with static problems.

Prabhupāda: Yes. The so-called scientists, they do not know the real, basic principle; therefore they are misled. Actually the soul, the living force, because they are getting independence and has to, wants to enjoy the material world, which he cannot do, but falsely, after life (indistinct), he is running after (indistinct) material nature, and he is becoming more and more (indistinct). That is his (indistinct).

Śyāmasundara: When science tries to investigate something, they assume that what they are investigating is static, that it is a constant, that it is not changing, that it's static, mechanical. But the life force, he says, is dynamic; it's always changing, unpredictable.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Because it is living force, it must be dynamic. It is not a dead stone. Because it is living force, it must be dynamic. We are all living force, sitting here, we may sit down or we may go away. That nobody can check. Similarly, we are dynamic forces, and God does not interfere with our dynamic force. He allows us, "Do whatever you like." Because if He interferes with our independence, then we are no longer living entities; we become dead stones. So God does not interfere. He gives us full freedom. But at the same time He comes down and instructs us, "But why you are engaged in this foolish activity? Please come to Me, back to home, back to Godhead, (indistinct)."

Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson:

Hayagrīva: Close? Oh, all right. Bergson maintained that God's reality can only be intuited by mystical experience. The creative effort is of God, if it is not God Himself. Knowledge of God leads to activity not passivity.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Knowledge of God is activity. Just like bhakti, we are twenty-four hours active, not that we are meditating on. So it is service. God says that anyone who preaches this message of Bhagavad-gītā, that is activity. That is Caitanya Mahāprabhu's order, that you, all of you, become guru. To become guru means activity, to train the disciples. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is full of activity for giving, rendering service to God, Kṛṣṇa. It is activity.

Philosophy Discussion on Henri Bergson:

Hayagrīva: The word..., the word "mystic" is not a very clear word. It can mean so many different things. When he says God's reality can only be intuited by mystical experience, one doesn't really know what this means.

Prabhupāda: No, mystical... One who does not know God, for him it is mystical, but one who knows God, he takes orders from God. This is defined, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam (CC Madhya 19.167), means favorably working for satisfaction of God. But if one's idea of God is not clear, he thinks it is mystical, but one who has got clear idea of God, clear order from God, then it is not mystical but it is practical.

Hayagrīva: He believed that mystics—he uses the words "mystics," not-mystics participate in God's love for mankind and aid the divine purpose.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the...

Hayagrīva: This is the real meaning of creative evolution.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is in ignorance due to long separation from God. In the material world the living entity has forgotten his relationship with God; therefore his activities are only sense gratification, like the animals. And when he is given lesson, instruction how to become God conscious, how to love God, that is activity, and that is real life. Otherwise it is animal life.

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Śyāmasundara: He says that, about the nature of truth, that truth is more than just an agreement of idea with reality, but it also has a practical significance, that whatever is practical is true.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Practical we can see from the verse of Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, that anyone who has got a slight merciful glance of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he thinks that Brahman liberation is as good as hell. Kaivalyaṁ narakāyate. And the heavenly planets, they are phantasmagoria, and yoga-siddhi, that is not a very important thing. And people are suffering on this material condition. (But) for a devotee it is simply pleasing. Everywhere he goes he feels pleased, while others seeing full of anxiety. Devotees, they are seeing everything pleasing. So these things happen simply by a fragment of the merciful glance of Caitanya Mahāprabhu upon His devotees. Viśvaṁ pūrṇam, they do not care for any big scholar or many exalted personalities, just like we challenge anyone, even we don't care for Dr. Radhakrishnan, who is so much exalted. So this is practical. Because one has become Kṛṣṇa conscious, therefore these things happen. (to guest:) Please sit down.

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Śyāmasundara: So his definition of reality-reality equals pure experience. He says that reality equals pure...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore we should go to the perfect experienced personality; then we can know reality. From his definition it is concluded that we must go to the perfect experienced person and understand what is reality. That is our process.

Śyāmasundara: The realized person.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Then we can know what is reality. I cannot know what is reality, but if I go to the perfect experienced personality, he can tell me what is reality.

Viśāla: In the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Your Divine Grace, it mentions that there are three processes: the transcendental process, the speculative philosophical process, and the materialistic process. The devotees go to the transcendental process to get perfect knowledge.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Śyāmasundara: So his definition of reality is pure experience, or...

Prabhupāda: He cannot give any definition of reality because he has not experienced. He has not perfectly experienced, so how he can give the definition of reality? What definition he is giving, that is not reality. He has no experience. He is developing experience. So how he can give a definition of reality?

Śyāmasundara: Actually, he is defining the process.

Prabhupāda: What is that process?

Śyāmasundara: The process is to understand reality, but he is not describing reality.

Prabhupāda: He says that reality?

Śyāmasundara: He says that reality is the stream of consciousness or the flux of life.

Prabhupāda: A jugglery of words, that's all.

Śyāmasundara: One's consciousness, as it develops more and more conscious, then he becomes more and more aware of reality.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. But what is the guarantee that he'll develop consciousness fully?

Philosophy Discussion on William James:

Śyāmasundara: Yes. What if a man develops into a madman? Does that make him more aware of reality?

Prabhupāda: That definition we can give him. When a man becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious, then he is contacted with reality.

Devānanda: It's only when a man becomes Kṛṣṇa conscious or actually reaches the reality, then he can be sure that the process does lead to the reality. He is speculating that this process will lead to the reality, but he doesn't know it for sure, because it has not actually brought him to the point of reaching the reality.

Prabhupāda: Of course, to reach the Kṛṣṇa consciousness platform the process is not man-made.

Śyāmasundara: No.

Prabhupāda: The process is also God-made. Just like Kṛṣṇa said that, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). This is the process. This is not man-made; this is God-made. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). This is God-made. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā mām eva ye prapadyante (BG 7.14). This is God-made. So to come to Kṛṣṇa conscious platform also, you have to follow the God-made method, not your method. You cannot give any definition.

Philosophy Discussion on John Dewey:

Hayagrīva: He says in the realm of philosophy and religion, certainty is impossible. He says, "The moment philosophy supposes it can find a final and comprehensive solution, it ceases to be inquiry and becomes either apologetics or propaganda. Any philosophy that in its quest for certainty ignores the reality of the uncertain in the ongoing processes of nature denies the conditions out of which it arises."

Prabhupāda: There is uncertain when you do not accept the reality. The reality is God, and God is explaining how things are going on, but you take it as mythology. Then how you will know?

Hayagrīva: No way.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Hayagrīva: No way.

Prabhupāda: You are rascal. When it is explained by God Himself, and actually by doing it, you do not accept it. And still you imagine. So your position is very precarious. When God comes Himself and shows Himself, His activities, we think it is mythology. Then how we can be convinced? Direct perception and authority. And the direct perception, when He comes you take it that it is mythology. When the direct perception history is written about Kṛṣṇa in Mahābhārata, and then you take it as mythology. Then how he will believe it? And the authority accepts, "Yes, Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme. He has done it." You say, "I don't accept it." Then how you will be convinced? What is the way to convince you? Huh? What is the way, possible way?

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Prabhupāda: And he was a philosopher?

Śyāmasundara: Yes. The philosophy of pessimism. He says that reality is...

Prabhupāda: So why was he fond of dog? Pessimism? He found some value in dog?

Śyāmasundara: He says that reality is blind and irrational and capricious, or whimsical, and that actually life is an evil situation.

Prabhupāda: So how he is to establish his philosophy if everything is whimsical, irrational? How he will convince others if he is irrational and irresponsible? How he will make progress in his philosophical proposition?

Śyāmasundara: He figures his...

Prabhupāda: Man is called a rational animal. Although animal, it is rational. So how his irrational philosophy will be accepted by a rational animal?

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Śyāmasundara: He says that this world is composed of two parts: idea and will. That the ideas are sense experiences that we perceive in the world, and they are mere representatives of the will, but the will is the ultimate reality.

Prabhupāda: That idea is illusion.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. But he says that will is the ultimate reality. Something is...

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, will is ultimate reality, we also admit. Because we desire, we will like this. We will that we shall be enjoyer of the material world. Idea was that "I shall become like Kṛṣṇa." This was the idea, and therefore I will. And Kṛṣṇa gave us chance, "All right, you come here and fulfill your desire." So they are implicated in so many karma, and becoming more and more involved. So according to karma he is getting different types of body, and there is no end. It is going on.

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Hayagrīva: Material life is a projection of the will.

Prabhupāda: Yes, he has read it. It is taken from Indian... It is called vāsanā. Vāsanā means desire. So that desire, material desire, but the living entity cannot be desireless. Desireless..., nirvāṇa means material desires finished. But because living entity is eternal spiritual being, he is, he has got spiritual desire. Now it is covered. The desire is there, desire is constant companion, but because it is materially covered, we are thinking this temporary world as reality, and it is not reality; therefore it is changing. We are having different types of desires according to the body we get, and the soul is transmigrating in this material world from one body to another, and he is creating a certain type of desires, will. And to fulfill that will he is getting a different type of body by the Supreme Will. He is willing, and the Supreme Will, God, Kṛṣṇa, understanding his will, giving him facility to accept a certain pattern of circumstances, body, to fulfill his particular desire. That is going on. Therefore this vāsanā, or will, is the cause of his material existence, constantly changing, and on account of changing will he is changing body. This is the complication of material existence. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is to teach the living entity that as living being you must have desires.

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:
Prabhupāda: So this change of body is also like a big dream. At night we dream, we forget everything about daily activities, and again when the dream is finished, again we come to this body and we do some things. So in that sense all material activities, subtle or gross, they are manifestation of different desires. Therefore the Māyāvādī philosophers, they say brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. The dreamer is fact, but the dream is false. That is one sense it is right. So our Vaiṣṇava philosophy is the same, that the dreamer is the living entity and the dream is temporary. Therefore the dreamer has to be brought to the real, spiritual platform so that these material dreams, either in day or night, they can be extinguished. That is nirvāṇa.
sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ
tat-paratvena nirmalam
hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-
sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate
(CC Madhya 19.170)

When we give up these dreaming facts and come to the real fact, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that is bhakti. So activities in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, called bhakti, that is reality.

