Prabhupada: Yes. If they are actually following strictly the principles of Jesus Christ, then sometimes when he meets some pure devotee, he will accept. The groundwork will be nice for accepting farther advancement. Just like Jesus Christ says, “Thou shall not kill.” So if anyone follows this principle — “No, I shall not kill” — then he becomes purified.
But who is that Christian who is not killing? So where is follow? Amongst the Christians, the more killing process is going on very strongly. So who is a Christian? In that, if you disobey the first principle of Christianity, then where is your Christianity? Why you falsely claim that you are a Christian? “Thou shall not covet.” What is that next?
Devotee: “Thou shalt not kill.” [break]
Devotee: “Honor thy mother and father?”
Devotee: There is one about no adulteration.
Prabhupada: Yes. So adulteration is going on, killing is going on. So many disobedience to Christian principles. So where is the possibility of becoming a Christian?
Gurudas: “Honor thy mother and father” is not being respected.
Prabhupada: Huh?
Gurudas: “Honor thy mother and father” is not being respected.
Prabhupada: Not… So many things. So, if you do not follow the principles of Christianity, simply by stamping yourself as Christian, will that do? So why Jesus Christ will be responsible for you, simply by stamping yourself that “I am Christian”? Is that very reasonable proposal?
Nara-Narayana: Lord Jesus himself never claimed that he would be responsible. As a matter of fact, he would heal certain persons who by their karma were blind, or lame, some disease, even dead, he would bring them back to life, so many things. And then when he healed them, he invariably said after, he said, “Now go thou and sin no more, lest the worst thing befall you.” And he has been saved by Jesus personally, yet Jesus is saying, “lest the worst thing befall you.” How worst thing befall you if everything he does then is all right? So that means Jesus does not take that responsibility.
Prabhupada: Yes. Why he should be responsible? If you are not a Christian, why he should be responsible? Now here he says that “Now you have sinned, full reaction I have washed, don’t do it again.”
Nara-Narayana: Yeah.
Prabhupada: But they are going to the church, confessing every week, and doing the same thing. Who is a Christian, first of all find out; then Jesus Christ will take responsibility.
Devotee: They are gambling and eating flesh right in the churches, Srila Prabhupada.
Prabhupada: That’s all right. I mean to say, if you don’t follow the Christian principles, how you can claim yourself to become a Christian and how you can ask Jesus Christ to take responsibility for you? These are misleading; therefore people are coming disgusted. Otherwise, Christian religion is all right. It teaches love of Godhead, teaches to become moral, it teaches to love people. That’s nice. These are good principles.
Visala: So, Srila Prabhupada, in the Bible it says, “Thou shalt not kill”, and the Christians say, “Yes, thou shalt not kill, but you can kill animals.” [indistinct]
Prabhupada: That is rascaldom. Where it is written that “Thou shall not kill animals”? “Thou shall not kill.” “Thou shall not kill” means you shall not kill anything. [break]
Devotee: …because Jesus ate fish. [laughter]
Prabhupada: What is that?
Devotee: He said, “The fish can say, ‘It’s not what goes in your mouth, its what comes out of your mouth that’s important.’ “
Gurudas: Because Jesus ate fish.
Prabhupada: Jesus said?
Gurudas: He said that the… [break]
Prabhupada: [indistinct] allowed.
Gurudas: But if there’s no vegetables, you have to eat something.
Syamasundara: I read an article once that said…
Prabhupada: No, no. The thing is that one has to eat. And whatever you eat, that is coming out of some living entity, even if you eat vegetables. The vegetable has also life, the tree, the plant. So the real explanation is that you take which is offered to Krsna. That is nice philosophy. Killing you have to do. Either you kill vegetable or animal, killing you have to do. Therefore our proposition is that you take the prasadam of Krsna, so if killing is bad, then the responsibility goes to Krsna. We take Krsna’s prasadam.
So this is the method. And Bhagavad-gita says, yajna-sistasinah mucyante sarva kilbisaih. Suppose you don’t kill animal, but you kill vegetables, but still you are responsible. Bhunjate te agham papa ye pacanty atma-karanat [Bg 3.13].
[The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.]
Anyone who is preparing food for his personal eating, he’s eating all sinful activities. It may be vegetables or animals, it doesn’t matter. Bhunjate te agham papa.
So this is the best formula. But therefore, for crude people, those who are accustomed to killing, for them this is best advice: “Thou shall not kill”. Next stage — prasadam. First of all let them stop. Generally, what is meant by killing… Actually, vegetarians, they do not kill, because if you take fruit from the tree, the tree is not killed. Is it not?
Devotee: Yes.
