We have four basic animal instincts; eating, sleeping, mating and defending. We have these instincts in the human form of life and they are common with the animals. All the universities, all the colleges, all our educational institutions are simply imparting knowledge meant to help us engage in these animal propensities in a more advanced way, in a more “civilized” way. But in reality there is no difference. If we eat in a very beautiful building from very beautiful silver plates with a very nice tablecloth, and we have beautiful waiters serving the food, everything is very nice. This is what we have been able to do as a result of this education — we have been able to provide a very nice atmosphere for eating. But the actual eating process is the same. If I eat the food in this beautiful atmosphere and a dog on the street eats the same food then the taste the dog is enjoying and the taste I am enjoying is the same.

Even though the dog is eating off the street, he has no plate at all, and I am eating off a silver plate, the taste I am experiencing is the same as the taste the dog is experiencing. No matter what the plate is the food tastes the same. The dog is eating off the street, someone is eating from a paper plate, someone is eating off a plastic plate, someone is eating off a golden plate, but the taste doesn’t change. It doesn’t matter what facilities we have around the sense-gratifying process, the actual sense pleasure is the same. In reality the dog is tasting exactly the same thing as a very wealthy man living in his very big house with many servants.

Science and technology have not made sex or food more enjoyable

If you look carefully at all our material advancements you will find them all similar to the above example. We haven’t changed the basic principle of animal sense gratification. The same thing is there in sex life. The dog is having sex on the street and we have made a big arrangement for sex but the actual sense pleasure is the same. The dog is enjoying the same pleasure as we are enjoying, even though we have a beautiful bedroom. The actual substance, sex life, is the same. Everything is the same, we haven’t changed the substance.

We consider society has advanced because we have made a more elaborate arrangement for sense gratification, but this is not real progress in life. The real purpose of life is not to simply improve on the animal activities. The real purpose of life is to understand who I am, to understand what is my position. This is the real education. It is described at the beginning of the Vedanta-sutra that one’s life is meant for enquiring into the meaning of Brahman. Brahman means spirit.

We are in this material world and we are identifying with this material body. Our body is made of the material elements: earth, water, fire, air and either. We can very easily perceive this body so we identify with it, we think, “I am this Australian man,” or “I am a beautiful women,” I identify with whatever position my body is in. This is the beginning of our bewilderment. By identifying with the body we automatically identify with a particular family, we identify with a particular group of people, we identify with a particular country. From this single identification with the body our whole illusion grows and grows and grows. It is called aham mamadi. This illusion of bodily identification is what is keeping us in the material world and any education we can find on this planet at the moment is reinforcing the bodily concept of life.

Todays universities and colleges are slaughterhouses

The students going to todays universities and colleges are actually going to slaughterhouses because the real purpose of life is to understand the soul and to understand the relationship of the soul with the supreme soul, Krishna. But our universities and colleges are not speaking on this, they are simply imparting some technical knowledge and this technical knowledge is not even very useful. Technical knowledge is for the sudra, for the lowest class of men. A sudra can learn this technical knowledge, it is not difficult. Any sort of technical knowledge, even engineering or computer science, or something we consider to be very great, is not actually a very great thing, it can be learnt by a sudra, a less intelligent person.

The real purpose of life and the real education as described in this verse is to understand the nature of the soul and to understand the relationship of the soul with the supreme soul, Krishna.

Krishna consciousness is the king of education

Raja-vidya, vidya means education, raja means king so raja-vidya means king of education. So this king of education is Krishna consciousness. This verse is the beginning of the ninth chapter of Bhagavad-gita. In this ninth chapter the process of devotional service is described. The king of knowledge or the highest knowledge is that we are eternally servants of Krishna and our business is to engage in the service of Krishna. This is actually quite high knowledge. People generally can’t even conceive of God as a person, it’s very difficult. We understand that I am a person and we can see all the problems I’m having so it’s difficult for us to conceive of God as also being a person. Because we think of a person as being like us. But God, Krishna, is not like us, He’s the Supreme Person, and His nature is different, His nature is sat cit ananda vigraha, He’s eternally youthful, He’s full of knowledge and He’s full of pleasure. It is described: om ananda-mayo’bhyasat, “By nature the Supreme Lord is blissful.” So this nature of God as a person is different from our nature here in the material world.

