True equality transcends material distinctions and manifests only through Krishna consciousness on the spiritual platform.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Arrival Lecture — July 11, 1975, Philadelphia 750711A2-PHILADELPHIA [20:34 Minutes] Arrival_750711A2-PHILADELPHIA Prabhupāda: Where is Gurudāsa? I don't see him. Jayatīrtha: He hasn't arrived yet from the airport.
Prabhupāda: When you have come? Bhūgarbha: I have come about two and a half weeks ago.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Bhūgarbha: About two and a half weeks ago.
Prabhupāda: So thank you very much for your kind reception. The press reporter, they were asking me that we make distinction between man, woman, and black, white. We make distinction not in that way. We say that so long you are on the material platform, artificially, however you may try to keep everyone on the equal level, it will be failure.
Just like the United Nation is trying to be united nationally, internationally for the last more than thirty years, but they have not been able to do so. In the Bhagavad-gītā there is one verse, vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ [Bg. 5.18] Paṇḍita means spiritually advanced. A person who is spiritually advanced, he sees on equal level a very learned man, vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇa, brāhmaṇa, the first-class man; vidyā-vinaya-sampanne gavi, an animal like cow; hasti, animal like elephant; vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini, śuni, means dog; śva-pāka, means the dog-eater, caṇḍāla—all of them, they see equal. So what is that seeing?
If I invite one learned scholar, and if I ask him, "Please sit down with the dog," will he be pleased? He will feel insulted. But I see that within the dog there is spirit soul, and within the learned scholar there is spirit soul. Paṇḍitāḥ sama...
Sama-darśinaḥ means from different platform. On the material platform, if I say, "Oh, you may be a learned scholar, and you may think the dog is dog, but I see you are all equal," so it will be insult. So the fact is that we cannot disturb the equality, er, different position materially; at the same time, we have to understand what is the position spiritual. That is wanted. If we make distinction between man and woman, black and white, then how in our temple we are enjoying together?