Just try to follow the four principles as we have prescribed: no intoxication, no gambling, no illicit sex, and no meat-eating. That’s all. This is goodness. This is goodness. These prohibitions are there. Why? Just to keep you in goodness. In every religion… Now, in the Ten Commandments also, I see that “Thou shall not kill.” The same thing is there, but people are not obeying. That is a different thing. No religious person… Nobody can be religious unless he is situated in the modes of goodness. A passionate person or a person in ignorance, they cannot be elevated to the religious platform. Religious platform means in goodness. Then you can understand. On the platform of goodness, you can understand the All-good. If you are in ignorance platform, if you are in the passionate platform, how you can understand the All-good? That is not possible. So one has to keep himself in goodness, and that goodness means one should follow the prohibitions. Either you follow the Ten Commandments or these four commandments, the same thing. That means you have to keep yourself in goodness. The balance must be in goodness. In the Bhagavad-gita it is stated, param brahma param dhama pavitram paramam bhavan [Bg. 10.12]. Arjuna accepted Krsna as the supermost pure. How you can approach the supermost pure without becoming yourself pure? So this is the steppingstone to become pure, because we are contaminated. So to become pure… The Ekadasi, why we observe? To become pure. Brahmacarya tapasya, austerity, penance, celibacy, keeping the mind always in Krsna consciousness, keeping the body always cleansed — these things will help us to keep us in goodness. Without goodness, it is not possible. But Krsna consciousness is so nice that even one is in the modes of passion and ignorance, at once he’ll be elevated on the platform of goodness, provided he agrees to follow the rules and regulations and chants Hare Krsna. This chanting of Hare Krsna and following the rules and regulation will keep you intact in goodness. Rest assured. Without failure.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.8 — October 21, 1968, Seattle