Prabhupāda: Your body might be an illusion, but to you it's real. And if you abused your life, then that's . . .
Prabhupāda: Fighting is a kṣatriya's duty, you see. Just like I can give you one example: Just like one man is ordered by the state that "This man should be hanged." Does it mean that the state is enemy of this man?
Woman (1): I disagree with hanging completely.
Madhudviṣa: She also disagrees with hanging.
Prabhupāda: You may disagree, but what is the principle? Do you mean to say the state is wrong, the government is wrong?
Woman (1): Yes.
Prabhupāda: Well, that is an individual opinion. But according to śāstra, we have to understand that . . . suppose your dress, something unclean dress, you have got. So if somebody says that "You take out this unclean dress. Get a . . ." so is that very (sic) enimating. Because after all, the soul is within the body. So if the body has become unclean, or some other reason, the body has to be changed, so that is not lack of love. Therefore we have to understand actually what we are. Am I this body or something else?
Woman (1): No, I quite agree that I'm spirit soul. I quite agree with that.
Prabhupāda: Then that's all right. So similarly, when there is duty, when . . . because I have already explained that the kṣatriyas are meant for maintaining the social order, the brāhmaṇa is meant for giving good intelligence, the vaiśyas are meant for maintaining the economic condition. So as the government maintains the force, military police, their business is to chastise. This is required for maintenance of the whole thing. So you cannot avoid this war, fighting, when it is for good cause. We should not be so foolish that war can be, I mean to say, completely abolished. That is not possible. If you want to keep the social order, you must have to maintain the military strength, the police strength, and the court or the university. Everything is required. You cannot neglect one of them. Similarly . . . but if you are afraid of being killed—that is the medicine we are preaching—then you get out of this entanglement. You be situated in your spiritual body. There is no more question of killing. But so long you are in the material world, you have to abide by the rules and regulation of material nature. That you cannot avoid.
Woman (1): Well, certainly I disagree with transmigration. I mean, if you're going to come back a plant or a bee, there's not much point in trying to agree to such a thing.