Guest (4): One of the big ideas is the idea of "All life is divine, and divine compassion for all life."
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Guest (4): It's one of these big ideas, that all life is divine, and therefore we should have divine compassion for all forms of life.
Prabhupāda: First of all you know what is divine life, then you will have . . .
Guest (4): Oh. But when we find out the divine origin . . .
Prabhupāda: If you do not know what is divine life, then how you can distribute divine life to everyone? First of all you have to understand what is divine life.
Guest (4): The life which is of divine origin, and therefore . . .
Prabhupāda: But what do you mean by divine?
Guest (4): A creator. A God creator. And therefore, since we are included, we are created by God and should have divine compassion.
Prabhupāda: There are so many creations, but which creation you have to accept? God is creator of so many things.
Guest (4): Well, He created us also.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. He is creator, but He is creator of everything. But why divide everything "bad" and "good"? Now, why do you distinguish, "This is good" and "bad"? If everything is created by God, but that does not mean that everything is divine. Do you follow? Yes. You have to learn what is divine. Not that because God . . . God is creator of everything.
Guest (4): But we should have divine love for life . . .
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say what is divine love?
Guest (4): What is divine love?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (4): Compassion.
Prabhupāda: That we have to know. Without knowing how to become compassionate . . . just like I'll give you a practical example. This is my personal experience. One boy was suffering from some typhoid disease, and he asked his younger brother, "Please give me some biscuit." He is forbidden to take biscuit, because he was suffering from . . .
And he thought, "Oh, my brother is suffering for want of biscuit," so he supplied some biscuit. And the mother, when she learned that this young boy has supplied this diseased boy biscuit, she began to beat him like anything.
So he thought that "I'm doing very divine service to my suffering brother." But the result was beating by the mother. Therefore one should know what is service; otherwise he will suffer. Without knowing what is divine service, one cannot be divinely compassionate. First of all one should make his own life divine; then he can make divine compassion.