Soul and Body According to Leibniz

Relationship between soul and body

0:01And this is Leibniz. Concerning

0:15the relation between the soul and the body, Leibniz writes: “Insofar as the soul has perfection and distinct thoughts, God has accommodated the body to the soul and has arranged beforehand that the body is impelled to execute its orders, the orders of the soul.”

0:38Who? Who? What else? God has accommodated the body to the soul.

0:47And has arranged, as explained in Bhagavad-gītā: «īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe 'rjuna tiṣṭhati», «bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā». That the body is a machine. The soul wanted to

1:10walk or move in a certain specific way, and He has given this instrument. Just like if you want to go by car, the car is there. If you want to go by bus, the bus is there. If you want to go by railway, the railway is there.

1:32If you want to fly by airship, the airship is there. Similarly, the soul is desiring in a particular way, and God is supplying through His material agent a particular type of body.

1:52Therefore the bird is flying, the fish is within the water, and the uncivilized man or animals within the forest, and civilized man in the city. In this way, different eight million four hundred thousand

2:12species and bodies are there according to the desire of the soul, and the machine of the body is supplied by nature under the order of God.

2:26Well, he says: “Insofar as the soul is perfect, it controls the body, but insofar as the soul is imperfect or its perceptions are confused, the soul is swayed by the passions arising out of corporeal representations.”

2:48In other words, that is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā very nicely, that the soul is in this material world and he is influenced by the three modes of material nature.

3:05So according to his position, under the influence of three different kinds of modes, he is getting his body. It is on account of his free will.

Free will and divine order

3:23It's like if he wants to eat anything, then he's given the body of a pig. If he wants to eat direct blood-sucking, he gets the body of a tiger.

3:43And if he wants to eat pure, fresh food, then he's given the body of a brāhmaṇa. In this way, we are getting different types of body according to our desire.

3:59We are creating different types of desire, that “we shall be happy in this way, we shall be happy in this way.”

4:08Just like we see practically, somebody is going to the restaurant, eating, by eating, "Here in the restaurant I shall be happy." And somebody is going to the Krishna consciousness temple.

4:21He's thinking that "I shall be happy by eating here." So Krishna has given everyone the chance. But he is trying to be happy, but he's not becoming happy because he's misusing his intelligence.

4:40Instead of person abiding by the orders of God...

4:44That was such... Krishna comes personally and induces him that "You don't desire in this way. Give up all this material desire, you simply desire to act according to My order. You surrender unto Me, and I'll give you all protection."

The city of God and Vaikuntha

5:10Leibniz pictures a kind of city of God. He writes, "God is the monarch of the most perfect republic, composed of all the spirits, and the happiness of this city of God is His principal purpose.

5:29The primary purpose in the moral world, or the city of God, which constitutes the noblest part of the universe, ought to be to extend the greatest happiness possible." Yes. We agree to that.

5:45If everyone becomes Krishna conscious and acts according to the instruction of Krishna, then this hell, hellish world, will become the city of God.

6:04He says, "We must therefore, we must not doubt that God has so ordained everything that spirits not only shall live forever, because this is unavoidable, but that they shall also preserve forever their moral quality so that His city may never lose a person."

6:27Yeah? This is Vaikuṇṭha conception. Yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama. That is My specific place where, going, nobody returns back to this miserable material world.

Vedic perspectives on transmigration

6:48These ideas are taken from Vedic literature. They are not new. It is not relative to the daily student. Everyone has taken from the Vedas and they are present as they are always. All right.

7:26He writes, "The soul changes its body only gradually and by degrees, so that it is never deprived of all its organs at once. There is often a metamorphosis in animals, but never metempsychosis or transmigration of souls."

7:48That is, he does not believe that the souls in animals transmigrate at death from one body to another. What is his understanding of this book? He says there are no entirely separate souls without bodies. That is asked.

8:11That means he is imperfect. How he can say so when we practically see that the soul is changing from childhood to boyhood, boyhood to youth? How we can say like that? It's transmigrating.

8:31That is every day we are experienced. How we can deny that? Otherwise, if the soul does not transmigrate, then how the child becomes a human? The body is different; it is a simple understanding that he has changed the body.

8:54The body changes and the soul remains eternal. He further writes on this, he says: "There is, strictly speaking, neither absolute birth nor complete death consisting in the separation of the soul from the body.

9:12What we call birth is development or growth, as what we call death is envelopment and diminution." That is... that might be... That is transmigration. He hasn't... he's not dead, but he has developed into another body.

9:29Mm-hmm. That is transmigration. So he says it in other words: as soon as the human soul leaves the body, it must immediately enter another body. Enter another. Yeah. But not in the case of ghosts.

9:45With the exception of ghosts, these are really body... Oh. Subtle body.

Divine nature versus material existence

9:53He further writes: "God alone is holy without body." Yes. He has no material body. He doesn't have... "avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā". He didn't look... his son's head... avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam.

10:21The rascals, they think, "Because I am just like a human being, they think I am another human being." He is not a human being, He is the Supreme Person.

10:40And when He said that, I remember, this is your another proof: "I spoke to the Sun-god millions of years ago." And because He remembers, that means He does not change His birth.

10:59Just like we can remember of this body so many things. So long, but we do not remember what I was in the past life because the body has changed. And Krishna remembers because His body has not changed.

11:21He is in the same body. Leibniz

Moral governance and resource distribution

11:30did not believe that the city of God—what he called the city of God— is divorced from the natural world. Rather, it is a moral world within the natural world.

11:43He writes: "The assembly of all spirits must compose the city of God, that is the most perfect state possible, and of the most perfect of monarchs," meaning God.

11:56"This city of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural world and the highest and most divine of the works of God." We can construct our city immediately.

12:16In the League of Nations, if, trying to be united, they come to the right sense that this planet does not belong to any particular nation, it belongs to God— this simple fact, if they accept and cultivate on this point, then immediately the whole world will be the city of God.

12:45But they will not do it. They have gone to the United Nations to settle up all problems of the world, but they keep themselves in the dog's mentality: "I am this body. I am American and I am Indian." Why not?

13:04But if they give up this designation—that "I am American, Indian, or Hindu or Muslim, Christian"—we are all part and parcel of God. And the whole planet belongs to God.

13:18We are His sons and we can live peacefully as the sons of a father. Father is supplying everything. So we can utilize.

13:31Now, in some countries like in Australia or New Zealand, we find enough cows to supply milk, and in India, practically there is no milk. So if the United Nations accepts this, that everything belongs to God,

13:55so where is the scarcity? It may be in one place, one thing is in scarcity; in other words, it is a lot. So where it is a lot, that can be distributed where there is need. Then immediately it becomes the city of God,

14:18If anyone arrives by the order of God and everything produced is divided among the sons of God, and where is the question of scarcity? There cannot be any scarcity. But there is no reason.

14:41They are denying the actual fact that everything belongs to God. It is common sense. Such a vast ocean— who has created this? Has any nation created it? Or any individual person has created it? So to whom belongs this ocean?

14:59What will be the answer? What will be the answer? If I could say that we dig a little ditch and there is water, we fill up. So such a big ditch— who has done it? Well, the question that there is no God... Somebody has done it.

15:23That is common sense. And who has done it? Not only this one ocean, millions of oceans are floating in the sky. Who has done it? Who has created? So this modern so-called civilization, they have lost their power and sense.

15:49They want to remain in animal consciousness. That's what is happening.