The eternal soul is real substance; temporary changes prove the unchanging principle beyond them.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śyāmasundara: Today's philosopher is called Jean-Paul Sartre. He is a contemporary French philosopher, and he is the father of this existentialism philosophy, which deals with the fundamental problem of dualism that is--subject and object. He calls the object, "The things of this world, these things." He calls them, "Being" because they exist, and he calls the subject, or the consciousness, individual consciousness, "Nothingness," "No-thingness." This is a thing, but the individual entity is no-thing, because it is constantly changing.
Śyāmasundara: Because the structure is not determinant. It is always changing. Always... On both sides there is nothing.
Prabhupāda: Changing, changing is the mind, not the person. Changing position is of the mind. So he, he is identifying the person with the mind; therefore he is not a perfect philosopher.
Śyāmasundara: He says that this objective being, like these objects, he calls it, "Being in itself," and only these concrete phenomena are real. But he says these concrete phenomena are more than their phenomenal appearances. Just like this thing is more than what it appears to be, but it is no more than the sum total of all its appearances. In other words, this thing may appear like this, but it is more than this; it is all of its possible appearances. From the time it was clay, to the time the paint was applied, different things, in all its appearances, that is the reality of this thing. It is not just this thing; it is all of
its appearances. But that is all. There is nothing more than that. It doesn't have any reality beyond its phenomenal appearances.
Prabhupāda: From where the material came, where from? Find this. Beyond the material, the source of material?
Śyāmasundara: Well because the, the he says that, "Material in itself is nonconscious, inert, fixed, opaque, uncreated, devoid of potency, lacking becoming, and without any reason for existing; therefore it is superfluous." In other words, existence doesn't have any meaning.