Philosophy Discussion on Samuel Alexander
Hayagrīva: Samuel Alexander basically wrote one major book, called Space, Time and Deity.
Prabhupāda: Space, Time and...?
Hayagrīva: Deity.
Prabhupāda: Deity.
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.
Hayagrīva: For Alexander religion is like hunger, and God is the food for that hunger.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
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.
Hayagrīva: Alexander despairs of the speculative method as a means for connecting with God, and he also feels that proofs of God's existence in nature are nonexistence, are nonexistent. If such a God is to be identified with the object of worship, that is to say we shouldn't worship God in nature. But how can God be known? For him God can be known by experience. Nor can we prove the existence of God, whether worshipable or not, except on the basis of experience.
Prabhupāda: This is natural. This is just like the other day I was saying that on the Hawaii Island we are standing, we know that the proprietor, the government, is there. So just after few yards there is the sea. Then we can conjecture: if the land has the proprietor, the sea has also proprietor. We have not seen who is the proprietor of the land, or the governor of the land. Similarly, there is a governor, proprietor, of the sea and the sky, but we have not seen. That does not mean there is no proprietor.
Hayagrīva: Now...
Prabhupāda: By see, by exp..., by our present experience we can guess the experience which you have not actually experienced. As we see that everything has got I... I am the proprietor of this body, he is the proprietor of this house, he is the proprietor of that land, he is the proprietor..., that there must be a proprietor of the sea. This is common sense. And that is God. The proprietor of the sun, the proprietor of the moon, the sky, that is God. That is described in the Vedic literature. It is said that the moon is the mind of God, the sun is the eyes of God, the land is the foot of God, the water is the semina of God. Everything is described.
Hayagrīva: So God can be seen in nature.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Not only nature. This is the beginning of realizing. This is impersonal. But there is person at the background. Just like we do not see..., we know that there is one governor, proprietor of the Hawaii Island. We have not seen. But when we see him, he is person. This is the conclusion. Similarly, so long we are not competent to see God, we can understand, "This is God's hand, this is God's heart, this is His..., God's mind, this is God's eyes." But when we are competent we can see regularly, "Here, here is God, face to face." That requires qualification. Because I did not see the governor of Hawaii is that he is not a person, he is imperson—that is foolishness. When I become competent to see, qualified to see the governor, you see he is a person.
Hayagrīva: Alexander distinguishes between what he calls deity and God Himself. For him deity is how it feels to be divine. Now deity for him is a relative term. It is the next highest level of existence. For instance, for an ant, a dog may be a deity; for a dog, a man may be a deity; for a man, a demigod may be a deity. He says, "For any level of existence, deity is the next higher empirical quality."
Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Hayagrīva: "It is therefore a variable quality, and as the world grows in time, deity changes with it. On each level a new quality looms ahead, which plays to it the part of deity. However, God is the being which possesses Deity in full." That is to say God is always one step ahead of every creature.
Prabhupāda: They do not know the science of God, but as philosopher they are suggesting the method. That is nice. Just like for ant, a bird is deity; for a bird, a cat is deity; for a cat, a dog is deity. So in this way, according to the position one selects the deity. But if you go on searching out, when you find out somebody that he has no any, anyone to worship... The ant has to worship the bird, bird has to worship the cat, cat has to worship the so on, so on. In this way, when you come to a person who hasn't got to worship anybody, He is God. That is sense. In the lower stage there is another, higher living being than the lower living being, but in this way searching out, when you come to a point that there is this person who hasn't got to worship anybody ... That is explained in the Vedic literature:
īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇah
sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
anādir ādir govindaḥ
sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam
He is worshipable by everyone. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya: BG 7.7 "Everyone has got higher than him for worship, but I have nothing to worship. I am the Supreme, mattaḥ parataram. No..., there is no more superior authority than Me." Then He is God. So long one has superior authority, he is not God. He is subordinate. But when he comes to a person who has no more superior than Him, then He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is Kṛṣṇa.
Hayagrīva: Although Alexander himself tries to describe God in philosophical terms...
Prabhupāda: Then his philosophy is right, that an ant's god is a bird; bird's god..., like that. So when he finds, comes to a person who has no more god, then He is Supreme God.
Hayagrīva: But he feels that ultimately God is beyond description. He says...