Our nature is actually the same as Krishna’s but because we have come to this material world we have been covered by this material body made of earth, water, fire, air and either. We are also covered by a more subtle covering, the mind, the intelligence and the false ego. Together these are called the subtle body. These two coverings are like the shirt and coat of the soul. The shirt and coat cover the body, similarly we are also covered by the gross elements and the subtle elements and we have forgotten our original spiritual nature, because we are identifying with this body. Underneath this covering we have the same nature as Krishna, we are also sat, cit, ananda, we’re eternally youthful, full of knowledge and full of pleasure and we also have an eternal blissful spiritual form.

We have come to this material world because we have independence. Everyone in the creation of the Supreme Lord is an individual. I am an individual, you are an individual, and Krishna is an individual, God is an individual, we are all individual persons. The difference is:

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam
eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman

We are all nitya, but Krishna is the supreme singular nitya and we, the living entities, are the plural nityanam. So there is one Krishna who is the supreme and who is supplying all the necessities for unlimited nityas or subordinate living entities. So we are the subordinate living entities. We are also the same quality as Krishna. There is a nice analogy, if you take some gold you can make so many different ornaments from the gold. Although they are manifest in different forms they are all gold, they are all of the same quality as the gold. So Krishna is like the gold mine and we are like some small ornament made from the gold. The same quality is there.

The nature of the spiritual world

Krishna has certain qualities and we also have those qualities, but the nature of Krishna is that He possesses these qualities in unfathomable depth, in great quantity. He is an ocean of all these qualities, whereas we have the same qualities but a tiny drop, a small amount only. So we are samples of Krishna, small particles of Krishna. We are independent persons so we have our own desires. We can serve Krishna if we want to or we can serve ourselves if we want to, but in the spiritual world it is not possible to do anything except serve Krishna because that is the nature of the spiritual world. The nature of the spiritual world is that everybody there is engaged in the service of Krishna. We might think it’s quite boring, that everyone’s doing the same thing, but it’s not at all like that. We see in this material world so many varieties of activities. This material world is a perverted reflection of the spiritual world so all the varieties of activities we see going on here are also going on in the spiritual world.

There are unlimited devotees of Krishna in the spiritual world and they all have individual personalities and individual tastes and individual desires. They are in a relationship with Krishna according to their particular taste, according to their particular desire. It’s not that the spiritual world is some sort of place full of robots all serving Krishna. It’s not like that. The spiritual world is a place of blissful enjoyment and everybody’s there, it’s not that we just have a relationship with Krishna when we are in the spiritual world but all the devotees are there as well. So we have many friendships in the spiritual world with the different devotees who are there and our friendships are centred around serving Krishna. So the real difference between the spiritual world and this material world is in the spiritual world Krishna is the centre and everybody is working to please Krishna, but they are individuals. Everything we see here is there also. My individual feelings, everything is there. I can become angry in the spiritual world, I can become happy in the spiritual world, everything is still there, all the feelings I have here are still there in the spiritual world, but the difference is the material body is not there. We have a body in the spiritual world, but the body is spiritual, it’s an eternal body full of pleasure and full of knowledge.

Krishna cannot be understood by sense perception

The reason many people find it difficult to understand the personal nature of God is they can’t conceive of anything beyond their experience. This is quite natural. We have a certain framework within which our mind is working, we can have certain experiences through our senses and we frame all our other experiences within the boundaries of our sense perception. We can’t conceive of anything beyond the things we have experienced. It’s not possible, we can’t understand. We try to put everything within the boundaries of our experience. When things are described which are beyond our experience it’s very difficult to understand them. We are hearing explanations of the spiritual world and we are hearing explanations of the spiritual body but we can’t help trying to frame them within our limited experience. This is a big danger, if we do it we will misunderstand Krishna’s pastimes, we will misunderstand devotional service and we will consider them activities performed within the material energy.

There is a class of philosophers called Mayavadis who think Krishna accepts a material body when He comes to the material world. They think all activities are material so they think devotees who are engaged in serving Krishna are engaged in material activities, they think the devotees are in maya. They think the ultimate state of liberation is a state of cessation of activities. But this is not a fact. The soul is active eternally. We see the principle of life in this body. The principle of life in this body is the soul. It is actually the soul which is motivating the body. The body by itself can’t do anything. We can see it practically, as soon as the soul leaves the body, as soon as there is death, then the body is lying on the ground. The body is there, all the chemicals are there, all the elements are there, everything is there, but the soul is gone. It’s simply a lump of flesh and blood and stool lying on the ground, it can’t do anything, because the activity, the motivating principle, the life-force is the soul. When the soul leaves the body that activity, that motivating principle, that individuality, that life goes with the soul. So how can the soul be inactive at any point? The soul is eternally active and we can’t stop activity, so after the soul has left this body it has to take on another body, either in the material world or in the spiritual world, and the activity continues.

