The Post-Graduate Study of God

There is one God. All bonafide religious scriptures teach of the same God and stress the importance of loving Him. Religion, in fact, means to come to the stage of loving God without any personal self-centered motivation.

Because of the different circumstances in which God consciousness is taught, there are different grades of information given to the spiritual aspirants. For example, if people are very degraded and engaged in gross sinful practices, it may be necessary to stress sub-religious principles that must be followed just to bring them to the human platform. One may preach "Thou shalt not kill" or "Do not commit adultery" or "Honor your father and mother."

In this way, the saints preach according to time, place and circumstance, taking into account what each group of persons needs in order to advance to the next stage of God-consciousness. In the Krishna consciousness movement, spiritual and aspirants are instructed in the four regulative principles:

1. No meat, fish or eggs
2. No illicit sex
3. No gambling
4. No intoxication.

If someone does not follow these principles, he can never understand God.
The higher principles taught in the Vedic literatures, such as the nature of God, the nature of pure love of God, the nature of the spiritual world and activities there, are considered the post-graduate study of God-consciousness. Srila Prabhupada's books deal with this most exalted science.