Pritha devi: “In August of 1976, Srila Prabhupada spent a few weeks at Bhaktivedanta Manor, fifteen miles north of London. During that time Mike Robinson of London Broadcasting Company interviewed him in his quarters. In their conversation, which was broadcast shortly afterward, Srila Prabhupada revealed that Krsna consciousness is “not some ritualistic ceremony of ‘I believe, you believe,’ ” but a profound philosophical system in which the science of reincarnation is explained clearly and concisely.
Mike Robinson: Can you tell me what you believe–what the philosophy of the Hare Krsna movement is?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. Krsna consciousness is not a question of belief; it is a science. The first step is to know the difference between a living body and a dead body. What is the difference? The difference is that when someone dies, the spirit soul, or the living force, leaves the body. And therefore the body is called “dead.” So, there are two things: one, this body; and the other, the living force within the body. We speak of the living force within the body. That is the difference between the science of Krsna consciousness, which is spiritual, and ordinary material science. As such, in the beginning it is very, very difficult for an ordinary man to appreciate our movement. One must first understand that he is a soul, or something other than his body.
Mike Robinson: And when will we understand that?
Srila Prabhupada: You can understand at any moment, but it requires a little intelligence. For example, as a child grows, he becomes a boy, the boy becomes a young man, the young man becomes an adult, and the adult becomes an old man. Throughout all this time, although his body is changing from a child to an old man, he still feels himself to be the same person, with the same identity. Just see: the body is changing, but the occupier of the body, the soul, is remaining the same. So we should logically conclude that when our present body dies, we get another body. This is called transmigration of the soul.
Mike Robinson: So when people die it is just the physical body that dies?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes. That is explained very elaborately in the Bhagavad-gita (2.20): na jayate mriyate va kadacin… na hanyate hanyamane sarire.
Mike Robinson: Do you often quote references?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes, we quote many references. Krsna consciousness is a serious education, not an ordinary religion. [To a devotee:] Find that verse in the Bhagavad-gita.
Disciple:
na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
ajo nityah sasvato ‘yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane sarire
“For the soul, there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.”
Mike Robinson: Thank you very much for reading that. So can you explain to me just a bit more? If the soul is undying, does everybody’s soul go to be with God when they die?
Srila Prabhupada: Not necessarily. If one is qualified–if he qualifies himself in this life to go back home, back to Godhead–then he can go. If he does not qualify himself, then he gets another material body. And there are 8,400,000 different bodily forms. According to his desires and karma, the laws of nature give him a suitable body. It is just like when a man contracts some disease and then develops that disease. Is that difficult to understand?
Mike Robinson: It’s very difficult to understand all of it.
Srila Prabhupada: Suppose somebody has contracted smallpox. So, after seven days he develops the symptoms. What is that period called?
Mike Robinson: Incubation?
Srila Prabhupada: Incubation. So you cannot avoid it. If you have contracted some disease it will develop, by nature’s law. Similarly, during this life you associate with various modes of material nature, and that association will decide what kind of body you are going to get in the next life. That is strictly under the laws of nature. Everyone is controlled by the laws of nature–they’re completely dependent–but out of ignorance people think that they are free. They’re not free; they’re imagining that they’re free, but they are completely under the laws of nature. So, your next birth will be decided according to your activities–sinful or pious, as the case may be.
“Believe and sing not.
Doubt and perish!”
Thus would run the edict of the other God
who names me demon to his angels.
They echo the sound to miserable things
which knowing not beyonf their shallow senses,
worship the word that strikes their ear and deam
evil or good what is proclaimed to them in their abasement.
I will have none such!
Cain, a mystery – Lord Byron
Belief and disbelief are but two sides of the same coin which isn’t made of gold, silver or any other element of any positive value to us. Both belief and disbelief are both reflective of only ignorance.
Due to our conditioning many of us may have come into the Krsna consciousness movement thinking that Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krsna demanded of us the same thing, blind faith acceptance of a belief system that we could never actually realize (on this side of the grave), the truth of, but this is not so for although in the beginning we may enter with our eyes closed, guided by reason and intelligence alone, it is only through our own faults that we are blind to begin with, we are meant to see and while blind faith belief is but a passive parameter, faith is an active dynamic.
As a science this Krsna consciousness is meant for us to test the hypothesis, to awaken the life force within the body though the practice of Krsna consciousness -to awaken the sleeping soul within the body to its actual position -oh, what a world. All glories to Srila Prabhupada for bringing Krsna consciousness to us, for his mercy and his patience and tolerance and for his guidance, without which we would be lost.