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August 9, 1973 : Paris

The famous conversation between Prabhupada and Cardinal Danielou took place.
 
Yogesvara: We are able to arrange a meeting for Srila Prabhupada with Cardinal Danielou. But he came from that school of thinking that held that souls only inhabit the bodies of human beings. When he met Srila Prabhupada, the conversation gravitated rather quickly to this issue of the soul in all forms. He remarked to Srila Prabhupada, "I can't understand you Hindus. Why you prefer to see your children starve than to kill the sacred cow. I don't understand." Prabhupada responded by saying, "First we have to define what are the symptoms of consciousness." He then took him through, step by step, a very clear, elementary understanding of what are the symptoms of the soul within the body.

To a certain extent, Danielou was accepting, but he couldn't break free from what he had studied and written about for all those years and, therefore, was obviously uncomfortable with this concept. But Prabhupada held his ground. He said, "If you want to eat meat, there are other bodies that are more appropriate. Why not take the birth in the body of a tiger for example? A tiger can eat meat quite easily. You have a hard time eating meat. It’s not easy to eat meat." Danielou was becoming very uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation and said, "Well, it has been wonderful having you here. I have to go now."

All during the car ride back to the temple, Prabhupada talked about how important the point is about consciousness and the symptoms of the soul.


Reference: Srila Prabhupada-Remembrances - Siddhanta Dasa