Prabhupāda: No. Why? We have, this, this is description.
Hayagrīva: Yes, but he's giving a description, or attempting to give a philosophical definition.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, this is right description, that you find deity in different stages, but when you come to a person that He has no more deity, then He is God.
Hayagrīva: He says even the description...
Prabhupāda: You don't find in the life of Kṛṣṇa that He is worshiping any other God.
Hayagrīva: He worships no-one.
Prabhupāda: No-one. There is... Therefore He is God.
Hayagrīva: Nor does He meditate.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Hayagrīva: Nor does He meditate.
Prabhupāda: Meditate of Himself. The Māyāvādī has taken like that. But He has no more, anybody higher than Him, so He has to meditate upon Himself.
Hayagrīva: He does meditate upon Himself.
Prabhupāda: Just to teach us. In the, as a family man, He in the morning He was meditating.
Hayagrīva: Oh.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Gṛhastha. So He was meditating upon Himself. [break]
Hari-śauri:
arjuna uvāca
paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma
pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān
puruṣaṁ śāśvatam divyam
ādi-devam ajaṁ vibhum
āhus tvām ṛṣayaḥ sarve
devarṣir nāradas tathā
asito devalo vyāsaḥ
"Arjuna said: You are the Supreme Brahman, the ultimate, the supreme abode and purifier, the Absolute Truth and the eternal Divine Person. You are the primal God, transcendental and original, and You are the unborn and all-pervading beauty. All the great sages, such as Nārada, Asita, Devala, and Vyāsa, proclaim this of You, and now You Yourself are declaring it to me."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Finished. "All authorities accept, I realize, and You personally say." Then what evidence more? Hm? What is the possible evidence? No evidence, finished. "I personally experience, You personally say, and the authorities accept You. Finished." Things should be simplified. This is...
Hayagrīva: Meanwhile Alexander is saying, uh, he seems to conceive of God in a universal form. He says, "Now the body of God is the whole universe, and there is no body outside His."
Prabhupāda: That is experimented in the Bhagavad-gītā for men like Alexander and company. Arjuna requested that Kṛṣṇa to show His universal form, because he knew that "I am accepting Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme, but there are many persons with poor fund of knowledge, they may not accept." Therefore he requested Kṛṣṇa to show him the universal form. That He showed, so that there is another proof for person like Mr. Alexander and company. The, in the Eleventh Chapter, the universal form is very nicely explained. But the universal form was shown by Kṛṣṇa; therefore Kṛṣṇa is original. Universal form is not original; it was manifested by Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa's natural form is Kṛṣṇa. The universal form is a feature of Him. God... That, that is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ. Find out this verse.
Hari-śauri:
ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo
mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate
iti matvā bhajante māṁ
budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ
"I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise, who know this perfectly, engage in My devotional service and worship Me..."
Prabhupāda: So "everything emanates from Me" mean the universal form also emanate from. So iti matvā bhajante mām: "One who understand Me, he, he becomes a Kṛṣṇa devotee." Iti matvā bhajante māṁ budhā bhāva-saman(vitāḥ), that He is the origin of universal form also; then he becomes a Kṛṣṇa devotee.
Hayagrīva: He sees God's... [break] Alexander sees God's Deity as being different from others in that it is infinite... [break] This is the continuation of Alexander that was interrupted due to the defective tape. A God..., uh, Alexander considers God's Deity as differing from that of others in being infinite, and he says, "God's body..."
Prabhupāda: This, this, this sense should be explained. Because God is infinite, He has infinite Deities also. That is infiniteness. He is presented as Deity; that is infinitely of varieties. That is infiniteness. Why he is sticking to one Deity? That is his not understanding the meaning of what is infinite. That is explained in the Brahma-saṁhitā, advaitam acyutam anādim ananta-rūpam [Bs. 5.33] . Ananta-rūpam: He has Deity infinitely. That is infinity. Because He is infinite, He has no Deity—that is not real conception. He is infinite and He has got infinite Deity forms.
Hayagrīva: He says, "God's body, being the whole universe of space/time, is the source of the categories but not itself subject to them."
Prabhupāda: Yes. So if God is Deity, He is also not subject to these created living being. That is condemned. When one thinks God's Deity as one of the deities within this material world, he is condemned as mūḍha. Avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam: BG 9.11 "Because I appear just like a human being, the rascals, asses, they think of Me as ordinary human."
