I don't see that there's any difference between the followers of Krishna, the followers of Christ, the followers of Mohammed. The only thing I see is that people DON'T follow. They will just talk, and they will not follow.

For the love of God...

False designations and rubber stamps the problem, not God's name

GUEST: Today I read for the first time a book from the Vedas. It's a book of duty. Now, being a Christian, I interpreted it as duty to Lord Jesus or duty to Krishna. Then again, I'm not learned even in the Bible.

HANSADUTTA: That's the problem. People profess to be Christian, but they actually don't know what a Christian is. If one is a Christian, his duty is to follow the orders of Christ, right? That's what Christian means. One who follows Christ. So, Christ has given so many commandments or orders, but nobody follows them. That's the problem. If they would follow them, then they would be perfect. Then they would be Christians. But in fact, they only rubber-stamp themselves as Christians, and they feel some unity in the designation. But a real Christian means on principle. "Faith without works is dead." So unless one actually works on the basis of his faith or his allegiance to Christ, then it's meaningless. Just like someone says that he's an American, but he's robbing a bank. So you may be an American, but not a good one.

In the same way, a Christian means he follows all the orders of Christ. And the first order is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul." That's the first one. One has to love God. And the second is "Love thy neighbor as thyself." So who is doing that? When one man came to Christ, he said, "I have done everything. I have studied, I have performed penance, sacrifices, everything. What do I have to do to become perfect?" Christ said, "Go sell everything that you have and follow me." But he couldn't do it.

So Christian means one who has no other responsibility in his life, save and except to carry out the orders of Christ. And Christ's order is to preach the message of God as he did. And the Christians should also do it, but they're not doing it. When Christ met the fishermen, he said to them, "Now come with me. You will be fishers of men." And they said, "But how will we eat? Where will we sleep?" That was the first question, right? They said, "Well, if we stop fishing, which is our livelihood, how will we eat, and where will we sleep?" They were worried. So Christ said, "You see the birds in the sky? They sow not, neither do they reap into barns. Yet your heavenly Father provides for them. Are you not much better than they?"

Christ's mission was to deliver the sinful people by preaching the message of God. And for anyone who is delivered, his business is to follow Christ by doing the same thing. That is what a real Christian is. Just like with Paul. In the beginning he was persecuting the Christians, but then he was converted. Then he preached all over the Mediterranean countries. He became a pillar of the Church. Christ's apostles are the real Christians. And they in turn went and converted others, who in turn went and converted others.

But where are those Christians now? Even the priest is smoking, drinking, he wants to have girlfriend or a wife. No one is dedicated to Christ. It is only in name. They have taken it as a profession. It's a nice profession for a gentleman. He becomes a Christian priest, he gets a rectory or some nice place, and he gets a salary and paid vacation. He's just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry. There is no difference. Where is the sacrifice? What's he sacrificing? The sacrifice one has to make in order to achieve divine life or spiritual life is that he has to give up material life. What is material life? Material life means intoxication, illicit sex, gambling and meat eating or animal killing. But no one wants to give up these things, while at the same time they want to be recognized as priests or holy men or something.

But no one will buy it. Therefore you find young people don't go to any church. They don't have any serious understanding or any serious respect for the present Christian community. A few extraordinary persons only — perhaps yourself and your brother — are very sincere people, but are unfortunately misled by something mediocre, not genuine. Genuine Christian followers are very, very rare, because Christ, like any other representative of God or prophet, demanded strict obedience to the principles, which people are not following. Even in Christ's own time nobody followed. They killed him. They put him on the cross. This is the problem.

Otherwise it doesn't matter if you are a follower of Christ, Mohammed, Krishna or Chaitanya. Just like it doesn't matter if you go to New York University, Berkeley University or London University. The subjects are the same. The conclusions are the same. The place may be different, the language may be different, the teachers may be different, but the science is the same. Two plus two equals four anywhere. So religion is not different in the Bible or in the Bhagavad-gita or in the Koran. Religion is one thing: the orders given by God. And God is one. Therefore religion is one. By our own interpretations and manufacturing our own ideas, we have created so many different sects and communities. But in fact religion is one thing.

And what is that? Service to God. Everyone is God's servant. And that is the meaning of religion. As soon as we agree to serve Him without any reservation, then we are actually religious. And then we become indifferent to being Christian, Mohammedan, Hindu or American or German or black or white. We become free from material designations. So the duty of a Christian, the duty of every living creature, is to serve God. That's his duty.

