The example can be given like this: Just like a patient, since his birth he is sick, and he is lying in the hospital, cannot walk freely or cannot eat nice things. All bitter medicine, injection, always suffering. So if he is informed that, "After your cure, you shall be able to eat nice rasagullā, sandeśa," he cannot believe it. He says: "Again eating? Oh, it is horrible." Because he has got bad experience of eating in sick condition, he thinks that eating in healthy condition is also the same. This is Māyāvāda. He has no experience what is healthy eating. Therefore his bad experience of this diseased condition, he wants to make it zero. He is thinking that, "When my this drinking of medicine and lying down will be zero, oh, that will be my real healthy condition." This is their philosophy.
Because bad experience . . . just like foolish persons sometimes commit suicide or they talk of suicide. The whole thing is zero, wants to make the life zero. That is their happiness. Śūnyavādi. Because they have no experience that there is another life, going back to home, back to Godhead. There also, Kṛṣṇa is eating, Kṛṣṇa is dancing, Kṛṣṇa is playing, Kṛṣṇa is killing. Everything is there. They are all transcendental. Everything is there. Here, only perverted reflection, false reflection only.
There are five principal rasas: śānta, dāsya, sākhya, vātsalya, mādhurya. Here also, the same rasas are here—śānta, dāsya . . . just like I am sitting in this comfortable seat. This is śānta, śānta-rasa. The throne is giving me service in silence. This is called śānta-rasa. Above this, somebody is giving me flower, sandalwood. This is called dāsya-rasa, serving. Better than. This is silent; there is work. The śānta-rasa, dāsya-rasa, then, again develop, sākhya-rasa, more intimate, friendly. Then vātsalya-rasa, more intimate. Just like the parental affection. And more intimate, conjugal love. Just like young boy, young girl, try to love one another.
So these rasas are there, Vṛndāvana. Kṛṣṇa is in love with the gopīs. He is playing with friends, cowherd boys. His affectionate mother, Yaśodā, feeding Him, and there are servants also, serving Kṛṣṇa. And the trees, the water, the flowers, they are serving silently. Pañca-mukhya-rasa, five chief mellows, humors. The same thing is here also. Here also the śānta-rasa, sākhya-rasa, dāsya-rasa is there. But that is mixed with material grains. Just like sweet rice. Sweet rice is very nice, but if it is mixed with some grains of sand, just imagine. How it is pleasurable?
So all the rasas . . . the Māyāvāda philosopher, they have eaten sweet rice with grains, with sand grains. Therefore when you offer him next sweet rice, "Oh, I have got taste. Don't supply it." Or "I wish to live without eating—zero." This is Māyāvāda philosophy, try to understand: impersonal, making everything zero, without any varieties. Nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi. Nirviśeṣa means without any varieties, and śūnyavādi means zero, voidist. So two kinds of Māyāvādīs, generally headed by Saṅkara philosophy and Buddha philosophy.
But our position is transcendental, above. Karmīs . . . karmīs, they are on the material field. They are trying to enjoy on the material platform. Jñānīs, they are trying to make it variety-less, and the Buddhists, they are trying to make it zero. Our philosophy is substance. This is difference: substance, reality. Vāstava-vastu, real reality, not the false thing.
So these people, the voidists and impersonalists, because they have no information of the Supreme Lord and His activities . . . activities are there. Kṛṣṇa is coming, showing His activity. But they will say: "It is māyā. Kṛṣṇa is māyā." Although Kṛṣṇa is practically showing them that it is not māyā, it is completely spiritual, but their dull brain cannot accommodate that Kṛṣṇa is Supreme Absolute Truth. Therefore the so-called scholars, when Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65)—Kṛṣṇa says: "Just become My devotee, offer your obeisances unto Me, always think of Me," man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ—the scholar, the so-called scholar, says, "This is not to Kṛṣṇa the person. It is to the unborn which is within Him."
The rascal does not know that Kṛṣṇa has no within-without. Kṛṣṇa is absolute. Otherwise there is no meaning of absolute. When there is duality, how it can be absolute? That sense they haven't got. Still, they are passing as big scholar. Kṛṣṇa is no such thing as within and without. We living entities, ordinary living entities . . . I am soul. I am within this body. I am not this body. But Kṛṣṇa is not like that. Kṛṣṇa is both body and soul together. Kṛṣṇa is everything. Kṛṣṇa has no such difference as material and spiritual. For Kṛṣṇa, everything is spiritual. Because material and spiritual, they are two energies only, but they are energy of Kṛṣṇa.
So for Kṛṣṇa, there is no such distinction, material or spiritual. He can convert the material into spiritual and the spiritual into material because He is the original source of these two energies. He is the original source. The same example: just like an expert electrician, he can convert the heater into cooler and the cooler into heater, although they are two opposites, because he knows how to utilize the electrical energy. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa says that, "These material elements, they are also My energy. And the spiritual energy, the jīva-bhūta, they are also My energy." And the whole cosmic manifestation is combination of this material and spiritual energy.
Therefore . . . but Kṛṣṇa is Absolute. He has nothing to do with material or spiritual. Another example can be given: Just like government. Government has got many departments—the criminal department and the educational department. Educational department is giving knowledge to the citizens, and the criminal department is punishing, chastising the citizen. Now, to us, we find difference, that "In this department government is so liberal, is giving education. People are becoming learned, enjoying. And this department . . . so government is discriminating. This department is favorable, and this department is not favorable."
But to the government it is not like that. To the government, both the departments are equal. Rather, sometimes the government has to spend more to the criminal department than to the educational department. Because they have to maintain both these department. To run on the street politically, they have to maintain both these. Similarly, because the individual soul has got little independence, is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, so Kṛṣṇa has full independence, and we, being part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, we have got that independence quality. How it can be without? Then how can be part and parcel?
The same example—just like a drop of ocean water, it is also salty, the same ingredient. Similarly, we have got little independence. Just like you have taken to Kṛṣṇa consciousness out of your independence. There are many other American boys or girls—they are not taking to it. It is not obligatory. But the door is open for everyone. One who is intelligent, he is taking to it. That is due to independence. And some of our boys are also falling back. After remaining few years, again he falls back, again into hodgepodge, you see, due to this misuse of independence.
So because God has given us little independence, therefore there must be two departments: material and spiritual. Otherwise, there is nothing material; everything spiritual. Material is called māyā because those who are in poor fund of knowledge, they cannot see Kṛṣṇa's spiritual energy. They are covered. Therefore they are called Māyāvādī. So the unfortunate Māyāvādī cannot chant. They criticize, "This chanting is sentimentalism."
Even Caitanya Mahāprabhu was criticized at Benares when He was chanting. You know the story. Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī, a great Māyāvāda sannyāsī, he used to criticize that, "This sannyāsī is sentimental. Sannyāsī's business is reading Vedānta, but this sannyāsī is chanting and dancing." So there was strong criticism. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu was arranged to meet this Māyāvāda sannyāsī, and He talked on Vedānta and He defeated him. And the sannyāsī, along with his 60,000 disciples, became His followers.
So you should not be simply chanting and dancing. Along with, you must know philosophy. There are so many Māyāvādīs; you have to defeat them. It is not that we are coward. We are Kṛṣṇa's soldiers. So as soon as there is Māyāvādī attack, you must immediately defeat him. That is wanted.