Prabhu: Material world is one fourth [of the whole creation] and it is supposed to be something very insignificant, and one fourth is a lot. 

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: Because that is material energy, that is not material consciousness. You are here in this material world for your consciousness. Kṛṣṇa comes here in the material world and they have their pastimes and they have a great time, so you are here because of your material consciousness. This material consciousness means, this dead matter, you attribute it to having life and having value. If I bring a solid gold watch and put it down here and take this rock and start to bang it, then 'Wait, wait, wait, why?' It is dead matter, you put value to it. 

It is said this pebble and a chunk of gold have actually the same value, basically nothing. But we attribute value to it. So that illusion, that is what is very great. But at the same time its insignificance is, it is an illusion. It is like a mirage in the desert. It has no meaning, so it is very insignificant. Don’t confuse the physical dead matter with the illusion that you have about that dead matter! So the insignificance is your illusion about that dead matter. The volume of dead matter is one fourth of the cosmic manifestation 

Prabhu: It is still a lot.

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: What does it matter if it is a lot? It is just inferior nature. You are not getting yourself out of dead matter, you are getting yourself out of the illusion that dead matter is something valuable. 

Prabhu: It diminishes the value of the spiritual world, if such a big part of existence is dedicated to the…

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: So you just work on gross volumes, that’s all. So you are going to have a problem. Let us work on this gross volume. There is 14 planetary systems, and on this planetary system, the earth planetary system, there are nine islands. So on all the 14 planetary systems they are all following Vedic culture today. And on all these other varṣas, these other islands, they are following Vedic culture today. Then on this planet there is a portion of it that takes up this Western lifestyle, that may be 300-500 million people that follow it out of 7 billion. So by volume who should be superior? The Vedic culture. But the problem is, we don’t follow that. We follow the modern because we think it is more significant. So actually we don’t go by volume, we go by whatever we feel like. If I took this little rock here and I took a piece of gold half that size and put it next to it and say, 'You can choose whichever one you want,' which one you are going to take? So you don’t work by volume, you work by what you like. Since you like volume, that is important to you, therefore you are considering that the spiritual world is diminished. But if you have a diamond of the same size as a piece of glass, someone with knowledge knows that the diamond is valuable. Like kids, when you take them into the sweet shop, little kids and tell them 'Buy any sweet you want,' they always pick the biggest sweet, even if it is the cheapest and has the least taste. But they’ll always get the biggest. 

Prabhu: Still the spiritual world is bigger than the material world.

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: Since when is it volume what is important? It is quality. Is the diamond’s importance dimished because it is the same size as a piece of glass? You got a plastic bangle and a gold bangle of the same size. Is the gold bangle diminished?

Prabhu: If we have a family…

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: One tenth of the living entities are in the material world . Nine tenths are in the spiritual world. So [the material] is one tenth. So that helps your proportions any better? So 9 out of 10 jīvas go to the spiritual world, only one tenth are idiots enough to come here. 

Prabhu: For all eternity? Maybe now there is one…

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: No, that is always the proportion. Out of every 10 jīvas 9 decide to go back to Godhead and 1 comes over here. So that is the proportion, so it is only one tenth. But what does it matter? You are trying to increase its value by saying, 'It is okay for me to be stupid and be here because the spiritual world is only 3 times bigger anyway. So it doesn’t really matter that I am here.' What would be the benefit of that viewpoint? What benefit would you get by thinking like that? 

Prabhu: I am disconcerted about…

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: That’s why I am saying, therefore volume is very important to you. But more important than volume is quality. Quality is more important than volume, isn’t it? The common person thinks by mass. Therefore, if he can find one other person that agrees with him he thinks everybody thinks like this. But in the Vedic system you take one person who knows the truth over thousands or millions of people who speak the untruth. Even if they all concur, say the same thing, since when are we worried about volume? It is always quality.

Prabhu: If we have a nice city where people are very efficient, and then it turns out that one fourth of the city is the garbage dump...

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: Yes, but there is a nice wall around the garbage dump. So that the garbage dump is never even seen, heard or smelled of in the rest of the city. As far as the city goes, it doesn’t have anything to do with it.

