ng is emanating from the truth. We are trying to employ everything in the service of the truth. Because God is truth, we do not say that the world is false. The Mayavadis claim that the world is false, but we say that it is temporary. For instance, this flower is the creation of God. It therefore cannot be false; it is truth. It should therefore be employed in the service of the truth, and that is our reason for offering it to Krsna. Suppose you work very hard to make something beautiful, and then you bring it to me, and I say, "Oh, it is all false." Will you be pleased with me? You will say, "What is this nonsense? I have travelled so far and have made such a beautiful thing, and he says it is false." Similarly, since God has created such a wonderful universe, why should we say that it is false? Our philosophy is that the universe is God's creation and therefore should be employed in God's service. For instance, we are using this tape recorder to record this conversation. It is being used for Krsna. We do not say, "Oh, it is false. It is material. We won't use it." That is the position of the Jains, who do not take advantage of these things. We say, rather, that we can use these devices, but not for our personal sense gratification. That is real vairagya, detachment.
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 t