Karandhara: How does the cosmic force become ignorant of itself and fall into this condition? If before he was this form he was the cosmic energy, how he can fall down into ignorance and become an individual, limited, conditioned soul? (French)
Yogeśvara: I'm finding it hard to be able to translate because he says that we're ignorant and he says at the same time we're not ignorant.
Prabhupāda: What is this? When you speak of ignorance, that means he has fallen down from knowledge. That is ignorance. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says this knowledge is there anywhere for everyone, but the men take it or don't take it, ignore it or get themself interested.
Prabhupāda: No, why...? As soon as you say ignorant, that means he has lost his knowledge. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says there is ignorance, there is knowledge, but there is something beyond this knowledge and this ignorance.
Prabhupāda: What is that something? Do you know it? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He called this things God. That is God.
Prabhupāda: So therefore we are suffering forgetting God. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says, "Well, all right, that's O.K. You can say that we're suffering because we forgot God. The important thing is that we're suffering."
Prabhupāda: Yes, that we also say. But we know the cause. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says but you are suffering still.
Prabhupāda: I may suffering, but I am under treatment. But you are not under treatment. You will die. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says Zen Buddhism is also a kind of treatment.
Prabhupāda: But if you do not know what is the goal of the treatment, then how the treatment will be successful? (French)
Yogeśvara: He says we may choose a goal for ourselves spiritually, but after all, we're the ones who chose the goal, so it's all an individual question.
Prabhupāda: No, we are not choosing, God is asking to do this. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says therefore we don't have to worry about what's the result. We just have to practice without being attached to the result.
Prabhupāda: No, without result, why should I practice unnecessarily? (aside) Go. Take sleep. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says the religious life is not a bargain between God and him. He says we just have to practice without gaining, without waiting for any result, without praying...
Prabhupāda: No, no, we are not so fool, without any result we are going to do anything. We are not so fool. (French)
Bhagavān: According to their philosophy, if whether you practice or you don't practice you get the same result in the end, what's the use of doing anything? If at death everything merges back, what's the use of doing anything? Why not commit suicide? (French)
Prabhupāda: No, the idea is that when you know that you will be cured, then I take the medicine. And if I do not know whether I will be cured or not, why shall I take the medicine? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says from the medical point that's all right. But from the religious point...
Prabhupāda: So you are talking about medical point. Why you place something utopian? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says this example of medical point we made is just an analogy. But the religious life...
Prabhupāda: Their analogy must be perfect in all points, otherwise it is no analogy.
Karandhara: Prabhupāda, the premise of Zen is that the cosmic force falls into misery when it develops an individual desire. So an individual, as long as he has desires and he wants things, then he's forced to suffer, to take on a body and to suffer. So the Zen satori is to give up all desire, not care one way or the other what happens.
Prabhupāda: That is also desire, to give up all desire.
Karandhara: Yes, it is.
Prabhupāda: That is also desire. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says that the person who is practicing without goal, without desire, without getting the satori without anything, then he is practicing the satori.
Prabhupāda: Where is the point of no desire? (chuckles)
Karandhara: No point. It's ambiguous. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: For himself it's just to practice zazen, to meditate on Zen.
Prabhupāda: That is also desire.
Pṛthu Putra: He says that's for sure. In the beginning when they are practicing zazen is always some material desire. We desire that, we desire that. We would like to know God or something like that. But by practicing zazen finally we just come to the point—we don't have any more desire, just by practicing zazen.
Prabhupāda: Then what is that position of no desire?
Karandhara: The real position is to eliminate the self. The only possible way that they can achieve no desire, no initiative, is to eliminate the self altogether, to make the self become eliminated and just be the cosmic one again without any self.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that will be done automatically. Why you practice so much? (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says the practice of zazen harmonize the self in this cosmic force.
Bhagavān: Does that harmony means to merge?
Prabhupāda: Now let me explain. Suppose the material elements are there. Somehow or other, combined together they have become this body. Is it not? Now, this body, when I am dead body, automatically it again becomes dispersed to the different elements. So this is taking place for even cats and dogs. Then what is the value of my meditation? (French)
Yogeśvara: Actually, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you've defeated him. He doesn't really have an answer.
Pṛthu Putra: He says so then I am practicing like a cat and dog, but the deep goal...
Prabhupāda: But I mean to say what result you will get more than the cats and dogs?
Karandhara: Why practice? (French)
Bhagavān: What happens to the cat and the dog in the end?
Karandhara: Actually, Zen philosophy, they accept reincarnation, that the self keeps on taking bodies until he becomes selfless, and it's only in the human form that he can develop that selflessness.
Prabhupāda: Then they have to accept good work and bad work.
Karandhara: Yes, they do. They have a similar understanding of karma so far as the material self is concerned, and that the soul or the self takes on different forms until it becomes perfectly selfless. And then it merges back into the nondescript, the cosmic force. So I don't know if this young man's versed in Zen philosophy...
