“Now these Christmas holidays have begun in your country. Throughout the whole month of December you’ll observe nice festivities. Why? It began with God consciousness. Jesus Christ came to give you God consciousness, and in relation to him these festivities are going on. It may have degraded into another form, but the beginning was God consciousness. Now we may have lost it. But people cannot be happy without reviving God consciousness. It may be named differently—‘Krishna consciousness’—but that means God consciousness. That is the necessity. We want to love somebody. Our love will be perfected when we love Krishna, or God. We are teaching that. Try to love God, and if you love God, if you love Krishna, then automatically you love everybody. That is the perfection of love.”
—Srila Prabhupada, December 2, 1968, Los Angeles (adapted)