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Prabhupāda: The other day, yesterday, I was explaining that this side good, this side bad, the same thing. Stool is stool. So this side or that side. But here in this material world, they are accepting this temporary or false, whatever you call, platform, and we are manufacturing in that false platform, temporary platform, "This is good, this is bad." Why? Where is the good and bad? They are all temporary, or false. We don't say false; we say temporary. The Māyāvādī philosopher, they say false. So that is also stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, that the pains and pleasure of this material world, it is experienced by the (indistinct). The spirit soul does not touch this. It is different. He is not concerned with this material, but he is illusioned that "This pains and pleasure is mine." Therefore Kṛṣṇa advises in the Bhagavad-gītā that this pains and pleasures, simply touching the skin, body. But I am not this body. That is the first instruction. The soul is not this body; therefore this pains and pleasure is on account of this body, material body. So Kṛṣṇa said,

mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya
śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
āgamāpāyinaḥ anityāḥ
tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata
(BG 2.14)

So these are not reality. They come and go in due course, and we are, being too much absorbed in this material body, we feel pains and pleasure. But I am not this body; therefore one should be intelligent, that "This pains and pleasure is due to my bodily concept of life, and they come and go. Why should I bother about it? If I feel pain, let me tolerate and do my own business." That's all.

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Hayagrīva: Schopenhauer's second book was entitled The World Is Will. He writes, "My body is the objectivity of my will. Besides will and idea, nothing is known to us or thinkable. But if we narrowly analyze the reality of this body and its actions, we find nothing in it except the will." And he goes on to state that "The genitals are properly the focus of the will, and consequently the opposite pole of the brain, which is the representative of knowledge. The former, that is the genitals, are the life sustaining principle and share an endless life to time. In this respect they were worshiped by the Greeks in the phallus and by the Hindus in the liṅgam, which are thus the symbol of the assertion of the will. Knowledge, on the other hand, affords the possibility of the suppression of willing, of salvation through freedom, of conquest and annihilation of the world."

Prabhupāda: Therefore that is bhakti. Sarvopādhi, this willing... Why? This willing is (indistinct), because this willing is according to the body. So I get one body and will again, we get another body. So I am willing, but I am. So I have now identified with this willing situation. That is my trouble. When I understand that I have nothing to do with this material world, with this, the production of my will, material will, and I am spiritual, so when I will spiritually, that is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is wanted. Materially willing means I get different types of body, that's all. That is dream life. But what he says?

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Hayagrīva: Supreme Person.

Prabhupāda: Not Supreme Person.

Hayagrīva: The individual.

Prabhupāda: The individual, who is put in this temporary world, willing and satisfaction, but he is reality behind this willing and satisfaction. (break) So Schopenhauer's defect is that he does not see the, there is a person behind this willing; the individual soul, he is willing. So when he stops this flickering willing, then what is next, that he does not see. Nirvāṇa, stopping willing, of this nature of willing, temporary, one kind of willing, one kind of satisfaction, again another kind of willing... Behind this willing whimsically there is the spirit soul. So when the spirit comes to his real understanding of identification, that willing is pure willing. This willing is contaminated willing, material willing. So simply one should not be satisfied by stopping this whimsical willing, but when he comes to the real willing of the real person, that is spiritual life.

Philosophy Discussion on Arthur Schopenhauer:

Hayagrīva: Is this kind of extinction the purpose behind chastity?

Prabhupāda: Behind the willing activities there is a person who is willing. So simply by negation of this temporary willing will not help him. He has to will reality. That is eternal willing. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He has been willing his sense satisfaction, material world, because he does not know there is another field of willing. So the same willing, when he will satisfy the senses of the Supreme, that is his eternal willing. Jīvera svarūpa haya nitya kṛṣṇa dāsa (Cc. Madhya 20.108-109). Because when he analyzes, comes to the real knowledge, he finds himself that he is eternal servant of God. As such, when willing will be concentrated how to serve God, that is his real position of life—eternity, knowledge and bliss. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Philosophy Discussion on Martin Heidegger:

Śyāmasundara: Well... (pause) The thing is that in the same sense that Kierkegaard is saying that man has to create... (break)

Prabhupāda: Authentic means reality. What is that? Authenticity means reality?

Śyāmasundara: It means being free from guilt, being free from anxiety, being always resolute in purpose.

Prabhupāda: So reality... I see this is reality, that I don't wish to die but there is death. Authenticity means how to live without death. That is all. Is it not?

Śyāmasundara: Yes. (pause) (indistinct) that the conclusions of the philosophy, by going through the different steps (indistinct). First of all, these two characteristics of existence, or (German-indistinct). One is that existence is prior to essence. The second is that (indistinct), or existence, is mine, that it is a personal. Everyone has the feeling that I...

Prabhupāda: I can exist. Others may not exist. Is that philosophy?

Śyāmasundara: No. That is also a person(?) outside of you, but that my existence is personal.

Prabhupāda: Does my existence, it is first; other existence is secondary? Just like (if) I eat meat. I must eat, because I must have meat, so poor animals must be killed. So his existence is this, neglected. Is that their philosophy?

Philosophy Discussion on Martin Heidegger:

Prabhupāda: That's all right. I exist individually and others may not exist. Is not that philosophy? So I must exist, others may not exist. So others also must think like that. That is animal. I am thinking that "I must exist. I don't care for you." You are thinking that you must exist, you don't care for me, so therefore there is struggle between you and me-struggle for existence. We are fighting. I am thinking I must exist, you are saying you must exist. Is it not? (pause)

Śyāmasundara: He says that man's actions or reality is the existence or his (indistinct). In other words, from the fact that I exist, I can find my..., that is my essence, that is my reality.

Prabhupāda: Yes. This should be done individually, collectively. Therefore there is group of nationality, therefore combined together should exist. The other group also, they are also thinking. So there are different parties. (indistinct) struggle, struggle for existence, survival of the fittest. If you exist killing me, then you are fit. And if I'll exist killing you, because you want to exist at my cost, I want to exist at your cost, so there is struggle. So if you can kill me, then you are fit, and if I kill you, then I am fit. Survival of the fittest.

Philosophy Discussion on Martin Heidegger:

Śyāmasundara: So he says that this kind of care or concern as a result of anxiety is what prompts us toward reality. This drives us toward reality, this fear, this concern.

Prabhupāda: That is nice. The reality is... Then you have to concern... Just like when you are diseased, when you are in the trouble, some implication of legal matter, then you go to the lawyer, how to get out of it. When you are diseased, when you are troubled, you go to the physician. Similarly, if you are actually eager to get out of the anxiety, then you have to go to somebody who knows that Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says, "Simply by knowing Me," tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti (BG 4.9). "You should simply try to understand Me." Janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ. "Anyone who knows Me, how I appear, what I do, what is My function," that means anyone who knows Kṛṣṇa, "then after living in this body, he does not take birth again." And if there is no birth, there is no death, there is no disease, there is no trouble. As soon as there is birth there must be... Anyone who has taken birth, he must die. That is the law. Anywhere. Anything which is born must die, must get old, must be diseased. Anything, even you take material things—this machine—it has got a date of birth, and there will be a death when it will stop functioning. And it is getting older. That is the law.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Śyāmasundara: It's only working in two planes, or two dimensions.

Prabhupāda: Just like this body. This body, I can say is false, but suppose somebody kills somebody, he cannot argue that it is a false thing. If it is killed, why the state should by so much anxious about it if it a false? No. Even it is temporary, even if it's false, but it has got temporary use. You cannot disturb that use.

Śyāmasundara: He says that propositions pertaining to metaphysical realities such as we have been talking about, like the soul, he says they are neither chronological, that is uninformative assertions, neither are they empirical propositions. So it is impossible to demonstrate either their validity or to verify them.

Prabhupāda: Why?

Śyāmasundara: Statements like "the soul," "I am the soul."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: We can neither say that is valid or invalid, neither we can say it is...

Prabhupāda: It is valid. It is not invalid, it is valid. You cannot understand it. Try to understand it. It is valid. "I am the soul," that's a valid proposition. How you can say invalid?

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Prabhupāda: Yes. These are all matter.

Śyāmasundara: He says that a proposition is a picture of reality, a picture is a model of reality, a picture is a fact, the world is a totality of facts, the totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world.

Prabhupāda: Totality of not facts, that is a combination of gross matter, combination of gross and subtle matter. But this gross and subtle matter are projection of Kṛṣṇa's energy. Therefore totalities, they can be said Kṛṣṇa's external energy. And because Kṛṣṇa's energy, the energy and energetic, sometimes separated, sometimes mixed up; when separated, it manifests as something creation; when it is mixed up, the energy is no longer—it is merged into the energetic. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate cause.

Śyāmasundara: So the picture of reality is always changing? There are no set combinations?

Prabhupāda: Reality is not changing. The combination of different energies is changing. Reality is not changing.

Śyāmasundara: So true thoughts are not changing.

Prabhupāda: Reality is Kṛṣṇa, but Kṛṣṇa has got unlimited number of energies, so the combination of different energy is making some manifestation and they are changing.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Śyāmasundara: He says that the totality of true thoughts is the picture of the world. So that picture does not change. The true thoughts do not change. So the world is not actually...

Prabhupāda: Yes. Conservation of energy. Everything rests ultimately in energy, and the energy ultimately rests in Kṛṣṇa. Therefore we say that everything ultimately rests in Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate cause, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: (BG 10.8) "I am the cause of everything."

Śyāmasundara: He says that language is a picture of reality-language, words, a picture of reality. Just like we are speaking now. We are making pictures of reality as we speak with our language, with our words. Do these words have more content in themselves, or are they simply pictures of reality?

Prabhupāda: Language is a sort of expression to understand reality. Language is not reality.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that propositions or statements of ideas provide merely the form, telling us not what things are but how they are, but only how they are.

Prabhupāda: As well as what they are. If they are how they are, then what they are can also be explained.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Śyāmasundara: We're coming to that. He says that the propositions must describe the object completely by means of logical scaffolding, exhibiting logical form of reality, and whatever cannot be shown cannot be said, either. So he says that if we purport to show reality by our words...