Prabhupāda: That is our definition, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11). Śūnyam means, you have to give up all material desires. Jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam (CC Madhya 19.167). But the desire should be synchronized. Ānukulyena kṛṣṇānu..., you have to desire to satisfy Kṛṣṇa.
Karandhara: Well, they come to the point of trying to give up all material desires. But at that point they say there's nothing, there's no self...
Prabhupāda: That is their ignorance, or they do not understand, or they do not try to explain because the followers will not understand. That is our also point, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (CC Madhya 19.167), to become desireless. But after becoming desireless, what is it? Just like you become painless from the disease. That means painless means everything finished? Then let me enjoy this pain. After being painless means everything is finished. No. Painless means no material pain but spiritual life. That is painless. (French)
Karandhara: Their point is they come... Zen Buddhism or Buddhism goes as far as trying to obliterate the material ego.
Prabhupāda: No, it is clear as you said, as you said that unless he becomes desireless. That desire means material desire.
Karandhara: Yes. That's actually what they're speaking about when they say desire.
Prabhupāda: So they are not so advanced that there is spiritual desire. That they do not understand. But so far the material desirelessness, that is accepted by us also. (French) It is something like this. Just like a child without education at home is simply doing mischief. So the parents want to make him mischievousless. But if the parent does not know that he should be given better engagement, otherwise it cannot be mischievousless, that he does not know. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says there is something beyond material desire and spiritual desire.
Karandhara: No, he doesn't understand the definition when we say spiritual then. He's confusing spiritual with something like esoteric. Spiritual is the opposite of material. And beyond material desire, that means beyond gross and subtle desire, when we say spiritual we mean transcendental, the opposite of material.
Prabhupāda: Purified, purified.
Yogeśvara: Purified desire. (French)
Bhagavān: Prabhupāda says spiritual means pure desire, not that it's opposite but it's pure desire. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says it's still a desire. It may be a pure desire, but...
Prabhupāda: Because he has no information what is spiritual desire, he thinks material desire is as good as spiritual desire. (French)
Karandhara: They don't have a conception of spiritual. To them everything is material.
Prabhupāda: No, it is ignorance. Just like a man is suffering from disease. He is also lying down. He is also eating. He is also passing stool. And if he is informed that "After your disease is cured, you will also nicely sleep, you will also nicely walk, you will also nicely eat," but he is thinking, "Again eating? Again sleeping? Again...?" This is something like this. "So I don't want to be cured."
Karandhara: Yes, that's actually the psychology behind Zen philosophy.
Prabhupāda: That is the trouble, yes. He does not know what is the sleeping in healthy condition and what is the eating in healthy condition. He thinks this eating and that eating the same. (French)
Pṛthu Putra: He says for him, spiritual and material, they are going together. In spiritual is something material, and in material is something spiritual. And they are... Together they form harmony, and this harmony is the goal.
Prabhupāda: But he has no knowledge that although... Just like here is my leg, and here is my nail. Now when I cut the nail I don't feel, and as soon as you come little later, the skin, you feel pain. So they are one. But why there is no sensation, and why there is sensation? (French)
Yogeśvara: He doesn't understand the analogy. He doesn't understand the example, how that explains spiritual life as compared to material life.
Prabhupāda: Then why... How he will understand? Let me know. I will tell him. Let me know how he will understand.
Yogeśvara: He doesn't understand the example of the skin and the nail. How does that explain...
Prabhupāda: Why? It is everyone understands. Why he does not understand? Here is the nail; here is the skin. As soon I prick the nail cutter here, oh that "Ooooo!" And (chuckles) while it is cutting on, it is going on nicely. Why he does not understand?
Pṛthu Putra: The thing is he doesn't understand the analogy with spiritual and material.
Prabhupāda: Analogy is, means where there is no spiritual sensation, that is matter. (French)
Karandhara: It's just merely meant to be an illustration, not that you're supposed to compare everything all the way around. The body is also material; the nail is also material. The point is that that which is not sensed spiritually by the true identity of the soul, that which is experienced outwardly by the material body and the senses, that is matter. But the basic element, or the basic consciousness is spiritual, and that's eternal. Whereas the sensation from outward, like what I see today and taste today, that is temporary, but the taster, the seer, he is eternal, the self. (French)
Prabhupāda: As soon as that spirit soul will be off from this body, this part of the body also will be without any sensation. Therefore the distinction of sensation and no sensation is due to the presence of the spirit soul. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says the important thing is the basic principles. If you accept the basic principle, for example that the soul has a form, then we can discuss many many things afterwards.
Prabhupāda: Yes, soul has a form. (French)
Yogeśvara: He's asking is the form of the soul material?
Prabhupāda: No, spiritual. (French)
Yogeśvara: He says it's an idea that he finds difficult to understand, spiritual form.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that requires knowledge. That requires how to get that knowledge. He has no such knowledge. (French)