Jehovah Witnesses quote Prabhupada

By Kesava Krsna Dasa - 27.8 2016

There is one publication issued by the Watch Tower called, “Mankind’s Search For God.” In this book, they probe all the major world religions and thought systems with a view to guide the readers to the “True God”.

Any laypersons reading this book could easily think this is an impartial and balanced analysis, but make no mistake, it is pleasantly biased in favour of the ‘Biblical’ observation that the world is 6,000 years old, and all religions, including Hinduism, spread out from the cesspool of Babylonian times.

As we would suspect, the references to Srila Prabhupada are found in the chapter entitled, “Hinduism – a search for liberation”. While it is pleasing to acknowledge he is cited as a major authority on ‘Hinduism”, sadly his, and Lord Chaitanya’s message get enmeshed in the tangled web of whatever Hinduism is supposed to be. They are mashed together with the tantrics, impersonalists, and demigod worshippers, sharing equal status with them.

Before highlighting the quotes, we should be aware of one aspect of belief for the Jehovah Witnesses, that there is no such thing as a soul separate from our bodies. The body made of flesh and bones is the soul – we are this body. Satan and his demoniac hordes inspire any belief in an immortal soul distinct from the body, along with all related phenomena such as reincarnation.

The first quote comes under the sub-heading, “Hinduism’s holy writings”. “According to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada”, they say, “Founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Bhagavad-Gita (part of the Mahabharata) is the supreme instruction of morality. The instructions of Bhagavad-Gita constitute the supreme process of religion and the supreme process of morality….The last instruction of the Gita is the last word of all morality and religion: surrender unto Krishna” – BG.

Later, under the sub-heading, “Hinduism and the soul”, they quote BG 2.13 in answer to what happens after death: “As the embodied soul continually passes in this body, from boyhood to youth, and then to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death”.

In the next paragraph, without mentioning Srila Prabhupada by name, they say a Hindu comment to the verse is as follows; “Since every living entity is an individual soul, each is changing his body at every moment, manifesting sometimes as a child, sometimes as a youth, and sometimes as an old man – although the same spirit soul is there and does not undergo any change. This individual soul finally changes the body itself, in transmigrating from one to another, and since it is sure to have another body in the next birth – either material or spiritual – there was no cause for lamentation by Arjuna on account of death”.

Since this contradicts the ‘we are this body’ belief, how do they respond? Surprisingly, they use, “every living entity is an individual soul”, from Srila Prabhupada’s purport to support their notion that we are this body. They say this statement agrees with the Bible Genesis verse 2.7 in which it says that man was created from the dust of the earth, and having air blown into his nostrils became a living soul”.

It is strange how in the early chapters of the second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita, where all philosophical reasoning presents the distinction between the body and the soul, a discreet statement as above quoted can be used to bolster something completely contrary.

Next, they quote BG 2.17, “That which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul’. Borrowing from the purport to this verse, they show: “Each and every body contains an individual soul, and the symptoms of the soul’s presence is perceived as individual consciousness”. Their response to this is that Hindu ideas teach that we all have a soul; whereas their version of the Bible states that, we are the soul. In any case, the blame again lies with Babylonian culture.

Under another sub-heading called, “Hindu teaching of hell”, Bhagavad-Gita is again mentioned: “O Krishna, maintainer of the people, I have heard from authorities that those who destroy family traditions dwell….in hell” (BG1.43). If the body is a soul, then after-life complications fall away, so to be buried – preferably whole – means to await the final judgement, at which time all the bodies will arise to inhabit an eternal earth planet.

And who are the fortunate few to dwell upon this earth perpetually? As this book says, all the Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other believers and non-believers, which comprise almost the entire world population, will be thrown into an eternal furnace at judgement time. The elite few will have chosen the ‘True God’ of course.

Ys, Kesava Krsna dasa