The first thing Christ said was "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul." What does love mean? Suppose this boy loves you. That means anything you want he'll do it, because he loves you. That is what love means. You don't expect anything; you simply give. That is real love. Just like with Christ. For love of Krishna, love of God, and therefore love of everyone, because everyone is part and parcel of God, he gave up his life. He didn't mind, because he loved God more than he loved anything, even more than his own life. Sometimes in the material world there is a reflection of that kind of love in the love the mother has for her child. She'll do anything for the child. Sometimes she gives up her own life for the child. She doesn't expect anything. That is love. So spiritual love is like that. He loves God, and because he loves God, he loves everything. He has no enemy, he has no friend.

And how does he show that love? How does he exhibit his love of God? By carrying out God's order, by carrying out the desires of the Lord. What are the desires of the Lord? That everyone should be freed from suffering, everyone should be enlightened and become God conscious, Krishna conscious. Therefore we always find great saints or rishis, sages, their only interest is how to make people understand about God, nothing else. They have no other interest. Why was Jesus so great? He was not a rich man. He was not a political leader. He didn't write any books. He was a lover of God, that's all. And he was always talking of God, preaching, even to the last moment. Similarly, all the great saints, like St. Francis, St. Paul and Saint Peter. They had one common characteristic: they were all lovers of God, that's all. One of them might have been a carpenter. Paul was an advocate, a judge. Some of them were fishermen. Their material qualifications were not taken into account. Nobody says "Lord Jesus, the Carpenter". We don't care whether he was a carpenter or a king. David was just a shepherd, a low-class man. Shepherds were considered to be low-class men, because they worked with animals. But he is a great saint. Why? Because he was a devotee of God, and he exhibited this love of God by killing the giant Goliath. And a devotee can kill sometimes. Just like David killed Goliath, or Joshua killed. In this way, a devotee is one whose only duty is to God.

And as soon as we become engaged in our real duty to love God, to serve God, then all other duties in this material world are automatically fulfilled. Just like by putting water on the root of a tree every leaf, fruit, flower and branch also gets water. But if you put one drop of water on this leaf, another drop there, it has no value. The material welfare workers sometimes criticize us: "What are these people doing? They're just chanting Hare Krishna, praying. What is the use of it? Reading books, singing, dancing. Why don't they go to work? Why don't they give people some clothing or food or shelter or education?" They say like that. But actually, material welfare work doesn't change the problem. It doesn't help the suffering living entity, because it doesn't enlighten him about his identity and his eternal relationship with God, which is the cause of his suffering.

The cause of suffering is that we have forgotten God. We have to again come to our original consciousness, God consciousness, Krishna consciousness, and then all problems will be solved automatically. As soon as you are God's surrendered soul, God takes care of you. As long as you remain rebellious, defiant, adverse to the service of God, why should God take care of you? Just like with your own father. As long as you are obedient, he takes care of you, but as soon as you say, "I don't care for you, I'm going to do what I like," then you have to go out and work. But as long as you are obedient, your father takes care. So the Supreme Father, Krishna, God, is also taking care of everyone. But if we rebel against Him, why should He take care of us? "All right, go to work, struggle for your existence." So all problems — either material or spiritual — are solved by one thing, by reviving our original God consciousness.

Therefore your duty is first of all to become Krishna conscious, God conscious, and then teach others. Then all your duties will be perfectly satisfied. For this you can give up everything. For serving God, you can give up all other service and not be considered negligent. Just like Jesus said, "Come follow me." They asked, "Where will we eat? How will we sleep?" He said, "Never mind. God will provide everything." And Bhagavad-gita also says, "For those who are engaged in My transcendental loving service, I provide what they need, and I protect what they have."

So everyone has to serve someone. You're serving your professor in the school or your father at home or your boss in the office. Everyone is engaged in someone else's service. And according to the master you're serving, you get your reward. God is the supreme master of everything and everyone. If we become His servant, then why should we think that He will not take care of us? If you become a government servant, the government takes care of you, right? And if you become the servant of a rich man, he takes care of you. If you become the servant of your professor, then he takes care of you. You get good marks. If you become Krishna's servant, He takes care of you, and you go back home, back to Krishna.

Everyone's duty is to serve God, because God is the Father of all living beings. The Bible, the Koran, Bhagavad-gita, every scripture will say that God is the supreme Father and all others are His sons or His servants. As such, the son's duty or the servant's duty is to satisfy the master.

