Prabhupāda: Internal reality and external reality?
Guest (1): Both. For me, the word "anything" covers both.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So that also we understand, "anything." There are so many varieties of things, and you can take any one of them. That is "anything." But your question should be, "Wherefrom these things coming?" That should be the proper question.
Professor: What is the reason of the existence of anything?
Prabhupāda: Yes. There are so many things, and you can take any one of them. That is "anything." But the real question should be, "Wherefrom all these things are coming?" That is real question, "What is the origin of all these things?"
Guest (1): Well, origin, that is more on the theoretical side. It's a question . . . question, "Why?" But I am, rather, after the purpose.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is a nice question. But there is the real source of everything. That is the Vedānta-sūtra. Perhaps you have read. Vedānta-sūtra, first question is, "Wherefrom all these things come?" So the answer is that janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1): " Brahman. The original thing is Brahman, or the Absolute Truth, and from Him, everything is emanating." Just like physical . . . the sun is there, and whole material world is product of the sunshine. What your physical science says? (laughter) Eh? Eh? Do they not say? It is a fact that sunshine . . . due to the sunshine all these material things are there.
Guest (1): Well, it's more involved than just saying that. Sun is just a big complex of hydrogen and helium, a big pile of rubbish really, but it develops this marvelous reactions which causes it, work as a big nuclear reactor. That's an entirely different story, what the vision of science, of the present science, about the meaning of celestial bodies and the meaning of, in particular, of sun and moon and so on. We are extremely realistic about this world. We don't, we can't see, assuming all the glory of that what happens on the earth due to the existence of those bodies, we do not try to look inside of the structure of these things as something meant for us. Just universe as it is. And this question, like Nietzschean question which I am repeating—that's not my point—this big question is . . . Western philosophy presently does not answer, one does not ask this question. I think that this scientist who did ask it has quite a point. This question expresses this quest of the human race for some meaning, for some sense, for some sense. That's what religion is now offering us, or philosophies, or . . . rarely, directly, we hear the direct answer to that.
Prabhupāda: What is your direct answer?
Guest (1): Oh, I don't have any. If I would have, I wouldn't ask you.
Prabhupāda: That means your knowledge is insufficient.
Guest (1): Precisely. Precisely. That is the beginning of . . . (indistinct) . . . wisdom We know we don't know. I am aware of that.
Prabhupāda: Therefore, if you have no answer . . . that's all right. That "We don't know" means our knowledge is insufficient. But knowledge means must be progressive. We should not remain in insufficient knowledge. We must make further progress to get sufficient knowledge. Inquiry.