Syamasundara: Today’s philosopher is called Jacques Maritain, and he’s a French…, contemporary French philosopher, very influential, and he’s a religionist. He believes in a personal God.
Prabhupada: Still living?
Syamasundara: Yes. His main philosophy is that existence and essence are both there; that existence is not possible without essence. He defines existence to be essence, to be potential and existence to be the actual. So that a thing, and everything that we can perceive, has both existence and, in other words, potentiality and actuality. For instance, this cup has the potentiality to be something else, to be a piece of metal, but in its actual form it is like this. But it has potentiality to become something else. So he says these two things—the essence and the existence—exist simultaneously.
Prabhupada: So we agree to this point. Just like soul, at the present moment you have got a certain type of body, human body, but the soul has potentiality to have a spiritual body or a dog’s body. Both potentialities are there. So the essential is the soul, and the reality… It is not reality; temporary form in the material body. But the potentiality as the soul has its own spiritual body. When it is uncontaminated by the material contamination, he remains only reality without any so-called actuality or temporary form.
Syamasundara: He says that sense activity occurs on an immediate level of experience, without any conscious awareness of itself, but that true knowledge of reality comes through intuition, and that this reality is called being.
Prabhupada: Intuity, also past experience. What you call intuition is past experience. Just like when a child is born, by intuition it seeks mother’s breast. Because the child does not know where is food, but by intuition, as soon as the mother’s breast is given, pushed in its mouth, he is satisfied immediately. So by…, this is called by intuition. But actually it is its past experience. The same child, as the soul, may have taken something else in a different body. So the fact is that the soul is wandering in different types of bodies, and when he comes to a particular type of body, he remembers everything from his past experience. Just like fifty years ago, when I was a businessman, so at that Gaudiya Math, as soon as I go there, I remember all those things; I am again fifty years back. That is actual… So this, suppose if I say I am going, I do not require to be directed that “Here is this thing, here is that thing.” Immediately I enter that town I will understand that if I have to go to the toilet, “Here it is.” If I go to the kitchen, “Here it is.” So you may call it intuition, but actually it is experience, past experience. There is no, nothing such thing as intuition. That is a vague expression. Actually it is past experience.
Syamasundara: He says that God, He is pure actuality. There is no potentiality.
Prabhupada: Absolute.
Syamasundara: He is Absolute. He is pure existence and essence together, but that the…, everything else that exists besides God has these two characteristics of potentiality and actuality.
Prabhupada: That potentiality, actuality, it is material relativity. In the spiritual world there is same—potentiality, reality—they’re one. Just like Krsna. Krsna, the rascal scholars, they think that Krsna’s body and Krsna’s soul is different, as it is, what is called, expressed by Dr. Radhakrishnan. But that is not the fact. There is no such difference. Krsna also says, avajananti mam mudha. Because He comes in a human form, rascals think of Him as ordinary human being. But He is not that. He is absolute. He has nothing to do with the body and soul as we have got. He is body and soul together— potentiality and the actuality. Similarly, anyone who gets a spiritual body, he also gets the same position. There will be no difference between actuality and potentiality.
Syamasundara: He says that God, or the divine intellect, perceives His own essence.
Prabhupada: No. [break]
Syamasundara: He says that God perceives His own essence, and thus He…, everything else and all of the creation came into existence as a part of His essence of God. That everything is a part of God’s essence and keeps coming into existence in different forms, different stages of actuality.
Prabhupada: So that… They say everything is expansion of God’s energy. The example is given in the Vedic sastras, just like the fire is there in one place but the heat and light of the fire expand. Similarly, God, or Krsna, is there in Goloka Vrndavana, but His energy, external energy and internal energy and marginal energy, they are expanding in this place. So what is his opinion of it?
Syamasundara: Well, these two types of energy he would call…, material energy he would call potential energy, and the spiritual energy, he would say is actual energy.
Prabhupada: Well, actual, the energy is one, but it is working differently. Just like electricity is one, but it is working differently as cooler and heater, although cooling and heating are two opposites. Cooling is just opposite of heating, and heating is just opposite of cooling, but electric energy is working in both the places.
Syamasundara: Electric energy is also measured in terms of its potency, its potential.
Prabhupada: Yes. So for God there is no such distinction; therefore it is called kaivalya. For Him the material energy or the spiritual energy is the same. Therefore the Mayavadis, they cannot understand God. They think that Krsna, when He comes, He accepts a material body. But even He accepts a material body, for Him there is no such distinction—spiritual body and material body. He is…, He being omnipotent, He can act even in His material body as spiritual. Just like when Krsna was present, accepting that He has a material body, but at the age of seven years old He lifted the big hill. That is not possible by the material body. Therefore, as omnipotent He can turn the material energy into spiritual energy and the spiritual energy into material energy. That is omnipotency. But those who are with poor fund of knowledge, they think that Krsna has got this material body. Actually He has no such distinction, either material or… Just like electrical engineer, he knows how to tackle electric energy. He can convert the heater into refrigerator, and he can convert the refrigerator into heater, because he knows how to do it.
Full Discussion: http://prabhupadabooks.com/classes/philosophy/syamasundara/jacques_maritain
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