Prabhupada: You take grains, just like paddy or wheat. These plants, after producing the fruit, the grain, automatically they die. You are not killing. So those who are taking fruits, vegetable, grains, they are not actually killing. You take the milk… What is milk? Milk is transformation of the blood. So cow’s milk means cow’s blood, but still the cow is not killed. Cow’s blood is nutritious, accepting this theory. Karnish[?], karnish it is called? Cow’s blood? What is the meaning of karnish[?]? But by nature’s way she is delivering you the blood, which is nutritious according to your science — but why you should kill her?
So any circumstances, the direct killing is not approved by any sastra, any religion. Jiva himsa. Caitanya Mahaprabhu also says, nisiddhacara jiva-himsa [Cc Madhya 19.159]. So jiva himsa, violence upon other animals, that is against Vaisnava principle. You cannot be violent. You cannot kill.
Lady devotee (2): “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments, which is much older than Jesus’ teachings. Moses delivered the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel thousands of years before Jesus appeared. So they knew all of this before Jesus.
Prabhupada: Huh?
Lady devotee (2): They lived by the Ten Commandments, or were expected to, way before Jesus appeared. The Ten Commandments are Moses’…, it’s Moses’ teachings.
Nara-Narayana: They were all very much meat-eaters, though. In the time of Moses all the laws of kashruth, how to sanitary slaughter, which is supposedly given by God, these were all for meat-eating.
Gurudas: That came after the Book of Mishnah [a Talmudic book, considered to be the cornerstone of Judaism]. Mishnah recommends vegetarian.
Nara-Narayana: Really?
Gurudas: And also Lord Jesus says that if there is unnecessary killing of animal, that “By my hand you shall be slain.” In Genesis. He is stating, “Yes, one may kill, but if there is unnecessary killing, by my hand you shall be slain.” In Genesis.
Lady devotee (1): Also, in Genesis is says that “The fruits and the herbs of the land shall be your meat.” It’s describing how man should live, and it says, “The fruits and herbs of the land shall be your meat.”
Prabhupada: Yes, they were meat-eaters, so Jesus Christ replies that fruit should be your meat.
Devotee: The whole key is that [indistinct] Jesus in one of his first meetings said that “Disregard everything that has been taught in the past and listen to me.” He speaks so many things, and he does not lay out so many basic principles about the eating of flesh, having illicit sex connections and so many things. He speaks just slightly touching the subject. He doesn’t really give any basic principles. So they always say, “Well, it’s okay to do this, it’s okay to do that, because Jesus said, ‘Forget everything that was said in the past.’ ” That’s their basic principle.
Lady devotee (1): And he also said, “I’ve not come to change the law.” He did not come to change the law.
Devotee: That’s just their standpoint. [indistinct] I don’t mean to argue.
Syamasundara: The knowledge that we have of Jesus was not direct, but it was written down up to a hundred or two hundred years later in another language, called Aramaic, and scholars recently have discovered that wherever Jesus refers to fish, distributing fish, that that word actually refers to a type of sea plant that grows in the Sea of Galilee, which they make a type of bread out of. And it’s not really fish but a type of vegetarian bread. This is what I read in an article. So, we don’t have… [laughter]
Lady devotee: Srila Prabhupada, there was a fish on Laksmi’s hand yesterday. The Deities in the temple, where Laksmi had her hand up like this, there was a fish here across her hand. What is this?
Prabhupada: That is a mark. Mark.
Lady devotee: It’s an auspicious sign.
Prabhupada: Not actual fish.
Lady devotee: Yes.
Prabhupada: Not that Laksmiji eats fish. [laughter] There are many other marks also.
Lady devotee: So it’s an auspicious mark. Would it be better if we gave up the eating of vegetables, then?
Prabhupada: Hmm?
Lady devotee: Would it be better if we gave up eating vegetables?
Prabhupada: You cannot eat anything except krsna-prasadam. Even if we eat vegetables, that is also sin. Bhagavad-gita clearly says, bhunjate te agham papa, ye pacanty atma-karanat [Bg 3.13].
[The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.]
If you prepare very nice pure foodstuff for eating yourself, then still you are eating sins. You have to prepare anything very nicely, offer it to Krsna, then you take.
Then you will be free from all sin. Yajna-sistasinah santo. Even there is sin… Sin there must be. Just like you are cooking, you are taking water from the jug, there are so many germs you are killing. The killing responsibility is there. In the higher sense, “Thou shall not kill” means you have to take the prasadam of Krsna.
Nara-Narayana: Jaya!
Prabhupada: Otherwise, even you do ordinary killing, vegetable killing, you are killing so many germs. So in higher sense, if you take this principle of Bible, “Thou shall not kill,” that means you must eat krsna-prasadam; otherwise you will be killing. In whichever you do, it will be killing. So our process is perfect: take krsna-prasadam. Hmm?
Ref. VedaBase => Room Conversation – December 12, 1971, Delhi
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