Perfect Question Perfect Answer

Question #1: What is the true aim of human life?
Answer: The real aim of life is to go back to Home, back to Godhead. We all living entities in different forms of body numbering 8,400,000 forms beginning from the aquatics up to the best advanced form of human life, there is a regular evolution by the laws of nature. The real fact is that we living entities although part and parcel of God, on account of our own disobedience have come down to this material world under different circumstances. We have different types of material dresses to fulfill the tendency for sense gratification, and this by the laws of nature, by association with the 3 modes of material nature. We are transmigrating through different forms of life. So this human form of life is given to us as an opportunity to understand our position because in the human form of life we have more developed consciousness than the lower forms of life like the aquatics, insects, plants, birds, beasts and the civilized and uncivilized human beings. So the point is that a human being must know the aim of life is to go back to Home, back to Godhead.

Question #2: Which is the exact path to attain this aim?
Answer: God is great and we are all subordinate to God. In other words, God is the Supreme Master and we are all living entities, servants of God. Therefore, the path which teaches this fact, that a living entity is eternal servant of God, that is the only single path which leads one back to Home, back to Godhead.

Question #3: How many leaders have actually achieved this aim?
Answer: This aim is a fact, and the path is a fact, and anyone who takes this path, he can achieve the goal. According to our authorities who have achieved this goal, there are many, many acaryas. In the recent years, within 1500 years, the following acaryas are actually leaders of this goal of life. They are Ramanujacarya, Madhvacarya, Visnu svami, and Nimbarka, and latest within the last 500 years is Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. There are many such leaders who have achieved the goal of life and if you want to follow them, the path is very clearly mentioned.

Question #4: Why all the present religions and spiritual systems came into existence, contradicting each other when humanity is meant to follow only one religion?
Answer: Religious system means the law given by God. In every system of religion the order is to follow the instruction given by God or His representative. Unfortunately, the so-called followers deviate from the orders of the master and sometimes create their own concocted religious system. Otherwise, there can't be different religions. We therefore accept only one religion which teaches one how to love God. Any religious system which doesn't teach this, how to love God is not religion, but is cheating system. The conditioned souls who have come to this world on account of forgetfulness of his eternal relationship with God is prone to be cheated, but a person who is sincere is not cheated, but he takes up the path which leads one to the perfection of life, how to love God. The present religious and spiritual systems in varieties come into existence on account of imperfect leaders who defied the authority of God. My suggestion is therefore that the leaders who actually agree as eternal servant of God may sit together and find out the ways and means of one religious system in this world. God is one. There cannot be many gods, otherwise there is no meaning of God. In the English dictionary, you find that God means the "Supreme Being.'' There are unlimited number of living beings, but God is one Supreme Being. Supreme Being must be one. Nobody can be equal to Him, and nobody can be greater than Him, otherwise there is no meaning of God. At the present moment it has become a fashion to become God very cheaply, therefore, such system being very cheap and not authorized, there are so many religious systems. Otherwise, God is one, all living entities are His eternal servants, and therefore, the real religious system is to learn how to serve God.

Srila Prabhupada's Letter to: Mr. Dhawan — Vrindaban 2 April, 1976