Prabhupāda: How it can be improved? One man may be good, religious, abiding by the orders of God, and 99.9 percent, they are Godless. So how it can be improved? This material world, as it is, it can be improved only by the increase of percentage of God conscious men, otherwise there is no possibility of improvement. Every man is differently conscious. So you cannot bring them together. For example, just these modern civilized nations, they are struggling in the United Nation Organization, but they could not do for the last thirty, forty years. That is not possible. That is futile attempt. Unless people become God conscious, there is no improvement of the world.
Hayagrīva: One last quote from Mill: "I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet," that is good, "to my fellow creatures, and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go."
Prabhupāda: I could not follow.
Hayagrīva: Well, in other words that God must be good in the relative sense as I would say, "Oh, this is a good man." If he could not call God good in that relative sense he would not call God good.
Prabhupāda: God is always good. If one does not know the goodness of God then he is imperfect. God is always good, God is always great. That is the version of all Vedic literature. If one does not know God is good, then he is imperfect in his knowledge.
Hayagrīva: So that's the end of Mill.
Prabhupāda: He says this man is good. What does he mean by this man is good? What is the qualification that he has become good?
Hayagrīva: Mill is pretty much a, being a utilitarian, is pretty much a...
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, let us say...
Hayagrīva: ...is pretty much of a materialist, and a good man would work for what he called the greatest happiness principle, that is the greatest happiness for all sentient beings on earth.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Hayagrīva: So that would be the good man, would work toward that end.
Prabhupāda: So is there any man who can do good to all others? Is there any man? Any single instance?
Hayagrīva: A man is finite. How can he do good for everyone?
Prabhupāda: Then why does he say this man is good? He is bad in other sense. So how he can say this man is good?
Hayagrīva: Christ said that no man is good.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
Hayagrīva: there's only one good. That's God.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That's a fact. You are thinking that this man is, so how he is good? He is limited in his power. He may think of his brother, of his nation, of his society but what does he do of other living beings? So how he can be good? A good man, speaking even a man like Gandhi, he is a good man, but when he was approached that stop cow killing, he could not do anything. Although he is advocating non-violence but he, the violence committing in the slaughterhouse, thousands and thousands of animals being killed, violence, what did he do? So how he is good man? Nobody can be good man.
Hayagrīva: Only a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because he abides by the order of the Supreme Good, that's all. If Gandhi could not become a good man, so that as he was killed by enemy, so how the man can be good man? There is no good man, unless he is a devotee of the Supreme Lord, all good. It is physically impossible to become good man, even if he has got the desire. That is not possible. This is our mental concoction. This is good man or bad man. Anyone who is not God conscious, he is bad man, and anyone who is God conscious he is good man. This should be the question.