Understanding our eternal relationship with God is the science solving all material miseries and problems.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Interview — March 9, 1968, San Francisco 680309IV-SAN FRANCISCO [62:47 Minutes] Interviewer: Your Grace, what is the basis of your teachings? Prabhupāda: The basis of this teaching is Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. I have already published my book, this Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. This book is not new. It is very old book, at least five thousand years old, and it is very widely read all over the world.
In your country I have seen there are about more than twenty-five different editions, English. Similarly, there is in German language, in England, in Japan. Everywhere, all over the country, this book is very widely known, Bhagavad-gītā. In other words, this is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The speaker of this book is Lord Kṛṣṇa, and the subject matter of this book is what is our relationship with God.
Then, after understanding what is our relationship with God, we can work accordingly. Just like you are citizen of America, you have got a particular relationship with the state, and you are expected to work according to that relationship; then you are good citizen, you are law-abiding citizen, and state gives your all protection, and you can improve to the highest perfectional stage. Similarly, if we know our relationship with God, whom we call Kṛṣṇa... Kṛṣṇa means all-attractive, and that is the perfect name of God. Unless God is all-attractive, He cannot be God. God cannot be Hindus' God or Christians' God or Jews' God or Muhammadans' God.
No. God is for everyone, and He is all-attractive. He is fully opulent. He is fully in knowledge, perfect in knowledge, perfect in beauty, perfect in renunciation, perfect in fame, perfect in strength.
In this way He is all-attractive. So we must know our relationship with God. That is the first subject matter of this book, Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. Then if we understand our relationship, we can act accordingly. At the present moment we are, some of us, declining God: "There is no God." Some of them have little conception of God, "God is great," but they do not try to understand what is actual relationship with God.
They are not very serious. In this way, practically we are avoiding our eternal relationship with God, and therefore we cannot act properly, and that is the cause of all miseries. That is the cause of all problems. Just like if you do not know the state laws, then you do not act properly; you are always criminal. For example, if you do not know how to drive, "Keep to the right," if you drive to the left, you may think, "Oh, it is after all driving.
What does it matter, right or left?" But no. As soon as you drive left, you become criminal. Similarly, because we do not know our relationship with God, therefore we are acting wrongly, and therefore, under the laws of God, we are becoming more and more criminal and our problems are increasing. Therefore, in spite of advancement of education, science, civilization, a nice dress, car, and everything, nobody trusts nobody. You see?