The following exchange between His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the mother of a new devotee, and a Jesuit priest took place in July 1973 at the Radha-Krsna temple in London.
Prabhupada, July 25, 1973, London: Just see. You can see from your son. They can sit down anywhere. They can lie down. There is no artificial living. They are satisfied with nice foodstuff made from vegetable and milk. And chanting Hare Krsna, holy name of God.
Mother: I see he’s happy. But, you know, he came from a very happy home. So he should be happy, shouldn’t he?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Very happy home. Brothers and sisters. And we’ve all been very happy. And I hope he will remain happy.
Prabhupada: He’s still happier.
Mother: Yes, I can see.
Prabhupada: He was happy; now he’s happier. That is the difference.
Mother: Yes. Oh, I don’t think he’s happier. (laughter) You are? I didn’t think it was possible.
Prabhupada: You are not happier.
Mother: I didn’t think it was possible.
Prabhupada: Because your son has come here, you may not be happier. But he happier.
Mother: Oh, you’re saying this. I’m not saying this. I’m very disappointed that he is not continuing with education. I’m not sorry that… I’m happy for his happiness, wherever he is.
Prabhupada: But what is the… What is the purpose of education?
Mother: You are a cultured man. You’re educated.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Did you not learn…? Who gave you the talent to translate your Vedic scriptures?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Who gave you the talent, father?
Prabhupada: No, I’m asking that what is the best part of education? So far my school, college education is concerned, that is not being used here.
Mother: Oh, but you’re cultured. You in your old age are getting tremendous comfort from being able to read and understand what the world is doing, the goodness of your books, and you have…, you’re able to understand the spiritual way of life.
Prabhupada: Yes. That…
Mother: If you couldn’t, if you hadn’t been educated, father, well, how would you be able to have…?
Prabhupada: No, education is required.
Mother: Now, I, I, I don’t… I am so happy that my son is happy, truthfully. But I am very distressed… And little boys, don’t laugh because this is serious. Um. I am very distressed that none of these boys continue their education. What is going to happen to them when they are like you, when they’re older, they have no talents?
Prabhupada: But your educational system, in the western countries, the, you have got big, big universities. Why the university students becoming hippies?
Mother: Oh, well, there’re always a certain amount becoming hippies, in America, anywhere. But we must…
Prabhupada: No…
Mother: But we must develop…
Prabhupada: I think the college students university students, they’re all hippies.
Mother: Yes, but we must develop the good ones that have talent. We must develop them. You have the power to give these boys…
Prabhupada: I mean to say that if the chance of education is there… In India there is no such big, big universities, facilities, but in your western countries you have got nice universities, nice teaching system. Why the result is hippie?
Mother: Oh, but you… We’re talking of you. You have got the power. But people follow you because they believe in you. So you have the power to educate them. And you’re not hippies, are you?
Prabhupada: My point is that this simple, this education for eating, sleeping, mating and defending, this sort of education will not satisfy.
Mother: Well, you’re educated, you see.
Prabhupada: No, I am educated.
Mother: Yes, but how many of these are?
Prabhupada: But I am not educated only on this platform, eating, sleeping and sex life and defense. I am educated in a different platform.
Mother: But you, aren’t you translating your books still?
Prabhupada: Yes, that’s all right.
Mother: Isn’t that a great joy, a great joy to you?
Prabhupada: That’s… For translating of books it does not require… Of course, it requires when the purport of the translation is given. Otherwise,… Real thing is culture. That education is culture. Simply money-making education for maintaining this body, that education will not satisfy any more. Just like I told you, that despite all arrangements of education, why the young men are turning to be hippies? That is my question.
Mother: Oh, but not your followers. Your followers are not being hippies, people who follow you. Therefore you’ve got the people who you could help to become cultured like you.
Prabhupada: So my father educated me in a different way. Therefore I have come to this stage. My father never allowed me even to drink tea.
Mother: Well, I’m disappointed in you. I came to see you because I felt that, being so cultured, you would want all your boys to have this culture and to have this, to have the best…
Revatinandana: We’ve got, we’ve got this culture.
Mother: Oh, but you haven’t, you see. You’re all, you’re all young boys…
Revatinandana: No, your culture, your culture we don’t have.
Mother: …but you’re not mature yet.
Revatinandana: But the culture that he has, he’s giving to us.
Mother: Yes, but you’re not mature. It takes years to become mature. Hurt, pain, happiness, everything together… You find God? Yes, I’ve found God. We all… I feel very close to God, and I feel very happy. But I would also still wish to be educated. And fortunately, I was given the chance to have an education.
Prabhupada: Education means to know God.
Mother: And I don’t misuse it.
Prabhupada: That is education. Our Vedic culture, the high class man is called brahmana.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: Brahmana, you know that.
Mother: Brahmana, yes.
Prabhupada: So who is a brahmana? Who knows God, he is called brahmana. Therefore culmination of education is to understand God. That is education. Otherwise, to get education how to nicely eat, how nicely sleep, how nicely have sex life, and how to defend, this education is there even in the animals. The animals also, they know how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sex life and how to defend.
