Prabhupāda: . . . perfect. Then the meditation is finished. Now, the activities after meditation begins. Meditation is to search out what you are. As soon as you know your identity, then your real activity begins. So we take it from Bhagavad-gītā what is my real identity and begin our service. So that is called devotional service.
Interviewer: We're talking with Swāmī A. C. Bhaktivedanta, head of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. We'll be back in a minute. (break) KGO.
Lady Caller: Yes. I wanted to ask the Swāmī if he didn't think that the teachings of Jesus Christ expressed exactly what he's saying. I'm not speaking of Orthodox Christianity as such, but the essence of what Jesus said about the Father within, and "If thine eye be single, thy body shall be full of light," and the beautiful phrase that he said: "Before Abraham was, I am." Has he studied anything about the teachings of Jesus?
Interviewer: Swāmī?
Prabhupāda: We don't disagree with the teachings of Lord Jesus Christ, because he's speaking also the same thing which we are also speaking, about the science of God.
Interviewer: But she . . . I think she's saying, couldn't you just have taken the teachings of Jesus Christ as your religion?
Prabhupāda: But there is already adjustment . . .
Lady Caller: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I believe that the Swami and many others who practice meditation and study the Gītā are really dealing with the same premise, the first cause, that Jesus spoke of.
Prabhupāda: Certainly.
Lady Caller: Right?
Prabhupāda: Yes, certainly.
Lady Caller: Yes, that's what I wanted to know. I think there is a comparison, not between organized religion as such, but just getting down to the bare facts of what Jesus spoke about. I think there's a similarity.
Prabhupāda: There is similarity. But one thing is, just like mathematics taught in the lower class. Two plus two equal to four is equally applicable in higher mathematics: two plus two equal to four. In higher mathematics it does not become two plus two equal to five. Similarly, the teachings of Bible or teachings of Bhagavad-gītā are the same, the same "two plus two."
Lady Caller: Right, right . . .
Prabhupāda: But in the Bhagavad-gītā, it is . . . it may be taken as higher mathematics. That's all.
Lady Caller: You know, may I ask you one thing? I read some parts of the . . . Bhagavad-gītā, is it, it says that knowledge is enveloped in ignorance, hence all men are deluded.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Lady Caller: And I thought that was a profound . . .
Prabhupāda: Real, our real knowledge is covered by delusion.
Lady Caller: Right.
Prabhupāda: Yes, the real knowledge is that I am spirit.
Lady Caller: Yes.
Prabhupāda: But we are identifying ourself with this body. Therefore we are covered in our knowledge, actual knowledge.