So real education is to come to the point of understanding the relationship between the living entity, myself, and the supreme person, Krishna. That is one level, this is not the most confidential knowledge. The most confidential level is to actually understand what it is that goes on between the devotee and Krishna. What is the service, what is the activity that the devotee engages in with Krishna. This is the most confidential knowledge, to understand the process of devotional service, to understand how the devotees engage in the service of Krishna. After understanding this we should also do it, we should take it seriously and engage ourselves in the service of Krishna. This is the ultimate goal of life.

Krishna consciousness is very simple — but people like complicated things…

Krishna consciousness is a very simple process but because people like to understand something very complicated sometimes they can’t grasp the simple nature of Krishna consciousness. But it’s very simple. The idea is we’re here in the material world and are engaged serving ourselves or our family or our country or our community. We have to serve somebody. The process of devotional service or Krishna consciousness is simply to change that service and instead of serving myself I serve Krishna. It’s very simple, that’s it, that’s devotional service, that’s the most confidential knowledge. All I have to do is serve Krishna, I don’t really have to change my activities because the activities I am doing now I can just do for Krishna. I’m cooking. I have to cook. Everybody has to cook. There’s no alternative — we have to eat something — so we have to go to the supermarket and buy some food and we have to cook it. Everyone is doing this. I can cook for myself but I can also do that same cooking for Krishna. Of course if I am cooking for Krishna there are some special considerations, I can only offer Krishna the food He likes to eat; grains, vegetables, milk products and fruit, I have to be very clean and I have to think in my mind that I am going to make an offering for Krishna, I’m going to cook some very nice food and offer that food to Krishna. This cooking is the same activity as cooking for myself, you can’t see any difference. If you go to one house and see a devotee cooking and you go to another house and see another person cooking they are doing the same thing, the activity is not different but the consciousness of the devotee is different. The devotee is doing it for Krishna, he’s thinking how Krishna will enjoy this meal and how it will be very nice for Krishna to taste this meal. Then he is happy to eat the remnants of the food tasted by Krishna. In this way the devotees spiritualise all the activities of their lives.

The ultimate goal of life or the main purpose in life is to come to the point when we can always remember Krishna and never forget Krishna. This is the goal of the devotee. He wants to structure his life in such a way that at every point he is reminded of Krishna, in this way he will always be in ecstasy, always in transcendental bliss.

The position of such a devotee who always remembers Krishna and never forgets Krishna is that his body becomes spiritual, he’s not in this material world any more. Although his body appears to be in the material world he’s not of the material world, his material body dissolves and his body becomes spiritual. In India generally people’s bodies are cremated after death or they are put into a river but the spiritual master is put into samadhi, it means he is put into a tomb, because the body of the spiritual master is spiritual, his material body has been consumed by the fire of devotional service.

Liberation is easy — but to understand Krishna is a person is special

We have to try and grasp this simple point, that I should use all of my energy for Krishna. I should do everything for Krishna. If we can actually comprehend this point and believe it and live our life in that way then success in spiritual life will be very rapid for us, very easy. It sounds so simple and it is so simple but generally people can’t take to it, Krishna says:

manusyanam sahasresu
kascid yatati siddhaye
yatatam api siddhanam
kascin mam vetti tattvatah

Krishna says that out of many thousands of men one may even endeavour to come to spiritual life and out of many such people who are practising spiritual life a few might become liberated and out of thousands of such liberated persons hardly one knows Krishna in truth. So comparatively speaking it’s not so difficult to become liberated, even though out of thousands of men only a few become liberated, but comparatively speaking it’s easy to become liberated.

Liberated means to come to the point of realising “I am not this body,” to come to the understanding that “I am Brahman, I am spirit,” this is liberation. But to come to the point of understanding God is a person, His name is Krishna, He is engaged in His eternal pastimes with the residents of Vrndavana and that I can also become engaged in those pastimes serving Krishna and that will be the topmost perfection for me. To come to this point is difficult. Of course it is not difficult — we can just do it immediately. You can hear this class and just accept it. Just accept that Krishna is a person in the same way I am a person. Krishna is the supreme person, He is the possessor of all knowledge, all strength, all beauty, all fame and all renunciation. All these are full in Krishna. If I accept this and understand that now I should serve Krishna, live my life in that mood, serving Krishna, then I will immediately be transferred to the liberated platform of ecstasy, I will no longer be implicated in this material world whatsoever. The pains and pleasures of the material world will not touch me any more because I will simply be engaged in the loving service of Krishna.

