Amogha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, is the Bible..., we accept that as scripture, but is it all correct, or has it been mistranslated or...?
Prabhupāda: It is being misinterpreted still now. That means it was violated from the very beginning. And they are violating. "Thou shall not kill"; he is killing. That's all. That is the position.
Paramahaṁsa: They also have that "Thou shalt not commit adultery."
Prabhupāda: Yes. And they are very expert in doing that. That is advanced civilization. Now they are marrying man to man and accepting homosex, so what is the value now of this priestly class?
Paramahaṁsa: They have another thing now where they, a man goes to the doctor and has an operation to change his sex from man to woman.
Prabhupāda: Sex. Yes.
Paramahaṁsa: Or from woman to man. That's called transvestites.
Prabhupāda: That is going on?
Paramahaṁsa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Successful?
Paramahaṁsa: Yes, sometimes. Sometimes they have some difficulties, but they have had many successful operations. (break) She can't have... It can't have a baby. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: They are doing?
Paramahaṁsa: Well, they're changing, but they can't become pregnant. That's the only thing. They take these special hormones, and then they can grow breasts and everything just like a woman. But they can't become pregnant.
Amogha: In the newspaper there was an article about two weeks ago about a Christian church in America where they have a naked dancer come.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Amogha: They had a lady who dances, taking off her clothes, so the people will come to church. (laughter)
Prabhupāda: Ācchā?
Amogha: Yes. I was very surprised, but they showed a picture. And they said this is a Methodist... I think it was Methodist. Some church... I am not sure which. But anyhow, it was a church...
Amogha: That's the only way to get people to come to church.
Gaṇeśa: That's why they are called Methodists because they use different methods.
Amogha: We saw one church, the church that they got in Montreal for the temple. They, right before the devotees took over the church, they were having rock musicians playing music every night. And in this way they were trying to get people to come to church. And they would sing songs sometimes about religion, using all electrical instruments and everything.
Gaṇeśa: This man who is coming to see you today, he also has done this in Perth.
Amogha: Dean Hazelwood.
Prabhupāda: What he has done?
Amogha: He... Sometimes he has electric guitar music for the church prayer ceremony. It's called a rock mass.
Gaṇeśa: Rock mass, to attract the young people.
Prabhupāda: Will the young men came?
Gaṇeśa: Oh, yes. But halfway through, they all go out on the grass and they smoke. (laughter) They simply come to hear the music and that is all...
Prabhupāda: That's all right.
Amogha: Another thing they do in the churches is they have those bingo games. You were saying in one lecture we shouldn't play bingo. That's very popular. Practically all of the Catholic... Is that Catholic churches?
Gaṇeśa: All Christian. Jesus himself, he kicked the moneylenders out of the temple.
Amogha: I was talking to one Buddhist monk, and I asked him, "What is your actual practice? What is your daily schedule?" And he said, "Well, we get up around sunrise and go out with our begging bowls and fill it up and then come back at about 11:00 to the temple. And then we sit down and eat everything in the begging bowl. And then we take rest." I said, "What about the rest of the day?" And he said, "Well, that's all free, open time."
Amogha: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we are distributing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam you explain that it's best to start from the beginning and go gradually. So...
Prabhupāda: No, anywhere you can see.
Amogha: So we can distribute any canto.
Paramahaṁsa: Usually what happens is a person who gets, say, the Second or Third or Fourth Canto, if he reads that, then he will want to start from the beginning, and he'll buy the First Canto.
Prabhupāda: Yes. No, even if he does not read the First Canto, wherever he will read, he will get benefit. Sugar candy you taste from anywhere it is sweet. (long silence)
Paramahaṁsa: Śrīla Prabhupāda, I remember once I heard a tape where you told us that we should not try to read the books of previous ācāryas.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Amogha: That we should not try to read Bhaktivinoda's books or earlier books of other, all ācāryas. So I was just wondering...
Prabhupāda: I never said that.
Amogha: You didn't say that? Oh.
Prabhupāda: How is that?
Amogha: I thought you said that we should not read the previous ācāryas' books.
Prabhupāda: No, you should read.
Amogha: We should.
Prabhupāda: It is misunderstanding.
Paramahaṁsa: I think maybe he was thinking that there was some things about some of the Gauḍīya Maṭha books.
Prabhupāda: Maybe.
Paramahaṁsa: And sometimes you said that better not to..., better to read your books.
Amogha: When the devotees went to India this year, they said that Acyutānanda Swami very..., chastised them that "You should never... If I catch any of you buying Bhaktisiddhānta's books from Gauḍīya Maṭha then I will take it away," something like this.
Paramahaṁsa: Yeah, that was, the reason was because of, he didn't want the devotees going to Gauḍīya Maṭha. But there's nothing wrong with the idea of studying the previous ācāryas' books.
Prabhupāda: No. Who said? That is wrong. We are following previous ācāryas. I never said that.
Paramahaṁsa: All of your commentaries are coming from the previous ācāryas.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jayadharma: But that wouldn't mean that we should keep all the previous ācāryas' books and only read them.
Prabhupāda: That is already there. You first of all assimilate what you have got. You simply pile up books and do not read—what is the use?
Jayadharma: First of all we must read all your books.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Paramahaṁsa: Practically speaking, Śrīla Prabhupāda, you are giving us the essence of all the previous ācāryas' books in your books.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. (break) "No, no, Jesus Christ is son of God. He was... (break) If you don't worship him, you will go to hell." So they enquired, "What is that hell?" He began to... "It is very dark and moist and so on, so on..." They did not reply because they are working in the mine. So this is the position. This is the position. People are kept in so much darkness, they do not know what is hell, what is heaven, what is God, what is misery. They do not mind. They are accustomed to all these things. There is another story like that, a Bengali story. One man said, "Oh, you are drinking, you will go to hell." So he explained what is hell: "It is a miserable life." "My father also drinks." "Oh, he will also go to hell." "And my mother also drinks." "Oh, she will also go." In this way whole, the family. "Then where it is hell? It is heaven. Because the father is there, mother is there, brother is there. Everyone, we are going... So where is hell?" This is the... "Even in hell, if we are all there, then where it is hell? It is heaven."