Jñānagamya: Sometimes boys come here and they are involved in impersonal meditation. They want liberation...
Prabhupāda: Well, that is their business. Let them do. You try to understand the position. Meditation is also something. Asuras, they do not take to meditation. Meditation is something beginning to the path of devatā. Dhyānāvasthita. If they are actually serious then they can profit. Meditation is not always bad, if they are properly guided. But that is not the business of the asuras. They say, "On whom I shall meditate?" The asuras do not do that.
Devotee: They have special meditation for asuras.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Devotee: They have special classes in meditation for asuras. They give them some meaningless word to meditate upon.
Prabhupāda: So what is the purpose of this meditation?
Devotee: To make..., to relax the mind.
Prabhupāda: Oh, that is another thing. Material. That is, er, Transcendental Meditation. (long pause)
Jñānagamya: How can we convince them?
Prabhupāda: Hm? How can you convince? They are asuras.
Jñānagamya: No, those who doing some meditation that are Kṛṣṇa consciousness...
Prabhupāda: No, they are also asuras. They do not know what is the meaning of meditation. That is psychology. It is not meditation. Or some medical treatment. Meditation is different, real meditation.
Devotee: What is... What is real meditation?
Prabhupāda: Real meditation is to find out the Supersoul within the core of the heart. That is real meditation. God is situated in everyone's heart, so the yogis, they try to find out the Supersoul within the heart. That is real yogi. Dhyānāvasthita-tad-gatena manasā paśyanti yaṁ yoginam. This is real yogi, trying to contact the Supersoul. They are searching after the God in His all-pervading feature. But, ah, some of them, they want to become one. That is asuric. One with God, that is asuric. Because they are being defeated by God, so therefore they want to become God to stop this defeat. That is asuric. Therefore they will never be able to be, but they are trying for it.
Jñānagamya: It is the highest blasphemy.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Jñānagamya: It is the highest blasphemy, isn't it? If one says, "I am God."
Prabhupāda: No, highest ignorance, highest rascaldom. (laughter) Yes. How one can become God? If one can become God, that means the such-and-such, he was God. Then how he has become dog? That is another rascaldom, ambition.
Jñānagamya: A devotee is only supposed to want service, and sometimes he very much wants to be liberated to be finished with all this difficulty, isn't it?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Jñānagamya: Is it very contaminating?
Prabhupāda: Not contaminating, not in the highest stage. That is not contaminating. If the devotee wants liberation, then they're in the lower stage. Actually, a devotee, he is already liberated. Why he shall aspire after liberation?
Jñānagamya: Pure devotee's liberated.
Prabhupāda: Therefore when he's purified, he's already liberated. There is no question of his aspiring after liberation. He's already liberated. Sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate (BG 14.26).
Ātreya Ṛṣi: If the devotee's purified, he's convinced that if he becomes purified he will be free.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The whole devotional process is purificatory process. The more he is purified, he becomes high-class devotee. But the process is the path of liberation. Just like mango. The green mango, this green mango will be ripe mango. The same mango. You cannot say that the ripe mango is different from the green mango. It is a process. By the process the same green mango becomes yellow; then it is perfect. (long pause, devotees chant japa in background) What is that point, there are thirty theories or something about this Mars planet?
Devotee: Twenty-two theories.
Prabhupāda: You just told?
Devotee: They are trying to understand the geology of the planet and how the surface of the planet was formed, what...
Prabhupāda: They have different... (break)
Devotee: They are so foolish that they say these experiments are very wonderful. They are very proud of these experiments...
Prabhupāda: Hm? Because they do not know.
Devotee: Yes, the result is...
Prabhupāda: Wonderful. Do not know. Wonderfully do not know. The platform is, "Do not know"; it is still wonderful. Wonderful foolish, like that. The platform remains "Do not know," but still it is wonderful.
Jñānagamya: Their most intelligent philosophers and thinkers always say...
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Jñānagamya: Their most intelligent philosophers and thinkers, they always say that the more that we know, the more we understand that we don't know. (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: And that is wonderful. The more they become convinced that "I do not know," that is wonderful. When they'll know?
Devotee: Then they make these statements that "The earth is this old..." They make statements like "The earth is this many years," without any factual basis.
Prabhupāda: They are wonderful rascals. Shameless. Wonderful shameless rascals. They say that the moon planet is desert, vacant, no living entities. And we say that it is the planet for the pious men to live there very opulently for ten thousand... Of these two classes of knowledge, which is better? We have got some evidence from the śāstra, but they have no evidence. They are simply speculating. Now this moon..., er, Mars, they'll find the same result. Then how long they will go on like this?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: As long as the society is godless...
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Ātreya Ṛṣi: As long as the society's godless, then...
Prabhupāda: So how long they'll present the same theory over and over again? They're already putting the same thing. They have concluded in the moon there is rocks and sand, nobody can live. The same thing they are saying in a different way, and in the end they will have to say like that. Because they have no knowledge, it is simply theoretical. And they have no other alternative but to say the same thing again and again. What they will say?
Jñānagamya: They say on Mars there can be life because the conditions are a little bit like earth.
Prabhupāda: Suppose there is life, then what you gain?
Devotee: They say that our knowledge now is not mere theoretical because now we have gone there.
Prabhupāda: But what profit you have gained? You have spent some millions of dollars, that's all.
Devotee: More theories.
Prabhupāda: (chants japa)