It’s a very simple thing, but the reality is not so many people are doing it because we are attached to the material concept of life. We are attached to this material body, we are attached to our sense gratification. So Krishna consciousness can only really be understood by someone who is extremely fortunate. This great fortune comes through the association of devotees, it’s not possible in any other way because this confidential knowledge which is described here in the Bhagavad-gita is not perceivable, is not obtainable through our sense perception. We can speculate, we can think with our mind and endeavour with our senses to try and understand the world around us, to try to understand the purpose of life, but devotional service, this Krishna consciousness is beyond the range of our sense perception, so we can never come to the point of devotional service without the mercy of a pure devotee. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu says: (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Madhya-lila 19.151)

brahmanda bramite kona bhagyavan jiva
guru-krsna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija

“According to their karma, all living entities are wandering throughout the entire universe. Some of them are being elevated to the upper planetary systems, and some are going down into the lower planetary systems. Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bona fide spiritual master by the grace of Krishna. By the mercy of both Krishna and the spiritual master, one such person receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.”

So we are wandering through so many bodies, sometimes we take this human form of body, sometimes we take a demigods body in the heavenly planets, sometimes we are sent down to the hellish planets to suffer, and sometimes we are even born into the species of plants and animals. This process of the transmigration of the soul has been going on since practically time immemorial, no one can trace out the beginning of it. We are called nitya baddha entities, this means eternally conditioned, so practically speaking we are stuck here in the material world travelling from one body to another body, one form of life to another form of life, one planet to another planet, and simply undergoing the same activities: birth, old age disease and death.

The only way out is by the mercy of a pure devotee
We are going through this repetition of birth and death time and time again, nitya baddha means eternally, so it’s only if we are extremely fortunate to get the chance of associating with a pure devotee and by the mercy of that pure devotee we can get the seed of devotional service, bhakti-lata-bija, it means the seed of the creeper or the plant of devotional service. This analogy is very nice, devotional service or Krishna consciousness is likened to a plant, and the process of Krishna consciousness or Bhakti-yoga is likened to the watering of the plant.

We have to find someone who has the seed of this devotional service [he can't have the seed unless he has the plant fully grown within his heart as only then will it produce flowers, fruit and seeds]. We have to receive the seed of devotional service from him — that is called initiation. Under the expert direction of such a pure devotee we should then engage in the process of watering the seed of the plant of devotional service he has planted within our hearts. This watering process consists of nine items but the most important two items are hearing and chanting.

The beginning is to hear from a pure devotee

The beginning of every activity in life is to hear. Without hearing about something we can’t do it. So in the same way with Krishna consciousness we have to hear, and we have to hear from a pure devotee. If we hear from someone who is a pure devotee the effect will be very quickly experienced. When we hear from a pure devotee he’ll tell us that we should chant Hare Krishna, that we should serve Krishna in this way, so we should follow his instructions. The next process is chanting. If we hear something then we can repeat that same thing to someone else, even though we may not be very highly advanced or very intelligent, we can still pass on the message. If we hear the message from a pure devotee that, “Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead,” then even if we haven’t completely realized it ourselves, we can tell our friends, “Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” If we hear from our spiritual master that we should chant Hare Krishna, even if we haven’t come to the point of fully relishing all the mellows of chanting Hare Krishna, we can chant Hare Krishna ourselves and tell our friends, “You should chant Hare Krishna.” This is the way sravanam kirtanam visnoh, hearing and chanting about Krishna. This process is very powerful and I humbly beg everyone to take it seriously.

This verse is very instructive, “This knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realisation, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting and it is joyfully performed.” We should know all these things, we should know that real education means to find these things, the perfection of religion which is everlasting and which is joyfully performed, and that thing which gives the direct perception of the self by realization. This is real education.

An organization is needed to impart this education to the people of the world

We have to create an organization or create an institution which is capable of imparting this education to people in general. There is currently no such organization in the whole world, every organization is simply imparting mundane information and even so-called spiritual organizations have become degraded and are not imparting spiritual knowledge at all, they have simply become places for politics. There is no institution which is imparting this knowledge of the real purpose of life which is to engage in devotional service to Krishna and do everything for the pleasure of Krishna… Thank you very much, Hare Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada: What is the meaning of the word Christ?

