Compilation: Questions to Prabhupada

Throughout his worldwide mission, Śrīla Prabhupāda fielded inquiries from a wide variety of people: disciples, scholars, religious clergy, journalists, and everyday seekers. Discover how His Divine Grace perfectly resolved their doubts—addressing everything from profound philosophical dilemmas to practical daily challenges. Explore these ten thousand questions and experience how he compassionately guided all audiences to understand Kṛṣṇa consciousness with logic and scriptural references.

God, Kṛṣṇa and The Absolute Truth

God, Kṛṣṇa and The Absolute Truth

• Is Krsna an ordinary person?
• Is Visnu expansion of Krsna?
• Does God come in bodily form?
• Is Krsna different from us?
• Why not worship the poor God first?
• Are not also the evil qualities in man existent in God too?
• Who was before Krsna?
• Was God existing before the birth of Lord Krsna?
• Can God be defined?
• Can Krsna be called by any other name?
• Can one say what qualities the atman has?
• Can you say what is God?
• Did Krsna create us to serve Him and to enjoy us?
• Did Krsna invent Radha for His own pleasure?
• Do we all originate from Krsna?
• Do you mean Krsna is Absolute, and Krsna is everything? Then why does Krsna have a specific form?
• Does Krsna mean God?
• Is Krsna beyond even spiritual?

Soul, Transmigration and Karma

Soul, Transmigration and Karma

• Why thief commits crime repeatedly?
• Are varieties of bodies according to karma)?
• How is possible no more death?
• After taking birth again, how does one continue his spiritual progress?
• After we die, what happens to our spirit?
• Can women go back to Godhead without being reincarnated as the male?
• Are spirit souls alike, or are they different?
• At rebirth do we all return as a male if the previous existence was a male, or do we change
• At the time of death, soul goes with the actions of the past?
• Can a living entity ever lose his existence?
• Can a man become, after his body dies, an animal or an insect of some sort?
• Can we decide what we want to be in our next life?
• Do we get a second chance if we don't make the most of this life?
• Do you believe in reincarnation?
• Does ISKCON believe in reincarnation?
• Does the condition of being entrapped, enhance the understanding of liberation?

Spiritual Master, Disciples and ISKCON

Spiritual Master, Disciples and ISKCON

• After you, is it any decision has been made who will take over?
• If we (your disciples) have to take birth in the material world in the next life, how will we be able to render direct service unto you?
• How do we get guru?
• Will you in turn choose others?
• Are there any centers of the society in the Communist world?
• Are you planning to choose a successor?
• Are you training a successor?
• Can someone achieve self-realization without a guru or does he need a guru?
• Could a woman be a temple president?
• Do you expect to name one person as your successor or have you already?
• Do you initiate girls?
• Do you use the word guru?
• Have to be designated by the former spiritual master?
• Does taking the initiation create a permanent bond between disciple and guru?
• What is the significance of the food that is eaten at ISKCON?
• What is to become of those devotees that leave ISKCON and take to breaking the regulative principles, and stop chanting sixteen rounds?
• You are the head of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Is it a church?
• Does this organization (ISKCON) do social work?

Devotional Practice and Chanting

Devotional Practice and Chanting

• How can devotee control his tongue?
• Is chanting sufficient without reading the books?
• How does Krsna control a devotee?
• Are fasting and other dietary regulations necessary for leading a spiritual life?
• Can we drink date rasa? We are allowed to drink date rasa?
• Can we eat cheese?
• Can one chant when working?
• Do you teach abstinence or moderation in the use of these (intoxication) things?
• Are fasting and other dietary regulations necessary for leading a spiritual life?
• Are the devotees in the mode of goodness?
• Are your disciples supposed to chant the mantra all the time?
• Can one be in spiritual life if they're not worshiping the Deity?
• Can one chant when working?
• Can one say "Om" instead of "Krsna" and gain the same benefit?
• Can you explain to me what is good sex life and bad sex life?
• Is chanting devotional service?
• Does a serious devotee pass stool only once a day?
• What is illicit sex?
• Does the devotee who surrenders keep his individual taste for different things?

