Learning the Science of the Soul
31
Mike Robinson:  No, I wouldn't.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  Similarly, everyone is simply washing the "coat and shirt" of the body, but forgetting about the soul within the body. They have no information about what is within the "coat and shirt" of the body. Ask anybody what he is, and he will say, "Yes, I am an Englishman," or "I am an Indian." And if we say, "I can see you have an English or an Indian body, but what are  you ?"—that he cannot say.
Mike Robinson:  I see.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  The whole modern civilization is operating on the misunderstanding that the body is the self ( dehātma-buddhi ). This is the mentality of the cats and dogs. Suppose I try to enter England, and you stop me at the border: "I am an Englishman," you say, "but you are Indian. Why have you come here?" And the dog barks, " Rau, rau , why are you coming?" So what is the difference in mentality? The dog is thinking he's a dog and I'm a stranger, and you are thinking you are an Englishman and I am an Indian. There's no difference in mentality. So if you keep people in the darkness of a dog's mentality and declare that you are advancing in civilization, you are most misguided.
Mike Robinson:  Now, moving on to another point, I gather the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement has some concern for areas of the world where there is suffering.
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  Yes, we have the only concern. Others are simply avoiding the main problems: birth, old age, disease, and death. Others have no solutions to these problems; they are simply talking all kinds of nonsense. People are being misguided. They are being kept in darkness. Let us start to give them some light.
Mike Robinson:  Yes, but apart from giving spiritual enlightenment, are you also concerned for people's physical well-being?
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  Physical well-being automatically follows spiritual well-being.
Mike Robinson:  And how does that work?
Śrīla Prabhupāda:  Suppose you have a car. So, naturally, you take care of the car as well as yourself. But you don't  identify  yourself as the car. You don't say, "I am this car." That is nonsense. But this is what people are doing. They are taking too much care of the bodily "car," thinking that the car is the self. They forget that they are different from the car, that they are a spirit soul and have a different business. Just as no one can drink petrol and be satisfied, no one can be satisfied with bodily activities. One must find out the proper food for the soul. If a man thinks, "I am a