Prabhupāda: You are a person and I am a person. You are changing body and I am changing body.
Kim Cornish: And through all the changes there is the ātman that continues.
Prabhupāda: Who is here first of all? You are a person, I am a person. You are hearing, I am speaking. We are two persons. So why you say one?
Kim Cornish: Well, there are two bodies. Two bodies.
Prabhupāda: Yes, two bodies, just like two dress. You are differently dressed, I am differently dressed, but that does not mean that we are one. We are one as ātmā. Just like you are Australian, I am Indian, but as human being we are one. But as Australian, as Indian, we are different. Therefore we are one and different at the same time.
Kim Cornish: Is the ātman . . .
Prabhupāda: Ātmā as spirit soul is one.
Kim Cornish: Is one.
Prabhupāda: But as individual soul they are different.
Kim Cornish: And the ātman is just with respect to consciousness, or can we talk about . . .
Prabhupāda: No.
Kim Cornish: . . . an ātman without consciousness?
Prabhupāda: Consciousness is the symptom of ātmā. Because the ātmā is within your body, therefore your consciousness is there. Now, because the ātmā is within the body, if I pinch or if you pinch my body, I feel pains and pleasure. As soon as the ātmā will not be there, it will be cut with a chopper, there is no protest. So that ātmā is present within this body, that is understood by the presence of consciousness. Just like we are in this room, but this light is the reflection of the sunshine. We understand there is sun in the sky. The light and heat we are feeling, that means the sun is in the sky. Similarly, our consciousness and knowledge, etcetera, are there, that means that the ātmā is there. The same ātmā, when it will go out of this body, there will be no more consciousness, no more knowledge, no more feelings of pains and pleasure.
Kim Cornish: Can one say what qualities the ātman has?
Prabhupāda: That I have already explained: eternity, knowledge and blissfulness.