Prabhupāda: What is the process of showing?

Śyāmasundara: By language, that our structure of language must be logically complete and that it must also be able to be seen or it cannot be said. Whatever cannot be shown cannot be said either.

Prabhupāda: Then logically complete... Suppose I have my father, I've seen my father, or I've seen my grandfather, or I've seen my great-grandfather, but because I cannot see the father of great-grandfather does not mean that there was no great-grandfather. Logically it is real, that the father of my great-grandfather was also a human being, he had two hands, two legs, and one head. That is logical, even though I have not seen. What is illogical? So it does not mean that things which we sometimes do not see, it is not logical. You cannot say like that. Because they are not seen, that is also logical.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Śyāmasundara: Earlier in his philosophy he said that there is only one language of terms which portray reality. In other words, there is only one definite set of language terms that portray reality.

Prabhupāda: That is brahma, brahma-sattva. Paraṁ satyaṁ dhīmahi. That is reality.

Śyāmasundara: Later he said that it's the way in which a word is used, not its meaning as a name for some object, which gives a language a statement for validity. In other words, the way we use words, not that words in themselves have absolute meaning, but the way we use them.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like when you use one word, it has got some meaning. When you say "Brahman," it has got some meaning. "Brahman" means nothing is greater than Brahman. When you use the word Brahman it means nothing is greater that Brahman.

Philosophy Discussion on Ludwig Wittgenstein:

Śyāmasundara: He says when we ask, for example, "What is the meaning of the word good..." He says we must inquire as to how we learn the meaning of the word good, what its functions have been, and strive to clarify its use, not as a picture of reality but as a tool for describing, recording, and asserting facts or ideas.

Prabhupāda: (indistinct) limited science, when you are in the limited material world, good means which satisfies my senses good. That is good. And bad means which does not satisfy my senses. But so far my senses are concerned, this is temporary (indistinct); therefore in this material world, the conceptions of good and bad, they are all the same. Real goodness is God. God is good. That is good.

Devotee: Jaya! Haribol! Haribol!

Śyāmasundara: So he is saying...

Prabhupāda: Everything which is not God, that is bad. That is real goodness.

Philosophy Discussion on Jacques Maritain:

Prabhupāda: So we agree to this point. Just like soul, at the present moment you have got a certain type of body, human body, but the soul has potentiality to have a spiritual body or a dog's body. Both potentialities are there. So the essential is the soul, and the reality... It is not reality; temporary form in the material body. But the potentiality as the soul has its own spiritual body. When it is uncontaminated by the material contamination, he remains only reality without any so-called actuality or temporary form.

Śyāmasundara: He says that sense activity occurs on an immediate level of experience, without any conscious awareness of itself, but that true knowledge of reality comes through intuition, and that this reality is called being.

Prabhupāda: Intuity, also past experience. What you call intuition is past experience. Just like when a child is born, by intuition it seeks mother's breast. Because the child does not know where is food, but by intuition, as soon as the mother's breast is given, pushed in its mouth, he is satisfied immediately. So by..., this is called by intuition. But actually it is its past experience. The same child, as the soul, may have taken something else in a different body. So the fact is that the soul is wandering in different types of bodies, and when he comes to a particular type of body, he remembers everything from his past experience. Just like fifty years ago, when I was a businessman, so at that Gauḍīya Math, as soon as I go there, I remember all those things; I am again fifty years back. That is actual... So this, suppose if I say I am going, I do not require to be directed that "Here is this thing, here is that thing." Immediately I enter that town I will understand that if I have to go to the toilet, "Here it is." If I go to the kitchen, "Here it is." So you may call it intuition, but actually it is experience, past experience. There is no, nothing such thing as intuition. That is a vague expression. Actually it is past experience.

Philosophy Discussion on Jacques Maritain:

Śyāmasundara: He is Absolute. He is pure existence and essence together, but that the..., everything else that exists besides God has these two characteristics of potentiality and actuality.

Prabhupāda: That potentiality, actuality, it is material relativity. In the spiritual world there is same—potentiality, reality—they're one. Just like Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, the rascal scholars, they think that Kṛṣṇa's body and Kṛṣṇa's soul is different, as it is, what is called, expressed by Dr. Radhakrishnan. But that is not the fact. There is no such difference. Kṛṣṇa also says, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā (BG 9.11). Because He comes in a human form, rascals think of Him as ordinary human being. But He is not that. He is absolute. He has nothing to do with the body and soul as we have got. He is body and soul together-potentiality and the actuality. Similarly, anyone who gets a spiritual body, he also gets the same position. There will be no difference between actuality and potentiality.

Philosophy Discussion on Jacques Maritain:

Śyāmasundara: There's another school of modern philosopher who has the same idea of existence and essence, but they say that there is only existence, that there is no essence, therefore there's no meaning to life.

Prabhupāda: No. According to our..., essence is reality; existence is temporary.

Śyāmasundara: Well, he opposes these philosophers by saying that there cannot be existence without essence.

Prabhupāda: That is our view also. Essence... Just like Śaṅkarācārya says, brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. The existence is mithyā. He says mithyā. But we, Vaiṣṇava philosopher, we say not mithyā, not false, but temporary. But temporary. So mithyā we cannot say, because anything coming from God, it cannot be false, but it is temporary. He can change it as He likes; therefore it is temporary.

Philosophy Discussion on Jacques Maritain:

Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. That is beyond this; transcendental to the three guṇas. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26). That is actuality. Brahma-tattva, that is actuality. So anyone who is engaged in devotional service, he is above, transcendental to the three modes of material nature. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān (BG 14.26). All these material qualities, samatīta, atīta, he surpasses, and brahma-bhūyāya kalpate, he is situated in actuality.

Śyāmasundara: He says that God knows reality as it exists and it has the potentiality to become. In other words, He knows everything.

Prabhupāda: He knows. Vedāhaṁ samatītāni (BG 7.26). Kṛṣṇa says, "I know everything, past, present and future." You have nothing like that, past, present and future. The past, present and future is concealed due to our, these temporary material bodies.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the human being is nature's most perfect creation.

Prabhupāda: That's it. We also accept that. So after many, many births, 8,400,000 species of life, one gets this human form of life, and that also, civilized life, that also, in India, following the Vedic principles, that is the highest birth.

Philosophy Discussion on Jacques Maritain:

Śyāmasundara: He says that this is..., because of this spiritual personality that he can know and love God.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Without person how there can be love? There is no question of love. You cannot love air or sky; you must find out a man or woman in the, under the sky. So therefore if you want to love God then you must accept God is a person; otherwise there is no question of love. Therefore for the Māyāvādī philosopher there is no question of love. They merge. They want sāyujya-mukti, to become one. They have no other conception, because they cannot conceive personal God. So there is no love. Therefore they manufacture an idea that in the material condition of life, you just imagine any form of God and love Him, and ultimately you become one. That is their philosophy. Ultimately you throw away this... The example is given that you want to rise on some top floor you take a ladder and go to the top and throw away the ladder: there is no need of this ladder, now you have come to the position. So their theory is that because you cannot love or worship something impersonal, because it is difficult, it is troublesome... It is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, kleśa adhikataras teṣām avyaktāsakta-cetasām: those who are attached to impersonal deities, their progress in spiritual life is very troublesome because they never fix up. So in order to give them some facility, they say that "You imagine some form of the Absolute Truth, and when you are perfect, then throw away that form. You become one." This is their philosophy. But if God is God, then how I can throw Him? That means while they are thinking of God, that is not God. And they say it is imagination. Then what is the value of imagination if it is not reality? So how by imagination, by kalpana, by taking something false, you can reach the reality? That is the defect of their philosophy. If you take it something wrong, how you can reach the reality? Your process is wrong, because you are accepting something wrong: imagination, imagination.

Philosophy Discussion on Edmund Husserl:

Prabhupāda: That is pure consciousness.

Śyāmasundara: But by examining a phenomenon purely, without any other consideration, he says that each thing has its given content or its principle of principles, as an object of intuition. Or he calls it also a thing of authentic reality. Just like a leaf. If you look at a leaf, and you have no consideration of previous knowledge where do these things come, what is a leaf, anything, then the authentic reality of that leaf will present itself to my consciousness. It will be self-evident what is that leaf.

Prabhupāda: You don't take... That means that analytical study of the leaf.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. But without any previous knowledge—as if I knew nothing about leaves before, but I begin to look at the leaf and it will be self-evident what that leaf is.

Prabhupāda: So you can talk any nonsense. (laughter) Then what is the use of going to school? There is no need of opening so many schools and colleges. You go on studying, you can know all knowledge and talk all kinds of nonsense. Is that perfect?

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Śyāmasundara: He says that after a period of childhood indulgence in these sexual appetites, he begins to learn that by giving up satisfaction he can please and influence others so as to gain more adult favors, just like (indistinct) and (indistinct) you were talking about. So the pleasure principle becomes replaced by the reality principle.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is stated in Bhagavad-gītā, (indistinct). If your consciousness is changed, if you become Kṛṣṇa conscious, then there is a verse by Yamunācārya, he says,

yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde
nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt
tad-avadhi bata nārī-saṅgame smaryamāne
bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṁ ca

(indistinct), he was emperor. So he said, "Since I am taking pleasure in the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa, nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt, since I have engaged my life to enjoy the transcendental bliss by serving the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa, yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-pādāravinde. (indistinct), "I am getting newer and newer pleasures. And because," he said, "and at that time when I think of sex pleasure," bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṁ ca. He was king. He had under his command (indistinct), but he said, "when I think of that sex pleasure, my mouth becomes deformed and I spit." That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Śyāmasundara: Later on, Freud began to accept that certain nonsexual factors might produce these unconscious conflicts, also, and he divided the personality into three separate systems, called the ego, the super-ego and the id. The id is the unconscious instinctive drive to enjoy-sex desire, everything animalistic. The ego is that part of the mind concerned with adjusting efficiently to external reality. In other words, it's a moral segment of the personality which tries to adjust or protect.