Father Emmanuel: Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, meaning “the anointed one”.

Srila Prabhupada: Christos is the Greek version of the word Krishna.

Father Emmanuel: This is very interesting.

Srila Prabhupada: When an Indian person calls on Krishna, he often says, “Krsta”. Krsta is a Sanskrit word meaning “attraction”. So when we address God as “Christ”, “Krsta”, or “Krishna” we indicate the same all-attractive Supreme Personality of Godhead. When Jesus said, ” Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name,” the name of God was Krsta or Krishna. Do you agree?

Father Emmanuel: I think Jesus, as the son of God, has revealed to us the actual name of God: Christ. We can call God “Father”, but if we want to address Him by His actual name, we have to say “Christ”.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes. “Christ” is another way of saying Krsta and Krsta is another way of pronouncing Krishna, the name of God. Jesus said that one should glorify the name of God, but yesterday I heard one theologian say that God has no name — that we can call Him only “Father”. A son may call his father “Father”, but the father also has a specific name. Similarly, God is the general name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose specific name is Krishna. Therefore whether you call God “Christ”, “Krsta”, or “Krishna”, ultimately you are addressing the same Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Father Emmanuel: Yes, if we speak of God’s actual name, then we must say, “Christos”. In our religion we have the Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe we can know the name of God only by revelation from the son of God. Jesus Christ revealed the name of the Father, and therefore we take the name “Christ” as the revealed name of God.

Srila Prabhupada: Actually, it doesn’t matter — Krishna or Christ — the name is the same. The main point is to follow the injunctions of the Vedic scriptures that recommend chanting the name of God in this age. The easiest way is to chant the maha-mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. Rama and Krishna are names of God and Hare is the energy of God. So when we chant the maha-mantra we address God along with His energy. This energy is of two kinds, the spiritual and the material. At present we are in the clutches of the material energy. Therefore we pray to Krishna that He may kindly deliver us from the service of the material energy and accept us into the service of the spiritual energy. This is our whole philosophy. Hare Krishna means, “O energy of God, O God (Krishna), please engage me in Your service.” It is our nature to render service. Somehow or other we have come to the service of material things, but when this service is transformed into the service of the spiritual energy, then our life is perfect. To practice bhakti-yoga [loving service to God] means to become free from designations like Hindu, Muslim, Christian, this or that, and simply to serve God. We have created Christian, Hindu and Mohammedan religions, but when we come to a religion without designations, in which we don’t think we are Hindus or Christians or Mohammedans, then we can speak of pure religion, or bhakti.

Father Emmanuel: Mukti? [liberation from material miseries]

Srila Prabhupada: No, bhakti. When we speak of bhakti, mukti is included. Without bhakti, there is no mukti, but if we act on the platform of bhakti, then mukti is included. We learn this from the Bhagavad-gita (14.26):

mam ca yo ‘vyabhicarena
bhakti-yogena sevate
sa gunan samatityaitan
brahma-bhuyaya kalpate

“One who engages in full devotional service, who does not fall down under any circumstance, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.”

Father Emmanuel: Is Brahman Krishna?

Srila Prabhupada: Krishna is Parabrahman. Brahman is realised in three aspects: as impersonal Brahman, as localised Paramatma and as personal Brahman. Krishna is personal and He is the Supreme Brahman, for God is ultimately a person. In Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.2.11), this is confirmed:

vadanti tat tattva-vidas
tattvam yaj-jnanam advayam
brahmeti paramatmati
bhagavan iti sabdyate

“Learned transcendentalists, who know the Absolute Truth, call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan.” The feature of the Supreme Personality is the ultimate realisation of God. He has all six opulences in full: He is the strongest, the richest, the most beautiful, the most famous, the wisest and the most renounced.

Father Emmanuel: Yes, I agree.

Srila Prabhupada: Because God is absolute, His name, His form and His qualities are all absolute and they are nondifferent from Him. Therefore to chant God’s holy name means to associate directly with Him. When one associates with God one acquires Godly qualities and when one is completely purified he becomes an associate of the Supreme Lord.

Father Emmanuel: But our understanding of the name of God is limited.

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, we are limited, but God is unlimited. And because He is unlimited, or absolute, he has unlimited names, each if which is God. We can understand His names as much as our spiritual understanding is developed.