But if we just rubber-stamp ourselves: "I am Christian" or "I am a Jew" or "I am this, I am that" and do nothing, then what is the use of it? It has no meaning. All these devotees here are Christians. I am also a Christian. I was going to church every day, communion every weekend. I also know the Bible, and even today sometimes I read the Bible. I don't see that there's any difference between the followers of Krishna, the followers of Christ, the followers of Mohammed. The only thing I see is that people DON'T follow. They will just talk, and they will not follow. They grow long hair and beards and wear dirty clothes, talk something about Jesus. This is nonsense. And those who are in the church are also nonsense. They smoke, they drink, they do all nonsense. Why should they? Christ was not smoking, he was not a drinker. But they're doing that. Christ had no girlfriend, no wife. A preacher must be free from all sinful activities. Then he can preach. He must be perfect in his character, his behavior and his knowledge. Then he can preach. But if he's imperfect... if I'm smoking, and I tell you, "Don't smoke, it's not good," what is the use of it? Right? So this is the problem. People don't follow.

The Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill," but everywhere they kill the animals in the slaughterhouse and eat. But this is sinful. The Bible says, the Bhagavad-gita says, the Koran says. Even Lord Buddha, who never even talked about God, also said that ahimsa, nonviolence, is the first principle of spiritual life. "Whatever you do unto the least of My creatures, you do it unto Me." Whatever is created, whatever we see here has been created by God, so no one has any business killing anything or anyone because you can't create anything. You can't create an animal. You can't even create a mosquito, so you shouldn't kill even a mosquito. That is spiritual life. Spiritual life means nonviolence, ahimsa. Animals especially should not be killed. This is from the Bible. There are so many verses. Sometimes I write them down. "It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood." And "Ye shall eat no fat nor ox nor sheep nor goat, and the fat of that which died of itself and the fat of that which is torn of a beast may be used for any other service, but ye shall in no way eat of it." "For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast of which men offer, an offering made by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from its people, and ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be a fowl or a beast in any of your dwellings." In the very beginning: "And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb-yielding seed and fruit and fruit tree yielding fruit after this kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.' And it was so, and the earth brought forth grass and herb-yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat, and to every beast of the earth and every fowl of the air and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat.'" There are so many references. "He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man. He that sacrifices a lamb as he that breaketh a dog's neck. He that offereth an oblation as he that offereth swine's blood. Yea, they have chosen their own ways and their soul delighted in their abominations."

GUEST: I remember reading, though, that Lord Jesus himself ate fish and drank wine and called it his own blood.

HANSADUTTA: Well, anyone who is a linguist and a historian will tell you that the wine referred to in the Bible was not the kind of wine you buy in a nightclub or in a bar, but it was just grape juice and water mixed. And as far as Lord Jesus eating fish, those were not ordinary fish that you buy in the fish market. With seven fish or two fish and seven loaves of bread or whatever, he fed 12,000 people, or at least thousands, and so many baskets were left over. These are not ordinary things. Just like Jesus walked on water. But you can't do that. So Jesus could do so many things. We should follow his instructions, but not imitate his activities. It may be that in that part of the world at that time there was not anything else to eat. It was a desert. So they might have eaten fish. But we are not in that situation. We have so many fruits, vegetables, grains, milk, sugar, nuts.... If it's a matter of survival, you can eat anything, but when there's a plentiful situation, then you have to follow the order of the scripture. Even in civil law, if it's a matter of saving someone from danger, we may do something illegal. We may break the speed limit, or we may drive down a one-way street. We may break into another man's home to wake him up or get something to put out a fire. That's an emergency. But under normal circumstances, we have to accept the scriptural injunctions.

From the Bible we learn that Adam and Eve were living in harmony with the animals in paradise. Right? There were lions, tigers. Everything was there, but there was no envy. There was no dissension. They lived in harmony. And when Adam and Eve were cast out, it was a different situation. So if we want to return to that spiritual life, original life, we have to give up this enmity with the animals. We have to stop killing the animals.

