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Lord Caitanya’s Travels to the Holy Places
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pleasures and pains of the body, even though we are not the body. We may not take these pleasures and pains very seriously, but they are factual nonetheless. We cannot actually say that they are false. If the bodily pains and pleasures are false, the creation would be false also, and consequently no one would take very much interest in it. The conclusion is that the material creation is not false or imaginary, but it is temporary.
The Buddhists maintain that the principle "I am" is the Ultimate Truth, but this excludes the individuality of "I" and "you." If there is no "I" and "you," or individuality, there is no possibility of argument. The Buddhist philosophy depends on argument, but there can be no argument if one simply depends on "I am." There must be a "you," or another person also. The philosophy of duality—the existence of the individual soul and the Supersoul—must be there. This is confirmed in the Second Chapter of  Bhagavad-gītā , wherein the Lord says:
na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ  
 na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ  
 na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ  
 sarve vayam ataḥ param
“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” (Bg. 2.12)
We existed in the past in different bodies, and after the annihilation of this body, we shall exist in another body. The principle of the soul is eternal, and it exists in this body or in another body. Even in this lifetime we experience existence in a child's body, a youth's body, a man's body and an old body. After the annihilation of the body, we acquire another body. The Buddhist cult also accepts the philosophy of transmigration, but the Buddhists do not properly explain the next birth. There are 8,400,000 species of life, and our next birth may be in any one of them; therefore this human body is not guaranteed.
According to the Buddhist's fifth principle, Lord Buddha is the only source for the attainment of knowledge. We cannot accept this, for Lord Buddha rejected the principles of Vedic knowledge. One must accept a principle of standard knowledge because one cannot attain the Absolute Truth simply by intellectual speculation. If everyone is an authority, or if everyone accepts his own intelligence as the ultimate criterion—as is presently fashionable—the scriptures will be interpreted in many different ways, and everyone will claim his own philosophy supreme. This has become a very great problem, and everyone is interpreting scripture in his own way and setting up his own basis of authority.  Yata mata tata pāṭha . Now everybody and anybody is trying to establish his own theory as the Ultimate Truth. The Buddhists theorize that annihilation, or  nirvāṇa , is the ultimate goal. Annihilation applies to the body, but the spirit soul transmigrates from one