What is the difference between Krishna consciousness and Christianity?

Father Emmanuel: May I ask a question? We Christians also preach love of God, and we try to realise love of God and render service to Him with all our heart and all our soul. Now, what is the difference between your movement and ours? Why do you send your disciples to the Western countries to preach love of God when the gospel of Jesus Christ is propounding the same message?

Srila Prabhupada: The problem is that the Christians do not follow the commandments of God. Do you agree?

Father Emmanuel: Yes, to a large extent you’re right.

Srila Prabhupada: Then what is the meaning of the Christians’ love for God? If you do not follow the orders of God, then where is your love? Therefore we have come to teach what it means to love God. If you love Him you cannot be disobedient to His orders. And if you are disobedient your love is not real.

Srila Prabhupada: All over the world people don’t love God. They love their dogs. The Krishna consciousness movement is therefore necessary to teach people how to revive their forgotten love for God. Not only the Christians, but also the Hindus, the Mohammedans and all others are guilty. They have rubber-stamped themselves as Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan, but they do not obey God. This is the problem

Visitor: Can we say in what way the Christians are disobedient?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes. The first point is they violate the commandment “Thou shall not kill” by maintaining slaughterhouses. Do you agree that this commandment is being violated?

Father Emmanuel: Personally, I agree.

Srila Prabhupada: Good. So if the Christians want to love God, they must stop killing animals.

Father Emmanuel: But isn’t the most important point…

Srila Prabhupada: If you miss one point there is a mistake in your calculation. Regardless of what you add or subtract after that the mistake is already in the calculation and everything that follows will also be faulty. We cannot simply accept the part of the scripture we like and reject what we don’t like and still expect to get the result. For example, a hen lays eggs with it’s back part and eats with it’s beak. A farmer may consider, “The front part of the hen is very expensive because I have to feed it. Better to cut it off.” But if the head is missing there will be no eggs any more because the body is dead. Similarly, if we reject the difficult part of the scriptures and obey the part we like, such an interpretation will not help us. We have to accept all the injunctions of the scriptures as they are given , not just those that suit us. If you do not follow the first order, “Thou shall not kill,” then where is the question of love of God?

Visitor: Christians take this commandment to be applicable to human beings, not to animals.

Srila Prabhupada: That would mean Christ was not intelligent enough to use the right word: murder. There is killing, and there is murder, Murder refers to human beings. Do you think Jesus was not intelligent enough to use the right word. Killing means any kind of killing and especially animal killing. If Jesus had meant simply the killing of humans he would have used the word murder.
Mathew:5:21: Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Mark:10:19: Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.
Luke:18:20: Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
Romans:13:9: For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
James:2:11: For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

Father Emmanuel: But in the Old Testament the commandment “Thou shall not kill” does refer to murder. And when Jesus said, “Thou shall not kill,” he extended the commandment to mean a human being should not only refrain from killing another human being, but should also treat him with love. He never spoke about man’s relationship with other living entities but only about his relationship with other human beings. When he said, “thou shall not kill,” he also meant in the mental and emotional sense — that you should not insult anyone or hurt him, treat him badly and so on.

Srila Prabhupada: We are not concerned with this or that testament but only with the words used in the commandments. If you want to interpret these words, that is something else. We understand the direct meaning. “Thou shall not kill” means, “The Christians should not kill.” You may put forward interpretations in order to continue the present way of action but we understand very clearly there is no need for interpretation. Interpretation is necessary if things are not clear. “Thou shall not kill” is a clear instruction. Why should we interpret it?

Father Emmanuel: Isn’t the eating of plants also killing?

Srila Prabhupada: The Vaisnava philosophy teaches that we should not even kill plants unnecessarily. In the Bhagavad-gita (9.26) Krishna says:

patram puspam phalam toyam
yo me bhaktya prayacchati
tad aham bhakty-upahrtam
asnami prayatatmanah

“If someone offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or a little water, I will accept it.” We offer Krishna only the kind of food He demands, and then we eat the remnants. If offering vegetarian food to Krishna were sinful, then it would be Krishna’s sin, not ours. But God is apapa-vijna — sinful reactions are not applicable to Him. He is like the sun, which is so powerful that it can purify even urine — something impossible for us to do. Krishna is also like a king, who may order a murderer to be hanged, but who himself is not subject to punishment because he is very powerful. Eating food first offered to the Lord is also something like a soldier’s killing during wartime. In a war, when the commander orders a man to attack, the obedient soldier who kills the enemy will get a medal. But if the same soldier kills someone on his own he will be punished. Similarly when we eat only prasada [the remnants of food offered to Krishna], we do not commit any sin. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (3.13):

yajna-sistasinah santo
mucyante sarva-kilbisaih
bhunjate te tu agham papa
ye pacanty atma-karanat

“The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food that is first offered for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.”