Mother: Yes. It seems to worry you, this sex life. I mean, we, we don’t take…
Prabhupada: No, no, no. I’m not worried.
Mother: …any notice if… It fits into its place.
Prabhupada: This is also necessary. This is also necessary.
Mother: It fits into the place in my life or our life.
Prabhupada: No, no. This is also necessary.
Mother: Yes. It doesn’t worry us at all.
Prabhupada: But these four type of branches of education is not sufficient for human being. A human being, above all this education, must have the knowledge how to love God. And that is perfection of life.
Mother: Yeah, well, Michael was taught that when he was very small. The Jesuits saw to that.
Prabhupada: That is perfection.
Mother: The Jesuits certainly did.
Prabhupada: So to understand God or how to love God, there is religious system. In every civilized human society, it doesn’t matter whether it is Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or Buddhism, the aim, religious system is there in human society besides the education of eating, sleeping, mating and defending. That is there in the animal society. So a human being is distinct from the animal when he has education how to understand God and how to love Him. That is perfection.
Mother: Well, you’ve got a good tape there now, haven’t you?
Prabhupada: Hmm.
Mother: You’ve got a good tape there now. Yes.
Prabhupada: So that is now wanting. Our Krsna consciousness movement is not depriving people of their education. You get education how to eat, how to sleep, and that’s all right. But side by side, you take education how to know God and how to love Him. That is our proposition.
Mother: Yes. I agree with you.
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: Yes, I agree with you every time.
Prabhupada: We don’t say that you stop all this education. No.
Mother: No, I don’t agree with you there. No, father, no, no. No, no.
Prabhupada: We don’t say.
Mother: No, I think they must…
Prabhupada: You can go on with your industries. You can go on with your university. But side by side, you become competent to know what is God and how to love Him. Then your life is perfect.
Mother: I could mention a lot of names that (are) still very close to God and brilliant men in science… Where would we be without our scientists, without our doctors, medicine? They all have to go to university and get a degree before they…
Prabhupada: That I say. You get.
Mother: Yes, but we need them.
Prabhupada: You get.
Mother: Yes, well, the some of your boys could be doctors.
Prabhupada: But simply to becoming doctor at a medical science will not save me. Unfortunately, they do not believe in the next life.
Mother: Oh, yes they do. I go to… I had a doctor who came to church—and Michael knows him—every Sunday, a very good man.
Prabhupada: Mostly. I have spoken with many educated persons. In Moscow I was talking with Professor Kotofsky. He said, “Swamiji, after finishing this body, everything is finished.” But he’s a big professor. Generally, even they do believe next life, they do not believe it very seriously. If we actually believe there is next life, then we must be prepared: “What kind of next life I am going to have?”
Mother: Yes, well, father…
Prabhupada: Because there are eight million, four hundred thousand forms of life. The trees are also life, the cats and dogs, they are also life. And there are higher, intelligent persons in the higher planetary systems. They are also life. The worm in the stool, that is also life. So, calculating all of them, there are 8,400,000 species of life. So if I am going to have next life… Tatha dehantara-praptih. We have to change this body to another body. So our concern should be “What kind of body I am going to get next?”
Mother: I agree for some people to, you especially, to think of this because you are a leader of your Vedic religion. But for everybody to do that, where would we be? We couldn’t all sit down and think all the time.
Prabhupada: But where is that education?
Mother: But we… You can also work and think.
Prabhupada: No, I mean to say, where is that education in the university to prepare the student for the next life?
Mother: Oh, but he must fit it in.
Jesuit Priest: All the Catholic Universities all over the world are doing it. That’s our main purpose, is to teach the young man and the young girl the success in this world, but above all,…
Prabhupada: Then the next question…
Jesuit Priest: …is the success in the next, which means union with God for eternity. That’s top priority. And following Christ’s words, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,” then all the other things are of very minor importance. It’s closeness to God and return to be one with the Beatific Vision in heaven. That’s the top priority, that’s our aim in education, and that’s what Michael was taught when he was at Sunnyhurst. And that he does well and gets a degree, yes, very good thing. He could be a doctor or an architect or a leader in commerce, what have you, of which all of which are essential for the well-being of the world. This time last year I was dead. I was picked up as unconscious in the corridor, and the doctors said that I had experienced… I was as near death as makes no difference. Well, if it hadn’t been for the skill of the man that…
Prabhupada: So…
Jesuit Priest: …looked after me, I wouldn’t be here this afternoon.
Prabhupada: So next life, how it will be ascertained? What kind of body I am going to next life?
Jesuit Priest: I don’t think it matters very much. I couldn’t care less what’s happening after I’m dead. All I know, there’s not annihilation. I’m going to be joined with almighty God.
Prabhupada: No, it cannot be blind.
Mother: We’re going to almighty God. That’s all.
