Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes. To go back home, back to Godhead. That is the real goal of life. The water that comes from the sea forms clouds, the clouds fall down as rain, and the actual goal is to flow down the river and again enter the sea. So, we have come from God, and now we are embarrassed by material life. Therefore, our aim should be to get out of this embarrassing situation and go back home, back to Godhead. This is the real goal of life.

This is the version of Bhagavad-gītā [8.15]. Kṛṣṇa says, “If anyone comes to Me, he does not come back again.” Where? “To this place – duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam.” This place is the abode of miseries. Everyone knows it, but they have been befooled by so-called leaders. Material life is miserable life. Kṛṣṇa says, God says, that this place is duḥkhālayam – it is a place of miseries. And it is also aśāśvatam, temporary. You cannot make a compromise: “All right, let it be miserable. I shall remain here as an American or Indian.” No. That also you cannot do. You cannot remain an American. You may think that, having been born in America, you are very happy. But you cannot remain an American for long. You will have to be kicked out of that place. And your next life you do not know! Therefore, it is duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam – miserable and temporary. That is our philosophy.

Śrīla Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa means “all-attractive.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda: The Vedic principle is that one should avoid sex life altogether. The whole Vedic principle is to get liberation from material bondage. There are different attachments for material enjoyment, of which sex life is the topmost. The Bhāgavatam says that in this material world man is attached to woman, and woman is attached to man: puṁsaḥ striyā mithunī-bhāvam etam. Not only in human society – in animal society also. That attachment is the basic principle of material life. So, a woman is hankering for or seeking after the association of a man, and a man is hankering for or seeking the association of a woman. All the fiction novels, dramas, cinemas, and even ordinary advertisements that you see simply depict the attachment between man and woman. Even in the tailor’s shop you will find in the window some woman and some man. So this attachment is already there.

Śrīla Prabhupāda: In goodness you can understand things – knowledge. You can know that there is God, that this world was created by Him, and so many things, actual things – the sun is this, the moon is this – perfect knowledge. If one has some knowledge, even though it may not be perfect, that is goodness. And in passion one identifies with his material body and tries to gratify his senses. That is passion. And ignorance is animal life – in ignorance, one does not know what is God, how to become happy, why we are in this world. For example, if you take an animal to the slaughterhouse, it will go willingly. This is ignorance. But a man will protest. If a goat is to be killed after five minutes but you give it a morsel of grass, it is happy because it is eating. That is ignorance.

Śrīla Prabhupāda: Yes. According to the association of the modes of nature, your activities are being contaminated. Kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo ’sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu: “A man gets a higher birth or lower birth according to the association of the guṇas, or the modes of nature.” [Gītā 13.22]