Prabhupāda: We are trying to create (indistinct) these falsity. Everyone has got some false egoism. That is our (indistinct). Just like Freud is thinking that he is American or (indistinct). This is false ego. We are giving everyone the intelligence that this identification with this material body, that is (indistinct). Due to ignorance I am thinking that "I am Indian," "I am American," "I am Hindu," "I am (indistinct)." This is false ego-ahaṅkāra, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. This is inferior quality of egoism. The superior quality of egoism is Brahman: "I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa." So if he is taught to the superior engagement, then automatically this false egoism becomes stopped.

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Hayagrīva: He felt that the father God is an infantile wish. He says, "The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that one whose attitudes..."

Prabhupāda: So what is his reality? Infantile conception of God, but what he is, except the child? Huh? He is also planning something. That is also childish. So how he becomes more than a child? He cannot give us any definite program by which everyone will be hopeful.

Hayagrīva: Well, he felt psychoanalysis was the answer.

Prabhupāda: That is jugglery of word. Psychoanalysis, nobody will, can understand, a common man. Psychoanalysis, if there is meaning, that there is supreme controller, that is psychoanalysis. We see everywhere controller, so it is natural. This is psychoanalysis, that there is a supreme controller. That is natural. Why defying this fact?

Hayagrīva: He says, "If one attempts to assign religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition as a parallel to the neuroses which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity."

Prabhupāda: Evidently he is frustrated, without any knowledge of religion. He had no idea. He has seen that so many sentimental religious system, and he has concluded like that. But first of all let him understand what is religion. Religion cannot come into existence without understanding the idea of God. Religion without God cannot be religion. According to Vedic system, religion means the order given by God. But if one has no conception of God, that there is no question of religion.

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Hayagrīva: Concerning religion, he said, "Of the reality value of most of them, of most religions, we cannot judge. Just as they cannot be proved, neither can they be refuted."

Prabhupāda: First of all, he does not know what is religion. That is the defect in him. We say religion means the order given by God. Simple thing. But he has no conception of God. How he can get orders from God? Therefore how he can understand what is religion? He has got some ideas of fictitious religion, which is described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, kaitava, cheating. Cheating religion. That is not religion. Religion means, just like law. Law means the order given by the government. You cannot manufacture law at your home. That is not... Similarly, if somebody manufactures law at home and says that "I have manufactured one law. You take it," so who, what sane man will accept that law? "Sir, you keep your law in your pocket." Similarly, this so-called religious system, which is not given by God, that is just like outlaws. They are not religion. He has simply studied which is not religion. That is his defect. Real religion is the law given by God. So he has no conception of God, how he can understand what is religion? He has studied only pseudoreligion, cheating religion; therefore he is dissatisfied.

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Hayagrīva: He said, "The riddles of the universe only reveal themselves slowly to our inquiry. To many questions, science can as yet give no answer, but scientific work is our only way to the knowledge of external reality. Science is no illusion, but it would be an illusion to suppose that we could get anywhere else what it could not give us." In other words, religion is an illusion, but the answer lies in..., in science, that science will eventually answer all of these questions that religion attempts to answer through...

Prabhupāda: No. The science or philosopher, when they are imperfect in their knowledge, they, whatever they give, that is unscientific and without any basic principle of philosophy. So the, first of all we have to learn what is the objective of knowledge, what we are searching, knowledge. The knowledge that... Vedānta. Vedānta, Veda means knowledge and anta means ultimate. Unless you come to the ultimate point of knowledge, your knowledge is imperfect, insufficient. So the ultimate knowledge is God. So if these people, they cannot define any God, they cannot believe in God, that means they have not reached to the ultimate point of knowledge. God is a fact, but we do not have any clear idea what is that God. That means our knowledge has not reached up to the point of clear understanding of God. So unless one is able to reach that point, everything, what he calls knowledge, is imperfect. God is there, that's a fact, and knowledge means to go to that point. If one has not reached to that point, his knowledge is imperfect. So how he can give us something conclusively if he has imperfect knowledge? Let him be philosopher or scientist; if he has got imperfect knowledge, what is the value of his science, scientific knowledge and that? His knowledge is imperfect. So our, our policy is we don't accept knowledge from an imperfect person. We have received knowledge from the perfect person. Kṛṣṇa is accepted the Supreme Personality of Godhead, perfect, and anyone who follows Kṛṣṇa's knowledge, he is also perfect.

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Hayagrīva: He says, "I disagree with you when you go on to argue that man cannot in general do without the consolation of the religious illusion, that without it he would not endure the troubles of life, the cruelty of reality."

Prabhupāda: Man cannot do without education. Without education a man remains an animal. Therefore in the human society there is a school, college, an institution, teacher—not in the animal society. So the principle is, the man is meant for being learned or being educated. That you cannot deny, that man life should not be like cats and dogs, simply eating, sleeping, mating, and dying. That is not man's life. Man's life is to become advanced in knowledge and education. And as I have already described, the ultimate knowledge: to understand God. If he is so-called educated, without any understanding of God, then his education is imperfect. You can deny the existence of God, but the God conception is there in the human society. Some may accept it, some may not accept it—that is another thing—but the conception of God, the whole civilized world, they have got some type of religion. Either you become Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim, religion means there is some cultivation of knowledge to understand God. And to understand God is the ultimate knowledge. That is called Vedānta. Veda means knowledge, and the ultimate knowledge: Vedānta. So ultimate knowledge, it, what is that? That is the beginning of Vedānta education. What is that ultimate knowledge? Athāto brahma jijñāsā. The Vedānta begins with this word, "Now this human form of life is to acquire the ultimate knowledge." Athāto brahma. Brahma means the ultimate.

Philosophy Discussion on Sigmund Freud:

Hayagrīva: Freud's..., this is Freud's final conclusion on this point: "True, without religion man will then find himself in a difficult situation. He will have to confess his utter helplessness and his insignificant part in the working of the universe. He will have to confess that he is no longer the center of creation, no longer the object of the tender care of a benevolent providence. He will be in the same position as the child who has left the home where he was so warm and comfortable. But, after all, is it not the destiny of childishness to be overcome? Man cannot remain a child forever. He must venture at last into the hostile world. This may be called education to reality. Need I tell you that it is the sole aim of my book to draw attention to the necessity for this advance?"

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: The advance to reality.

Prabhupāda: That reality is good advice. But unfortunately, who is taking advantage of his advice? Because here we are presenting Bhagavad-gītā, the real point of religion, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). But these philosophers have misled the world so much that now it is very difficult to convince them that here is God speaking and here is religion. That service he has done. As they were innocent to accept the words of God, now they have become overintelligent. They think sex is God, and that is going on. So to counteract this mentality it will take some time, but anyone who takes, accept the Bhagavad-gītā, the words of God, and the ways and means of life as defined by God, if anyone takes, then he will be happy. That's a fact.

Philosophy Discussion on Carl Gustav Jung:

Hayagrīva: He conceived of what he called a persona. He says, "The persona is the individual system of adaptation to, or the manner he assumes in dealing with, the world. A profession, for example, has its own characteristic persona, only the danger is people become identical with their personas: the professor with his textbook, the tenor with his voice. One can say, with a little exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is."

Prabhupāda: That persona—for as I take it from this statement—that persona, when when comes to the understanding that I am eternal servant of God, that persona is salvation, perfection. Persona must be there, but so long one is in the material world, his persona, or identification with some interest, varieties. Sometimes his persona is with the family, his persona is with the community or with the nation or with some idealism, Communism, this "ism," that "ism," this is going on. But when that persona comes to the understanding of Kṛṣṇa, that "I am eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa," that is perfection. Persona must continue.

Hayagrīva: So this persona he's speaking of is like the false ego.

Prabhupāda: The false ego, so long he is in the material world. Otherwise "I am." "I am American," this is false ego, and "I am servant of God, Kṛṣṇa," that is reality, that is real ego. We say, therefore, false ego. Ego must be there. That purified ego is, "I am servant of Kṛṣṇa." Otherwise "I am this," "I am that," "I am this," "I am that."

Philosophy Discussion on Jean-Paul Sartre:

Śyāmasundara: He says that this objective being, like these objects, he calls it "being in itself," and only these concrete phenomena are real. But he says these concrete phenomena are more than their phenomenal appearances. Just like this thing is more than what it appears to be, but it is no more than the sum total of all its appearances. In other words, this thing may appear like this, but it is more than this; it is all of its possible appearances, from the time it was clay, to the time the paint was applied, different things, in all its appearances, that is the reality of this thing. It is not just this thing; it is all of its appearances. But that is all. There is nothing more than that. It doesn't have any reality beyond its phenomenal appearances.

Prabhupāda: From where the material came, first of all? Beyond the material, the source of material?

Śyāmasundara: He says that "Material in itself is nonconscious, inert, fixed, opaque, uncreated, devoid of potency, lacking becoming, and without any reason for existing; therefore it is superfluous." In other words, existence doesn't have any meaning.

Prabhupāda: So what is the substance?

Śyāmasundara: Well, there is no meaning to anything. It's just here. There is no tracing out. It's not created; it's just here.

Prabhupāda: This kind of philosophy is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā as asuric philosophy, demonic philosophy, because the demons, they do not believe in any superior cause. They everything take as accidental. Just like a man and woman unite accidentally and a child is born. It is like that. There is no actually purpose. The Śaṅkara philosophy, atheistic Śaṅkara philosophy is also like that. Prakṛti and puruṣa meets. All of a sudden there is lust and they meet, and there is some product; otherwise there is no other cause. This sort of theory is called asuric.

Philosophy Discussion on Jean-Paul Sartre:

Śyāmasundara: I'll just read a quote from one of his books. He says, "To be a man means to reach towards being God; or if you prefer, man, fundamentally, is the desire to be God. Every human reality is a passion in that it projects losing itself so as to found being, and by the same stroke to constitute the..."

Prabhupāda: To desire to become God, that is also passion, because he cannot become God. This is simply passion.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the human being has the capacity to give up or sacrifice something in order to reach for something higher.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is called tapasya, austerity.

Śyāmasundara: He says that we have the ability to lose ourselves to find ourselves, to lose something in order to find something else.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our process. To find ourself, in our real position, we give up so many material enjoyments. Just like a diseased man is ordered by the doctor, "Do not do this." So he is sacrificing those things, "do not's," accepting "do not's," to become cured from the disease.

