And so, what is your philosophy?
Bahulasva das : When most of these professors came, Prabhupada was always ready to take them on. He didn't get friendly with many of these professors, but he would always encourage me to bring more. Then we would work hard to cultivate a relationship to get them to come to see Prabhupada, and then Prabhupada would just smash whatever their philosophy was or whatever their point of view was. But there were a few that Prabhupada liked, like Dr. Judah; and Theodore Rosa, Prabhupada was also very nice with him. And I think that was more because they came with a devotional attitude. They didn't come as if they were the great erudite scholars.
When they came, they had a sense who Prabhupada was. They knew they were in the presence of a holy person, and then Prabhupada would treat them differently. But if they came all arrogant and puffed up, then Srila Prabhupada would immediately say, "And so, what is your philosophy? What are you thinking about this?" and he would immediately challenge them and just tear them to shreds. If you listen to any of the dialogues here, you'll see that Prabhupada would go right at them and usually be very challenging. I think Prabhupada wanted to use these interactions as ways to give the devotees the confidence not to be afraid to speak up.
You would get a sense that there was a Japanese Kabuki theater drama going on and Prabhupada was more or less showing you how to do it, regardless of who their positions were, to present Krishna consciousness fearlessly, not to hold back and be overly polite, especially true if anyone brought up meat-eating subjects.
I can remember lots of conversations where Prabhupada would talk about how the cow is already giving you the equivalent of its blood in the form of the milk. What is the reason for killing the cow? Why take its blood when it is already providing you this? That theme would come up a lot. But mostly he would always get around to talking about how do you think life came about? How was the universe created? Why do you think you are here? Do you think you are the body? How do you substantiate your sense of who you are? Changing body.
Those were the most common things that he would speak about. And then he would always bring it around to talking about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and that you are part and parcel and you can't be happy unless the part is serving the whole or you won't be happy. He didn't treat anybody other than the way he would deal with regular devotees. It didn't matter who it was.
Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada-A Chronological Series by Bahulasva Dasa
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