View source for He said one thing is to understand theoretically the knowledge, and the other is to practice it. What is the method for...?

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{{terms|"What is the method for"|"he said one thing is to understand theoretically the knowledge, and the other is to practice it"}}
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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1975]]
[[Category:Questions On... Knowledge]]
[[Category:Questions On... Process of Krsna Consciousness - Bhakti-yoga]]
[[Category:Questions From... Academics]]
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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="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="8" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1975 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1975 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="RoomConversationwithProfessorsFebruary191975Caracas_0" class="quote" parent="1975_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="8" link="Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas" link_text="Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas">
<div class="heading">Everything is there. All questions solved, economic, social, religious, politics, whatever you are-plus transcendental knowledge.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas|Room Conversation with Professors -- February 19, 1975, Caracas]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Professor: Can I put a question? Why do you always say, "From a perfect person"?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because the knowledge must be perfect; otherwise imperfect knowledge.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying why do you say a perfect person instead of saying a perfect philosophy?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, unless the philosophy is given by a perfect person how the philosophy can be perfect? Philosophy means searching after the truth. So if he does not know how to find out the truth, what is the meaning of his philosophy? I was a student of philosophy. My professor was Dr. Urquhart. He used to say that "Philosophy is the science of science." So unless he is a perfect scientist, how he can give science?</p>
<p>Professor: I have other question. Why do we want to transcend?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: I am not wanting. I am simply distributing the transcendental knowledge.</p>
<p>Professor: Will not transcendence be an illusion too?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, no, there is proof. It is not emotion. What you say, you have no proof, but what I say I have got proof. What you say, you become your own authority. But what I say, I have got greater authority. Just like two lawyers speaking before the court—the lawyer who gives quotation from the authority, he gains the case.</p>
<p>Professor: Do you have any evidence?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.</p>
<p>Professor: Would you tell us your experiences in that field?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, that, of course, it will take time for you to understand. Because unless you are lawyer, you cannot understand while the other lawyer is giving quotation. But the court will accept.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He still wants to go on with the same question he asked before: If we are content just to purify ourselves or if we also want to help the society.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, you do not know what is self. How you will purify? You do not know what is self. Can you say what is self?</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): Is it possible that he could spend his whole life trying to find himself and at the end of his life not find himself and meanwhile he didn't help the society?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Not only one life, but millions of life, you will not be able to know—unless you change your policy.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): What is the value of the transcendence?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because you are transcendence. You are actually seeking transcendence because you are transcendence.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says that because he doesn't know what the transcendence is, there's no value for him. It's only a name. He doesn't know why to look for it.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. So first of all, as I say, that you are also transcendence, you just try to know yourself first. Then you will know what is transcendence. You are the sample of transcendence, and if you see the sample, you can know the whole thing. Just like if you taste one drop of sea water, then you can understand what is the chemical composition of the sea water. Therefore your first business is to know yourself, that you are not this body. In this way, when you know yourself, then you know the original transcendence.</p>
<p>Professor: Why do you make so much emphasis on (indistinct).</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because without this, you are animal.</p>
<p>Professor: What's wrong with being an animal?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Animal means you are living a very risky life.</p>
<p>Professor: A very...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Risky life. The animal is always in danger. A dog is running, but at any moment he can be in danger. I have seen in my own eyes in New York. It is little in the off from New York. In I think in the month of December or January, a dog was jumping and he fell in the water pool and immediately died. It was so cold it collapsed immediately. So what is the use of this dog-like jumping? Besides that, in the animal society there is no question of culture, religion, philosophy, science. Animal, they do not require it. And why man requires it? That means human society is searching after the transcendence. But without knowing the way, how to understand, they are now engaged in different way. You find out this verse from Bhāgavatam, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā na yaś ceha karmabhiḥ. Find out. Kamasya nendriya-pritiḥ.</p>
<p>Hṛdayānanda: It's in the first volume.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. You know that? Find out this verse.</p>
:kāmasya nendriya-prītir
:(lābho) jīveta yāvatā
:jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā
:(artho) yaś ceha na karmabhiḥ
:([[Vanisource:SB 1.2.10|SB 1.2.10]])
<p>Find out this. Read it. (Hṛdayānanda translates into Spanish)</p>
<p>Hṛdayānanda: They still have doubts on this point that how can we know that it's worth our trouble, that if we dedicate our lives to this searching for the transcendence, how can we be sure that at the end of it we won't have wasted our lives? How can we be sure that the transcendence is actually worth searching for?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, first of all you must understand the importance of the business. Then we can do it. If you do not understand the importance of the business, then you cannot do it.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says that he feels that you've already answered this question, but that they didn't catch it, that he thinks the key is that you said that the truth is not outside, but it's actually within us. We have to find it within us.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says why do you put so much emphasis on the personalism after liberation because it seems like to him that the ideal perfect thing would be the unity rather than having something separate.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is your ideal, imperfect ideal. Because you are imperfect.</p>
