View source for Can you not say that this knowledge is an atma-vidya, that we are trying to come to the knowledge of the atman (this is our main business, that is, jivasya tattva-jijnasa, to inquire about the Absolute Truth)?

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{{terms|"Can you not say that this knowledge is an atma-vidya, that we are trying to come to the knowledge of the atman"}}
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{{compiler|MadhuGopaldas|Rishab}}
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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1974]]
[[Category:Questions On... Knowledge]]
[[Category:Questions On... Spirit Soul]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1974_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="7" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1974 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1974 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="RoomConversationwithProfessorDurckheimGermanSpiritualWriterJune191974Germany_0" class="quote" parent="1974_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="123" link="Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany" link_text="Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany">
<div class="heading">ātmā, yes. Tattva-jijñāsā means ātma-jijñāsā.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany|Room Conversation with Professor Durckheim German Spiritual Writer -- June 19, 1974, Germany]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Prabhupāda: Even children are learning how to dance, how to offer obeisances, how to chant, how to clap. They are also learning, small children.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: And I think that it comes at the right time so that people may not be misled into juvenile delinquency, all of those "easy riders" and motorcycles and adolescent criminality. They find creative outlets for their energies also as a by-product.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No. We are teaching... Of course, we do not defy this modern advance of material civil... We don't say that. But this is our main business, that is, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā, to inquire about the Absolute Truth.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: So can you not say that this knowledge is an ātma-vidyā, that we are trying to come to the knowledge of the ātman.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ātmine?</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: Ātmā, self.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh, ātmā, yes. Tattva-jijñāsā means ātma-jijñāsā.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: That is why it is also correct to translate the term kṛṣṇa-arjuna-saṁvara (?) as a kind of metaphysical knowledge, philosophical knowledge.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (aside:) No, not now. No, not now. No, whole knowledge. Metaphysical, physical, everything is there.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: In the Gītā it also, a verse, that "Four kinds of persons seek Me..."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ah, yes. Catur-vidhā bhajante mām.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: "The man who seeks knowledge."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, catur-vidhā. And similarly, there are four kinds of rascals. Catur-vidhā. No. Na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 7.15 (1972)|BG 7.15]]). Everything is there.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: But, perhaps, that could be also a question, that Graf Durckheim has in mind, I think, perhaps, when he asked the question about belief, etc. Perhaps he also thinks that we are living in a period of, where, because of the technological construction of society, rational knowledge is appreciated and, for example, ten years ago non-rational knowledge in Germany, actually, or in Europe was highly suspected. We had lived through a period of positivism, and people in our universities even wanted to abolish the word consciousness. They even wanted to abolish the word psychology on the basis, on the presumption that there is no such thing as a (German).</p>
<p>Professor Durckheim: But this time is over.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: Yes.</p>
<p>Professor Durckheim: The modern times are not modern anymore.</p>
<p>Prof. Pater Porsch: I agree with you but just think how the world was only a few years ago.</p>
<p>Professor Durckheim: Yes. And especially if you talk about the rational (German), the really German tradition is the irrational. So now this is coming back now, rediscovering their own past slowly.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So long they do not come to the standard platform, they will accept this sometimes and that sometimes. This will go on, changing.</p>
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