Śyāmasundara: If I invent a new invention...
Prabhupāda: It is not invention. That I am seeking where I have kept a thing, that means it is there, I have not forgot.
Śyāmasundara: In other words it existed before.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Just like I invent the television set...
Prabhupāda: Because you cannot invent anything which is not in the substance.
Śyāmasundara: Even if I invent, for instance I invent the atomic bomb...
Prabhupāda: There is no question of inventing. The atomic bomb, what is that, it is brahmāstra, it is already made. You are not inventing.
Śyāmasundara: Where does the idea come from?
Prabhupāda: From the origin.
Śyāmasundara: From our past lives?
Prabhupāda: From the origin, yes.
Devotee: (indistinct) one of the chapters of the Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: That is, that is, I have explained in Bhagavad-gītā that a yogī remembers in due course, past activities, and again he begins. Where he left it, from that point again he begins. Śucīnāṁ śrīmatāṁ gehe yogo bhraṣṭo sañjāyate (BG 6.41). He is given the chance.
Kīrtanānanda: So all ideas can be traced back to the original substance which is Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo (BG 10.8). Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, "Everything from Me." Therefore if you get Kṛṣṇa, then you get all the substance. Yasmin vijñāte sarvam evaṁ vijñātaṁ bhavati (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.3). That is the Vedic statement. If you simply understand God, then you understand everything.
Śyāmasundara: So you say that form precedes idea.
Prabhupāda: What?
Śyāmasundara: Form precedes idea, not idea precedes form.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we accept that. Form precedes idea. (indistinct).
Devotee: In one of the chapters of the Bhāgavatam you state that before man has an idea about anything, the Supreme Lord has the idea. In the Vedic aphorism, the Lord's eyes see before our eyes, His ears hear before our ears, and actually all substance, before you get an idea there must be the substance, and the substance is Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Devotee: And any idea that we have, whether good or bad, that has come from Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. (indistinct). That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, Fifteenth Chapter, sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭho mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca (BG 15.15), "The ideas are coming from Me."
Devotee: So if a person thinks he has an idea of a skyscraper building, it's because Paramātmā has given him that idea.
Prabhupāda: Yes, he gets idea: "Yes, there is a building like that, you can do that." For man there cannot be anything, invention. He can say "discovered", there is nothing invented.
Śyāmasundara: So he says that these two things are opposing, idea and substance, they are thesis and antithesis but the spirit contains both of them so it is the synthesis.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we agree. Viruddha (Sanskrit), viruddha, contradictory thing can be adjusted in Kṛṣṇa. Because what is viruddha, opposite, that is also coming from Kṛṣṇa, and what is substance, that is also coming from Kṛṣṇa. We are thinking viruddha. Just like this same example, cooler and heater. They are opposite but they are coming from electricity. Therefore in electricity power, both can be adjusted(?). You can say, "Electricity can be cooler, electricity can be heater." That is called viruddha (Sanskrit). Contradictory things adjusted in Kṛṣṇa. Inconceivable, therefore we say inconceivable. Simultaneously one and different. That is our philosophy. Simultaneously we are all equal, one with God, and different. In our..., this material world, it is impossible to think like that, therefore it is called inconceivable.
Śyāmasundara: Everything we can conceive of, that must exist somewhere?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Just like I conceive of a gold mountain. Now in this world there is no gold mountain...
Prabhupāda: There is actual gold mountain. You have not seen. That information (is) from Bhāgavatam.
Śyāmasundara: Then let us say I can conceive of a building eight hundred stories high.
Prabhupāda: Eight hundred, eight million stories. (laughter)
Śyāmasundara: It doesn't exist.
Prabhupāda: It exists.
Śyāmasundara: On this planet, no.
Prabhupāda: On this planet, you can say like that.
Śyāmasundara: So you can conceive of it somewhere so it must exist.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Just like when many Brahmās came. So not only four-headed but millions of headed Brahmās.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. So I can conceive of that so it must exist.
Prabhupāda: The substance is, the fact is you cannot conceive anything which is not in existence.