Philosophy Discussion on Jean-Paul Sartre:

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Hayagrīva: Probably the most famous of the French philosophers. Perhaps the most well known philosopher in this century. He calls himself an existentialist. He calls himself an atheistic existentialist in that he believes existence precedes essence. That the essence of man... According to creation by design, God has the essence of man in His mind, and He creates man just as a paper cutter creates some kind of a figure. Sartre doesn't believe this. He says, "Atheistic existentialism, which I represent, is more coherent. It states that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, a being who exists before he can be defined by any concept, and that this being is man, or human reality." So that for Sartre a human reality is all in all.

Prabhupāda: So wherefrom the human reality comes? There are no realities also, so why he is stressing on human realities?

Hayagrīva: There again, he would emphasize accident—he uses the word—that man is thrown into the world, or cast into the world.

Prabhupāda: Thrown by whom? "Thrown into the world," as soon you say like that, then the next question will be, "Thrown by whom?"

Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell:

Śyāmasundara: He says in a type of understanding that is direct, such as "This snowball is white," that there is no possibility of error because there is no distinction between what a thing seems to be and what it is in reality.

Prabhupāda: No. That is called direct perception. So direct perception is not perfect. It is no... Just like I see the sun (indistinct), but I see just like a disc. But it is not a disc. Therefore my direct perception of the sun is imperfect. When we go to scientific book, astronomy, then you can understand that it is so great, fourteen hundred lakhs, or fourteen hundred thousand times bigger than the earth. So this my direct perception, it has no value.

Śyāmasundara: What about the knowledge, for instance, "This snowball is white"? Isn't that a direct fact, this understanding by everyone?

Prabhupāda: Yes. The snowball is white, but it may be mixed up (indistinct) white. That is also very (indistinct).

Dr. Rao: Snowball is actually colorless. It is not white.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell:

Prabhupāda: How matter can take shape? That is not philosophy, that is childish. That is the defect of the modern civilization. A man has got childish knowledge and he is becoming philosopher.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the cause-effect relationship between things has very little effect on genuine events which can cause reality.

Prabhupāda: No. There must be cause and effect.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says there is cause and effect, but these have little effect on the main events that comprise reality.

Prabhupāda: No. There's a cause, a supreme cause, sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam (Bs. 5.1), supreme cause. They'll have to find out the supreme cause. Just like I was eating that fruit, what is called? (indistinct) what is the English of (indistinct)? All right. Take any fruit, any fruit, I am eating one fruit. Take orange. So take each piece of orange parts, there are so many seeds, and each seed there is a tree, and each tree there is millions of fruit, and each fruit there is millions of seeds, and each seed, there is a (indistinct) tree. So who has made this? Speak up. Therefore you have to find out the supreme cause. That is knowledge.

Philosophy Discussion on Bertrand Russell:

Śyāmasundara: His idea is that emotions are what are determining good and bad, and if we educate people into scientific reality...

Prabhupāda: No. No emotion. We don't... Just like Arjuna. By emotion he was thinking, "I shall not fight." That was emotion. So "I shall be bad man, taking to these orders"—these are... Anything material, that is emotion, sentiment. Yes. So religion without philosophy is sentiment, and philosophy without religion is mental speculation. So therefore our this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is so sound. We do not go by sentiment. We accept the superior order of Kṛṣṇa (indistinct), it is perfect.

Śyāmasundara: He says that there is no such thing as fact. There are not facts.

Prabhupāda: That is another nonsense. (laughter) He does not know what is facts.

Devotee: He just before said that it is facts what we see from our senses, so again he's negating his own philosophy.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Śyāmasundara: He has another slogan that "Human effort has no true reality." In other words...

Prabhupāda: Because does not know what is reality. He is a fool.

Śyāmasundara: Well he says that man's reality or man's nature changes through history according to material conditions.

Prabhupāda: Well that is the way of..., everything is changing. This tree is changing daily, your body is changing, that is not a very high philosophy.

Śyāmasundara: His idea is that if you mold...

Prabhupāda: Jagat. Jagat means change. Jagat. (indistinct) jagat, everything is changing. Just like wind(?), time and tide. So that is not a very unique proposal. It is the nature's way, it is going on. And therefore I say this theory, this Marx theory, it is all changeable(?). It will not stay.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Śyāmasundara: Does this mean that man's nature, there is no fundamental nature that a man's reality is...

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is spiritual nature. That is spiritual nature. We are teaching people to come to that standard, spiritual nature which will never change. Just like we are trying to serve Kṛṣṇa. This is not (indistinct). We are serving Kṛṣṇa and when we go to Vaikuntha, we serve Kṛṣṇa. That which is called nitya. Nitya means eternal. Nitya-yukta upāsate. Bhagavad-gītā, eternally engaged in the service of the Lord. Not like Māyāvādī. Māyāvādī philosophers, they will say that "Let me serve Kṛṣṇa now. As soon as I become liberated, I become God. I become God." This is another bluff. Just like I am serving you to take your favor and as soon as I get opportunity I ride upon you. You see? Now,

Śyāmasundara, (indistinct). This is Māyāvāda theory.

Śyāmasundara: They want to become...

Prabhupāda: One. One with God. That means (indistinct). Here, he could not enjoy. There are so many impediments. Therefore brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. This is all mithyā. So I become one with Brahman. This is jñānī. And karma means that I work hard, I get some result, and I enjoy. Karma-phala. But bhakti means that one should be completely free from all these desires. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy anāvṛtam (Brs. 1.1.11). One should not be covered with the results of jñāna and karma. Then what is bhakti? Ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuṣīlanam (CC Madhya 19.167).

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Śyāmasundara: Their idea is that human nature has no reality of it's own, that it's a product of the material environment so that if you put a man in a factory...

Prabhupāda: So if it has no reality, why they are proposing something nonsense as real, if there is no reality?

Śyāmasundara: Well their idea is that if you put a man in a factory and you get him to identify with the state, the production, the scientific achievement, say...

Prabhupāda: That cannot be, that is our philosophy. Because he has got the basic disease. He is saying that I am working so hard, but the profit is not coming to me, he will be immediately slackened. Just like there is a proverb, proprietorship turns sand into gold. But as soon there is lacking of the sense that I am not proprietor, the gold becomes sand. That is position of Russia. They are not happy, they are not rich, in comparison to other European countries. Of course, no European country is as good, or as rich as America, that is a fact. That I have practically seen. But still, in Russia, they are poorer than other countries.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Prabhupāda: Well, your senses are not reality.

Śyāmasundara: And economic determination.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. You are sensually thinking, but your senses are not reality. They are imperfect. Your eyes... You are thinking "I am seeing reality," but you are not seeing reality. Just like you see, daily seeing the sun. Really you are seeing. But you do not know what is sun. Then what is the benefit of that seeing?

Śyāmasundara: He says whatever is useful...

Prabhupāda: Useful, useful... So far you are seeing the sun, you know the sunshine is useful, the sun heat is useful. That does not mean that you have understood sun as reality. The superficial benefit you are getting. That does not mean that you know reality. Do you know? You are getting sunshine; you are utilizing it. Sun's heat, you are utilizing. Does it mean that you know really what is sun?

Śyāmasundara: He would say that the only reality instead of the sun is that the crops would grow, feed everyone.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Prabhupāda: That's all... They are simply by-products, simply by-products. But you do not know the reality. If you speak of reality, if you are satisfied only the by-product of the reality, then that is a different thing. But when you speak of reality it does not mean, because it appeals to your senses, therefore it is reality, because your senses are imperfect. You cannot realize anything perfectly with these defective senses.

Śyāmasundara: He says that if there is anything beyond the appearances, physical world, it is also physical, that everything is physical, everything is material.

Prabhupāda: That's all right. Physical... Even physical, you do not know. Even this physical manifestation of this universe, what do you know about this? You do not know. There are so many planets. You cannot go even in the moon planet.

Śyāmasundara: He says it's only necessary to know what applies to us, what...

Prabhupāda: Then don't talk of reality. Don't talk of reality.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Prabhupāda: That use, it is for you but because your knowledge is so poor. Just like a low class man, he will think, "This police constable is government." Because he is a low class man, the police constable takes him to the custody, and he is controlled by the police cons..., so he is father and mother. But for a high personality the police constable is nothing. There are so many others. So this reality is relative according to the person. He is a man with poor fund of knowledge. Therefore immediate effective, that is reality. Just like child. He thinks a lozenges which is two cent worth, he thinks it is reality. But to his father that two cents worth lozenges... (aside:) Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. To his father, he will think, "What is this lozenges?" The child will ap... "Oh, father, it is so nice. It is heaven. It is so sweet." That means reality according to the person... So he is a man with poor fund of knowledge; therefore he is accepting reality which is giving him some immediate profit. That's all.

Śyāmasundara: Yes. Just like he considers Kant's idea, "the things in themselves," to be "the things for us,"...

Prabhupāda: (aside) You can change that.

Śyāmasundara: ...instead of something existing in itself, that "everything exists for us and everything exists for my use."

Prabhupāda: Yes. The animal also thinks that "This is reality." "I have got one goat," a tiger thinks, "to eat. Oh, this is reality."

Śyāmasundara: This is just for me.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is... These things are discussed in Upaniṣads. The students asks, "What is reality?" He says that "Think over." Now came, that "Eatables are reality," because he's a small child. So he says, "No, this is not reality. You think over." In this way, this way, one after, one after another, one after another, he finally came to Brahman. So this reality differs according to knowledge. Kṛṣṇa can... The same example: a child. Two things: one lugdoo and one one-thousand-dollar note—which one he will take? He will take this lugdoo. For him this is reality. He does not know the value of this paper. But for his father, which one of them, he can immediately... So reality means according to your knowledge. So these are poor class of men; therefore they are always talking of economic production and this and that, the immediate... That's all.

Śyāmasundara: In fact, when he says that what is practical is the criterion for truth, that is also relative, what is practical. Just like for the child the practical thing is the laddu.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's all right. For a child the lugdoo is reality, but that does not mean that is equal to that one thousand dollar note.