<p>Professor: Are you perfect master?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh, yes, because I am heard from the perfect. I am not perfect, but what I say, that is perfect. Just like a child does not know what is this dictaphone, but he has learned from the father, "This is dictaphone," so when he says, "This is dictaphone," it is perfect. The child is not perfect, but because he has heard from his father perfect, so the knowledge is perfect.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): That if you are not perfect, how can you interpret the truth?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because I am giving the perfect truth. Anyone who will accept, it will act. Just like a child says that "This is dictaphone. If you use it like this, you'll get this result." That is perfect.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says that not all knowledge is so objective. For example, in the matter of understanding society, the communists have their theory, the capitalists have their theory, and there's millions of theories and so...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is not knowledge; that is art. Just like electrician. He knows how to mix the two wires and bring the current. That is not knowledge; that is a business or art for temporary recreation. And because he knows the art how to bring the current, it does not mean that he knows the Absolute Truth. So people are taking at the present moment electrician as the knower of the Absolute Truth.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that he thinks that the knowledge that you're giving is perfect because it is perfect knowledge and not because you are giving it. Because it is revealed knowledge, perfect because it is revealed.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Anyone can take it. Just like we are giving knowledge of the Bhagavad-gītā. So the Bhagavad-gītā is open for everyone; it is not for me only. It is for you also. That is our movement, that you take the perfect knowledge and be happy and make your life successful.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): So he said one thing is to understand theoretically the knowledge, and the other is to practice it. What is the method for...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Everything is there. All questions solved, economic, social, religious, politics, whatever you are-plus transcendental knowledge.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He said it seems to him that this involves a retiring from ordinary life, western life, and even maybe retiring from ordinary eastern life.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: It is not the question of western life or eastern life. The life... Just like westerners, they eat, and the easterners, they eat. Now the question is how to supply eating. (break)</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that the way we dress, our whole way of life, will make our movement only available to a few people because it requires someone who is prepared to completely change his way of life.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Well, when there is question of knowledge, only you will find a few people to get the knowledge. When you put this question, "Find out some learned scholar," generally they will be very... Their number will be very little. But one thing is that if there is one man in real knowledge, he can give the..., distribute the knowledge to many. The example is just like ekaś candras tamo hanti na ca tārā sahasraśaḥ: If you get one moon at night, that is sufficient to dissipate the darkness. And there are millions of stars—it is useless. So it is necessarily not required that everyone should be in perfect knowledge. But if one man is in perfect knowledge, hundreds and thousands can hear from him and they can perfect(?). So it does not depend on the quantity; it depends on the quality.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that just like you give the example of the dictaphone, but it seems like if he just recorded the knowledge within his brain and then repeated it, that he would just be like an instrument, and he might not really be conscious of the knowledge himself. He'd just be transmitting it. It seems like... He thinks that's a defect because he's not really, he might not be conscious.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, he doesn't require. Just like I am working with this dictaphone. I am not a mechanic, but my business is going on. That is required. I have read the instruction paper, that "You use this microphone like this. You put this button," and three, four instruction. So I have learned it and it is giving my business. That's all. Just like this lamp, the instruction is "Push this button," (flicks light button) and it will go, all on. So I know I will get the light. Now I am not electrician. It doesn't require. That much knowledge is sufficient. But I want the light. So the electrician says, "Just put this button in this way. Light will be there." So my business is finished.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He's saying that for example he could listen to everything that you were saying, and then he could repeat it, and someone might say to him that "Oh, you are an expert. You are a master," but actually he's not. He's simply repeating.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, this is example. By receiving a knowledge, you must corroborate by your knowledge or by your experience, by the method. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā, it is said that Arjuna was declining to fight in the war. So Kṛṣṇa said that "You are simply lamenting on this body, but you do not know what is the active principle of the body." So this you can understand very nicely, that everyone is working for this body, but nobody knows what the active principle of the body. Without the active principle of the body, this body, alive or dead, is the same thing, lump of matter. So Arjuna accepted Kṛṣṇa as teacher; therefore He is chastising him that "You are talking like a learned man, but you are lamenting on this body, but no learned man laments on this body, either dead or alive." Because without the knowledge of the active principle which is moving the body, what is the use of simply understanding the bodily construction? The medical science knows the construction of the body, anatomy, physiology, the bone, this muscle, the blood and everything, but he does not know what is the active principle. When the active principle gone, they cannot repair it. So there may be vast advancement of medical science, but if the medical science cannot check birth, death, old age and disease, then what is the use of it? It may have some temporary use, but actually it is not science. Nobody wants to die. Is there medical science which can stop death? So that knowledge may be temporary, beneficial, but ultimately, it is not the knowledge. I am anxious for not dying. Nobody wants to die. This is my anxiety. And where is that science, medical science? So we are satisfied with some temporary knowledge. We have no ultimate knowledge. And because it is very difficult subject matter, we have avoided it very carefully.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He does not see... He is disappointed because he does not see any difference between Hare Kṛṣṇa and all the other religions.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That's your business, but we find difference. And we have no also difference with other religion. Now, other religions, they are also searching after God. But religion, conception of religion, without God is not religion. Do you admit or not?</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): All the religions say they have knowledge of God.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Anyway, religion means searching after God.</p>
<p>Professor (Hṛdayānanda): He says for example they have a new god which is money.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, because you are imperfect, therefore you are thinking like that. Now, suppose you are on deathbed, can money save you? Then why do you say money is all-powerful? God is all-powerful, but money is not all-powerful. Then therefore money cannot be God.</p>
<p>Professor: Does religion or God, can give you eternal life?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What is that? What he says? He says money is God.</p>
<p>Professor: No, I am not saying that. People down here...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: People are rascal fools, what is the value of their knowledge? Therefore knowledge, man of knowledge required.</p>
<p>Professor: There are many religions that have no God.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Religion cannot be many; religion is one. If anyone says there are many religions, that, he does not know what is religion. Just like science: two plus two is equal to four. It is equally applicable everywhere. You cannot say that "To the Christian two plus two equal to five," the "Christian science" or "Christian mathematics." That you cannot say. Science and mathematics is the same everywhere. If God is one, therefore knowledge of God should be one. There cannot be two.</p>
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