Dialectical Spiritualism: Rene Descartes, Part 7

BY: SUN STAFF

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

V – RATIONALISM 
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Syamasundara dasa: Descartes maintains that we can know and understand truth because God is true. This is the basis for our knowledge. God's existence assures us that this external world is not a fiction.

Srila Prabhupada: This is what I was explaining. Because God is truth, His creation cannot be untrue. It is untrue when I see everything devoid of God. If I see this table as unrelated to God, it is untruth. However, when I see this table as a product of God's energy, I am seeing it in the proper way.

In other words, I am seeing God. One who has no sense of God sees the table as a temporary creation, something produced by nature's law. He sees that it comes from zero, and that it will return to zero, and that ultimately it is zero, false. We do not say this. We do not say that Krsna is zero but that this table comes from Krsna's energy. Krsna's energy is not zero, and the table is not zero. Whatever is within our experience has some relationship with Krsna. The vision of that relationship is Krsna consciousness. Generally, people have no vision of Krsna. Their only vision is that of their family, their wife, their children, their this and their that. That is maya.

Syamasundara dasa: If people see nothing in relation to Krsna, how can they justify saying that it is all a dream, that it is unreal?

Srila Prabhupada: Because they cannot understand the beginning, they say that it is a temporary manifestation. People may say that this tree has come out of nothing and that when the tree dies, it will again become nothing. However, this tree has not come out of nothing, but from a seed, and Krsna says, aham bija-pradah pita. "I am the original seed of all existences." (Bg. 14.4) In a cinema, an image comes from a small hole, and we see it expanded on the screen. When the projector stops, the pictures on the screen cease to exist. People may say that these pictures come from nothing, but actually they are focused by the projector that projects the film, and behind that film there is an actual performance. Similarly, the material world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual world. That spiritual world is reality, not zero. When we see a photograph, we understand that it is an image of something actual. This material world is like something being played on a screen. Therefore the Mayavadi philosophers say that it is false. In one sense, it is false, in that the show is not an actual performance. But it is a reflection of the original play under a different process. Because the original play is not within our vision, we are thinking that the projection on the screen has come from zero. However, one who knows things as they are knows that the projection has come from reality, even though it is temporary and not permanently existing. In other words, the reality is the basis of what is being shown. When we see this, there is no question of anything being false.

Syamasundara dasa: Descartes sees matter operating like a machine under mechanical laws. The sum total of all motion in the world is always constant; it neither increases nor decreases. However, he claims that the soul is unaffected by mechanical causes and is therefore immortal.

Srila Prabhupada: Yet somehow or other he has been put into this mechanical process.

Syamasundara dasa: Yes, and this was Descartes's problem. He could not understand how spirit and matter interact, how the nondimensional, nonextended spirit can have a three dimensional body.

Srila Prabhupada: When you are on the land and fall into the water, your struggle begins. This means that on land you are safe, but somehow or other you have fallen into this material struggle. Spirit is spirit, and matter is matter, but now they have come in contact with one another. We have caused this contact because we have misused our independence. A boy may stand firmly beside the water, but if he wants to enjoy the water, he may fall in. If he cannot manage to swim, he is lost. This is our position. The spirit soul has a spiritual body, but he accepts a foreign body. The spirit soul has a body, and his business is to enjoy life, but because he falls within the jurisdiction of matter, he cannot enjoy his labor. As long as he is within water, there is no possibility of happiness.

Syamasundara dasa: Does the spiritual body have dimensions? Does it exist in space?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, it has dimensions. It has length, breadth, and everything. Otherwise, how can we say that it is one ten-thousandth of the tip of a hair? In other words, there is measurement, but that measurement is beyond our imagination. The soul is something different. It is inconceivable. If the spirit soul has no body, how can the material body develop? A material body is like a coat molded in the form of the spiritual body. You cannot make a dress without measuring the body.

Syamasundara dasa: Then the spiritual body is very small?

Srila Prabhupada: You cannot imagine it. Because the materialists cannot see or measure the spiritual body, they say that it does not exist.

Syamasundara dasa: Descartes says that the soul exists, but not that it occupies space.

Srila Prabhupada: This means that his conception of space is limited. The material body is a body that has a beginning and an end. Your coat is made at a certain date. The spiritual body is changing dress from one material body to another, just as you change your clothes.

Syamasundara dasa: After the soul has fallen into matter, can it be delivered through proper knowledge?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, that is the purpose of this Krsna consciousness movement. Even if a person is an expert swimmer, how long can he swim? He will eventually succumb because he is in a fallen condition. However, if one is elevated just one inch above the water, he is immediately safe. The water may remain in its position, but he is transcendental to it. This transcendental position is Krsna consciousness.

Syamasundara dasa: In other words, the spirit soul can rise above matter, above the water.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, just like a flying fish. This fish may swim within the water, but suddenly he may fly over it. As soon as you become Krsna conscious, you can fly over the water of material existence. Then you can gradually come to land.

Syamasundara dasa: If the spirit is unlimited and has unlimited power, how does it fall within matter?

Srila Prabhupada: It does not have unlimited power. Its power is so great that in the material sense it is unlimited, but actually it is not unlimited.

Syamasundara dasa: How is it able to be confined by something as limited as a body?

Srila Prabhupada: I have already explained this. It is like falling into the water. As spirit soul, we have nothing to do with this material body, but somehow or other we have come in contact with it. There is a cause, but instead of finding out this cause, we should realize that we are in a dangerous position.

Syamasundara dasa: But if the spirit has great power, and the body has limited power, how is it that this limited power is able to hold onto the great power, to capture it and keep it?

Srila Prabhupada: The material energy is Krsna's energy, and each and every energy of Krsna is as great as Krsna. Therefore Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita:

daivi hy esa gunamayi
mama maya duratyaya 
mam eva ye prapadyante 
mayam etarh taranti te

"This divine energy of Mine, consisting of the three modes of material nature, is difficult to overcome. But those who have surrendered unto Me can easily cross beyond it." (Bg. 7.14)

Syamasundara dasa: In other words, it is sometimes stronger than the spiritual energy?

Srila Prabhupada: When you come in contact with the material energy without a specific purpose, it is stronger. Krsna's representative comes into the material energy in order to preach. Although he is within the material energy, he is not under its control. But if you come in contact with material energy without serving Krsna's purpose, you suffer. For instance, in a jail there are many superintendents and government officials. There are also prisoners. However, their conditions differ. We cannot say that because they are all in jail that they are all suffering in the same way. The superintendent is there because he is serving the government's purpose. Therefore he is not subject to the laws of the jail. When you are in the service of Krsna, you are no longer under the laws of maya. You are liberated.

Syamasundara dasa: So the prisoners who have forgotten their real service have been weakened?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, because they have disobeyed and have forgotten their subordinate position. They want to be independent of the state, and therefore they have been put into jail.

Syamasundara dasa: Then for them, the material energy is stronger.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes. It is stronger for them. Those who are conditioned and are serving the material energy cannot escape through their own endeavor. They are dependent on the mercy of Krsna and His representatives.