Jesuit Priest: Not that I want another life.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Mother: We’re going to almighty God when we die. We don’t have to worry.
Jesuit Priest: That’s in his hands.
Prabhupada: So what is the qualification?
Mother: We know. We…
Prabhupada: Everybody is going to God?
Mother: Yes. Everybody who believes in God. Yes. And leads a good life, does their best in this world, and that is truth for me.
Prabhupada: Then the question comes: What is the good life?
Jesuit Priest: Obeying the commandments of God.
Prabhupada: Yes. So if the commandment is “Thou shalt not kill,” if somebody kills, so that is good life?
Jesuit Priest: No, no, no. Father, you’re being a bit unfair. It isn’t… Interpretation, “Thou shalt not kill,” thou shalt not unjustly take away life. If a man walks in this afternoon through those bushes with a revolver, I have every right… I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but I have every right to defend myself against that unjust aggressor. And if I kill him…
Prabhupada: Yes, you can, you can protect yourself…
Jesuit Priest: …that is justified.
Mother: Yes.
Prabhupada: …from the aggressor, but when you kill innocent animal, what is the reason?
Jesuit Priest: Oh, well then… Yes. Well, again, that’s got to be interpreted. We wouldn’t be able to… What foo… How would we live on food? How do we live if we don’t eat?
Prabhupada: How we are living?
Jesuit Priest: Pardon?
Prabhupada: How we are living?
Jesuit Priest: Well, I don’t know…
Prabhupada: We don’t kill animals.
Jesuit Priest: I don’t know what your food is, but…
Mother: No, but you have a vegetarian diet…
Prabhupada: Yes.
Mother: …which is…
Jesuit Priest: Well, all right.
Mother: A lot of people have that.
Prabhupada: But that is not killing.
Jesuit Priest: No, but… By, fa…, er, look at it this way. You’ve just said a few minutes ago there are eight million different kinds of life. Would you agree that the potato, the cabbage…
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: …and what have you also has a life?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Because there’s vegetative life, there’s sensitive life, there’s rational life…
Prabhupada: That’s all right.
Jesuit Priest: :…there’s supernatural life, and there’s a life of God.
Prabhupada: Yes
Jesuit Priest: All right. And therefore—I’m not being facetious—when you boil those potatoes, you are taking away the life of that potato.
Prabhupada: So what is your philosophy? That you can take any life?
Jesuit Priest: But you said, “Thou shall not kill.”
Prabhupada: No, no. Yes. “Thou shall not kill.” That’s all right.
Jesuit Priest: But you kill the potato.
Prabhupada: Now, suppose there is potato and there is your child. So would you like to kill your child in preference of potato?
Mother: No, no.
Jesuit Priest: You’ve not answered my question.
Prabhupada: Why this discrimination?
Jesuit Priest: Why you’ve not answered my question?
Prabhupada: Yes, I am answering you, that you are to kill, but you have to discriminate what kind of killing you shall do.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I’ve just said that. I gave the example of the chap who comes to you with a revolver. I can maybe protect myself. You said… You’re implying…
Prabhupada: No, no. When somebody comes with a revolver, you defend. That is another thing. But if somebody’s innocent, why you should kill?
Jesuit Priest: And I say I shouldn’t. God said, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Prabhupada: Then why you are killing animals?
Jesuit Priest: Well, you’re doing it when you eat your potatoes.
Prabhupada: No, the potato is not animal.
Jesuit Priest: It’s a vegetable, life.
Prabhupada: No.
Jesuit Priest: It starts with a little tiny seed. That’s life.
Prabhupada: No, no, no.
Jesuit Priest: It grows.
Prabhupada: Potato is not animal. It is fruit.
Jesuit Priest: Is that tree alive?
Prabhupada: It is a fruit.
Jesuit Priest: Is that tree alive?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Has it got life?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: Are you doing anything wrong when you cut it down…?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: …to provide…?
Prabhupada: Yes.
Jesuit Priest: …to provide…?
Prabhupada: Yes. Yes, yes.
Jesuit Priest: You are doing something wrong?
Prabhupada: We don’t cut down trees unnecessarily. Unnecessarily.
Jesuit Priest: No, but, but, uh, but, uh, but, uh… I don’t kill…
Prabhupada: No. But the… I have asked this question to so many people, that “Why you are killing although it is prohibited, ‘Thou shall not kill.’?” They cannot give me any satisfactory answer.
Jesuit Priest: Well, I think I’ve given you one. I’m just thinking in a way…
Prabhupada: Innocent animal killing and taking a potato from the tree, you are making equalized. It is not very…
Jesuit Priest: Oh, no, I’m not (indistinct) and saying. All I’m saying is if you’re logical and accept different…
Prabhupada: This is logical. Now…
Jesuit Priest: …kinds of life.
Prabhupada: I have to live. We agree that we have to live by eating another living entity. Jivo jivasya jivanam. But if I eat this grass, taken some grass, and if I eat some animal, do you think they are equal?
Jesuit Priest: Yes.
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