Śyāmasundara: The Kant philosophy, and he took this idea from Plato, is that there is an ideal on which these temporary objects are representatives. For instance the idea of tableness is an abstract idea of perfection. It's represented before me in this table in a perverted form. This table represents the ideal, expresses the ideal, but it is not the ideal.
Prabhupāda: That we say, that this material world is perverted reflection of the spiritual world. This is reflection.
Śyāmasundara: They say an "image", everything is an image.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we say that, that the same example, just like mirage. Mirage, there is no water but we see a vast sea, or big river is flowing. It is like that. Actually there is no river. No. This is going. This material world is like that. Just Śrīdhara Swami (said that) due to the factual position of the spiritual world, this illusory world appears to be true. Because there is real table.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: The table concept.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Because there is a real table, therefore I am considering this table. This is not table, this is wood. Somebody (may say), "This is not wood, but it was tree." All right, it is tree. Then what? It is not tree, it is seed. All right it is seed. No, it is not seed, it (indistinct) You see. Therefore it is perverted reflection. But there is a real table.
Śyāmasundara: Oh, I see.
Prabhupāda: There is a real table. Therefore the whole material creation is a perverted reflection and people are enamored by it. People are taking, "This is real table. This is real body. This is real happiness. This is real country. This is real society."
Śyāmasundara: This is what Hegel says, that this is the real table, that these are real objects. They are not images of the real but they are themselves real. There's where...
Prabhupāda: Then he has not the idea what is real. What do you mean by real?
Śyāmasundara: This is a real fact, this table, that this is spirit itself.
Prabhupāda: This is not real fact. This is imitation of the real table. It is fact to a person who has no knowledge of the real. Because it will not exist; that, our reality means which will exist. Otherwise it is not reality.
Śyāmasundara: So this may be real for some time and then...
Prabhupāda: It is temporary, temporary. It is not real. It is some temporary manifestation. The same example, like dreaming; dreaming is not real but temporary hallucination, that's all. You cannot say this "dream-real". This word is used, svapna-draṣṭur ivāñjasā. Just like dream, it is very nice example. In dream everything appears to be real but it is not real, it is all false or temporary.
Śyāmasundara: So what I want to clarify is that you say...
Prabhupāda: He wants to say something.
Devotee: So actually we say there's a difference between reality and existing, even though it exists doesn't mean that it's real.
Prabhupāda: No, real means which exists eternally, that is real.
Devotee: But this exists only temporarily therefore it can't be classified as reality.
Prabhupāda: No, temporary, illusion we'll call it, reality means which exists eternally.
Devotee: That's the table on the spiritual platform.
Prabhupāda: Yes. There, Kṛṣṇa's abode, Kṛṣṇa's house, Kṛṣṇa's table, chair, furniture, they're all existing, ever-existing. Here they will not exist.
Śyāmasundara: So what is the distinction then between saying that spirit expresses itself in this object or the spirit is this object.
Prabhupāda: It is the expression of the energy of spirit. Everything is energy. Whatever is manifested, that is the energy of Kṛṣṇa. Thus one energy manifestation is eternal and another energy manifestation is temporary. Which is temporary manifestation, that is material, and which is eternal manifestation, that is spiritual.
Śyāmasundara: So you could say both, you could say this is made of spirit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, originally it is made of spirit in this sense, that Kṛṣṇa is whole spirit, and because it is Kṛṣṇa's energy, so factually it is Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: Is this Kṛṣṇa?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Or is Kṛṣṇa inside of this?
Prabhupāda: No, Kṛṣṇa... He's(?) Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: This is Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa.
Kīrtanānanda: That which is giving rise to your perception of something material is actually spirit. The cause of what you are perceiving is spirit. But what you are perceiving is material.
Prabhupāda: Just like gold. Now you have made an earring. You say it is earring but, it may be earring but it is gold. Another example is, just like earth, earth. So you may take dirt and make a pot. So, and a doll, so many things, varieties. So we say it is doll, it is pot, it is this, it is that, but that is also earth. Is it not?
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And when it is broken, then it is again earth. In any condition it is earth.
Śyāmasundara: This pot and this brick, these are not images then, they are dirt, they are...
Prabhupāda: Then you make images. You make images, but when you make images, that is also earth. And when it is broken, that is also earth. And originally it is earth. Sarvam khalv idaṁ brahma. The three conditions: formless condition, form, and again, what it is called-merging. In three conditions it is earth. Aham evāsam evāgre, in the Bhāgavata Kṛṣṇa says, "I existed in the beginning of creation, I maintain the creation, and when the creation is broken, I exist."
Kīrtanānanda: But that's what the Māyāvādīs, they say that all of these forms, all form is māyā.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we say temporary, they say māyā.
Kīrtanānanda: So we also say that there is spiritual world full of form, and that is not-
Prabhupāda: Yes. That they do not know. That is their ignorance. We say wherefrom this form came, who gave this idea? The Vedānta says janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1), the origin, from the original source it comes.
Kīrtanānanda: So the question is that, these forms that are here, are they actually eternal forms?
Prabhupāda: No. There is eternal..., this is not eternal. This is imitation. Perverted reflection. Reflection is not eternal. As soon as the condition is gone, there is no reflection.
