Dialectical Spiritualism: Gottfried von Leibnitz, Part 5

BY: SUN STAFF - 23.2 2017

Conversations wtih HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, excerpted from  Dialectical Spiritualism: A Vedic View of Western Philosophy.

V – RATIONALISM 
Gottfried von Leibnitz (1646 - 1716)

Syamasundara dasa: According to Leibnitz, substance is defined as being capable of action.

Srila Prabhupada: Substance is original, and extensions are categories. Since substance is the original cause, He is completely able to act. To be means to act. Without activity, what is the meaning of existence?

Syamasundara dasa: Leibnitz states that the monads change in their appearance because their inner desire compels them to pass from one phenomenal representation to another.

Srila Prabhupada: The monad does not change, but the mind changes. At any rate, I do not know what Leibnitz means by monads. He is simply complicating matters.

Syamasundara dasa: By definition, the monad is a small unit, a unity, which is the substance behind everything, even the atom.

Srila Prabhupada: That is Krsna. Krsna is fully independent.

Syamasundara dasa: Yet Leibnitz says that a monad changes his appearance according to his desires.

Srila Prabhupada: That is the case for the individual souls, but Krsna is not like that. Krsna is acyuta. He does not change. It is Krsna who creates the entire cosmic energy. By His plan and devices, so many creations are divided into different parts, and they change. Material objects change according to the will of God, Krsna. These individual monads are more precisely the Supersoul existing within matter, within the atom.

Syamasundara dasa: Leibnitz would say that each particle of Supersoul, or each monad, is self-contained, that there is no loss or gain of force.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, each is eternal.

Hayagriva dasa: Concerning the relationship between the soul and body, Leibnitz writes: "Insofar as the soul has perfection and distinct thoughts, God has accommodated the body to the soul, and has arranged beforehand that the body is impelled to execute its orders."

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, it is explained in Bhagavad-gita (18.61) that the body is like a machine. Because the soul wants to walk or move in a certain way, he is given this instrument. The soul has particular desires, and God gratifies these desires through His material agent, a particular type of body. Therefore there are birds flying, fish swimming, animals hunting in forests, men in cities, and so on. According to Padma Purana, there are 8,400,000 different bodies created to gratify the desires of the soul. Thus the machine of the body is supplied by nature under the orders of God.

Hayagriva dasa: For Leibnitz, in that the soul is perfect, it controls the body. However, "insofar as the soul is imperfect and its perceptions are confused, God has accommodated the soul to the body, in such a sort that the soul is swayed by the passions arising out of corporeal representations."

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, it is explained in Bhagavad-gita that the soul in the material world is influenced by the three modes of material nature.

na tad asti prthivyam va 
divi devesu va punah 
sattvam prakrti-jair muktam 
yad ebhih syat tribhir gunaih

"There is no being existing, either here or among the demigods in the higher planetary systems, which is freed from the three modes of material nature." (Bg. 18.40) He receives a particular type of body according to his position in respect to the modes. If his appetite is insatiable and his eating indiscriminate, he receives the body of a pig. If he wants to kill and eat bloody meat, he gets the body of a tiger. If he wants to eat Krsna prasadam, he is given the body of a brahmana. Thus we receive different types of bodies according to our desires. People attempt to gratify their desires because they think that by doing so they will be happy. Unfortunately, people do not know that they will be happy only by completely abiding by the orders of God. Krsna comes personally to request the living entity to abandon his material desires and act according to God's orders.

Hayagriva dasa: In Monadology, Leibnitz writes: "The soul changes its body only gradually and by degrees, so that it is never deprived of all its organs at once. There is often a metamorphosis in animals, but never metempsychosis or transmigration of souls."

Srila Prabhupada: What is his understanding of the soul?

Hayagriva dasa: He believes that it is not possible for souls to be entirely separate from bodies. For living entities, a body must always accompany the soul.

Srila Prabhupada: According to Vedic understanding, the body changes, but the soul remains eternal. Even in one lifetime we can see that our material body is changing from childhood to youth to old age, yet the soul remains the same. When the body dies, the soul takes on another body. This is the first lesson of Bhagavad-gita. If the soul is distinct from the body, it is nonsensical to say that a soul cannot exist without a body.

Hayagriva dasa: Leibnitz elaborates on this: "There is, strictly speaking, neither absolute birth nor complete death consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call birth is development or growth, and what we call death is envelopment and diminution."

Srila Prabhupada: But that is the process of transmigration. Why does he deny it? The diminution is temporary. The living entity is not dead; he goes on to develop another body.

Hayagriva dasa: He seems to be saying that as soon as the human soul leaves the body, it must immediately enter another body.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, that is the case, but that is the process of transmigration. So why does he deny transmigration?

Hayagriva dasa: Well, he denies the existence of the soul apart from some form of material body. He writes: "God alone is wholly without body. "

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, that is, He has no material body. He does not transmigrate. According to Bhagavad-gita, mudhas, fools, consider Krsna's body to be like that of a human being.

avajananti mam mudha 
manusim tanum asritam 
param bhavam ajananto 
mama bhuta-mahesvaram

"Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be." (. Bg. 9.11) Krsna does not change His body as an ordinary living entity does. He is the Supreme Person. Because He does not change His body, He remembers everything in the past. When we receive a body, we do not remember our past lives, but Krsna remembers because His body never changes. God is without a body in the sense that He has no material body.

Syamasundara dasa: According to his doctrine of pre-established harmony, Leibnitz likens the soul and the body to two perfectly synchronized clocks, both going at the same speed but both separate.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, the soul is different from the body, but the body is manifest due to the soul's desire. The body is the instrument of the soul.

Syamasundara dasa: Does the body ever affect the soul?

Srila Prabhupada: The soul is unaffected by the body, but the body is helping the soul to fulfill its desires. I am using this microphone to serve my purposes, but this microphone is not influencing me. It is not that this microphone wills that I dictate this or that. The body is a combination of atoms. If Krsna is within the atoms, the monads of the atoms and the monad in the body are different. If the monad is a small united particle, Leibnitz is speaking of the Supersoul. Although the Supersoul appears innumerable, it is in actuality one. As stated in Isopanisad:

yasmin sarvani bhutany 
atmaivabhud vijanatah 
tatra ko mohah kah soka 
ekatvam anupasyatah

"One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things, and there is no illusion or anxiety for him." (Isopanisad 7) Although we find the Supersoul all-pervasive, there is but one. Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita:

samam sarvesu bhutesu 
tisthantam paramesvaram 
vinasyatsv avinasyantam 
yah pasyati sa pasyati

"One who sees the Supersoul accompanying the individual soul in all bodies and who understands that neither the soul nor the Supersoul is ever destroyed, actually sees." (Bg. 13.28) The devotee always sees all things in Krsna, and Krsna in all things. That is the true vision of oneness.