Prabhupāda: Yes. By serving I share. Just like this milk. The hand helps me, brings it here. I drink, and as soon I drank, the benefit is shared by all the parts of body. Is it not?
Ambassador: That's true.
Prabhupāda: You do not require to pass the milk through the finger, then with your toes. No. Simply put the tea, tea or milk, within, and every part of the body is satisfied. Just like you pour water in the root of the tree.
The energy immediately, I mean to say, distributed to the leaves, to the tree, to the flowers, to the fruits, everything, immediately. Similarly, there must be something which is the root of everything. That is God. The Vedānta philosophy says God means the origin, the source of everything. That is God. Now you can imagine how that source should be. That is also explained. But God, or the Absolute Truth, is that, is the original source of everything.
Ambassador: Are you acquainted with Swami Ranganathanandaji? You have met him?
Prabhupāda: I am not very much well known to him, but sometimes I met him.
Ambassador: He was in here, and I asked him the definition, his definition of God, and he described . . . he thought a minute and said: "Well, I would say God is the thread which links one good person to another." I thought that was an interesting definition.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Ambassador: I thought that was a very interesting definition.
Prabhupāda: No. That is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā.
Ambassador: Hmm.
Prabhupāda: Sūtre maṇi-gaṇā iva (BG 7.7). Just like you have got pearl necklace, and it is woven in a thread. So all the pearls, they are resting on that thread. There is no question of good or bad. Everything is resting in God. There is no question of good and bad. Not that all good men simply rest on that thread.
Whatever we see within our experience, everything is resting on God. There is another verse in the Bhagavad-gītā, māyā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ jagad avyakta-mūrtinā (BG 9.4): "In the impersonal form, I am spread all over the manifestation, cosmic manifestation, and everything is resting on Me, but it is not necessarily I am in everything." That is the statement there.
The definition of God, first of all, if you take this definition, as the root of everything, as the source of everything, however you like . . . it is the definition given by the Vedānta-sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1): the origin of birth or emanation of everything.
Now you take anything and find out where is the original cause, then you come to God. Take anything on this table, yourself, your body. Everything you take, if you go on searching, searching, searching, what is, where is the origin, then you come to God. That is the perfect definition of God, janmādy asya yataḥ: the origin, or source, of everything. What do you think?
Ambassador: Oh, I'm very impressed.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Ambassador: The last . . .
Prabhupāda: This is the right . . . another definition is God . . . God is all-attractive. Now, if you try to understand what is this attractiveness, just like your American country is very opulent, very attractive. If a man is very rich in the society, he is attractive. Then if a man is very strong, then he is attractive. If a man is very famous, he is attractive. If a man—man or woman—if a man is very beautiful, he is attractive. If a man is in the renounced order, he is attractive. If a man is very wise, he is attractive. So these six features are attractive features.