PRABHUPĀDA – Well, I’ll explain it in two ways. One thing, the verdict of Allāh, who knows the inside story of hearts, is the final verdict to be accepted in this regard. Because when you mention the intentions, immediately the real motive is hidden behind the human eyes, and then human eyes cannot reach the hidden motive. Intentions is something you simply can’t reach physically. So the only judge is Allāh. And the holy Qur’ān tells us that when the messes, the commoners, would come out with the excuse before Allāh that we didn’t do anything, we were ignorant, and these were the elders, the leaders, who misguided us, throw them into hell and save us. So Allāh would say, you both would suffer the same fate. Why did you follow them? Why because there is an inbuilt system in every human being of conscience. So that has no bearing with knowledge or lack of knowledge. It’s an independent thing. Equally, the poor and the rich and the knowledgeable and the ignorant are equally gifted with this thing you call conscience. So if you do things against your conscience, following a clergy or any political leadership, it’s the same thing. You must suffer for the consequences. And secondly, if you look at them and analyze the situation, if they do it for the sake of goodness, they should follow goodness wherever they find it. But when the ulama tell them to behave correctly, if they ever tell them, and when the ulama tell them to say prayers five times a day, if they ever tell them, and when the ulama tell them to abstain from corruption and use others’ rights, if they ever do so, they never follow them. Why? If it is goodness they follow, here is the goodness, pure and simple. But they refuse to follow that goodness. So that shows the verdict of the holy Qur’an is correct. It is the mal- intention in them which is resulting in these atrocities, not just by somebody misleading them.