Father Emmanuel: Krishna cannot give permission to eat animals?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes — in the animal kingdom. But the civilized human being, the religious human being is not meant to kill and eat animals. If you stop killing animals and chant the holy name Christ, everything will be perfect. I have not come to teach you, but only to request you to please chant the name of God. The Bible also demands this of you. So let’s kindly cooperate and chant, and if you have a prejudice about chanting the name Krishna then chant “Christos” or “Krsta” — there is no difference. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said: namnam akari bahu-dha nija-sarva-saktis. “God has millions and millions of names, and because there is no difference between God’s name and Himself, each one of these names has the same potency as God.” Therefore even if you accept designations like Hindu, Christian or Mohammedan, if you simply chant the name of God found in your own scriptures, you will attain the spiritual platform. Human life is meant for self-realisation — to learn how to love God. That is the actual beauty of man. Whether you discharge this duty as a Hindu, a Christian or a Mohammedan, it doesn’t matter — but do it?

Father Emmanuel: I agree.

Srila Prabhupada: [pointing to a string of 108 meditation beads] We always have these beads, just as you have your rosary. You are chanting, but why don’t the other Christians also chant? Why should they miss this opportunity as human beings? Cats and dogs cannot chant, but we can because we have a human tongue. If we chant the holy names of God, we cannot loose anything; on the contrary, we gain greatly. My disciples practice chanting Hare Krishna constantly. They could also go to the cinema, or do so many other things, but they have given everything up. They eat neither fish nor meat nor eggs, they don’t take intoxicants, they don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t partake in gambling, they don’t speculate and they don’t maintain illicit sexual connections. But they do chant the holy name of God. If you would like to cooperate with us then go to the other churches and chant, “Christ”, “Krishna” or “Krsta”. What could be the objection?

Instead of keeping the churches closed, why not give them to us?

Father Emmanuel: There is none. For my part I would be glad to join you.

Srila Prabhupada: No. We are speaking with you as a representative of the Christian church. Instead of keeping the churches closed why not give them to us? We would chant the holy name of God there twenty-four hours a day. In many places we have bought churches that were practically closed because no one was going there. In London I saw hundreds of churches that were closed or used for mundane purposes. We bought one such church in Los Angeles. It was sold because no one came there, but if you visit the same church today, you will see thousands of people. Any intelligent person can understand what God is in five minutes; it doesn’t require five hours.

Father Emmanuel: I understand.

Srila Prabhupada: But the people do not. Their disease is that they don’t want to understand.

Visitor: I think understanding God is not a question of intelligence but a question of humility.

Srila Prabhupada: Humility means intelligence. “The humble and meek own the kingdom of God.” This is stated in the Bible, is it not? But the philosophy of the rascals is that everyone is God and today this idea has become popular. Therefore no one is humble and meek. If everybody thinks he is God, why should he be humble and meek? Therefore I teach my disciples how to become humble and meek. They always offer their respectful obeisances in the temple and to the spiritual master, and in this way they make advancement. The qualities of humbleness and meekness lead very quickly to spiritual realisation. In the Vedic scriptures it is said, “To those who have firm faith in God and the spiritual master, who is His representative, the meaning of the Vedic scriptures is revealed.”

Father Emmanuel: But shouldn’t this humility be offered to everyone else also?

Srila Prabhupada: Yes, but there are two kinds of respect: special and ordinary. Sri Krishna Caitanya taught that we shouldn’t expect honour for ourselves, but should always respect everyone else, even if he is disrespectful to us. But special respect should be given to God and His pure devotee.

Father Emmanuel: Yes, I agree.

Srila Prabhupada: I think the Christian priests should cooperate with the Krishna consciousness movement. They should chant the name of Christ or Christos and should stop condoning the slaughter of animals. This program follows the teachings of the Bible; it is not my philosophy. Please act accordingly and you will see how the world situation will change.

Father Emmanuel: Thank you very much

Srila Prabhupada: Hare Krishna!