Christianity, Islam and Other Religions

Christianity, Islam and Other Religions

• According to the Aquarian Gospel, Christ was in Jagannatha Puri?
• Can a true devotee come face-to-face with God through the teachings of Buddha, the teachings of Christ?
• Can you tell me how your teaching relates to the Bible, to the Christian teaching?
• Christ says that he's the Almighty. What is your opinion?
• Did Jesus die on the cross to redeem all the sins of the world?
• Do you believe that Jesus and Buddha and Krsna are manifestations of the same God?
• Is it possible to find Kṛṣṇa in the Christian tradition or in Islam?
• Do Vedic culture and the Islamic culture have many similarities?
• What is the response in the Islamic countries?
• Do you have chelas (disciples) in Islamic countries?
• Are Christians and Muslims joining?
• Don't you think that all the other chantings like in the Muslim religion and the Buddhist religion and the Japanese religion, their chantings, they are all the same thing?
• Even in India, Muslims are taking to Kṛṣṇa consciousness?
• Why are there so many pseudo religions?
• Swami, what about those who practice one of the other religions?
• Have you studied other religions?

Modern Society and Science

Modern Society and Science

• How can we cure the problem of inflation?
• Do you basically reject the modern civilization?
• Do you think modern man must get better and know God or he will destroy himself?
• Swamiji, what is the relevance of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in our modern society?
• Is our goal to actually establish Vedic principles back into society again at large?
• Is this still possible that the whole human society, it should be recruited and trained up?
• In this time, modern science, you know, physics, chemistry, mathematics; is this all materialism?
• Are you interested to know how we produce anti-matter in our laboratories?
• How can so many scientists cheat together saying that they went to the moon?
• Did they (the astronauts) actually get to the moon or not?
• Did they actually land on the moon, Srila Prabhupada?
• Did these dinosaurs exist, or is it just imagination?
• Do you think Swamiji, the scientists would be able to create life?

Varṇāśrama Society

Varṇāśrama Society

• A sudra, if he is working, he cannot take brahmana initiation, but he can take hari-nama, is that it?
• If women were subordinate to men, it would solve all of our problems?
• What if the brahmana starts to rule the world in their own interest?
• Are sudras supposed to take sannyasa also?
• Are the majority of citizens sudras in a varnasrama society?
• Are there some qualifications of grhasthas, that they are required to support the brahmanas?
• Are you saying that our men should have more than one wife?
• At what point is a householder to know when he should leave his family or her family?
• Can a person become a brahmana?
• Can a woman become sannyasi?
• Is it possible, Swamiji, for a woman to be a guru in the line of disciplic succession?
• Do women fit into this (four classes) social structure?

Lord Caitanya

Lord Caitanya

• After taking sannyasa, though, did He (Caitanya Mahaprabhu) wear sikha and Tulasi mala?
• Did Lord Caitanya have women, householders traveling with Him when He went on sankirtana?
• Did Lord Caitanya take sannyasa from a Mayavadi sannyasi?

Preaching and The Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Movement

Preaching and The Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Movement

• Are you happy with the way the movement has really spread?
• Are many people joining you?
• Can you really expect to change the whole society?
• How your preaching differs from various ācāryas, say, Śaṅkara or Vallabha or Rāmānuja?
• If Christ comes back, what will be the position of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement?
• If I come in contact with Kṛṣṇa movement now, will that in my next life get me a human body?
• If our first concern should be to serve God, or Kṛṣṇa, then why should there be a movement?
• Do you think that some day the Krsna consciousness movement will spread to all the people in the world?
• All classes of men should preach Krsna consciousness?
• By preaching Krsna consciousness would you condemn other people's beliefs?
• Do you think that your mission is successful?

Mind, Ego and Human Psychology

Mind, Ego and Human Psychology

• How about the smaller obstacles which can make people very depressed, neurotic?
• Am I conscious of my body's being constantly changing?
• Can you tell me again what intelligence is?
• Does a man then stop judging his actions?
• If the brahma-jyotir is in the spiritual sky, how could we reach it in our mind? Is it in our mind also?
• If we accept that the senses, the body and the mind are not perfect, they're limited, then with what means are we to perceive God?
• Is it, just to satisfy their own ego that they (interpreters of bhagavad Gita who mislead people) are doing in this way?
• Swamiji, is there such thing as mind, intelligence, and ego in the spiritual realm?
• Srila Prabhupada, are thoughts made of matter or spirit?

All 10,200+ Questions and Answers from Srila Prabhupada