Q: Do you believe God is perfect?

It’s not a matter of belief. If God is not perfect, then He is not God. Any imperfection perceived in God, is due to our own imperfect mental perceptions. It would be quite foolish of any human being to claim he has a perfect mind. Only God can claim that. That’s why it is recommended we learn about God from a bona-fide, authorized teacher. An authorized teacher of God will direct us towards the Vedic literature, which are the only scriptures in the world that give us detailed knowledge of God. Note, I’m not expressing my opinion or belief here, I’m stating a fact. “The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.” —Sri Isopanishad Invocation

Srila Prabhupada explains:

The Complete Whole, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is the complete Personality of Godhead. Realization of impersonal Brahman or of Paramatma, the Supersoul, is incomplete realization of the Absolute Complete. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ananda-vigraha [Bs. 5.1]. Realization of impersonal Brahman is realization of His sat feature, or His aspect of eternity, and Paramatma realization is realization of His sat and cit features, His aspects of eternity and knowledge. But realization of the Personality of Godhead is realization of all the transcendental features — sat, cit and ananda, bliss. When one realizes the Supreme Person, he realizes these aspects of the Absolute Truth in their completeness.

Vigraha means “form.” Thus the Complete Whole is not formless. If He were formless, or if He were less than His creation in any other way, He could not be complete. The Complete Whole must contain everything both within and beyond our experience; otherwise He cannot be complete. The Complete Whole, the Personality of Godhead, has immense potencies, all of which are as complete as He is. Thus this phenomenal world is also complete in itself. The twenty-four elements of which this material universe is a temporary manifestation are arranged to produce everything necessary for the maintenance and subsistence of this universe.

No other unit in the universe need make an extraneous effort to try to maintain the universe. The universe functions on its own time scale, which is fixed by the energy of the Complete Whole, and when that schedule is completed, this temporary manifestation will be annihilated by the complete arrangement of the Complete Whole. All facilities are given to the small complete units (namely the living beings) to enable them to realize the Complete Whole. All forms of incompleteness are experienced due to incomplete knowledge of the Complete Whole.

The human form of life is a complete manifestation of the consciousness of the living being, and it is obtained after evolving through 8,400,000 species of life in the cycle of birth and death. If in this human life of full consciousness the living entity does not realize his completeness in relation to the Complete Whole, he loses the chance to realize his completeness and is again put into the evolutionary cycle by the law of material nature. Because we do not know that there is a complete arrangement in nature for our maintenance, we make efforts to utilize the resources of nature to create a so-called complete life of sense enjoyment. Because the living entity cannot enjoy the life of the senses without being dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the misleading life of sense enjoyment is illusion.

The hand of a body is a complete unit only as long as it is attached to the complete body. When the hand is severed from the body, it may appear like a hand, but it actually has none of the potencies of a hand. Similarly, living beings are part and parcel of the Complete Whole, and if they are severed from the Complete Whole, the illusory representation of completeness cannot fully satisfy them. The completeness of human life can be realized only when one engages in the service of the Complete Whole. All services in this world — whether social, political, communal, international or even interplanetary — will remain incomplete until they are dovetailed with the Complete Whole.

When everything is dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the attached parts and parcels also become complete in themselves.

Q: What did God do in your life that made you realize he is all you needed?

God gave me unconditional happiness in life. Usually our happiness depends on the condition of the bodily senses and our mind. And the main condition of the body and mind is misery. The bottom line in the material world is suffering, for the simple reason that everything ends in old age, disease and death. The only way out of the fundamental suffering of living in a material body, is cultivate spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge begins with knowing the difference between matter and spirit – the difference between the body and mind and the self.

Krishna says:

“My dear Arjuna, because you are never envious of Me, I shall impart to you this most confidential knowledge and realization, knowing which you shall be relieved of the miseries of material existence.” (Bg. 9.1)

Only knowing oneself as an eternal particle of consciousness is real happiness. Real happiness is a constant fact. Real happiness is not constantly interrupted by misery. People in the modern world are not educated in real happiness. They confuse bodily and mental pleasures with happiness.

In the modern Consumer civilization people are indoctrinated into believing that sense-enjoyment will create happiness for them. Indeed, bodily and mental enjoyment is the only type of happiness people know of. But sense-enjoyment is merely a temporary pause in the suffering of the body and mind. Eating is considered one of life’s major enjoyments. But actually, to eat is just an attempt to escape the suffering of hunger. People of the Western culture don’t know what it means to suffer from famine, but it is a great suffering experienced by many people in the world. And that’s how it is with all the enjoyment we seek.

Eating, sleeping, mating, and defending are the four activities humans have in common with all other living entities. In the modern world, however, it has become the foremost goal to fulfill and satisfy these four needs. They have been made the standard of happiness and enjoyment in life. What do we do together with our loved ones, with our family and friends? We eat, we sleep, we mate, and we defend. The entire civilization revolves around these four activities. That’s an animal civilization. Humans have a higher goal in life than merely satisfying basic bodily needs.

The global culture is basically one gigantic industrial setup to fulfill basic bodily needs. The Western civilization is an exploitive culture that rapes nature, and puts her inhabitants through extreme sufferings. And it’s proudly called the industrialized, developed world. The way of freedom. Anyway, the happiness that can be obtained by surrendering to Krishna’s enjoyment is so far superior to the happiness that can be squeezed out of matter, that sex with the most beautiful women become like broken glass in comparison.

Atheism is the root cause of the present animal culture in the name of human civilization. Atheism reduces the human being to an animal. In reality, the human life-form is a unique opportunity for the soul to realize its real identity. The soul cannot realize itself in any other life-form. In other forms of life, the soul is merely busy with eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. The human form of life is a waste of time for the soul, if it is not used to learn about oneself and one’s relation to Krishna.

Krishna says:

“This knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed.” (Bg. 9.2)