Perfect Questions Perfect Answers - for living a perfect life

Perfect Questions Perfect Answers are conversations between His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder-Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and Bob Cohen, a Peace Corps worker in India

Thirty-three years have passed since I sat near the Ganges River having the conversation described in this book. Since it was first published in 1976, I’ve shared many copies. Often it has been difficult to explain away a title that talks about my “perfect questions,” for in 1972 I was twenty-two years old and quite far from perfection! Yet my partner in conversation, Śrīla Prabhupāda, suggested the title “Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers.” And he was quite humble about himself. How did all this perfection come about?

My conservative Jewish family instilled in me an inner longing to understand God. Self-discovery and anti-war protests highlighted my college years, though in 1971 I did manage to graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in chemistry. In that milieu of introspection and protest I became fascinated by the Hare Kṛṣṇa chant, which I first heard in the late ’60s in Greenwich Village, and by the Bhagavad-gītā, the primer on yoga.

I learned that yoga means “union with God.” The concepts of yoga attracted me, yet did not contradict the tenets of my upbringing. Still, the presentation of yoga in America troubled me. Every week the New York Daily News ran a centerfold of the latest Indian guru proclaiming his enlightenment to the world. Who could I trust? It seemed I needed to go to the source – mystical, faraway India. After college, the Peace Corps looked like an attractive way for me to explore India, live in a village, learn the language, and genuinely check out the Gītā and the chanting.

Find the online version of this book here