Prabhupāda: You make it. That means experiment. You simply observe, but you have no experiment. Therefore it is not science.
Brahmānanda: You have to demonstrate knowledge.
Prabhupāda: Yes, demonstrate. You make in the laboratory that things are moving by this combination. Otherwise it is useless. Therefore two things must be there: observation and experiment, practical and theoretical. Theoretical—something is there who is moving. Now you make it practical to see that this combination . . . Just like they say chemical combination. Now take the chemicals and make experiment.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, the thing is that they are now, in the test tube, they are making experiment, and they are putting a certain set of chemicals together, and maybe some soul takes shelter of those chemicals. But the scientists say that they get the credit for it. They don't say that the soul has entered. They say, "No, we have put different elements together, and now some . . ."
Prabhupāda: No.
Dharmādhyakṣa: They have never succeeded doing that.
Bahulāśva: They have never done that successfully.
Prabhupāda: And even they are successful, what is credit? So many living entities are coming every minute, and if after thousand years they can create one ant, so what is the credit? (laughter)
Bahulāśva: Śrīla Prabhupāda, now the impersonalists, they will accept that there's something in that body that's different than matter, but they won't admit that that's a person. They say that it's just some type of energy force, or they call it consciousness.
Brahmānanda: Not an individual person.
Prabhupāda: But we haven't got to hear from them. You take lesson from Kṛṣṇa.
Nalinī-kaṇṭa: Are they better situated than the person who doesn't accept it at all?
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Nalinī-kaṇṭa: The impersonalists that denounce Kṛṣṇa, are they better than the person who is ignorant of eternity?
Prabhupāda: Who is he ignorant of?
Bahulāśva: The common man.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Are the impersonalists better than the gross materialists?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is Śaṅkara's philosophy: brahma satyaṁ jagan mithyā. That is his philosophy. Brahman means that spirit soul, that is fact. And this material external, that is false. A little advanced than the Buddha philosophy.
Bahulāśva: Śrīla Prabhupāda, how is it that they describe the soul, the impersonalists?
Prabhupāda: Because they have no eyes to see. They say that "The body is finished. Now . . ." Gatākāśa potakāśa. They give the example, just like within the pot there is sky, and outside the pot there is sky, and when the pot is broken, the within sky mixes with the outside sky.
Bahulāśva: So we say that within the pot, or the body, there is consciousness, and that remains eternally individual.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is said by Kṛṣṇa. It is not our imagination.
Bahulāśva: So the eternal characteristic of the self, then, is that he is pure consciousness.
Prabhupāda: Pure consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He knows that "I am part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa." That is pure consciousness.