Śyāmasundara: What is the definition of science?
Prabhupāda: Perfect knowledge.
Śyāmasundara: Perfect knowledge.
Prabhupāda: Is it not?
Martin: I don't know.
Prabhupāda: You do not know what is the meaning of science?
Martin: No, I don't.
Prabhupāda: Then why you call science? How do you call, "This is scientific"?
Martin: I can only give you my definition of science. Science is that endeavor of human beings by which they attempt to find out why things happen and how they happen.
Prabhupāda: That means perfect knowledge. Ah, I am seeing that this rose flower is growing, but I do not know how it is growing. If I know perfectly how it is growing, that is science. We know that, how it is growing. Bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ (BG 7.10). The seed of this rose tree is Kṛṣṇa. All kinds of seeds are Kṛṣṇa.
Therefore, from one seed you'll find a tree is growing from which a perfect rose of yellow color is coming. Another tree, a perfect rose of red color is coming or varieties of color is coming. The seed is different. Otherwise the earth is the one, water is the one, but because the seed is different, therefore different plants are coming and different results are coming. But the seeds are Kṛṣṇa. This is our observation. You cannot create the seed. You cannot create the seed. You cannot create in your laboratory a seed of . . . what is that tree?
Śyāmasundara: Banyan? Banyan tree?
Prabhupāda: Banyan tree. A small seed, very small. It contains the potency of a big banyan tree. You cannot create such seed. You create something, just like you are creating vitamin tablets. You are proposing that "No more eating required. You simply take some vitamin tablet." Is it not? Similarly, you create some tablet and sow it in the earth and big banyan tree comes. Then I will accept you. (laughter)
Martin: You, you say that . . . (break) . . . who created this knowledge that this flower and the banyan tree is Kṛṣṇa. What place in the divine scheme do such great names as Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad have?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Buddha, we accept him as incarnation, as expansion of Kṛṣṇa. He's Kṛṣṇa working as Buddha, Lord Buddha. Keśava dhṛta buddha śarīra (Daśāvatāra-stotra 9). He has accepted body of Buddha. That is our conception of Lord Buddha.
Martin: And Jesus Christ and Muhammad?
Prabhupāda: Everyone.
Martin: They were all the reincarnation of Kṛṣṇa?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Martin: I see.
Prabhupāda: Yad yad vibhūti . . . . any, anyone who is showing some extraordinary power, he is supposed to be incarnation of Kṛṣṇa's energy. Yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ mama tejo 'ṁśa-sambhavam (BG 10.41). The brilliant energy. He represents the brilliant energy of Kṛṣṇa. And the energy is not different from the energetic.
(aside) Hmm. What is that?
Śyāmasundara: I just said that this is a very good sound track of your speaking—this chanting and rainfall (there is a kīrtana in the background).
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Martin: Can a true devotee come face to face with God through the teachings of Buddha, the teachings of Christ?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Teachings of Christ, teachings of Buddha, they were meant for a particular type of men. Generally it is meant for everyone, but especially for a particular type of men. Just like Lord Buddha, he preached ahiṁsā. They were a particular type of men. Lord Jesus Christ also preached a particular type of men. "Thou shall not kill," that means they were killing. Is it not? If I say: "Thou shall not steal," that means you are thief, you are stealing.
So a kind of preaching amongst the thieves and a kind of teaching among the philosophers must be different. That is the difference. Lord Buddha is Kṛṣṇa, Lord Jesus Christ was Kṛṣṇa incarnation, but they were preaching to a different type of people. Therefore you'll find difference of Lord Jesus Christ teaching, Buddha's teaching, Kṛṣṇa's teaching. Kṛṣṇa's teaching also there, which is already Buddha's teaching. But more than that, because the persons amongst whom He was teaching, they were far, far elevated than the thieves and the rogues. That is the difference.