Real well-being!

Q. Why in world there is suffering?
A. There is suffering as the main problem is that we are avoiding the cause of : birth, old age, disease & death. We are talking about all different kind of nonsense but not addressing the real cause of us being in the perpetual cycle of birth & death & not finding how to come out of this. People are misguided & they are kept in darkness by the material propaganda. Let us start giving them some light. We are soul which is eternal & not this body

Q. Yes, but apart from giving spiritual enlightenment, are you also concerned about people's physical well-being?
A. Physical well-being automatically follows spiritual well-being. If we are spiritually well situated, we would be materially happy too. The Supreme Lord has given enough for everyone's need but not enough for one person's greed

Q. And how does that work?
A. Suppose you have a car. So naturally you take care of the car as well as yourself. But you don't identify yourself as the car. You don't say, I am this car. That is nonsense. But this is what people are doing. They are taking too much care of the bodily "car", thinking that the car is the self. They forget that they're different from the car, that they are a spirit soul & have a different business.

Just as no one can drink petrol & be satisfied, no one can be satisfied with bodily activities. One must find out the proper food for the soul. If a man thinks, I'm a car, and I must drink this petrol, he is considered insane. Similarly one who thinks that he is this body, and who tries to become happy with bodily pleasures, is also insane

Q. Religion without a rational basis is just sentiment, Can you explain that?
A. Most religious people say, "We believe........." But what is the value of this belief? You may believe something which is not actually correct. For instance, some of the Christian people say "We believe that animals have no soul" That is not correct. They believe animals have no soul because they want to eat the animals but actually animals do have a soul

Here is the scientific proof: the animal eats-you eat, the animal sleeps-you sleep, the animal has sex-you have sex, the animal defends-you also defend. Then what is the difference between you and animal? How can you say that you have a soul but the animal doesn't? If the animal's body is cut, there is blood-same as yours. All these similarities are there. But you deny this one singularity, the presence of soul? This is not logical

In logic there is something called analogy. It means drawing a conclusion by finding many points of similarity. If there are so many points of similarity between humans & animals, why deny one similarity? That is not logic. That is not science

-Excerpts of interview of Srila A C Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada by Mike Robinson, April 1976 London

Thoughts?
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