Carol Cameron: Hmm. What is the main part of your philosophy? Is it based on the Vedāntist school?
Prabhupāda: No. This is no question of philosophy. You could not accept the simple instruction. Then where is the question of philosophy?
Carol Cameron: The question of love.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You cannot understand the principles of life and morality, Jesus Christ's instruction that, "Thou shall not kill." So how you become philosopher?
Carol Cameron: How is this love to be understood? Between people, or through inner sort of communication with a higher self?
Gaṇeśa: Śrīla Prabhupāda said that you could not understand the simple instruction, so where is the question of understanding philosophy? Not love. Philosophy.
Prabhupāda: You have no love, because you are accustomed to kill. Philosophy begins when you know that everyone is part and parcel of God, and everyone should be given the full facilities to live without injuring anyone for one's personal benefit. Paṇḍitaḥ sama-darśinaḥ (BG 5.18). A paṇḍita, philosopher, means learned scholar. Not fools and rascals can become philosopher. Those who are learned scholar, thoughtful, they can become philosopher. But if one has no knowledge how to behave with other living entities, what is the meaning of becoming a philosopher?
Carol Cameron: How would you go about teaching this idea of love? How does one . . .
Prabhupāda: Love means that I want to eat something, and if I love somebody, then I will see that my beloved also eats. If you take something from your beloved . . . naturally the lovers present things. Just a boy loves a girl, he presents something to the girl. So if you accept presentation by others, we should give him also something. And if I have got some confidential things, I must disclose it to the lover, and the lover is also expected he should not keep anything confidential. He should disclose it. These are the six reciprocal exchange between the lover and the beloved. If I love you, because you are beautiful, for my sense gratification, but I keep everything secret, that is not love. That is sense gratification, lust. These are the signs of love.
- dadāti pratigṛhṇāti
- bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva
- guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati
- ca ṣaḍ-vidhaṁ prīti-lakṣaṇam
- (Upadeśāmṛta 4)
Prīti means love. These are the symptoms. Give and take; eat and give to eat; open you mind, and know the other party's mind also. This is love. The more you increase the six kinds of exchange, there is increase in the love, yes.
Carol Cameron: Do you think a man who says he loves God should withdraw from the world, say into a community or something like that?
Prabhupāda: First of all between two. Then you can expand it. First the love between . . . love means there are two, the lover and the beloved. So the transaction begins between the two, then it expands.