Hayagrīva: Now in this book Space, Time and Deity, on page 380, Alexander writes... Alexander takes the Aristotelian view of God in saying, "There is no reciprocal action from God, for though we speak as we inevitably must in human terms of God's response to us, there is no direct experience of that response except through our own feeling that devotion to God, or worship, carries with it its own satisfaction."
Prabhupāda: That is his imperfectness. God is omnipotent. He comes before Kṛṣṇa, er, Arjuna, and He speaks Bhagavad-gītā. So because he has no advanced knowledge, he cannot understand how God, omnipotent, all-powerful, can come and speak with His devotee. That is his poor fund of knowledge.
Hayagrīva: Yes, that...
Prabhupāda: If God is omnipotent, why He cannot come and talk with His devotee? Then where is the omnipotency? These rascals cannot understand.
Hayagrīva: That was...
Prabhupāda: There is no meaning of omnipotency if God cannot come and talk with His devotee.
Hayagrīva: Because they have no experience, they think that...
Prabhupāda: That means poor fund of knowledge. The knowledge is imperfect. They are talking of God omnipotent, and He cannot talk with His devotee. Just see. He is restricted by his own law, by his own experience. He is such a fool.
Hayagrīva: This was also Aristotle's view. He said it's foolish for, he says man directs love toward an object that can reciprocate love.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Therefore it's foolish to love Zeus because Zeus does not extend his love to man. This was the Aristotelian view, that there's no reciprocation.
Prabhupāda: No, Zeus? Zeus I, I don't follow.
Hayagrīva: Oh, Zeus is a, the Greek God, Greek name for God.
Prabhupāda: He reciprocates to the advanced devotee. Just like it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrva... BG 10.10. One who is in full love with God, He talks with him. He does not talk with ordinary rascals. And in the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said, premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena santaḥ sadaiva hṛdayeṣu vilokayanti: [Bs. 5.38] one who has developed love of God, such person always sees God within his heart. So it is a question of Just like Kṛṣṇa says, that "I am talking to you because you are My devotee," bhakto 'si. Why God should talk with nondevotee? He has no business. Just like king, he talks with his immediate officials, minister. He does not talk with the street man. How you can expect? How this street man can express that "I want to talk with the king or the president"? There is no question. He talks. He talks with the qualified devotees, not with others.
Hayagrīva: Wasn't there also something He says, that "As you approach Me...?"
Prabhupāda: Yes. Actually just like you are talking, you can talk with God also. These gopīs in Vṛndāvana, in everything they are playing with Kṛṣṇa. Mother Yaśodā is binding Kṛṣṇa just like ordinary child. But these are not happening ordinarily. That the Bhāgavata says, that "What this gopī Yaśodā did her past life that the Supreme Lord is sucking her breast?" So you cannot expect that the dealings as God is doing with mother Yaśodā, Mahārāja Nanda, the gopīs. Therefore we have to be qualified to that position to deal with God. That another place that,
itthaṁ satāṁ brahma-sukhānubhūtyā
dāsyaṁ gatānāṁ para-daivatena
māyāśritānāṁ nara-dārakeṇa
sākaṁ vijahruḥ kṛta-puṇya-puñjāḥ
These boys who are playing with Kṛṣṇa, they have amassed their pious activities for many, many lives, now they have come to this position to play with God. It is not ordinary position. Therefore the rascals, they think, "This is all myth." But it is inconceivable by them. But one comes to that state, he can play with God, he can rise on the shoulder of God and he can talk with Him like ordinary friend, ordinary child. So one has to come to that position.
Hayagrīva: Hmm.
Prabhupāda: The very word is this kṛta-puṇya-puñjāḥ. One who has amassed the resultant action of pious activities for many millions of births, that he can have this position.
Hayagrīva: Six pages later, Alexander writes, "The community is one of cooperation. The individual is sustained by trusting God, but he wants and claims the help of God as the child his father's, and in turn God reciprocates the worship man pays Him and the confidence he reposes in Him."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Yes. He says that six pages after he says God does not reciprocate. "There is no such reciprocation from God."
Prabhupāda: But here he says reciprocate.
