Hare Krsna-
Below we have put some discussions with Srila Prabhupada about the nature of the soul, its size, and the propensity to fall down being marginal energy of the Lord.
That independence and propensity Srila Prabhupada says to fall down into this material world is always there. But once experienced, we will not do that again. And that is confirmed three times in Bhagavad Gita by the Lord Himself. (see verses at the end)
Hare Krsna
damaghosa das
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A sample—-(Śyāmasundara: Does Kṛṣṇa know beforehand everything, before…?
Prabhupāda: No. How Kṛṣṇa can know? You can change your mind. So Kṛṣṇa says “Surrender unto Me.” If you don’t surrender, then what Kṛṣṇa can do? That much independence is there. see below for full conversation)
Philosophy discussions with Srila Prabhupada
Śyāmasundara: So someone can understand, someone can know what the life force is going to do in the future, how it will manifest itself in the future?
Prabhupāda: The future, because he is eternally servant of God, so now he has forgotten. He wants to become master, and the material nature is kicking him, life after life. So one day he’ll come to his senses and become again, renovate himself to become servant of God.
Śyāmasundara: So we can predict that everyone will…
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Everyone will be. Somebody sooner, somebody later.
Śyāmasundara: So that the purpose of the life force then is to eventually go back…
Prabhupāda: Just like when a man becomes a prisoner, he will be freed, he’ll be a free man at the end of his term, and within this term he is simply kicked by the police, so that he may not come back again to prison house.
Śyāmasundara: But we can’t predict that the process of punishment will have permanent effect, can we? Can we predict that? Many prisoners leave the prison, but some come back.
Prabhupāda: No, there is no permanent effect because we have got little independence. There is nothing as permanent. You can misuse your independence at any time.
Śyāmasundara: And come back.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Otherwise there is no meaning of independence. Independence means you can do this, you can do that. “All right. Whatever you like.”
Atreya Ṛṣi: Prabhupāda, you mentioned the size of the soul, and this size seems to connote a physical size. Now, my question is: in the spiritual world, size, it seems that it is a material concept, it is a relative thing, distance…
Prabhupāda: Material size and spiritual size is not the same. Spiritual size is permanent; material size is changing.
Atreya Ṛṣi: In other words, how could you measure the spiritual phenomenon with something like one-thousandth of the tip of the hair? Hair is material.
Prabhupāda: No. Because you have no spiritual vision, therefore you have to be understood by material example.
Atreya Ṛṣi: That’s an example.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Atreya Ṛṣi: And also Śyāmasundara Prabhu was asking about predicting about spiritual life. What is the qualification of the person who can make such predictions?
Prabhupāda: He must be Kṛṣṇa’s representative, one who knows Kṛṣṇa. That’s all.
Atreya Ṛṣi: No one else.
Prabhupāda: No. If he does not know Kṛṣṇa, how he can explain?
Devotee: That independence, if he exercises that independence from now on, forever, Kṛṣṇa knows exactly how that independence is going to be used forever?
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa?
Devotee: Well, the living entity has independence: now he may be liberated, then he may be conditioned, then he may be liberated, then he may be conditioned.
Prabhupāda: No. Kṛṣṇa has given you liberation. Now you misuse your liberation, you become entrapped.
Śyāmasundara: But it is that predictable?
Devotee: Is that known beforehand?
Śyāmasundara: Does Kṛṣṇa know beforehand everything, before…?
Prabhupāda: No. How Kṛṣṇa can know? You can change your mind. So Kṛṣṇa says “Surrender unto Me.” If you don’t surrender, then what Kṛṣṇa can do? That much independence is there.
Śyāmasundara: So even God cannot predict?
Prabhupāda: What is the use of prediction? Prediction is so much, that he will be kicked, kicked, kicked, and some day he will come.
Devotee: But the independence…
Prabhupāda: Independence is there. Independence is always there. When he is being kicked, there is also independence.
Devotee: Then he is so many times falling down, again and again, eventually permanently he will come back.
Prabhupāda: No. There is no question of permanent. Because he has got independence, he can misuse his independence, he can fall down. That’s why one man is released from the prison house, that does not mean permanently he… He can come back again.
Śyāmasundara: There’s no guarantee.
Atreya Ṛṣi: This concept of prediction, Prabhupāda. You just said it’s the duty of the material (indistinct) because he’s (indistinct) material. Because he’s not sure and…
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) by experience (indistinct). Just like you can predict that four months after, there will be winter season. This prediction is like that. You have got experience that last year there was winter season, and again four months after there will be winter season. We call this prediction of experience, that’s all.
Atreya Ṛṣi: In the spiritual world everything is permanent.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Atreya Ṛṣi: There is no need for making predictions all the time.
Prabhupāda: No. Why there is? Prediction means when there is something wanting. There is no want at all.
Prabhupāda: No. That is the general law. But if he likes, he can come back. Because otherwise, what is the meaning of independence? Just like one should become fit in the prison house, naturally he should not go again. But (indistinct) running again kicking, that’s all.
Līlāvatī: So those eternally liberated souls in the spiritual sky will never come here because they choose not to. It’s not that… (indistinct) they never choose to come here.
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. They never choose. They are very experienced. (laughter)
Śyāmasundara: Bergson says that this quality of the soul can only be perceived by man’s intuition, not by his senses, but by his intuition.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is nice. Soul cannot be experienced by senses, but we can understand when there is a dead man, we can perceive that there was soul, which is now absent; therefore the body is dead. This is called perception.
Śyāmasundara: The dictionary defines intuition as “immediate apprehension by the mind without any reasoning.”
Prabhupāda: That is experience. That is experience. Intuition means mature experience. Just like when as soon as there is mosquito, my hand immediately sees. You can say it is intuition, but it is experience, that when there is mosquito my hand must go there and try to kill him. But the experience is so mature that without consideration the hand goes.
Atreya Ṛṣi: Has Bergson recognized that we may fall also, or does he think that we are constantly moving up?
Śyāmasundara: He says it’s unpredictable, that the life force…
Prabhupāda: He does not know. At the present moment I am fallen, so even if I go to my original position, there is chance of again falling down. Otherwise, how I became fallen? Just like a child once falls and again stands up, he has got chance of again falling down. You cannot say, “Now he has stood up, he’ll not fall again.” That is not possible.
Devotee: The different kinds of bodies, they’re just different phases of the illusion, because the real, spiritual body is always the same, it’s not changing.
Prabhupāda: Yes. This is called sanātana, eternal.
BG 8.15-After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.
BG 8.16-From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again.
BG8.21-That supreme abode is called unmanifested and infallible, and it is the supreme destination. When one goes there, he never comes back. That is My supreme abode.
