(Deshimaru's French translated by Yogeśvara) (Deshimaru's French statements omitted here.)
Deshimaru: (French)
Yogeśvara: (translating for Deshimaru) He suggests that perhaps this force is something more than person. Since it is in all people, it is something that all people share, but it's beyond them.
Prabhupāda: That's all right, but in all people the force is a person. Just like the force is in him, force in me, but we are person. (French)
Yogeśvara: This force is the soul.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So soul is a person. (French)
Yogeśvara: He's confused: what do you define by person then? Because our experience is this person.
Prabhupāda: Just like I am a living being; I have got living force. You have got living force. But we are talking as person.
Yogeśvara: His question is: how is it that the soul is also a person?
Prabhupāda: Because I am soul, you are soul, we keep our person. That is person. (French)
Yogeśvara: He suggests that we are only individuals, distinct, because of the bodily difference, that now we are persons, but afterwards we become one.
Prabhupāda: Not bodily. Because you are individual, therefore you have got individual body. Just like my coat. It is cut according to me, not I am according to the coat. The dress is made according to the person, not the person becomes according to the dress. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says that to... He doesn't see the application. He says if we're just...
Prabhupāda: Why not application? Why not application?
Yogeśvara: He says it's more important to resolve the problems of why man is suffering rather than discuss whether the soul is a person or not.
Prabhupāda: Because he has got different dress, different person. (French)
Yogeśvara: So he's asking: therefore, what is the conclusion? If the soul is a person, how does that help us to solve the problem of the man's suffering?
Prabhupāda: That is another thing, why man is suffering. First of all... Just like we have to find out the disease, why he is suffering, and if the disease is cured, the suffering is cured. (French) (aside:) Why the others, they do not come? Why is that? What kind of GBC?
Yogeśvara: Because there's an old Buddhist saying that no matter what kind of body you have, whether it be made of feathers or flesh or whatever kind of body you have, the problem is how to get out of it.
Pṛthu Putra: (correcting Yogeśvara's translation) No, it's not question of body. If you receive an arrows. You have to translate clearly. If you receive an arrows, it doesn't matter if the arrow is made with wood, with iron, with anything. But just to take out the arrows of your body because that's the cause of suffering.
Prabhupāda: Why the GBC men are not interested in these talks?
Satsvarūpa: I'm interested, I was just doing secretary work.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. How you will do secretary work if you do not hear? These are the important philosophy is going on. Where is the other man Bhagavān dāsa? These important talks going on and you do not..., you think that you have learned everything. What is this?
Yogeśvara: This young gentleman's question is: if you are pierced with an arrow, it's not so much important to discuss how the arrow has got there. Just like you suggest we define the disease before we try to cure it.
Prabhupāda: No, we are not caring how the arrows, but you have got the arrows, you must take out the arrows.
Yogeśvara: That is his point also.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So the disease is because he has forgotten his own self, therefore he is suffering. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says that actually that is the actual problem, to find out our real self.
Prabhupāda: Suppose a man, a sane man, has become insane. That insanity should be cured. Then he becomes a sane man. (French)
Yogeśvara: Yes, he must understand that he is crazy.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He must know... He may understand or not understand. Somehow or other, he has become crazy. So if the craziness is cured, then he is normal man.
Bhagavān: Yogeśvara, let Pṛthu translate.
Pṛthu Putra: His point... He says if a man understands that he is crazy, then he is not crazy any more.
Yogeśvara: Prabhupāda says somehow or other, if he understands or not, if he gets cured of his insanity...
Prabhupāda: So the insanity is just like you are dressed and if you identify yourself with the dress, that is insanity. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says he agrees. That means to be identified with the appearance.
Prabhupāda: So that is insanity. We are actually the living force, soul, but we are identifying at the present moment with the material body. Everyone is thinking, "I am Japanese, I am Englishman, I am German, I am Indian, I am white, I am black," but that is his insanity. So this insanity should be cured, that "I am not this body; I am spirit soul." And when he understand that he is spirit soul, he should be engaged in the business of the spirit soul. And because he is misidentifying himself with this body he is engaged with the bodily activities. So when he stops his bodily activities and he begins his spiritual activities, then he will be cured. So far bodily, I mean to say, pains and pleasure, that will be automatically cured when he understands that he is not body. Just like I feel heat and cold on account of this body. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: They believe that the soul and the body is one thing.
Prabhupāda: How it is one?
Pṛthu Putra: He says we have one body, we have the soul, and these two things cannot be separated.
Prabhupāda: How the man becomes dead? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says the man is like a phenomenon. He appears and he disappears. And when he disappears, he merge in this cosmic force.
Yogeśvara: Like anything. Like a flower that grows and dies and merges again into the earth.
Prabhupāda: Merges?
Yogeśvara: Just like a flower grows from the earth...
Prabhupāda: They do not believe in the reincarnation, next birth? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says there is no personal reincarnation of the soul. When the body dies... (break) (French) He says, himself, he has no answer, but the Zen philosophy has one answer.
Prabhupāda: Zen philosophy answer? (French)
Yogeśvara: He was that cosmic force. Before birth, man was the universality of everything.
Prabhupāda: And what you are now?
Yogeśvara: And now he is himself. Now he is different.
Prabhupāda: So how you became from zero?
Pṛthu Putra: No, he don't say he is different. He says, "Now I am myself." (French) His point is that he doesn't think that man is more important than the flower or the table. It's all the same.
Prabhupāda: Then why he is anxious for man's suffering? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says the man is there. The suffering is there.
Prabhupāda: No. So why he is bothering about suffering? He was zero, beginning, and he will be zero and now he is also zero. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says there is two aspect. There is this aspect: everything is zero. But there is another aspect. There is a man who is always searching after to find the solution to his problem.
Prabhupāda: Why solution? He will automatically become zero. Then finish everything. (laughter)
Karandhara: Just dying that solves all the problems.
Prabhupāda: No, he said that is natural. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says religious life is a very deep thing on man and he has to search out, and that must be his goal. Even if there is no reason, it doesn't matter. He has to search.
Prabhupāda: No. Then how he can explain from zero something so important come into existence? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says actually he doesn't start from zero. He starts from the cosmic force.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Pṛthu Putra: He says it's something we cannot define what is it. A man is not able to define this force.
Prabhupāda: That means... You cannot define: that means your knowledge is imperfect. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says his knowledge is imperfect, that's for sure, but he says to define this cosmic force with the human mind is to bring down...
Yogeśvara: He says actually a human mind cannot define it. A human mind can't actually encompass the whole of the cosmic force.
Prabhupāda: If you cannot define, there is no remedy for your suffering. Just like a disease, unless the physician knows what is the infection, he cannot treat. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says one thing: we don't have to put name on disease or we don't have to know this name is called like that, this name is called like that, to cure it.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is the system. If you go to a physician, he will try to understand what is the cause of the disease. Then he makes treatment. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: They agree about knowing the cause of the disease, that it's necessary to know.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That, what is the cause of the suffering? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says ignorance of himself. The man suffer because he's ignoring himself.
Prabhupāda: So let him become in knowledge. (French)