Dr. Harrap: I think you could add to that, Roy, that an attempt to grow grain in large areas of Australia would significantly damage the ecology, and from reading your writings, I suspect that this would be completely unacceptable to your way of thinking, that one doesn't disturb the natural life cycles of innumerable creatures in order to grow more grain, because the terrain is just not suited to the grain-growing.
Prabhupāda: Hmm. The land is not suitable?
Madhudviṣa: Well, in Australia there is vast areas which cannot be cultivated, like deserts or semi-deserts. And the gentleman's contention is that if we try to grow grains in a semi-desert area it would throw off the balance of the natural . . . the natural pulse of the earth, let us say, and it would cause havoc in other fields. One of the basic things that our spiritual master is putting forward is that if we put an emphasis on producing food grains and milk and vegetables to live on, concentrating on those points instead of complicating our lives with great industries for cosmetics and film industries and things that are really not essential to us . . . you see, there's people that don't have the essentials, and other people who have all the trappings of the modern technological science. Our spiritual master's contention is that real happiness lies in simple living and high thinking, and this is the education that we're trying to put forward.
Dr. Harrap: I think . . . (break)
Prabhupāda: . . . point, these are all misconception, because I am not this body; I am spirit soul. When the spirit soul goes away, then where is the distinction? Suppose in hospital some Hindu dies or some Muslim dies, some Christian die, the spirit . . . they are stacked together as useless matter. Is it not? There is no distinction there now, "Hindu," "Muslim," "Christian," "white," "black." Now it is dead body, put aside. Eh? So, but when living, when the spirit soul is there, they're dividing, this designation. So this knowledge, that so long the spirit soul is there in the body it is important. As soon as the soul is gone, it is useless. But people are giving more stress on the body than on the active principle, living force, what is there. There is no study. Suppose you are all scientists. What is your studying about that living force that is moving the body?
Dr. Muncey: Yes, I would agree with you that the body, when a person dies, is material and dead, in the terms we use, and the spirit moves on, but, and I accept from that, that at that stage one has nothing to . . . one has no worry about the body. But in the stage that we are now, where our body and our soul are together, it seems to me that this is one unity, and you can't use the argument that at that stage you should neglect the body.