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Wednesday, October 30, 2008
Ignoring God's commandments.

Excerpt from interview with Mike Darby, Wheeling, W. Virginia, June 30, 1976

PRABHUPADA: They are passing resolution according to the time, changing the instruction of Bible. How they can be fixed-up? Our standard is Bhagavad-gita As It Is. We accept guru as representative of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If he speaks what Krishna has spoken, then he is guru. Similar in Christianity, if they actually take care that whether one is speaking according to the Ten Commandments, if he is living according to the rules and regulations of the Ten Commandments, then he is guru. Why people accept them? Because they are ignorant, they do not know who is real and who is fake. But the standard is there. Take for example in the Bible, it is said "Thou shalt not kill." But everyone is killing. Killing is the business of the Christians. They are maintaining big, big slaughterhouse. We are maintaining cows here, and there are others, they are maintaining cows for slaughtering. Why? In these Commandments it is clearly said that "Thou shalt not kill." How they will detect? If they are violating themselves the laws, how they will punish the lawbreaker? "Physician, heal thyself." The physician himself is diseased, and he's going to treat other patients.

DARBY: So they all just continue in a circle to break their own laws.

PRABHUPADA: What can be done?

DARBY: Would it help if someone took the Bible and wrote a Vaishnava purport or tried to simplify it so that people could understand it? The language is difficult for the common man now to understand.

PRABHUPADA: That we are spreading. Krishna consciousness movement is that you act what Krishna or God says, that's all. In our Bhagavad-gita the guru's description is there, who is guru. Read the fourth chapter. On this all literature, simply guru and disciple, one is instructing, and one is hearing.

sri bhagavan uvacha
imam vivasvate yogam
proktavan aham avyayam
vivasvan manave praha
manur ikshvakave 'bravit

"The Blessed Lord said: I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu, in turn, instructed it to Ikshvaku." [Bg. 4.1]

PRABHUPADA: So Krishna instructed first to the sun-god. Sun-god instructed his son, Manu; he instructed his son, Ikshvaku. In this way things are coming. Then read the second verse.

HARI-SAURI: [reads:]

evam parampara-praptam
imam rajarshayo viduh
sa kaleneha mahata
yogo nashtah parantapa

"This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost." [Bg. 4.2]

PRABHUPADA: The succession was broken. So similarly, Christ says something. So if that commandment is received by succession, then it goes nicely. But if you break it according to your necessity, then where is the authority?

DARBY: None. No use if you have the rules there, the law is there, to be passed, and someone forgets them, it's just sinful.

PRABHUPADA: No, they are passing resolution. Suppose there is a law of the state, ordinary, say, "Keep to the right," and in this village all members, they assemble together and pass a resolution that "No, keep to the left." Will it be accepted? Even they pass a resolution, the state will not accept it. Unless it is... Of course, there should be no change. But, anything spoken by God or His son or His representative, that cannot be changed. It is not that Christ said two thousand years ago, "Thou shall not kill," now it can be changed. That is rascaldom. They are doing that. If you do that, then, as it is said here, then it becomes lost. Then there is no meaning. If we take the instruction of God and His representative as temporary, then he is not representative, He is not God. Whatever is spoken by God and His representative, that is eternal. You cannot change by your whims. So that is going on. We..., I do not wish to discuss very much, but that is actually going on. As people they, by votes in the Parliament, they pass any nonsense thing, so they want to do that in the case of Bible also. Then where is the authority of Bible? If Christ says that "Thou shall not kill," and if people, say ten thousand people in a meeting pass resolution, "No, this is wrong," then where is the authority of Bible? Then you become authority.

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