Prabhupāda: Nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa means, I have already explained, this is the people take, those who know Sanskrit, nirvāṇa means extinguished. Now, you may have different meaning.
Guest: Right. Words change meaning as time goes on.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: Words, I mean their root may be one thing, but then as time goes on the, uh, word doesn't remain, uh, the same as used by uh...
Prabhupāda: Anyway, you can give your own meaning. What do you mean by nirvāṇa.
Guest: Nirvāṇa is identifying your, uh, ah, passion desires with the innate Buddha principles, in this system.
Prabhupāda: The life symptoms?
Guest: Hm?
Prabhupāda: Symptoms of life?
Guest: In this system.
Prabhupāda: System? What is that system?
Guest: The, uh, Mahayana Buddhism.
Prabhupāda: Oh. So what is that practically?
Guest: The practical result?
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: The practical result is, uh.... I don't see it as being far different from Kṛṣṇa consciousness, though the approach may be different.
Prabhupāda: What Kṛṣṇa consciousness is stress is always thinking of Kṛṣṇa, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru (BG 18.65). It is directly always thinking of Kṛṣṇa.
Guest: So that is...
Prabhupāda: To offer obeisances to Kṛṣṇa, to worship Kṛṣṇa, to become devotee of Kṛṣṇa, this is Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Guest: Buddha is Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: Buddha is Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Buddha is Kṛṣṇa, that I know, but the...
Guest: So that if you...
Prabhupāda: ...those who Buddhist, they do not know. They do not know. We know, but they do not know. Neither they agree to believe.
Guest: So that if you're aware of Buddha, then you're aware...
Prabhupāda: But you should talk from the platform of Buddha. We know the secrecy. Our, our understanding of Buddha, that he is incarnation of Kṛṣṇa. But the Buddhists, they do not believe.
Guest: No, they've rejected the Vedas.
Prabhupāda: Yes. But we say.
Guest: But I'm not trying to, uh, to set up, to argue sect against sect.
Prabhupāda: That's not the question. It's a question of philosophy. Here we just say, we know, just like we, we are devotee of Lord Buddha, keśava dhṛta-buddha-śarīra jaya jagadīśa hare. We glorify Lord Buddha because we know what is Buddha, sadaya-hṛdaya darśita-paśu-ghātam. So we know perfectly that he is incarnation of Kṛṣṇa, but those who are cheated by Buddha, from their point of view I want to know what is their perspective.
Guest: Now how, how, how, why would Buddha want to cheat people?
Prabhupāda: Yes, cheated because they did not believe in God. So, but he is God, he is God; therefore he says, "What I say, you believe." That means he is cheating them.
Guest: He didn't say that.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: Buddha didn't say that.
Prabhupāda: Then why do you, why do you study Buddha philosophy?
Guest: Well he said, "You study Buddha philosophy to arrive at principles of truth," but what Buddha said...
Prabhupāda: That's all right. Buddha philosophy...
Guest: What Buddha said was, he says, "Don't accept anything because I tell it to you. Don't accept anything because it's been believed for a long time by many people in many different places." He says, "Only believe that which you find true for yourself, and that is for your own good and for the good of others."
Prabhupāda: But these are teachings of Buddha.
Guest: Huh, but...
Prabhupāda: But...
Guest: But he's pointing at how to arrive at principles of truth. This, this is, uh, more uh, of an independent approach. He's not uh, I don't think he was trying to cheat anybody but he was trying to...
Prabhupāda: Not that. Cheating this sense, sometimes just so you, I cheat my child. The father is not cheater, but sometimes it is required.
Guest: Cheating, yeah, tells him that forest leaves are made out of gold to keep the child from crying.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So the father's cheating is not cheating, but from external point of view it is cheating. You want something, I give something. That is cheating. But that cheating is good for you. When father cheats the child, it is good for the child, but it is cheating. Therefore cheating is not always bad.
Guest: Yes. A great Buddhist saint once said the same thing. He says that "All the scriptures and everything, it means just this, is that it's pretending that forest..."
Prabhupāda: Good, good lessons for...
Guest: "...leaves are made out of gold to keep children from crying," meaning that you have to arrive at truth from your own self, your own understanding. Nobody can, you know, no blind following, as you yourself say. I remember correctly that you used to preach and say, uh, that uh, you shouldn't accept anything blindly.
Prabhupāda: That, in the Bhāgavata it is said, sammohāya sura-dviṣām (SB 1.3.24). Lord Buddha appeared for cheating or bewildering the atheistic person. They do not believe in the (indistinct). They did not, did not believe in God, but God is there. Lord Buddha himself is God. Just like if I say I don't want (indistinct), but you come in a different place. So (indistinct) is there, but I am thinking it is not (indistinct). Similarly, God is there—Buddha—but they are thinking that they don't believe in God. This is cheating. God is there. They are worshiping Lord Buddha exactly as we worship Kṛṣṇa. Then is it not the same? Then how do they say they don't believe in God? They are made to believe in God in a different way. That is cheating, and it is good for them. That is written in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, sammohāya sura-dviṣām (SB 1.3.24).