How can we get a Westerner to believe that if one eats cow flesh, one will become a cow in a future life who will then be eaten?

Thank you for a wonderful class. What comes to mind when you’re reading things of this stature is that it’s so phantasmagoria, practically. I mean, it’s like a movie or something.

How do you get the living energy to understand these principles of freedom, like Krishna Consciousness, when you have to read these kind of descriptions which how many people would really believe? In other words, if you’re out there, you’re talking to a normal person and he’s eating a hamburger, and you say, well, if you continue eating that, you’re going to have to take a… somebody’s going to eat you, or you’re going to have to eat something else. So how do you take that particular idealism and give it to someone to make them sincere or help them understand these principles of the Bhagavatam? It’s tough. That’s why the principle which I find is best is choose our battles.

You know, there’s a very almost humorous conversation when Prabhupada was in Hawaii. Some devotees came and told him that, Prabhupada, when you try to talk with the scholars, and we tell the scholars that that in Dwarka, the King Ugrasen had some astronomical number of bodyguards. It’s quite a phenomenal number.

So they start laughing at us. Where were their toilets? Where were their homes? How could they live in Dwarka? Now, Prabhupada could have… Dwarka? It was here only? Or maybe it was two different places also. So anyway, Prabhupada took a different approach at a different time.

Prabhupada, here, he said that in this conversation, among all the sections of the Bhagavatam, was it the only thing you found to speak to the scholars? So, it is… Choose our battles means what? Prabhupada himself says, intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective. That’s what he says in the 10th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. 10.345 So that means, we ourselves need to know what are the big things in our philosophy and what are the not so big things.

So, from Sri Prabhupada’s example itself, we know how often did Prabhupada talk about hell. Generally, when he talked about giving up sense gratification, it is not that you will go to hell if you do sense gratification. That is the general Christian version of, they use the word adultery, adultery or fornication.

You will go to hell and you will suffer in hell. Prabhupada’s approach was, this pleasure is so insignificant. You are meant for far greater pleasure.

So, Prabhupada took a particular approach. My understanding is, first is, we don’t talk about it ourselves. And we don’t… This could work as a deterrent at a particular time.

Now, it doesn’t work as a deterrent. And that’s why we are having this discussion about how to explain it. So, to some extent, it is possible, although there is so much propaganda about sense gratification in the world today.

Many people soon realise that there is nothing so great about it. It’s just that because they don’t know any alternative, they keep trying it. And they keep trying it in new ways to hope that they will get some pleasure.

But for many people, if they can be presented Krishna Consciousness in an attractive way and they experience the happiness of Krishna Consciousness, then, okay, you know, there is a better way to live. And that’s how they give up sense gratification. So, I think that’s the much more healthier approach rather than… So, I think this is the approach of intelligence rather than experience.

That, you know, there is a better way to live. There is a better way to enjoy life. And so, we… Nowadays, there is enough arguments.

Like, we can make health arguments for giving up meat. We can make arguments based on environment which is a big concern for people. There is also an argument based on… I talk about meat-eating.

I talk about help the world with your food. I talk about four things. One is, at a health level, it is beneficial.

At the environmental level, it is beneficial. At the level of livestock, you know, so many people are killed just for your food. And then, at the level of poverty itself, global poverty.

That is, if the amount of land that is used to make meat is used to raise grains for human beings, then, far more people can be fed. So, poverty itself… And this is not just us. UNESCO has said that.

So, this is basically… There are different ways. That’s why I said… I gave the example of what Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said. There is no need for this.

And Baldev Ji said, we have to do this. We have to write a commentary on Vedanta Sutra. So, I think the same purpose, but different approaches to that purpose.

I personally wouldn’t use hell at all to talk about it to people. Thank you.