Hayagrīva: He says there's reciprocation. That's what's confusing. But he goes on further to say, "There's always the double relationship of need. If man wants God and depends upon Him, God wants man and is so far dependent."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is dependent. There is no question about it.
Hayagrīva: But how is God dependent on man?
Prabhupāda: Not. God is not dependent, but...
Hayagrīva: No, but that, he seemed to be saying that.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Hayagrīva: He says, "If man wants God and depends upon Him, God wants man and is so far dependent."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That, that is acceptable in this sense, that God is independent thoroughly, but sometimes He wants to become dependent. That is His pleasure. And He accepts some of His devotee so that He can depend upon. Just like mother Yaśodā, that God became dependent on mother Yaśodā. Unless mother Yaśodā allows God to suck her breast, God will die. God is thinking like that, and He is crying. That is God's pleasure, that everyone is dependent on Him, and He is not dependent on anyone, so in order to derive this pleasure how a dependent child enjoys the care of mother, He accept to become a son of a devotee. That is not very ordinary thing to understand, but He has In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is explained...
Hayagrīva: I'm not sure that Alexander understood it in that way.
Prabhupāda: No. How he can understand? (laughter) He cannot. He is a talkative philosopher, that's all.
Hayagrīva: He, he says, "God Himself is involved in our acts and their issues. Not only does He matter to us, but we matter to Him."
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is one sense correct. Because we are fallen condition and we are sons of God, so we are suffering. God is very much compassionate; therefore He comes personally to teach us: "You rascal, why you are rotting in this material world? You surrender to Me and go back to home, back to Godhead, you will be happy." Therefore He is consulting. Otherwise why He comes from Vaikuṇṭha? Everyone, just like a son is rotting in his own way, but the father comes: "My dear son, why you are rotting in this way? You come home. You have got state. You will live there comfortably." But he does not come. That is his misfortune.
Hayagrīva: Now, Alex...
Prabhupāda: God's, God's becoming concerned about a..., us is natural, because we are sons of God, but at the present moment we are disobedient; therefore you are conditioned by nature. So we are suffering, and God being the supreme father, He feels for. He is not suffering, but He feels, as a devotee feels for these conditioned soul. Because he is servant of God, he knows that God feels for these conditioned soul; they are suffering. That Kṛṣṇa also gives recognition to the devotee, na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ BG 18.69 . The devotees who are trying to preach the gospel, the instruction of Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavad-gītā, he is the most dear devotee to Kṛṣṇa, He says, because he is acting on behalf of God to deliver these rascals, conditioned soul.
Hayagrīva: He speaks of theism and pantheism. Now we might equate theism with personalism and pantheism with impersonal, the impersonal aspect.
Prabhupāda: There is nothing... Impersonal means when we cannot see that the background is person. We can of course take the lesson from nature that the sunshine is impersonal but the background is sun-god. But because we are in a very lower stage of life we can simply experience the sunshine but we cannot go and talk with the sun-god. That is not possible. So similarly, the background is person and the expansion of God's energy is imperson. So because we are in the energy, we are not directly in touch with God; therefore we say that God is an imperson. We have no such capacity now, but they, if we become devotee, we can attain that position when he can talk with God in person as the gopīs and the cowherds boy, mother Yaśodā and other in Vṛndāvana inhabitants they are doing.
Hayagrīva: He says, "For theism, God is an individual being distinct from the finite being which make up the world. For panth..."
Prabhupāda: Hm? Finite? He is not finite.
Hayagrīva: No, He is distinct, He is different. He is an individual...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
Hayagrīva: ...but He is different from the finite beings...
Prabhupāda: So that is the Vedic injunction, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām ( Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13) . He is also eternal, He is also living being; we are also eternal, we are also living being. But He is the chief. How He is chief? Eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. That single number eternal living being, He is maintaining all these plural number living beings. Therefore you will find either in this material world or in the spiritual world there is so much arrangement. The sky is there, the air is there, the fire is there, the water is there, the land is there. He has made, even in this conditioned state, God has given us so much things, made for our maintenance. We require water—we find; we require air, so many things, and God has given us ample opportunity. So He is maintaining. Without air we cannot breathe; without water we cannot live; without fire we cannot live. So He has given; therefore He is maintaining, He is maintainer. So one, the chief eternal living being is God, and the subordinate eternal living being are the jīvas, or the conditioned soul.
