Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: The law in the Bible says: "Thou shalt not kill." But the federal law of the United States says you must go into the Army and kill. So which to follow? There is a difference. They both say opposite things.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The thing is . . . it is very simple to understand that . . . just like a soldier is killing and the state is awarding him medal. And the same soldier, when comes home if he kills somebody, he's hanged. Why? He can say: "When I was in the war field, I have killed hundreds of men and I was given gold medal. And now I have killed simply one man I am going to be hanged? Why?" So it is the cause. If the cause if great, then killing is no sin.
Young man (5): How does one interpret if the cause is great?
Prabhupāda: By satisfy . . . that I have already explained. Saṁsiddhir hari-toṣaṇam (SB 1.2.13). You have to see whether God is satisfied. That cause is great. Perfection of your activity will be judged whether by your action God is satisfied.
Young man (5): But you say that the way we hear from God is through words. And if these words are printed by the men that are making you fight, that's by the men that are making you fight. I have no assurance that it's the word of God unless every movement is God movement. Therefore . . .
Prabhupāda: No, I don't say this movement or that movement. The general principle is that if you think by certain type of fighting God is not satisfied, then you should not fight. But if in some fighting God is satisfied, then you should fight. We do not say anything outright that this is bad or this is good.
We say, anything that has given satisfaction to God, Kṛṣṇa, that is good. Anything which has not given satisfaction to Kṛṣṇa or God, that is bad. Now you have to judge yourself how Kṛṣṇa is satisfied. That requires training; that requires understanding. But the standard of . . .
The same example, that the same state, the same man, when he was fighting in the battlefield, he was being elevated to higher position, rewarded. But same man coming back from the battlefield, he has killed somebody, some of his neighbor, he's hanged. But the same state is there. The man is there, the action is there, the same, but why the judgment is different? Similarly, we have to satisfy the great, and the greatest of the great is God, or Kṛṣṇa.
If by your action Kṛṣṇa, God, is satisfied, then it is all right. I don't say that this fight is good, that fight is bad. Fight or no fight. Even without fighting, he may be bad. Just like the instruction which we get from Bhagavad-gītā, Arjuna was denying to fight and he was considered by Kṛṣṇa bad, because He was not satisfied. This is the evidence. And when Arjuna decided to fight to satisfy Kṛṣṇa, it was taken as good.