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Prabhupāda: Accidental... Just like a child takes birth, is it accidental? Beginning from the child, so it is not accidental. That there is a father-mother unity, and then, when the child is born, then how you can say accidental? Nothing is accidental.

Hayagrīva: He felt that man..., it is only man who gives reality to God, or, he said, "the gods."

Prabhupāda: Reality must be there. That we... Just like Mr. Marx, he certainly did not like to die, but he was forced to die. Why it takes place unless there is some superior force? We do not wish to have some accident but there is accident; so how you can check it? So in this way, the conception of God, there is always some superior, and there are many other things, common sense, we discuss daily that the, as the nature, things are going on so nicely, they are not accidentally. There are so many planets in the sky. Accidentally they are not colliding but they are remaining in their position. The sun is rising in due course of time, in the morning exactly in time. So there is nothing accidental. And because things are going on very systematically, so there must be some brain behind it, and that supreme brain is God. How you can deny it?

Philosophy Discussion on Karl Marx:

Hayagrīva: Like Comte, Marx believed that atheism was unnecessary because it was negative denial. He felt that socialism is positive assertion. He says, "Atheism no longer has any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God and postulates the existence of man through this negation. But socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the practically and theoretically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature the essence. Socialism is man's positive self-consciousness no longer mediated throught the annulment of religion, just as real life is man's positive reality through Communism." So that Communism really has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

Prabhupāda: No. Our point is that religion is not sentiment. Leadership has to be accepted, either by the Communist or the theist or atheist. There is leadership. So when the leadership is selected and the direction given by the leader, you can take it as some "ism." So religion is the same thing. When we accept the leadership of God and His direction, that is religion. I don't think on principle the Communist can change this idea. The same leader is Lenin or Stalin, and he is giving his direction, and people must follow it. So where is the difference of philosophy? Similarly, Kṛṣṇa is there, His instruction is there, and we are following. So where is the difference in fact?

Philosophy Discussion on Mao Tse Tung:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Conflict is always there. But you cannot come to the conclusion unless you take the right decision from the authority. Two litigants, there is conflict. I say that "You do this." You say, "No, why can I do it? Our agreement is different." So there is conflict. So you go to the court and take the right decision from the judge.

Śyāmasundara: He attacks speculators and especially empiricists, or those who draw conclusions of reality through their fragmentary sense perception.

Prabhupāda: He is also doing that. He is also one of them. Because he says that ultimately the barrel... What is that?

Śyāmasundara: That all political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Prabhupāda: That's all. He is one of them.

Śyāmasundara: Speculator.

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's all.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Prabhupāda: "What is your birthplace?"

Śyāmasundara: Yes. So this Samuel Alexander says that our consciousness of an object is a mere perspective on something, but it's a real portion of that object and not just a mental image. In other words, if I see a table, I am actually reacting with that table. It is a real perspective. It's not just a mental image, but I'm actually reacting to that table. My senses are reacting with the table. It's an objective reality.

Prabhupāda: Where is the table?

Śyāmasundara: Yes. Some philosophers think that if I see the table, it's merely a mental idea in my mind, that table. He says that no, there is a real objective relationship between my senses and the table, reality of the table. Is that...

Prabhupāda: Yes. That is right.

Śyāmasundara: That's right?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Śyāmasundara: He says that even illusions are genuinely real objects which are uncreated by the human mind. In other words, if I think I see a snake and it is actually a piece of rope, but if I think it is a snake, then it really is a snake.

Prabhupāda: That is reality of a snake; otherwise how this imagination comes to me? I have got an idea of snake. Now, in darkness there is a rope. So I may falsely take it as snake. That's doesn't matter. But snake is there. That is our argument.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the mind never creates anything new. It simply rearranges things. Everything already exists...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: ...but the mind, and the mind merely arranges it. It doesn't create anything new.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like the economic law says that you cannot create anything. You simply transform. Just like this table is nothing but wood. So wood is not my creation. Wood is there, but I have transformed the wood into a state which is called a table.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Śyāmasundara: His idea is that even these mental images in dreams are real, that they have an objective reality.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Objective reality. When I dream of a woman or a tiger, there is objective reality. In dream it may be. There may be no existence of woman or tiger, but there is real existence of tiger, my dreaming. The impression of a tiger in my mind, the impression of a woman in my mind is created as hallucination, and that reacts on my physical life.

Śyāmasundara: He says that even these mental objects have a real existence in my consciousness. As long as I'm thinking there's a tiger about to pounce on me...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: ...there is a tiger. There is a real object in my consciousness.

Prabhupāda: And because it is real object, it is reacting on my physical life.

Śyāmasundara: He describes ultimate reality as space-time. Space and time. He says that time is an infinity of instants, single instants, and that the basis of infinity is a point, and that these two are combined and this is called reality.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Hm.

Śyāmasundara: So he calls this ultimate reality. Time and space.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Time is... We take it reality, time. That we accept also. Time is eternal. Reality. And therefore we take time as another feature of God.

Śyāmasundara: And space?

Prabhupāda: Space is later created.

Śyāmasundara: Oh, after time. Oh. And it creates the ultimate reality?

Prabhupāda: No. No. Space is also reality. Space is prakṛti. Prakṛti, kāla, jīva, and Bhagavān. They are all reality.

Śyāmasundara: Oh. Those four things.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Śyāmasundara: Oh. He leaves out entity and Bhagavān. He only has time and space in the ultimate reality.

Prabhupāda: Our philosophy... We see that one ultimate creator, Bhagavān. And jīvātmā, subsequent creator. God has created wood; I create a table and chair. I am subsequent. I am not ultimate creator. So jīvātmā is subsequent creator. Both the creators are eternal. And because the creation has got time connection, past, present, and future, so time is eternal. Time is eternal and jīva is eternal and prakṛti.

Philosophy Discussion on The Evolutionists Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander:

Śyāmasundara: Yesterday we were discussing this philosophy of emergent evolution. The theory behind it is in the beginning there was merely space and time and categories and then this developed to a level of primary sense perception, then to a level of secondary sense perception, then to a level of organic life, and then to a level of mind, mental life. And now, his theory is that the next level will be called deity, or a sort of demigod level of consciousness, in which men will be able to not only enjoy the objects of contemplation but be able to contemplate them, really, (?) in reality.

Prabhupāda: So that is Vedic process.

Śyāmasundara: His idea is that all of evolution is going that way, nature is tending that way. And nature has progressed in different steps from inorganic life to organic life, to mental life, and now to demigod life.

Prabhupāda: From organic... Inorganic life? What is that inorganic life?

Śyāmasundara: Space and time and the categories of...

Prabhupāda: Where is the life there?

Śyāmasundara: Life develops from inorganic matter is his theory. It is merely a higher level of organization, inorganic life.

Prabhupāda: That means life developed from matter?

Śyāmasundara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That is nonsense. How life develops from matter? Where is the, evidence? Why do they not manufacture life from matter in the laboratory? It is simply a statement. It has no value. Because you cannot produce living force from matter. Matter is different and living force, soul, is different. (In) one sense, of course, they are the energy of God, but still, categorically, they are different. So far these materialists are concerned, where is the proof that from matter, life has developed? So why they do not manufacture life in the laboratory? Even an ant you cannot manufacture. You have got all the chemicals. Why don't you manufacture life? So this theory cannot be accepted.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: He says that our progress towards this kind of understanding comes about because we unify our speculative reason, our theoretical reason with our practical reason or our moral reason.

Prabhupāda: This is practical. Anyone can understand that when the body is, does not contain any more the soul, then it is dead, dead body, lump of matter. So spirit soul is different from the matter. This is practical. If anyone cannot understand, then he's less intelligent. This is practical.

Śyāmasundara: His idea of ultimate reality is that it is the moral ego or pure will that...

Prabhupāda: Then he has to define what is morality.

Śyāmasundara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: Everyone says, "It is my morality." Everyone can manufacture (indistinct). Just like, for example in India if somebody talks of homosex (indistinct) immoral, and here it is going on. (indistinct). So what is morality? (indistinct).

Śyāmasundara: He uses the categorical imperative that Kant set up, the different categories of goodness and badness.

Prabhupāda: That means if you are in the modes of goodness, your morality is different from the morality of the man who is in the modes of ignorance.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: He also sees things in that way. He sees the unfolding of reality as the fulfillment of duty, that one must always strive for what ought to be, what is fulfillment of his duty.

Prabhupāda: That, that information we are giving that in reality everyone is servant, but he is under misconception, he's thinking he's master and he's forced to serve māyā. This is reality. Just like a outlaw, he is thinking that free from the state law but he's forced to abide by the state law in the kingdom. Similarly my position is I must carry the order. I am inferior. I must carry out the order of the superior. The superior, the supreme superior is Kṛṣṇa. If I voluntarily become the servant and carry out His order, then it is my normal life. Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇam vraja (BG 18.66). Otherwise it is abnormal life. I have to serve māyā. Daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). Māyā will kick upon my face and force me to do something, prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi (BG 3.27). So I will be servant of prakṛti, material nature. That means I will be servant of my senses. By nature, my senses dictate, "Now you do this," I will be forced to do it. This is my position.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: So Kṛṣṇa uses the same terminology that one should fulfill his duty and if this is the what ought to be.

Prabhupāda: Duty means superior order. That is duty. You cannot manufacture your duty.

Śyāmasundara: His idea is a little impersonal because he says that we discern what ought to be from the forces of nature around you, reality unfolding.

Prabhupāda: Then he abides by the forces of nature. That is nature is superior. He does not know beyond nature there is another superior being, that is God. That is his lack of knowledge. That is the difficulty. If you are not perfect, where is that philosopher?

Śyāmasundara: He sees an intelligence acting in nature.

Prabhupāda: Anyway he accepts the superiority of nature, superior position of nature. He accepts it. So but beyond the nature there is a... the Supreme Personality Godhead. Mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10). Under My direction nature works. So he has no vision to see the background of nature.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: He says that all of nature as we see it is only illusory sense material reflecting the ongoing moral necessity of reality of the universe.

