Reporter: Can you tell me how your teaching relates to the Bible, to the Christian teaching?
Prabhupāda: Christian teaching is good. It is giving idea of God. But who is following Christian teaching? That is the problem. Nobody is following. Christ says, "Thou shall not kill," and the Christian people are very expert in killing. Do you admit or not?
Reporter: I admit.
Prabhupāda: Just see. Then who is a Christian? If one does not follow the instruction of Christ, then would you call him a Christian?
Reporter: No.
Prabhupāda: That's it. That is the problem.
Reporte: Is there any reason why you teach your followers the Bhagavad-gītā rather than the Bible?
Prabhupāda: The teaching is the same. The teaching is the same. What Lord Jesus Christ taught and what we are... (aside:) Aiye. The teaching is the same. But who is following? That is the difficulty.
Reporter: I see. So you don't think that...
Prabhupāda: The difficulty has arisen—I am claiming to be Hindu, but I am not following the Vedic rules. You are claiming to be Christian, but you are not following the Christian rules. This is going on all over the world.
Reporter: But if someone was making the Bible a sort of reality in their lives...
Prabhupāda: Yes, it is good. What is the wrong there, Bible? It is everything all right. We don't say "The Bible is bad, and Vedas are good." We don't say that.
Reporter: Are you yourself or do your followers regard you as an incarnation of Kṛṣṇa or as the teacher of His teachings?
Prabhupāda: No. We regard ourself as servant of Kṛṣṇa.
Reporter: Servant of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Reporter: There are a lot of other spiritual groups in the world...
Prabhupāda: Everyone is servant of Kṛṣṇa.
Reporter: Are you saying...
Prabhupāda: Everyone. You are also servant of Kṛṣṇa. Are you not servant of Kṛṣṇa? Are you master? You are not servant of anyone? Are you? You have come as press representative. You are servant of the press. So you are not master.
Reporter: But I wanted to ask about other spiritual groups in this country...
Prabhupāda: So any spiritual... If he actually belongs to the spiritual understand, then he must admit that he is servant of God.
Reporter: Servant of God.
Prabhupāda: That is real spiritual understanding.
Reporter: But many different groups give the...
Prabhupāda: They are not... They have no spiritual understanding. Anyone who says something else beyond this understanding, that every living entity is servant of God, if he says something else, he does not know what is spiritual life.
Reporter: But there seem to be a lot of groups that are saying that, but teaching a different way to...
Prabhupāda: Different way... There cannot be dif... The way is one. God is one, and we all living entities, we are dependent on God's mercy. Therefore we are servant. Everyone is servant. We say that, that God is one, and every one of us, we are all servant of God. So let us engage in our original position as servant of God. This is our teaching.
Reporter: Do you feel that... In other groups also there are sort of teachers or masters or whatever they call them. Do you feel that there can be more than...
Prabhupāda: They are wasting time simply and cheating others. That's all.
Reporter: They are wasting time.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they do not understand what is their position; therefore their teaching is simply waste of time. This is the position: that God is great, and we are all dependent on God. Who will deny this? This is the original principle. Now, in one religious system it may be taught in a little different way. In another religious system it may be... But if there is no such sense that "God is the supreme, and we are all subordinate servant..." This should be the basic idea. That is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:
- sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
- yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
- ahaituky apratihatā
- yayātmā suprasīdati
- (SB 1.2.6)
He says that "That is first-class religion which teaches the followers how to become obedient to God." It doesn't matter whether it's Christian religion or Hindu religion or Muslim religion. If they are teaching this fact, that... Actually they are doing that. Muslim they say, allah akbar. Christian people say, "God is great," and the Hindus also say, eko brahma dvitīya nāsti. So you go... Just the same teaching.
Reporter: You're not actually saying that you're the only teacher who can give this teaching, but that any teacher who gives this teaching...
Prabhupāda: No, this is the principle. Just like two plus two equal to four. So anyone who teaches this, he is a teacher. And if a rascal says two plus two equal to three, then he is not a teacher; he is a cheater.
Reporter: So are you saying in fact that...
Prabhupāda: Yes, this is... I am saying, what I am saying to you, that "God is great, and everyone is servant." Can you deny this? Can you deny this?
Reporter: No.
Prabhupāda: Then? What is the difficulty? Nobody, no sane man, will deny it.
- īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ
- sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
- anādir ādir govindaḥ
- sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam
- (Bs. 5.1)
And Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya (BG 7.7). So these things are there. God is great, we are all subordinate, and we are maintained. Eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. This is the Vedic information. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). So this principle should be broadcast. People should know what is his position.
Reporter: Is the teacher always necessary? I mean, many meditation groups or yoga groups say that...
Prabhupāda: Yes. Why you are asking? Anything you want to learn, you must go to a teacher. How you can learn independently?
Reporter: I mean just, say, by reading the Bhagavad-gītā.
Prabhupāda: Reading Bhagavad-gītā is also taking lesson from the teacher. Teacher—Kṛṣṇa is personally the teacher, and you read Bhagavad-gītā means you take lessons from teacher, the supreme teacher.