Prabhupāda: Well, but you should have. . . I am not speaking for India, Europe. I am speaking the whole human society. Just try to understand.
Director: People started eating meat because in winter they had nothing else to eat.
Prabhupāda: No, you can eat meat, but you cannot eat meat by killing your father and mother. That is human sense. You are taking milk from the cow; it is your mother. You take milk, that in Australia they produce so much milk, butter and everything. And after it is finished, cut the throat and make business, send to other countries. What is this nonsense? Is that humanity? Do you think?
Director: Well, say two hundred years ago people, to survive the winter, had to kill the. . .
Prabhupāda: No, no. You take your mother's milk. You take your mother's milk, and when the mother cannot supply milk, you kill her. What is this? Is that humanity? And nature is so strong, for this injustice, sinful, you must suffer. You must be prepared to suffer. So there will be war, and wholesale will be killed. Nature will not tolerate this. They do not know all these, how nature is working, how God is managing. They do not know God. This is the defect of the society. They do not care what is God. "We are scientists. We can do everything." What you can do? Can you stop death? Nature says, "You must die. You are Professor Einstein, that's all right. You must die." Why the Einstein and other scientists, they do not discover a medicine or process, "No, no, we shall not die"? So this is the defect of the society. They are completely under the control of nature, and they are declaring independence. Ignorance. Ignorance. So we want to reform this.
Director: Well, I certainly wish you luck.
Prabhupāda: Hmm?
Director: I wish you luck.
Prabhupāda: Hmm, thank you.
Director: As a public servant that you reform society as your life. To carry out the instrument of society.
Prabhupāda: So kindly cooperate with us. This is. . . Try to learn the philosophy, and you will be surprised how nice philosophy it is.
Director: I'm quite sure.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So we don't count for percentage. Let personally become ideal man. The same example: there is no percentage in comparison to the stars and one moon. What is the percentage? There are millions of stars. It is. . . What is the percentage, one in million? It is practically zero percentage. But still, because it is moon, it is more sufficient than all these small stars. So produce moon.
Director: Yes, but that moon is big, and you can recognize it, but another man, just another star. . .
Prabhupāda: No, that's all right. If you cannot make as good as moon. . .
Director: Pardon?
Prabhupāda: You cannot make, but it is possible if they are ideal men.
Director: I know what you're saying, but a person would ask you, you're just a man like me, how, you know. . . It's not just as a star. . . that your opinion, just like me. . .
Prabhupāda: No, if you approve this method you can cooperate in so many ways. First of all you have to see what is this method, Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. That we are prepared to serve you, to convince you, the first-class nature of this movement. Now if you are convinced, try to cooperate. And induce other leaders. You are also one of the leaders. Yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad evetaro janaḥ (BG 3.21). If the leaders of the society become compassionate with this movement, others will automatically follow, "Oh, our leaders, our minister is supporting this. Our. . ."
Director: Our minister regards himself as a servant of the people, who can be kicked out in. . .
Prabhupāda: That is the defect. The people are rascals, and they have elected another rascal. (laughter) That is the defect.
Director: But that's how it is.
Prabhupāda: So what can be done? Then hopeless.
Director: Well, you can work on the. . .
Prabhupāda: But we are going without depending on these rascals. We are going on. We are publishing our books, we are making our movement, we honestly trying. That's all. That we are doing all over the world.