Prabhupāda: That is our philosophy. Mirage, sometimes mirage, if you see in front of the water in the desert. Actually there is no water in the desert, but you see under illusion. But you know, you are human being, you know that there is no water, you don't go after it. But the animal will go after it and he'll lose his life because (indistinct). He wants to take that water, and the water also goes ahead. In this way when he's too thirsty in the midst of desert he becomes dead. So that is the difference between man and animal. So the human consciousness, when it is developed, you come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you become detached with this material mirage. He does not run after the false water. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Others may go after the false water. That is called māyā, or illusion.

Śyāmasundara: His idea is that by observing the material energy that we can get an idea of what is the real duty of the universe. You can perceive it in the ongoing fluctuations of material nature, the duty or reality of the universe.

Prabhupāda: That is not possible. If he is ignorant, how he can understand? There must be direction, guidance.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: He says that the free will, which creates itself or realizes itself is the truest of all realities.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So if by free will if you choose to surrender to Kṛṣṇa they you'll get your real free will, freedom. Otherwise you are under the clutches of māyā. Daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). You cannot surpass the stringent laws of material nature, that is not...

Śyāmasundara: He says, contrary to Kant, he says that the practical reason is primary, is the first thing, that what is practical is superior to what is...

Prabhupāda: Practical, this means, suppose I want to do something, I do not know, then I go and ask a superior person who knows it. Just like when you drive your car, you are going somewhere, so you take the direction from the signpost, this way go, this point here, this village. Similarly, for practical purpose you have to approach a person who knows. That is practical. And if you think that I shall do it myself, without consulting anyone, that is not practical, that is theoretical. You will be misled. At least we are prone to be misled.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Śyāmasundara: But we cannot..., pure thought process, I cannot do anything more than think myself. I can think that I think therefore I am.

Prabhupāda: You can think, but if you are helped by somebody else who knows the way, then it becomes easier. You are thinking of driving a car. If somebody expert... (break) ...that is practical. Yes.

Śyāmasundara: He says that it is very difficult because the nonego objects are always trying to lead us astray.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore you have to take advantage of an experienced man who knows things. He does not accept any superior.

Śyāmasundara: He says that the moral goal, the moral reality of (indistinct) is the ultimate in superiority...

Prabhupāda: That morality we have already discussed, what is the morality. You can create your own morality, I can create my own morality. What is actual morality?

Śyāmasundara: Maybe that's a good place to end. (end)

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Hayagrīva: Well he, following Kant, he emphasized inner reality...

Prabhupāda: He may, he may follow Kant and I may follow Kṛṣṇa, but if there is contradiction, then which one is morality? How it will be decided, and who will decide? He may follow somebody. That this question I asked Professor Kotovsky in Moscow, that "You are following Communism, and we are following, say, Kṛṣṇa-ism, but your leader is Lenin and our leader is Kṛṣṇa, that so far the philosophy is concerned we have to accept a leader." So there is no difference in the basic principle of philosophy that we must have a leader. Now who shall be the leader and who will decide it? Regards to both of us, we have got a leader. Now which leader is perfect? If both of them are perfect, then why there is difference of opinion—one leader does not agree with the other leader? So who will answer this question that who is the best leader? Leader you have to follow. That you cannot avoid. Either you follow Kant or you follow Kṛṣṇa. Either you follow Lenin or you follow Kṛṣṇa. What is the answer? Who is the perfect leader? You cannot avoid leader, either you say according to Kant, I say according to Kṛṣṇa.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Hayagrīva: For Fichte the world has no objective reality outside of its being an instrument for the enactment of morality. He calls the world of the senses "the stuff of duty."

Prabhupāda: This is all vague. There is no definite direction.

Hayagrīva: He says our duty is revealed in the world of the senses. There's no definition of duty as such.

Prabhupāda: That means I can manufacture my own duty, you can manufacture your own duty. There is no standard. But our standard is, Kṛṣṇa says, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śar... (BG 18.66), whatever you, rascal, whatever you have manufactured, give it up. The Bhāgavata says that dharmaḥ projjhita atra kaitavaḥ, that all cheating type of religious system is kicked out. Here is the religious system, satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi (SB 1.1.1). What is that satyam? Oṁ namo bhāgavate vāsudevāya. Everything is clear. And where is that clear understanding? Simply speculating. That is the difference, the Vedic standard knowledge and this speculative philosophy. So, so far we are concerned, we refer to the Vedas, śabdaḥ pramāṇam. Śabdaḥ means Vedas, śabdaḥ brahman. So whatever action we do, if it is approved by the Vedic injunction then it is standard and confirmed.

Philosophy Discussion on Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

Hayagrīva: For Fichte, faith is innate in all men. He says, "So has it been with all men who have ever seen the light of the world. Without being conscious of it, they apprehend all the reality which has an existence for them through faith alone."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: "This faith forces itself on them simultaneously with their existence."

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Hayagrīva: "It is born with them. How could it be otherwise?"

Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore we should have faith by experience that everything has got some proprietor, so why not the whole cosmic manifestation has proprietor? This is faith. You may not have seen the, who is the proprietor, but it is a question of faith. Everything I see has got a proprietor or owner, so who is the owner of this whole cosmic manifestation? This depends on faith. You may not have seen it. One says, "Who is that God? I don't see any proprietor." Then wherefrom it comes? "Ah, by accident." Is that any explanation? That is faith, that as everything has got some proprietor or some manufacturer, so why not this whole cosmic manifestation a proprietor? But you cannot say that "I am proprietor." There is some proprietor. That is faith. Just like we go, strolling in the morning, by the path. The (indistinct) park is part of high government. You know it is the property of the government. That just three yards after there is sea, now who is the proprietor of this sea? If this land is..., proprietor is the high government, now who is the proprietor of the water? There must be somebody. I may not know. That is faith. It is common sense. If the land is the property of somebody, so whose property is the sea? But there must be somebody. That is faith. Common sense. But they have no common sense even.

Philosophy Discussion on Socrates:

Hayagrīva: "It is the cause of knowledge and truth, and so while he may think of it as an object of knowledge, he would do well to regard it as something beyond truth and knowledge, and precious as these both are, of still higher worth. And just as in our analogy light and vision were to be thought of like the sun, but not identical with it, so here both knowledge and truth are to be regarded as like the good, but to identify either with the good is wrong. The good must hold a yet higher place of honor. The objects of knowledge derive from the good not only their power of being known, but their very being and reality, and goodness is not the same thing as being, but even beyond being, surpassing it in dignity and power."

Prabhupāda: Yes. So goodness is the position where you can get knowledge. And passion and ignorance is not the platform of knowledge. Therefore the endeavor should be how to bring persons in the basic or base platform, ignorance and passion. So this is very easily done by our, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. If one hears about Kṛṣṇa, or God, then gradually he becomes freed from the clutches of darkness and passion, and actually he then comes to the platform of goodness. And when he is perfectly in goodness, then this passion and ignorance and their by-products cannot touch him. Tadā rajas-tamo-bhāvāḥ kāma-lobhādayaś ca ye (SB 1.2.19).

Philosophy Discussion on Plato:

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.

Philosophy Discussion on Plato:

Hayagrīva: Concerning education, he says, "We must conclude that education is not what it is said to be by some who profess to put knowledge into a soul which does not possess it, as if they can put sight into blind eyes. On the contrary, our own account signifies that the soul of every man does possess the power of learning the truth and the organ to see it with, and that just as one might have to turn the whole body around in order that the eye should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world until its eye can bear to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor which we have called good. Hence there may well be an art whose aim would be to effect this very thing, the conversion of the soul, in the readiest way, not to put the power of sight into the soul's eye, which already has it, but to insure that instead of looking in the wrong direction, it is turned the way it ought to be.

Prabhupāda: That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Hayagrīva: That.

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Philosophy Discussion on Plato:

Hayagrīva: Well, one last point is that neither Socrates, Plato or Aristotle ever mentions service to God; rather, they always speak of contemplation of God's reality or the Supreme Splendor. It's always contemplation, meditation. Is this typical of the jñānī? Or... There's no mention of service.

Prabhupāda: No, this is the process of knowing God. They are partially helpful to know God as He is, but when he actually comes to know God, he sees that "He is the great and I am the small." So the business of the small is to serve the great. That is nature's way. We practically see in our daily life, because you are small you are going to serve a big factory. Otherwise you have no other way. So everyone is serving, but when he realizes that "I am serving. I am not the master," that is the position actually. Ask anybody in this world whether he is master or serving, the conclusion will be that he is serving. His natural position is to serve. So if one hasn't got a family to serve, he keeps a dozen of dog to serve. That is going on, and especially in the Western countries we see that at the old age, when he has no children, so he keeps a dog or two or three pets to serve. So the serving position is already there, and when the servant wants to become master, that is māyā. Because this word māyā means actually he is serving and he is thinking that he is master. That is māyā. Māyā means what is not fact. So by meditation, when he actually becomes a realized soul, he will understand that "Oh, I am servant. So why I am serving māyā? Let me serve Kṛṣṇa." That is perfection. So if his guide, spiritual master, engages him from the very beginning to serve God, then he becomes quickly perfect, because he is servant and he has to serve Kṛṣṇa. That is his perfection. He is falsely thinking that he is master. That is māyā. Here also they are simply serving.

Philosophy Discussion on Aristotle:

Hayagrīva: Now Aristotle would say that the flower is real because it has its basis in the ultimate reality, God.

Prabhupāda: That..., how God can be not in knowledge? He is full in knowledge. That is God.

Hayagrīva: Plato would say that the flower is a shadow of reality, a perverted reflection of reality. So which point of view would be...?

Prabhupāda: Yes, it is... When the flower is in the material world..., material world is perverted reflection of the spiritual world. That's a fact. We have got experience that material things are created, but in the spiritual world things are not created; they are already there, everlasting. So it appears Aristotle has no knowledge of the spiritual world.

Philosophy Discussion on Origen:

Hayagrīva: This is Origen, who lived from 185-254 A.D., and he studied at Alexandria, Egypt, during the same time as Plotinus. In fact he knew Plotinus, but Origen was a Christian and is considered the founder of Christian philosophy. He believed that ultimate reality, which is spiritual, consists of the Supreme Infinite Person, God, as well as individual personalities. Ultimate reality is the interrelationships of persons with each other and with the Infinite Person, God. So he differed from Plotinus in the belief that God has personality.

