Prabhupāda: I have heard that mathematics believes by some imaginary thing, minus, so on, like that.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The absolute numbers?
Prabhupāda: Something minus one, like that. Who is mathematician here?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: (laughs) Here is our mathematician.
Prabhupāda: All right, so is that the beginning of mathematics?
Svarūpa Dāmodara: What is the beginning of mathematics?
Sadāpūta: Well, the beginning of mathematics is counting a number. We have that square root of minus one.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That I heard. The beginning is minus one. That is imaginary; it is not fact. But they imagine something at the beginning.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes. In fact it is called imaginary number. Square root of minus one.
Prabhupāda: Yes, if mathematics begins with imaginary something, why not Absolute Truth? That Absolute Truth must be life. As Bhāgavata explains, janmādy asya yato 'nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ (SB 1.1.1). He must be aware of everything. That means life. That means life. Now the question is how He became experienced? Svarāṭ, independent. Just like we require experience, knowledge, from somebody else. Experienced knowledge is not gained automatically, but the Absolute means that He is full of knowledge. How He got knowledge? Svarāṭ, independently. That is the description. You have to imagine at least like that. It is Vedic injunction, it is the fact, that Absolute Truth independently cognizant of everything. That is Absolute Truth.