Hayagrīva: This is St. Augustine, or Augustine. We'll call him Augustine. Augustine, like Origen, considered the soul to be immaterial, noncorporeal. He believed that the soul did not exist prior to the birth of the individual human being. It is only at death that the soul attains its immortal nature and lives on through eternity.
Prabhupāda: What is that? He sometimes says it is not eternal? What is the clear ending?
Hayagrīva: The soul did not exist previous to the birth of the individual human being.
Prabhupāda: Does not exist?
Hayagrīva: When the individual was created, the soul was created with him. Only after this initial creation is there immortality.
Prabhupāda: What does he mean? It is not very clear.
Hayagrīva: It is not clear.
Prabhupāda: He...
Hayagrīva: The soul is created, he is saying. That means it has...
Prabhupāda: If it's created, then how it is immortal?
Hayagrīva: It's immortal after it's created. It's created but it doesn't die.
Prabhupāda: Then what is this death?
Hayagrīva: The death is simply the death of the body.
Prabhupāda: Then if he accepts another body, then he has to accept transmigration.
Hayagrīva: No, he doesn't. Now here's, here's the point. Augustine believed that God elected some men to everlasting happiness and others to everlasting suffering. With the fall of Adam, or the first man, man was subjected to death. For Augustine, however, death is of two types: physical death—the soul leaves the body—and soul death—the death experienced by the soul when God abandons it. The damned face not only physical death but spiritual, soul death as well.
Prabhupāda: So it may..., it can be taken figuratively, that when one forgets his position, that is a kind of death also. One forgets himself. But actually soul is eternal, and what Augustine says as spiritual death, that is his forgetfulness. Just like in unconsciousness one forgets his identity, but if he is dead then he cannot revive consciousness. Similarly, it is little difficult for the bodily concept of life persons, but there are many proofs and understanding that soul is eternal. He, of course, until he gets his freedom from this material existence, he is spiritually dead. Even though he is working in this material form, because he has forgotten his real identity, that is also a kind of death. Yā niśā sarva-bhūtānāṁ tasyāṁ jāgarti saṁyamī. This śloka explains how one is dead and how one is alive. When one is forgetful of his spiritual consciousness, God consciousness, he is supposed to be dead, and when he, one is alive to the spiritual consciousness or God consciousness, he is alive. In this sense, it is a question of two stages, awakening stage and forgetful stage, but actually a soul is eternal. He never dies, even after the annihilation of this body.
Hayagrīva: But the forgetful stage is never everlasting or eternal, is it?
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is not. It can be, what is called, revived, his consciousness. That is our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Just like a man is sleeping, almost unconscious, but if you call him again and again, and the sound enters through the ear into the heart, he becomes awakened. Similarly, by this chanting process he revives his spiritual consciousness, then he is alive in his spiritual life.
Hayagrīva: So then... But Augustine would say that God would eternally abandon the damned soul, a soul damned to eternal perdition.
Prabhupāda: "Eternally abandon" means for very, very long years, millions of years, he remains forgetful. So...
Hayagrīva: Seemingly eternal.
Prabhupāda: Ah. But actually he can be revived at any moment in good association, sādhu-saṅga (CC Madhya 22.83), by this method of hearing and chanting, śravaṇam. Therefore this devotional service, beginning with hearing, is very important. If he consciously hears from the self-realized soul, then he becomes awakened to his spiritual life, and keeping himself always in the devotional service, he remains spiritually alive.