Hayagrīva: Well that's one hand, theism. He says, "For pantheism God is eminent in the universe of finite things, a pervading presence."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Presence is just like the water has come from Him. We say the semina of God. The light is coming from God. We say the sun is the eye of God. In this way everything is related, emanation from God. So, so long we do not understand wherefrom these things are coming, it appears God is imperson. But when we understand that "Here is the source of this sky, this air, the light, the water, the land," then He is person. So impersonal feature means a subordinate feature to the person. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam: "All the sky, air, fire, air, land, water, everything, that is My expansion." Mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam. Sarvam means everything. And mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni: BG 9.4 "They are staying on Me." Just like the sunshine is on the sun. As soon as sun sinks, the sun, there is no sunshine. Similarly, the sunshine appears to be very big and the sun globe appears to be small, but the whole sunshine is depending on the sun globe. Similarly, the whole exhibition of impersonal representation—earth, water, air, fire, sky, so on, they are all depending on God. There..., therefore Kṛṣṇa says, mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam: "Everything that you see, that is My expansion, and everything is resting on these elements." Therefore He says, mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni, nāhaṁ teṣu avasthitaḥ: BG 9.4 "But personally I am not there." And standing on this vast land or in the ocean he is in God, but personally he cannot see. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, "Personally I am not present there, although he is standing on Me." Oh, Kuntī also says that, that "You are within and without, but still, the fools cannot see. Only the paramahaṁsas can see You." That is in Kuntī's prayer you will find. (aside:) Find out this Kuntī's prayer. Perfect knowledge.
Hayagrīva: (to Hari-śauri:) Why don't you give the verse? Why don't you just give, give the verse, read, give the verse numbers for the typist.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hari-śauri: Uh... Canto One, Chapter Eight, text 18, 19 and 20. So I'll just do the English, or the overall verse?
Hayagrīva: Read the English.
Hari-śauri: "Śrīmatī Kuntī said: O Kṛṣṇa, I offer my obeisances unto You because You are the original personality and are unaffected by the qualities of the material world. You are existing both within and without everything, yet You are invisible to all. Being beyond the range of limited sense perception, the eternally irreproachable factor covered by the curtain of deluding energy, You are invisible to the foolish observer, exactly as an actor dressed as a player is not recognized. You Yourself descend to propagate the transcen..."
Prabhupāda: That is very good example. His father is playing on the stage, and the son is seeing, and another, another friend is seeing, saying, "Do you see your father?" Then "Where is my father?" He, he, he does not recognize his father. Very good example.
Hari-śauri: Then, uh, third verse, "You Yourself descend to propagate the transcendental science of devotional service unto the hearts of the advanced transcendentalists and mental speculators, who are purified by being able to discriminate between matter and spirit."
Prabhupāda: Advanced transcendentalists, they can understand. Not these speculators with limited sense perception. Finished?
Hari-śauri: Hm.
Prabhupāda: The speculators have no knowledge. (laughs)
Hayagrīva: Yes. He says, "It is not so much that God is in everything but rather that everything is in God."
Prabhupāda: That's another foolishness.
Hayagrīva: What is this position?
Prabhupāda: He is inside and outside. He is within and without.
Hayagrīva: Why should it be more one way than the other?
Prabhupāda: Because there is nothing but God, so how he can be without God? Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. Everything is God's expansion. How it can be sometimes in God and sometimes not in God? When he is not in God, that means he is māyā. Now māyā is also God, mama māyā. So how he can be without God? That is illusion. Just like these criminal. He thinks, "I can be independent of the government." No. That is not possible. Either he will remain in jail or outside the jail, you are under the government. But he thinks that "I am free." That is foolishness. He is not free at anytime.
Hayagrīva: Now he analyzes theism, which is the personal aspect, and pantheism, the impersonal aspect, and he finds both defective in themselves, and so what is his position? This is his position: "If the question is asked whether the speculative conception of God or Deity which has been advanced here as part of the empirical treatment of space/time, and has appeared to be verified by religious experience belongs to theism or pantheism, the answer must be that it is not strictly referable to either of them. Taken by itself..."
