Prabhupāda: I'll give you just time to point out how that philosophers are less intelligent.
Śyāmasundara: He actually tries to answer those questions later, but in the beginning he comes to the same point, that what should we be concerned with here are the..., the concerns that he has just described, that just existing. Because in the end, even we are concerned with these things, still they disappear when we die, so there is really no basis for them. They are based on what he calls "nothingness"—eating, sleeping, mating, defending...
Prabhupāda: But if you don't eat, will you exist? Why nothingness? This is another rascal. (laughter)
Śyāmasundara: Because they are caused by anxiety.
Prabhupāda: This anxiety must be there. You must arrange for eating. We are speaking on the point of concern.
Śyāmasundara: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So what can I eat, that's a concern.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. If I do not eat, there's always some anxiety. If there's no food...
Prabhupāda: No. If I do not (indistinct), there must be eating. There must be eating.
Śyāmasundara: So if I feel hungry, I become full of anxiety, "Where is food? Where is food?" He says that this anxiety...
Prabhupāda: Not only that; before becoming hungry, I will acquire food. Just like we go in the market and purchase food. At that time I am not hungry, but I know I shall be hungry, I shall have to eat; therefore we shall have to prepare foodstuffs before I become hungry. That is concern. When I am purchasing foodstuff, I am not hungry actually, but still I know that I shall become hungry in the after..., lunch time, so I must prepare for. That is our concern. I am arranging for an apartment, not that at that time I am feeling sleepy, but I know that I will have to sleep at night. That's why I must have a place. This is my concern.
Śyāmasundara: He calls this concern is the symptoms of..., characteristics of existence, and he says that this existence has priority...
Prabhupāda: Yes. That we also say. Because I want to exist, therefore my concern means the struggle for existence. I am struggling, how to exist.
Śyāmasundara: But he says that this existence has priority over the essence. In other words, only when we get beyond...
Prabhupāda: What is that essence?
Śyāmasundara: This is what the man, a man has to choose-find out his essence. But first there is existence, before that search...
Prabhupāda: But the existence, therefore we say that your real problem is unless you know what is your position, then there cannot be any tangible program. If I know that I exist eternally, then my real concern should be how to check all these concerns so that I may live eternally without any concern. My question will be: "I am existing eternally. Why there should be concerns?" I must live and exist eternally without any concern. Why there have to be so many concerns? I do not want. Suppose the death. I know I shall death, but I do not know; I do not want to die. That is my concern. That my concern should be how I can live without death. That is real intelligent concern. There is death. I know I will die, but I do not wish to die. That is also fact. Suppose you are... If I take a sword and want to kill you, you know that you will die, why don't you accept, "All right, kill me. I'll have to die, so kill me"? Why you protest? Why you protest? Why you fly away? Why you (indistinct) defend? You know you shall die. So die now.