David Lawrence: Hm. There's one matter that I'd love to ask you about which is I found personally difficulty because perhaps I haven't had the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is as long as I should have done, is to really feel that I've got to grips with the idea of the spiritual sky. I couldn't quite understand there was any form, any form at all of symbolism coming into the idea of the various stages of planets and so on, or whether, in fact, this was a very physical...
Prabhupāda: Bring Bhagavad-gītā.
Śyāmasundara: Here.
Prabhupāda: Find out this verse: paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo... (BG 8.20). Why not call Paṇḍita Mahāśaya? (Pradyumna)
David Lawrence: Paras tasmāt...?
Prabhupāda: Paṇḍita Mahāśaya.
Śrutakīrti: Can you get Pradyumna?
Prabhupāda: Yes. We have got nice index in this book.
David Lawrence: Yes, indeed.
Prabhupāda: You can find out any verse. Paraḥ tasmāt tu bhāvaḥ anyaḥ avyaktaḥ avyaktāt sanātanaḥ.
Śrutakīrti:
- paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo
- 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ
- yaḥ sa sarveṣu bhūteṣu
- naśyatsu na vinaśyati
- (BG 8.20)
Prabhupāda: Translation?
Śrutakīrti: "Yet there is another nature which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is."
Prabhupāda: So that is spiritual world. This material world is created. The spiritual world is not created; it is eternal.
David Lawrence: Yes.
Prabhupāda: So we have given an idea of the picture.
Haṁsadūta: He's coming.
Prabhupāda: So there is another nature, which is called spiritual nature. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvaḥ anyaḥ (BG 8.20). Paraḥ. That is also admitted by all the ācāryas. Just (like) Śaṅkarācārya... You have heard the name of Śaṅkarācārya?
David Lawrence: Hm-hm.
Prabhupāda: He also says, nārāyaṇaḥ paraḥ avyaktāt. Nārāyaṇaḥ paraḥ. So there is paraḥ. Paraḥ means superior. Nārāyaṇa belongs to that superior nature. That means spiritual nature. Yes.
David Lawrence: This is a knowing habit of the western mind, you know, to think in spatial terms, and it's possibly hang-ups from Christian theology, in a sense, that I wanted to persist with this questioning even further about, you know, the real nature, as far as the Bhagavad-gītā gives it to us.
Prabhupāda: No, you have to become little free from the biased ideas of Christian philosophy.
David Lawrence: This is what I thought, yes. This is what I thought.
Prabhupāda: Otherwise you cannot make progress.
David Lawrence: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Otherwise it is impossible.
David Lawrence: Yes. It's humility...
Prabhupāda: You have to come to the platform of general, common sense.
David Lawrence: Yes.
Prabhupāda: If you become biased, then it will be impossible.
David Lawrence: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Then you cannot make progress. You have to come to the platform... Now, the common sense is that can you distinguish between matter and spirit? Can you distinguish?
David Lawrence: In what, in what respect?
Prabhupāda: That I was speaking, that the distinction between matter and spirit: the spirit is the vital force...
David Lawrence: Yes.
Prabhupāda: ...or you call spirit soul or ātmā. That you can distinguish. As soon as the vital force is off from this body, this body is a lump of matter. Therefore even if you do not know the spirit soul, any sane man can guess that something is missing in this body. Therefore this body is called dead. Now, that something is described definitely, is soul. So we can distinguish between the spirit and soul, some way or other. So as there is material world, there must be some spiritual world. Otherwise how the spirit is there? The spirit is there, the soul is there. That is spiritual. So two things we are experiencing: spirit and matter. So as we are experiencing this material world, so similarly there must be a spiritual world. There must be a spiritual world. Otherwise wherefrom the spirit comes?
David Lawrence: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: Now, this spirit is eternal. That is the first understanding. Tathā dehāntara-prāptiḥ (BG 2.13). This spirit is occupying a material body at the present moment. And the next, when this... Just like I am in this apartment. If I find some inconvenience, I go to another apartment. Or the lease is expired, I have to leave it. Some way or other, I change. Similarly, the... You can change your coat. So these are explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). Ex..., very nicely exemplified. So we are changing this apartment or dress and accepting another. This is going on. This is the material world. But I, the spirit soul, eternal. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). Find out this verse. Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācit. Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācit. Second Chapter. Everything is there in the Bhagavad-gītā. If you can introduce, study some Bhagavad-gītā among the students, oh, it will, it will be a great service.
David Lawrence: I think it would be a great deal more popular than studies of the Bible.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
David Lawrence: Because there isn't the (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Now, there is psychology. There is philosophy.
David Lawrence: Yes, indeed.
Prabhupāda: Everything is there. And religion without philosophy is sentiment. And philosophy without religion is mental speculation. Two things must be combined.
David Lawrence: Yes, yes.
Prabhupāda: That is Bhagavad-gītā. Yes.
Śrutakīrti: "For the soul there is never birth or death"?
Prabhupāda: Hm? First of all find out the verse.
Śrutakīrti: Na jāyate...
Prabhupāda: Read it. Read it.
Śrutakīrti: Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin.
Prabhupāda: Let him.
Pradyumna:
- na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin
- nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
- ajo nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo
- na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
- (BG 2.20)
Prabhupāda: Yes. Now read the meaning, translation.
Pradyumna: "For the soul there is never birth nor death..."
Prabhupāda: This, this is the nature of the soul.
Pradyumna: "Nor having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."
Prabhupāda: This thing first of all must be understood, immortality of the soul, transmigration of the soul. Then other things will be easier. And because this is eternal, therefore there is another spiritual world which is also the same nature, eternal. That is explained. What is that verse? Find out. Paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo...sarveṣu naśyatsu na vinaśyati (BG 8.20). The spiritual world existing eternally. This material world being annihilated, dissolved, that is not dissolved. Exactly like this body being annihilated, the soul is not annihilated. Similarly, the material world, it is bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). It takes place at a certain date, and it is annihilated at a certain... Exactly like this body. Anything material. It has got a date of creation, and it has got a date of annihilation. But as the spirit soul is not annihilated even after the annihilation of the body, similarly there is another spiritual world which is never annihilated even after annihilation of this material world. Hm. What is that?
Pradyumna:
- paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyo
- 'vyakto 'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ
- yaḥ sa sarveṣu bhūteṣu
- naśyatsu na vinaśyati
- (BG 8.20)
Prabhupāda: Hm. Sarveṣu bhūteṣu naśyatsu na vinaśyati. What is the meaning?
Pradyumna: "Yet there is another nature which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is."
Prabhupāda: This matter which you are seeing, this is manifested. But there is material stock, unmanifested. A stock of water, stock of fire, stock of earth. Layer. This universe is covered by different layers, and each layer is ten times bigger than the other layers. That is unmanifested. That is unmanifested. Therefore vyakto 'vyaktāt. This, what we see, this is manifested, but the stock... Just like from the stock of your, I mean to say, stone and lime and cement and brick, you make a skyscraper building, manifested. But the stock is also there. Stock is also there. Similarly this manifested material world is there. It is taken from the stock. The stock is, a huge stock there is. We get information. Layer, the universe. And penetrating all these layers, we have to go to the spiritual world.
David Lawrence: Yes.
Prabhupāda: In the Bhāgavata there is that Kṛṣṇa took Arjuna, His friend, penetrating the layers to the spiritual world. He, He took him. You have read that in the Kṛṣṇa Book? There is... You have read?
David Lawrence: Yes.
Prabhupāda: He could take. So Arjuna was fortunate to go in this body, to go to the spiritual world and see it and come back again.