This conversation between Srila Prabhupilda and some guests took place in Boston,Massachusetts,on December 23, 1969.
Srila Prabhupada: By following any guru or any principle,if you actually develop your love of God,then it is nice.Otherwise it is a useless waste of time.That is the test. But as far as I know these yogis say they are themselves God.They say that everyone is God. And then who is dog? So I think their idea is not very congenial. How can everyone be God? Then what is the meaning of God?
Guest 1: I want to love everyone. Srila Prabhupada:That is bogus.You cannot love everybody.If you love God,then you can love everybody. Because God is everything. Guest 1: If God is everything,then why don't you love all beings one by one?
Srila Prabhupada: If you love a tree, then you have to pour water on the root -not every leaf. If you want to maintain your body, then you have to supply food stuff to the stomach. Not to your eyes.Not to your ears. When you get a nice cake, you don't put it here [indicates the ears).You put it here [indicates the mouth]. Why? That is the process.
Guest 2: Are you saying that energy is God? God is en ergy?
Srila Prabhupada: Energy,being non -different from God,is in one sense God. But at the same time energy is not God. Sunshine is the energy of the sun. But if when the sunshine enters your room you think,"The sun has entered my room," that is wrong.But sunshine is not different from the sun.
Guest 2: It would appear that to claim that you can reach eternal bliss just by chanting is too easy.
Srila Prabhupada: That is one process of self-realization.Thee are different p rocesses of selfrealization.For this age,when people are less intelligent,this process is right.
Guest 1: What you are doing by chanting is kind of. ..
Srila Prabhupada: You chant and you will understand.If you have no child,the h ow can you understand the labor of producing a child?
Guest 2: But that is like saying that if you have n't ever leaped into a well, you don 't know what will h appe n to you if you leap into a well.
Srila Prabhupada: First of all,you do not know your self.The first sign of ignorance is that you are identifying your self with this body, which you are not.First of all try to unde rstand your self,then you will underst and what is God.You do not know your self.
Guest 2: But I am God,right? I am God.You are God too.
Back to Godhead, the magazine of the Hare Krishna Movement, started in 1944 by the Founder of ISKCON, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. You are dog.
Guest 2: But you are me and I am you.We are both God.Right?
Srila Prabhupada: N0, No.
Guest 2: Why not?
Srila Prabhupada: you do not know what is the meaning of God.What do you mean by God? First of all define.
Guest 2: Everything is God.
Srila Prabhupada: If you apply that definition,then you are God.First of all define what is God.
Guest 2: God is everything.God is it.
Srila Prabhupada: That is not the definition.God is not everything.
Guest 2: And it is God.It is all it.
Srila Prabhupada: I say everything is God's energy.Not everything is God.
Guest 2: Not everything is God?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes.The sunshine and the sun are one but at the same time different,simultaneously.You cannot accept the sunshine as the sun.Suppose you are in the sunshine,you cannot say that you are on the sun planet.