Śyāmasundara: Rationally, I was thought to be intelligent. I went to college, got so many degrees, but I could not in the least control my senses and control my mind, even though I tried. I studied philosophy so hard. But by simply chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and coming to the platform of service for God, all my activities became dovetailed in one direction so that the other things were automatically brought under control as a result.
Prabhupāda: Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). The exact word is there, that if one gets good engagement, he can gives up bad engagement. But he cannot make it inactive. That is not possible, because soul is active. It is living. How he can make it inactive? That is not possible. Nirvāṇa means stop nonsense, but take to spiritual life. That is next, athāto brahma jijñāsā. Nirvāṇa does not mean to stop activities; to stop nonsense activities. Come to the real activity.
Dr. Ware: Well aṇiman, the word many people use for the soul, also means of course, life . . . (indistinct) . . . being animate. The two are synonymous.
Śyāmasundara: Just like you were saying a while ago that if you were in God consciousness, you need not wear a robe. That's also our philosophy. It's very practical. But your consciousness would be always serving Kṛṣṇa, always serving God, in whatever status of life. It isn't necessary to put on a robe first and then God consciousness.
Dr. Ware: But it helps some people.
Mensa Member: The soul is a very interesting concept, the soul as well, the fact that the soul is quantifiable, that it exists in a smaller part in the larger animals, and a higher part in a higher animals.
Śyāmasundara: No. It's the same size in all entities.
Mensa Member: Oh, it is, is it? But when we reach a point when we don't know whether there are living things or not, you know, the amino acids, and things like that or . . .
Dr. Ware: Well, I would take up that straight away, fundamentally, that it's perfectly correct to say it's the same size every . . . (indistinct) . . . has no size.
Prabhupāda: No. It has size. We cannot measure it.
Dr. Ware: That's what I mean. Therefore the word "size" is a misconception.
Prabhupāda: But that is not a scientific statement. Because you have no measuring instrument you cannot say it has no size.