They are also creatures of God. Less intelligent, but enjoying life by the grace of God in their own way. They eat, they sleep, they defend themselves and they also have sex and produce offspring, so they have a right to live. No one has a right to kill them. In the beginning of Genesis it says, "I have given you dominion over all the fish, birds and beasts, every creeping thing that moves on the face of the earth." Sometimes so-called Christians quote this, inferring that God has given us everything. But the word dominion, to dominate, means for example that the king has dominion over his subjects, but it doesn't mean that he can kill them and eat them. It doesn't mean that he is supposed to exploit them. The king, being stronger, is supposed to protect the citizens who are weaker. So the human beings, being more intelligent and developed in consciousness, are supposed to protect the less intelligent animals, not kill and eat them. That's not correct. The animals have a right to live. Every living creature is born by the grace of God. So we shouldn't interfere in their lives. Let them live, and they will die in due course.

GUEST: There's an organization that's very concerned about people killing the whales and baby seals —

HANSADUTTA: But they're killing cows and eating them, so —

GUEST 2: But isn't it worse that the cow is raised specifically for the purpose of being murdered? Doesn't that make it more heinous?

HANSADUTTA: More heinous or less heinous... killing is killing. Suppose I kill your small brother or I kill your father. What's the difference? Will you think, "Oh, this is better, kill him"? No. Killing is killing. So we shouldn't kill. "Thou shalt not kill." The Bible says this, so how will they defend themselves? It says, "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery" and so on. What do you think?

GUEST: Well, I'm here, that's all.

HANSADUTTA: This is the duty of the human being: to understand God, the laws of God and to abide by them. That's his duty. He has no other duty. When he does this, then he's perfect. Then all duties are automatically fulfilled, because the highest authority is God. "Thou shalt not have other gods before me." So God is the supreme. The President may be "god" in America, but that's it. That's all. That's his jurisdiction. But God is the supreme master of all living creatures, and His law supersedes everyone's law. And responsibility to Him is above responsibility to every other thing. God is not so cheap. We have created so many false gods, mundane gods, worshiping them — pop stars, movie stars, scientists, philosophers, political leaders. But the real leader is Krishna. Material life means just serving some other god. So when we become frustrated in the service of all these mundane gods and surrender to Krishna, then spiritual life begins. Spiritual life begins with surrender, and surrender means service. Just as when soldiers surrender in the war, the first thing they do is put them to work. So surrender to Krishna means you have to work on behalf of Krishna.

Now we are working on our own behalf. Everyone has some plan to enjoy material life, and he's working to fulfill his plans, his desires. When he gives up his plans and surrenders to Krishna and works to satisfy or fulfill Krishna's plans, that is spiritual life. Then he's liberated. Until that time, he is considered to be in bondage. Bondage means that he is working for this material body. Everyone is working to maintain this material body by eating, sleeping, defending and sex. That's called bondage. Why? Because I am not this body. The body is a lump of matter, full of all kinds of suffering like birth, death, old age and disease. So I'm working for this body, which is only giving me pain. Thats bondage. And liberation means that I'm not going to work for the body day and night only to be destroyed after ten or twenty years. I will work for the body only as much as it is absolutely necessary, and in the time I save, I'm going to work for Krishna. That is spiritual life. Therefore you find that devotees don't smoke, drink and don't wear fancy clothing. Why? Because it's not necessary. Why should I work for cigarettes and beer and fancy clothing? If I'm not this body, why should I work for these things? I won't die if I stop smoking. I won't die if I stop drinking. To cover my body I can wear this dhoti. It costs only a few dollars. LIke that. This is spiritual life, a simple life. And material life means very complicated. We have to have so much paraphernalia to impress our friends and relatives and the opposite sex. Everything is done just to attract attention to ourselves. That is material life.

So spiritual life means to get free, enlightenment, freedom from bondage, to get relief from all this unnecessary labor, which cannot actually make us happy or solve the problems of material life — old age, disease and death. These are inevitable for everyone, but our fancy clothing, bank balance, our friends, countrymen, and our position all cannot stop birth, death, old age and disease. Only by becoming Krishna conscious can we get out of this difficult situation. And this is the aim of life: to be liberated from the cycle of birth and death. Unless we aim for that, we are no better than animals. If we are not working for liberation from material existence, then there is no difference between our life and the life of the animals. After all, the animals eat, sleep and have sex also. I may eat on this table or in a restaurant, and sleep in a comfortable bed, or I may have sex with a beautiful woman, whereas dogs eat in the street, sleep in the street and have sex in the street, but it's the same activity. Just the quality may be different. The real purpose of human life is not to improve our eating, sleeping and sex. The real purpose is to get out of material existence altogether.

