Hayagrīva: Plato states that the material world is restricted to limitations of time and space, whereas the spiritual world transcends time and space.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: He also states that time began with the creation of the material world. And how does this comply with the Vedic statement that time is eternal?
Prabhupāda: Yes, time is eternal. The present, past, present, the three features of time, it is relative. What is your past or your future, that is not past, future, of Brahmā. Brahmā lives for millions of years. So within millions of years I had many past, present and future. Present..., past, present and future is relative according to the person, but the time is eternal. That is the point. It is clear? The past, present, future is relative according to the body. Otherwise time is eternal. Time has no past, present, future.
Hari-śauri: That means like time is actually like presence?
Prabhupāda: No. Presence... It is always present. Say just like a small germ, he lives for three minutes. So his past, present, future within three minutes, while I am living. So I am not within his past, present and future. Therefore past, present, future is relative. My past, present, future is different from the past, present, future of a small germ. That is the idea.
Hayagrīva: Now, concerning the creation, Plato says that material nature, or prakṛti, has always existed in a chaotic state, but that God takes prakṛti and fashions it into form in order to create the universe. So in this sense God is the hand worker or the master designer. God is the creator of forms from pre-existent matter, and yet He does not create directly.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Hayagrīva: It's stated...
Prabhupāda: No. Just like I have created a machine to manufacture something. I am, I set on in motion, and the products is coming automatically, products are coming automatically.
Hayagrīva: Automatically.
Prabhupāda: Simply I have to set up the machine. Just like in a press, the machine has to be set up, and automatically you will see the magazines are coming all complete. The printing, the binding—everything complete; you simply take it now. There are many machines like that, that you set up the machine and simply stand and see how from the raw state it has come into the finishing state. So bījāhaṁ sarva-bhūtānām. He has created such a seed that you sow the seed and that the tree will come. This is God's machine. He has created the seed only. Now the seed of the universe is coming from Him. Yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya (Bs. 5.48). He is breathing, and thousands and millions of seeds of universes are coming, and they are becoming manifested. Same way, seed. And when He is inhaling, everything is finished. So this manifestation and not manifestation is depending on His breathing process. When He is exhaling you see the manifestation; when He is inhaling, everything is finished. This is going on. So the cause of creation and annihilation is His breathing. So He is breathing always, but the process of creation and annihilation is going on. But if you think, "Kṛṣṇa is breathing like me," then it is finished; your knowledge is finished. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam (BG 9.11). "Because I am speaking to these rascal like a human being, they are thinking Me as one of them." This is..., they are mūḍha. They are misled. As soon as he thinks Kṛṣṇa is, "Ah, He is a person like me. He is born in Mathurā, I have seen. How He becomes God?" Brahmā was bewildered. "This boy, this cowherd boy is accepted as God. Let me test." Indra was misled. Muhyanti yat sūrayoḥ. Even big, big demigods, they are also bewildered. So Kṛṣṇa answered them. Brahmā had stolen all His calves and cows and friends, and when he came to see what He is doing, they were the same. He has expanded Himself. He is surprised. "Well I have actually taken His calves and cows. They are sleeping under my spell." Then he answered, "Yes, He is God." Then he is praying there, in the picture.