Hayagrīva: Now you said to Śyāmasundara that water existed before our mental conception of H2O. We conceive of H2O, we think of well, what is..., we begin to analyze water, and we say, well, it's two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. But before we even began to think of this, water existed.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Therefore H2O is not the permanent essence or the primordial existence of water, but what Plato is saying is that everything that exists has its seed or essence or idea.
Prabhupāda: Seed is originally with Kṛṣṇa.
Hayagrīva: Yes. The seed is, then, Kṛṣṇa says bījam, "I am the seed..."
Prabhupāda: Bīja ahaṁ sarva-bhūtānām. Whatever is manifest, the original God had.
Hayagrīva: That... Is that the bījam is the unmanifest...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: ...is the unmanifest essence of an object.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Uh-huh. That...
Prabhupāda: Just like the tree. Before manifestation it is a seed, but within that seed the whole tree is there.
Hayagrīva: Plato would call that the idea or the archetype.
Prabhupāda: That is not idea; that is fact.
Hayagrīva: Not idea, fact.
Prabhupāda: Fact. If you sow a seed of rose flower, it will come as rose tree. If you grow a seed of mango tree, it will come as mango tree. So it is not idea; it is fact. Simply it is in nascent state, but it is a fact. You cannot make your idea, "Now here is a seed, let it be mango tree." It will not make. If it is rose tree it will come rose tree. So your idea has no value. Seed means the nascent state.
Hayagrīva: The na..., the...
Prabhupāda: Nascent. What is called?
Hayagrīva: Neh...?
Prabhupāda: Nascent.
Hayagrīva: Nescient?
Prabhupāda: Yes, nascent. What is the...
Hayagrīva: (sic:) Nescent.
Prabhupāda: What is spelling?
Hayagrīva: (sic:) N-e-s-c-e-n-t. To be..., not yet developed.
Prabhupāda: Manifested, yes, yes.
Hayagrīva: Plato states that the material world is restricted to limitations of time and space, whereas the spiritual world transcends time and space.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: He also states that time began with the creation of the material world. And how does this comply with the Vedic statement that time is eternal?
Prabhupāda: Yes, time is eternal. The present, past, present, the three features of time, it is relative. What is your past or your future, that is not past, future, of Brahmā. Brahmā lives for millions of years. So within millions of years I had many past, present and future. Present..., past, present and future is relative according to the person, but the time is eternal. That is the point. It is clear? The past, present, future is relative according to the body. Otherwise time is eternal. Time has no past, present, future.