Material existence is full of miseries. Now, of course, you are young, and it's summer time. Everything is very pleasing. But it is very short-lived. Soon you will become old, you'll get wrinkles, become fat, your teeth will fall out, and so many things. Life will become bitter, without happiness. Therefore all Vedic literatures teach us not to be attached to material enjoyment, which is not permanent. It is temporary. It won't last for more than a few years. It's attachment that is the source of all our suffering. We become attached to something, and then when we lose it we are frustrated and lament. And the greatest attachment of all is our attachment to this material body. Everyone is attached mostly to his body, identifying with it as himself — "My hair, my eyes, my teeth, my ears, my hips, my breasts, my feet, my everything. My shirt, my shoes, my pants, my car, my wife, my kids, my house, my country." In this way attachment expands from the original attachment to this body. But this body is only flesh and blood, a lump of matter. And as soon as the soul is out of this body, nobody cares for it. Just like you are very beautiful, but as soon as the soul is not in the body, nobody will care for your body. They'll take it out, throw it in a deep hole. In some places the body is left for animals to devour. In some places they burn it.

The body is not the self. The body is only a dress for the eternal soul. Bhagavad-gita says, "As a man gives up an old and useless dress and gets a new dress, the soul gives up an old and useless body and accepts a new body." There is no death, in fact, because the soul is eternal. It is not born, and it does not die. Krishna says, "Once having been, it never ceases to be. That which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one can kill the imperishable soul." When the body is destroyed, the soul is not destroyed. The soul continues to exist in another body.

That is explained: "Wherever and whatever your mind is fixed upon at the time of leaving this body, immediately one attains to that nature." So whatever you do in this life, that will determine your next life in your next body, because your consciousness will be fixed in a certain way. The consciousness determines what kind of body you'll get. We can know the desire of a person by seeing his or her body, because the body is the manifestation of our mental desires. The mind is full of desires, and the body takes shape according to the desires of the mind. Just like a house takes shape according to the mental concept of an architect. He has some vision, and then gives it shape. So similarly, this body is a house for the soul. It takes shape according to your desire. And then you have to live in it and suffer and enjoy according to those desires. Just like we say, "You've made your bed, now you have to sleep in it."

So the body is like that. It is created by your actions, and once you're in the body, you're stuck, trapped. You're in your body, and you can't change it — "Oh, I would rather be a man" or "I would rather be a woman" or "If only I were not black". No, it's too late. Now you have it, and you have to suffer. And when this body is finished, when it becomes worn out with old age and disease, and the soul can no longer use it — when the stomach is not working, the eyes are not working, the ears are not working, and the soul cannot use this material body to enjoy material life, then the soul gives up this body. That is called death. But the soul enters into the womb of another woman and begins the next body. And during that time, say for nine months, you forget everything. It's like sleeping. And you come out and again you begin the process of material activity — eating, sleeping, you grow up, become old, diseased and again die. This is repeated again and again and again, until you become perfectly enlightened or Krishna conscious, until you realize your eternal relationship with God.

Now you have a relationship with this boy, with your brother, your father, your mother, your friend, your professor. But these relationships are material. They're not permanent. They're temporary, and will vanish. At one time your brother did not exist in your life, neither did your professor. So in the future also they'll vanish from your life. Just like in a dream. You're unaware of anything before or after the dream. While you're dreaming you're conscious only of the dream's experience. But that experience is illusion. It doesn't exist, except fleetingly. So the body and everything we see around us, even the universe, exists only temporarily, and it will vanish. It will be destroyed. But the soul is not destroyed. That is permanent. And that's what we are: eternal, spirit soul. And our business in this life is to understand this one thing. As soon as you understand this, you'll become free from all kinds of lamentation and desire. Then you'll become happy. It's simple. What do you think?

GUEST: It's hardly simple.

HANSADUTTA: We should use our brain to understand God. That's what our brain is for. God has given us a brain and intelligence. He has given us developed consciousness and instructions through the scriptures. And He has sent His representatives just so we can understand Him and be happy. But this is a godless civilization. Everyone wants to kick out God and just eat, drink and be merry. This is material life. "God? God is dead. Who cares about God?" Or "I am God. You are God. We are all God." People say like that. But in fact we are servants. Everyone is God's servant, and when you live like that, then you are actually a Christian or Mohammedan, or whatever. Then you're actually religious.