Prabhupāda: That's all right. But why you should kill animal?
Theology student: At the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, if I remember . . .
Prabhupāda: And Christ says: "Thou shall not kill." Why you are killing? From the very beginning, disobedience. How you can become Christian?
Theology student: Isn't it at the beginning Arjuna hesitates to kill his family and doesn't want to go to fight, and what he is taught through Bhagavad-gītā, in some way, is that he should not restrain and that . . .
Prabhupāda: But first of all you take your Bible. You are ordered not to kill. Why you are killing? Then go to Bhagavad-gītā. When there is aggression you have the right to kill, but not unnecessarily you can kill. Suppose a tiger attacks you; you can kill. But you cannot go in the forest and kill the tiger. That is sinful.
Theology student: (French) Why does the distinction stop with animals and not with plants?
Yogeśvara: Why do we make the distinction, then, between not killing animals and plants? Why do we kill plants?
Prabhupāda: We do not kill plants also. We take . . . of course, by nature's way some living entity is the food for another living entity. Jīvo jīvasya jīvanam (SB 1.13.47). That is the nature's way. But if you give that argument, then I can say: "Why you are killing cows? Why don't you kill your own children?" If that is the way, that "Because I have to eat some animal," so why go outside? Just inside the family there are so many animals. You can kill them and eat. There must be discretion. Apart from this point of view, we Kṛṣṇa conscious people, we do not kill even a plant because, Kṛṣṇa says—find out this—patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati (BG 9.26).
Yogeśvara: (translating) . . . jīvo jīvasya jīvanam (French) . . .
Prabhupāda: There is no jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. Here Kṛṣṇa says, "Give Me these things, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam." There is no question of jīvasya jīvanam. Just hear. Kṛṣṇa is ordering, "Give Me this food." So we take kṛṣṇa-prasādam. We don't directly do anything. Kṛṣṇa says: "Give Me this foodstuff containing of vegetables, fruits, flowers, grains." So we offer them, and then we take it. If there is any sinful activity there, it is Kṛṣṇa's, not mine.