Prabhu: It fixes the choices. It’s better you go out of the garbage dump. But still, why such a big proportion for the garbage dump?

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: Because there is that many idiots like us, that’s why. So then you have to understand that you are in the garbage dump out of your decision. So if it is disconcerting that one quarter is that big, then why did you go there?

Prabhu: That’s accepted, that’s my foolishness, I have to get out. 

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: So what is the relevance of this? Because all it will do is keep you from being enthusiastic to go there. 

Prabhu: It’s just a very minor point. It’s just that I think I don’t understand something. 

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: So what does that mean? Kṛṣṇa made a mistake here? 

Prabhu: My understanding is that if it was one quarter of all of His energies means that Kṛṣṇa gives one quarter of His attention to the material world? 

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: No, because it is so minor. What does it take to manage a garbage dump? Hardly anything. Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā, it is a spark of His splendor that He manages this whole thing. It is spark.

Prabhu: Sometimes it says, it’s one quarter of His creative energy. What I was thinking is that it’s not one quarter of all of His energies, just one of His millions of energies, and this is one quarter of that energy. 

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: But the point is, why the need to reduce it? To make yourself feel better? In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is called the tri-pada and the eka-pada. Now in that one quarter in the mahā-tattva then we have Mahā-Viṣṇu Who is lying down and Who is very large. Then you have the Causal ocean there that is also spiritual, that is the Yamunā. Then on that when He breathes out, then all these universes, unlimited, and they sit on top of that water. So He and that water are much bigger than what is manifest there. Are you worrying about the shell on the outside or what is going on inside? Because once we calculate, on the universe, the covering is... If the inside of the universe is one inch then the coverings would be from here to Kṛṣṇanāgara. Are you worried about that or the one inch?

Prabhu: If a state has one quarter of all of its buildings as a prison houses then it creates a doubt whether the laws are very efficient in this country…

HH Bhaktividyā Pūrṇa Mahārāja: The thing is, you don’t understand love. You are a manager, you have to learn… This is a society for learning what is actual relationship and love. Since being a manager and therefore the efficiency of moving around dead matter is so important to you, you would think that you wouldn’t be bothered by that it takes up so much space. Because if you actually understood love then all this doesn’t matter. Love means it is voluntary, so it is just the opposite, that God actually allows. It is not that He can’t manage it. It is not that there is the Devil in it and it functions separate from Him. It is not a Christian concept that it is something separate from God. He allows the living entities that are so dear to Him and He has so much affection for, that they want to be separate from Him and actually act like Him, and He creates a playground for them to enact their so-called trying to be God, and He makes all those arrangements. He takes all those forms, all the energies that are there. He does everything that you want out of His affection for you. With the idea that He will wait forever for you to get it together and decide that, 'Well, this is stupid,' and come back to our natural position. That is called someone who has some very serious affection, and it is out of that that He has created this. 

That is what the space is, and plenty of space is given, so they stay very far away. Just like, let us say there is a prison and you are living on, wherever your house is. And where that wall is, the demarcation, then you have, right there is the place and you can see all the people in their windows, leaning out and making faces at you. Would you be happy? Or would you be happy, that is the demarcation and then it is many many miles before there is even any building?

So, you have the spiritual world, you have the whole Brahmajyoti, then you have this whole Causal ocean and everything like that. And then inside these little very well-contained little units of the Hiraṇyagarbha, then it is a very small place in which [there are] 14 planetary systems and everybody does their illusory activities. Therefore it takes up so much space, so it keeps them very far away. Isn’t that a good arrangement? That is called good management. 

The point is, it is affection that makes everything work. State laws are different, that is just efficiency of management. But God’s laws are based on the principle of relationship. For the jīva they have that voluntary aspect, that is a special kind of affection, it is voluntary, therefore it adds. The main affection is between Him and the internal potency, which is just a natural affection. But you can add to that by the jīvas, so therefore it is voluntary that we choose either.

(From Śrī Īśopaniṣad Lecture, Bhaktivedānta Academy, Śrīdhāma Māyāpura)