Śyāmasundara: He says that they are not eternal but that the interaction of forms is an eternal process, that one form interacts with another...
Prabhupāda: They cannot explain it. The real is that this form is not eternal, but there is an eternal form. Just like the water. The form of the water on the desert, that is not fact, neither it is eternal. But there is eternal water. Otherwise wherefrom I get this idea here it is water. There is water. Now the presentation of water in the desert, that may be false. The Māyāvādī philosophers they do not know.
Śyāmasundara: But if the universe is rational and everything has a purpose, then this temporary form is also spiritual because it has some kind of purpose.
Prabhupāda: Yes, and that we are utilizing, everything, for the purpose, to make the best use of bad bargain.
Śyāmasundara: Even if someone can't see it, isn't there a purpose?
Prabhupāda: Now why not? Everything can be seen. Without seeing, what is the...? Everything can be seen.
Śyāmasundara: Even if someone, there is someone outside who cannot see it and they're utilizing a car or some object, isn't that object also...
Prabhupāda: Why he cannot see? He's seeing. Why does he say that he cannot see? He's seeing car.
Śyāmasundara: He's seeing it but perhaps he doesn't have the knowledge of what it is.
Prabhupāda: That is different thing. But he's seeing.
Śyāmasundara: So supposing he has no knowledge what it is, but isn't that object still a spiritual...
Prabhupāda: Then he has to take knowledge from person who knows.
Śyāmasundara: My question is, is that object still not spiritual?
Prabhupāda: Yes. He knows or does not know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Fact is fact.
Śyāmasundara: It's still spiritual.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Śyāmasundara: Any object.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He has no see. He has not eyes to see it, that it is spiritual. He has no knowledge.
Śyāmasundara: So God's plan is unfolding itself everywhere, whether we understand it or not.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He's unfolding Himself. In Bhagavad-gītā He is sending His representative for unfolding.
Śyāmasundara: But even in the material world, in the way water erodes the land and trees grow and die, like that. Even though there is no knowledge of the spiritual content aren't they still spiritual? Going on?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Like the same example, just like the earth when it comes to form it is also earth, and if there is no form, that is also earth. The earth remains always. Therefore spiritual energy. The sky is sky, but when there is cloud you'll say there's no big sky, it has become shortened or something like that; you cannot see. So cloud comes, and if there is no cloud, a sky, sky is always there.
Kīrtanānanda: It is both, isn't it Śrīla Prabhupāda, it is both material and spiritual. In essence it is spiritual.
Prabhupāda: Essence is spiritual, that's it. But my imperfect vision makes it material.
Śyāmasundara: His idea, too, is that everything has a purpose, the whole universe is rational.
Prabhupāda: Certainly, certainly. Those who do not agree to accept this, just like so many rascal philosopher, there is no purpose of life, chance, they are rascals.
Śyāmasundara: But his idea is that to understand this reality or this truth is that one must examine all relationships of everything to each other.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we are teaching. That original is Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa's expansion in energy is everything. Parasya brāhmaṇaḥ śaktiḥ. Just like heat and light; practically whole physical existence is heat and light. So heat and light, there is a fire wherefrom the heat and light comes. Similarly two energies, heat and light, the spiritual and material, they are emanating from the fire, Kṛṣṇa, and everything is made of heat and light, material (indistinct). So one who has got to see, one has got the eyes to see, that is the spiritual, he can see it. And when he hasn't got the eyes to see, he thinks material.
Śyāmasundara: Another way of looking is that Hegel considered that his predecessors were abstract philosophers, in other words they were isolating or severing from the whole into parts and that each part was static, not moving, but he saw that the truth is dynamic, it is always changing that these dynamic or that these isolated factors, he called them moments, momentums, that the total of moments was a moving force, that truth was actually dynamic and always changing, not static.
Prabhupāda: That we can understand from our personal self, that I am the soul, I am existing, and the bodily features changes, changes. Then it is changing, therefore it is material. And the spirit soul, it is existing in all conditions. That is the difference between spirit and matter. Hm.
Pradyumna: I wanted to ask you if the difference between the realisation of what... Everything is spiritual in that sense, but some things have more of an effect when we can see everything spiritually. What is the difference between the Ganges water and the ordinary water to someone who doesn't know that the Ganges water is spiritual? He doesn't have the realisation of it but still he gets spiritual benefit.
Prabhupāda: Yes, one who does not know... Kṛṣṇa, He makes the difference between Ganges water and ordinary water. Because we are giving Ganges water important, but because it is coming out, flowing from the toe of Kṛṣṇa. So, as soon as the other water, it is offered to Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, then how it becomes other water? It becomes Ganges water. The one who hasn't got to see, by touching to the lotus feet, this Ganges water will form. So any water when it is touched in Kṛṣṇa's feet, it is Ganges water.
Pradyumna: You write in Bhagavad-gītā that by using something in Kṛṣṇa's service it regains it's spiritual qualities.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that's it. We have to see how you can becomes Ganges water. Why you give importance to the Ganges water? Because it is flowing from the toe of Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu. So anything comes in contact with Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, it will be Ganges water. Just like we are offering water, generally in India the Ganges water is used for worshiping. Then the worshiping of Kṛṣṇa will stop here in America? Does it mean so? We create Ganges water. As soon as it is touched with Kṛṣṇa, it is Ganges water.