Hare Krsna-
Below Srila Prabhupada speaks about Jesus Christ when a young boy how he condemned those killing animals in the synagogue, he was against this cruel and sinful behavior. But today (Christmas day or any day) millions of so called Christians will be filling their bellies with the flesh of slaughtered animals. This Jesus condemned-Thou shalt not kill !
damaghosa das
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Lecture : Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.16.21 — Hawaii, January 17, 1974
“I have read one book, Lord Jesus Christ, when he was a young boy he was very much shocked when he saw that animal-killing is going on in the synagogue. Therefore he differentiated from the Jews and he started his own religion, Christian religion. Is it not a fact? Am I right? Why… He was also a Jew. Why he deviated? Why he deviated from the Jews? Because when he saw in his young age that animals are being killed in the synagogue, he differed, “No, no, this is horrible. This should be stopped.” Therefore, his first commandment is “Thou shall not kill.” Am I wrong or right? Eh? That was his first impression, that people should stop killing. So who is Christian? Everyone is violating this first commandment, what to speak of other commandments. Everyone. So it is very difficult to find a real Christian. But if you violate the commandments of Christ, then what kind of Christian you are? This is our question. Who will answer this?”
Below Srila Prabhupada explains how Lord Buddha cheated the atheists into following him by denying the existence of God (Himself) and by telling them to stop killing animals in the name of the scriptures. He gives a nice example of how a parent or guardian of a child will sometimes cheat the child by saying one thing just to get him to do the right thing. But this is not cheating because it has the welfare of the foolish child in mind by the wise parent. So by getting the Buddhists to stop killing animals, eventually they would in some future birth get a better chance to understand that religious principles do not include slaughtering innocent animals and then calling that “religion”. Wherever there is no mercy (for animals) then there is no religion present.
may 21 1969 New Vrndavana
Prabhupāda: All right. You please sit down. So the boy is satisfied that “I am not going to a school. This gentleman is very nice. I didn’t want to go to school, and he says, ‘Yes, don’t go to school.’ But “You sit down here. What is this?” “This is cow.” “And what is this?” “This is cow’s leg.” “What is this?” “One leg, two leg.” That means he is being educated, but he does not know. He says that “Ah…”
So Lord Buddha’s philosophy is like that. The atheistic people, they are against God. “Yes, there is no God. But you take this philosophy, ahiṁsā. Don’t kill animals.” That means if they stop animal-killing, then one day they will be able to understand what is God. Some day.That is Buddha philosophy. He situated the atheistic people on the line of understanding God. So this is, in one way, cheating. But this cheating is not cheating. Just like father or guardian sometimes cheats the young boy. That is not cheating; that is for his good. But actually, if you take the, I mean to say, behavior, it is something like cheating. So the Māyāvāda philosophy… This Buddha philosophy is also another Māyāvāda philosophy. Both of them are, on the face value, atheistic, denying the existence of God. One is saying, “There is no God”; another is saying, “It is impersonal,” in this way. But our philosophy is neither atheistic nor impersonal. It is directly person. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ [Bs. 5.1]. Directly we say, “There is …” Kṛṣṇa, in the Bhagavad-gītā, says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nāsti: “There is nobody greater than Me.” If God is great, how anybody can be greater than Him? It is right. Eh? Nānyat parataraṁ nāsti: “There is nothing more greater than Me.” Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ: [Bg. 10.8] “I am the origin of everything.” Vedānta-sūtra says, “Brahman, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is the source of everything.” And here is the direct answer by Kṛṣṇa, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ: “I am the source of everything.” So we follow this philosophy. Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement means we directly take Bhagavad-gītā as the evidence of existence of God.
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