Prabhupāda: That is his mistake. As you have explained that the sky is also with reference to God... The sky is explained as the heart of God, and the water is explained as the semina of God, the moon is explained as the mind of God, the sun is explained as the eyes of God, the land is explained as the foot of God. So everything is with reference to God. So for a person who understands God, there is nothing existing without God. So how God can be separate? That is the fact. So pantheism or any "ism" you take, it has reference with God. What he says?
Hayagrīva: This, he goes on to say, he says it doesn't belong, strictly belong, strictly belong to theism or pantheism. "The answer must be it is not strictly referable to either taken by itself, that in different respects it belongs to both, and that if a choice must be made, it is theistic," that is personal, "for God for us is..."
Prabhupāda: That, that means when you come to the personal God you see that everything is with reference to God. There is nothing independent. Idaṁ hi viśvaṁ bhagavān ivetaro. That is explained, that this viśvarūpa universe is Bhagavān, but it appears that it is different from Bhagavān to the less intelligent. So then there cannot exist anything without Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but those who have no sufficient knowledge, they think that "This is separate from God and God is separate from you."
Hayagrīva: He says, "God is both body and soul..."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: "...and His soul is His Deity. Since God's body is the whole of space/time, God, in respect of His body, is all-inclusive, and all finites are included in Him, and in their continuous connection as pieces of space/time, and linked by spacial-temporal continuity they are fragments of God's body, though their individuality is not lost in it."
Prabhupāda: This is right. This is right. This experience he has got very good work.
Hayagrīva: "God is an individual being just as man or any other finite is..."
Prabhupāda: And now he is coming to that.
Hayagrīva: "...only that He is infinite."
Prabhupāda: He is, He is person, but He is not a person like us. But sometimes, due to our poor fund of knowledge... That is explained, avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam BG 9.11 . "These rascal, because I am here talking with Arjuna just like a human being, they are thinking that I am also a human being." No. He is infinite, Arjuna is finite. That is explained in the Fourth Chapter also, that "Arjuna, you are doubtful how I can remember that I spoke this philosophy to sun-god some millions of years ago." Naturally a finite man cannot remember how one can remember. "That is the difference between you and Me, that I know everything; you forget. So although you are living being eternal, I am also living being eternal, that is the difference between you and Me."
Hayagrīva: He says, "God's body is not spaceless nor timeless, for it is space/time itself."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything emanates from Him, so there is nothing separate from God. God includes everything. That is the conception of God. Janmādy asya yataḥ SB 1.1.1 . Everything has emanated from Him.
Hayagrīva: This is the final point. He says, "Concerning the existence of the evil..."
Prabhupāda: This description is very nice.
Hayagrīva: The description on the...?
Prabhupāda: The last description.
Hayagrīva: That last description. That the living entities are fragments of God's body...
Prabhupāda: Everything...
Hayagrīva: ...but their individuality is not lost.
Prabhupāda: Everything that you will see, they are all part and parcel of God. The other day I was saying that the wheel, the whole wheel is resting on the axle. So axle is there, the wheel is moving, so everything is part and parcel of God. Therefore the Māyāvādī's philosophy that everything is one, yes, but they do not accept the variety. The wheel is one, that's all right, but still the parts, sometimes it is called spokes, sometimes it is called the rim, sometimes it is called the hub, sometimes it is rolling, sometimes it is stopped, but everything the wheel, nothing but wheel.
Hayagrīva: He goes through a lot of, a lot of speculation to arrive at the final point. Concerning the existence of evil and suffering in the world, he writes, "God is not responsible for the miseries endured in working out his providence, but rather...
Prabhupāda: That I have already explained. The miserable condition is created by us, and we suffer.
Hayagrīva: Yes, he says, "rather, we are responsible for our acts."
Prabhupāda: We suffer. Just like the silkworm, he creates a cocoon and becomes entrapped and dies. He is creating this fiber, silk fiber, and becomes entrapped. That is his creation.
Hayagrīva: A co...
Prabhupāda: What is called? Cocoon?
Hayagrīva: Yes, a cocoon.
Prabhupāda: He becomes entrapped. So similarly, mṛtyu-saṁsāra-vartmani. Aprāpya māṁ nivartante mṛtyu-saṁsāra-vartmani BG 9.3 . Because he is acting independently without caring for God's instruction, then he is entangled; he suffers. That is the position. God has not created this suffering; he has created his suffering.
Hayagrīva: That's the end of Alexander. (end)