Prabhupāda: Yes. God is personal. He is also believing personality. "Father," he says, Plotinus, but his ideas are not very clear. Did he not, Plotinus, say "the fatherland"?

Hayagrīva: He mentioned the father, but that...

Prabhupāda: The father is person. Anyway, we shall discuss this tomorrow.

Hayagrīva: The...

Prabhupāda: What is this philosopher?

Hayagrīva: Origen.

Prabhupāda: Origen. All right. We shall discuss tomorrow.

Philosophy Discussion on Origen:

Hayagrīva: You want to discuss tomorrow? (break) I'm just touching the main points in these, but since we're not interested in comparative theology, I'm just touching the main philosophical differences in these early Christian theologian philosophers. Origen believed that the ultimate reality, which is spiritual, consists of the Supreme Infinite Person, God, as well as individual personalities. Ultimate reality is the interrelationships of persons with each other and with the Infinite Person, God. So here he differs from the Greeks, who were basically impersonal.

Prabhupāda: Our Vedic conception is almost the same, that the individual souls, or living entities, innumerable, and each one of them has an intimate relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the material condition of life the living entity has forgotten his relationship, and when, by the process of devotional service, he comes to his liberated position, at that time he revives his old relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Philosophy Discussion on Thomas Aquinas:

Hayagrīva: This is St. Thomas, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225-1274. He compiled the entire body of Church philosophy called Summa Theologe, and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. He, unlike Augustine, he did not distinguish so sharply between the material world and the spiritual world, or between secular society and the city of God. He felt that the entire creation, both material and spiritual, has its origin in the Personality of Godhead. He acknowledges at the same time that the spiritual world is superior to the material world.

Prabhupāda: Yes. (indistinct) Material world means temporary, and some philosophers, like the Māyāvādīs, they say it is false. But we Vaiṣṇavas, we don't say it is false, but it is temporary illusion. It is reflection of the spiritual world, but there is no reality. Sometimes it is compared with the mirage in the desert. There is no water in the desert, but sometimes, by reflection of the sun, it appears that there is water. Similarly, in the material world there is no happiness, but the transcendental bliss and happiness existing in the spiritual world is reflected here, and those who are less intelligent, they are after this illusory happiness, forgetting real happiness in the spiritual life.

Philosophy Discussion on Thomas Aquinas:

Hayagrīva: Well, but the material universe must have been created out of nothing, because it could not have arisen out of God's spiritual nature.

Prabhupāda: No. The material nature is also inferior nature of God. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā: bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca (BG 7.4). Apareyam, the material nature, means earth, water, fire, air, ether, and the subtle materials, mind, intelligence, ego. They are all emanation from God, so actually they are not unreal but inferior. They are, it is called, bhinnā me prakṛtir aṣṭadhā. They are separated material energy. We can have a little idea, just like we are speaking in the microphone, and it is being recorded in the tape recorder. When the tape recorder is replayed, the sound coming from exactly like the original person's sound, but it is not in touch with the person, but it has come from the person. If somebody does not see wherefrom the sound is coming, he can conjecture that such and such person speaking, although such and such person is away from that speaking engagement. Similarly, this material world is emanation, is expansion, of energy of the Supreme Lord, but it is not that this material world has come into existence from nothing. No. It has come from the Supreme Truth, but it is inferior energy. The superior energy is the spiritual world, which is reality. This, this cannot be supported, that material world has come from nothing.

Philosophy Discussion on George Berkeley:

Hayagrīva: Berkeley. Berkeley—very brief section on Berkeley. Berkeley seems to be arguing against objective reality. In other words, three men standing in a field looking at a tree could all have a different impression or idea of the tree, or at least according to his argument. The problem is, although there are three impressions of the tree, each differing from one another, there is no tree as such. Now, how does the tree as such exist? In the mind of God? Is it possible for a conditioned living entity to perceive the suchness or essence of anything?

Prabhupāda: Everything means God, expansion of God's energy. So how tree or anything can be without reference to God? We see that the earthen pot is on the ground, on the, what is called, ground?

Hayagrīva: The what?

Prabhupāda: Earthen pot, pot, pots made of earth.

Hayagrīva: Earthen pots, pot that's made of earth.

Prabhupāda: So it is staying on earth, so the earthen pot is not different from the earth. So everything is expansion of God's energy. How we can avoid God with reference to anything that we see? There cannot be anything independent of God. The example is there: the earthen pot, as soon as you see, we remember the potter, that "Who has made?" and the wheel of the potter. So a... God is the original creator, He is the ingredient, and He is the category also, and He is the original substance. That is the conception, Vedic conception of God. He is everything. That is nondual conception. And if you make anything separate from God, then how you can say sarvaṁ khalu idaṁ brahma, "Everything is Brahman"? Then if you say everything is God, at the same time you separate something from God, so that is, what is called, contradiction. Our conception is, "Yes, actually everything has reference to the God, so everything is God's property. It should be utilized for God's service." That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.

Philosophy Discussion on Thomas Henry Huxley:

Hayagrīva: Huxley did appear to have..., to adhere to the doctrine of transmigration. He says, "The doctrine of transmigration constructs a plausible indication of the ways of the cosmos to man. Every sentient being is reaping as it has sown, if not in this life then in one or other of the infinite series of antecedent existences of which it is the latest turn." In Evolution and Ethics he writes about brahman and ātmān and liberation. He says, "The earlier forms of Indian philosophy agreed with those prevalent in our times, and supposing the existence of a permanent reality or substance beneath the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind, the substance of the cosmos was brahman, that of individual man ātmān, and the latter, that is ātmān, was separated from brahman only by its..."

Prabhupāda: That is also not. He is not separated. He is, brahman and ātmān, they are existing, co-existing, and that is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā in the chapter "Kṣetra and Kṣetrajña." The body is the field, and the ātmā, individual soul, is the owner of the field or the worker in the field. So it is also said there is another owner, kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ vidhi. As the individual is working in the body, similarly, there is another soul working in the body. So what is the difference between the two? The two is different that the individual soul knows only about his own body, but the other soul, Supersoul, He knows everything of every body. That is the difference. I know the pains and pleasure of my body. I do not know the pains and pleasure of your body. But this Supersoul, He knows the pains and pleasure of this body, of that body, of millions and millions of bodies. That is the difference between the two souls. But the two souls are there. One is called Supersoul, paramātmā, and the individual soul is called ātmā. So ātmā and paramātmā are there. The difference between them is that ātmā knows about his own body and the paramātmā knows everything of all bodies. That is the difference.

Philosophy Discussion on Thomas Henry Huxley:

Hayagrīva: His understanding was the understanding of the Sankarites, that the ātmā is imprisoned in the body. When the man is enlightened and sees apparent reality as mere illusion, the bubble of illusion will burst, and the freed individual ātmān will lose itself in the universal brahman.

Prabhupāda: Then that does not mean that the ātmā becomes the paramātmā. Just like a drop of water, you put into the sea, it mixes with the sea. It is not mixing. Now suppose it is mixing, but that does not mean that the drop of water has become the sea. He is mixed with the seawater, but that, that does not mean he is the sea. He was not sea before, and after dropping him in the sea, he remains as what he was, but he is mixed up in the sea. Just like an airplane is flying, you see, and going higher and higher, and going very high you do not see. That doesn't mean the airplane is lost. You do not see. So these Sankarites' proposal is defective. Just like a green bird enters a tree but you do not see the bird anymore. You simply foolishly think that he has become one with the tree. But that is foolishness. He keeps his individuality, but your defective eyes cannot see him anymore. The Sankarite theory is like that, a defective understanding, that the individual soul merges into the Supreme. He keeps always his individuality. The foolish man cannot see how he has merged or existing.

Philosophy Discussion on Samuel Alexander:

Hayagrīva: And in this book he defines religion. He says, "Religion leans on metaphysics for the justification of its conviction of the reality of its object, God. Philosophy leans on religion to justify it, and calling the possessor of Deity by the religious name of 'God.' The two methods of approach, that is philosophy and religion, are therefore complementary."

Prabhupāda: Hmm. That's right. Religion, when it is combined with philosophy, that makes sense, and religion without philosophy is sentiment. It has no practical value.

Hayagrīva: For Alexander, religion is like what...

Prabhupāda: We should say in this connection that Bhagavad-gītā is religion and philosophy combined together.

Hayagrīva: For Ale...

Prabhupāda: The religion is God worship, and everything explained there, just like immortality of the soul, that is philosophy. So it is combination of religion and philosophy that makes sense.

Philosophy Discussion on Samuel Alexander:

Hayagrīva: He writes, "The religious which sets us in search of God is our groping out to the reality which is God. This religious appetite may either be stirred in us directly, by the impact of the world with its tendency to Deity, or it may first be felt by us as a need of our nature." So the desire or hunger for God may be motivated either externally or internally.

Prabhupāda: That I explained this morning partially, that actually we are seeking love of God beginning with the body. That I have explained in this morning, that we love this body because I live within this body. As soon as I give up this body, the body is neglected, it has no value, throw it. So, so long the living soul is there, the body has value. So why the living soul is valuable? Because he is the part and parcel of God. So God is there also within this body. This is explained is the Bhagavad-gītā. There are two living entities. One is..., they all..., both of them are known as kṣetra-jña. One kṣetra-jña only knows about his body, and the other kṣetra-jña knows all other bodies. That is God and the living entity. So the body is important because the living entities are there. The subordinate living entity is the part of the supreme living entity. So ultimately the conclusion is, because a supreme living entity is in the body or within the universe, therefore we have manufactured so many activities of love and society, friendship, nationality, community. Ultimately, when it culminates with love of God, then it is perfect. So the conclusion is that we are searching after the platform where God is love, but it is going on, I mean to say, by degrees, one after another, in different names.

Page Title:Reality (Lectures, Other)
Compiler:Visnu Murti, Mayapur
Created:23 of Nov, 2011
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=127, Con=0, Let=0
No. of Quotes:127