How Spirit and Matter Interact

[ancient_paztriot]

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 into 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 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, bredth, 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 beyondf 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 image 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 conceptin 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 soul is unlimited and has unlimited power, how does he 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 nt 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 into 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 guna-mayi

mama maya duratyaya

mam eva ye prapadyante

mayam etam 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 into 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 ther are may 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 serive 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, beause 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.

[Guest guest]

Imagine there are 5 buckets of water each reflecting the sun.

The reflections represent atman or prakrti and the sun brahman or purusa.

 

Sankara would say that the reflections are merely an illusion of the sun, that only the sun in reality exists

 

Ramanuja would say that the reflections exist independently of each other but in reality they are an extension of the sun's light. The sun remains the single essence.

 

Madhva would say that the reflections are completely independent of the sun, but the sun is the inner controller, the reflections only exist because of the grace of the sun, without the sun there can be no reflection.

 

Nagarjuna would say that neither the reflection or the sun exists because both are constantly changing in time, the reflection is the delayed response of light from the sun which itself is not the same sun that caused the current reflection and the current reflection immediately ceases to exist the second it comes into being. Just like water in a river is never the same.

 

I would say that all 4 are merely looking at different aspects of the truth like the blind men and the elephant, the truth being that there are 5 buckets of water and the sun.

 

tat tvam asi