The perfect knowledge. This perfect knowledge comes from God, or Kṛṣṇa, and it is distributed by paramparā system, by disciplic succession. The example is just there, a mango tree. On the top of the mango tree there is a very ripened fruit, and that fruit has to be tasted. So if I drop the fruit from up, it will be lost. Therefore it is handed over, after one, after one, after . . . then it comes down. So all Vedic process of knowledge is taking from the authority. And it comes down through disciplic succession.
Just like I have already explained, Kṛṣṇa gives the knowledge, perfect knowledge, to Brahmā, and Brahmā gives the knowledge to Nārada. Nārada gives the knowledge to Vyāsa. Vyāsa gives the knowledge to Madhvācārya. Madhvācārya gives the knowledge to his disciplic succession; later on, to Mādhavendra Purī. Mādhavendra Purī gives that knowledge to Īśvara Purī. Īśvara Purī gives that knowledge to Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Lord Caitanya. He delivers that knowledge to His immediate disciples, six Gosvāmīs. The six Gosvāmīs delivers the knowledge to Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, Jīva Gosvāmī. Then Kavirāja Gosvāmī, then Viśvanātha Cakravartī, then Jagannātha dāsa Bābājī, then Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, then Gaura Kiśora dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja, then my spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. Then we are distributing the same knowledge.
Devotees: Jaya Prabhupāda! Haribol!
Prabhupāda: We don't manufacture knowledge. Because how we can manufacture? Perfect knowledge means I must be perfect. But I am not perfect. Every one of us, when I was speaking, because . . . we are not perfect because in our conditional life we have got four defects. The first defect is that we commit mistake. Any one of us who are sitting here, nobody can vouchsafe that he has not committed any mistake in life. No, that is natural. "To err is human."
In our country, even a personality like Mahātmā Gandhi, he committed so many mistakes. So to commit mistake is not unusual. It is usual for any man.
Then again, one is illusioned. Illusioned means accepting something for something. Just like every one of us, we accept this body as ourself, but actually we are not. Everyone. On this bodily concept of life the whole trouble is there in the world. I am thinking "Indian"; you are thinking "American"; he is thinking "dog"; he is thinking "cat", because on this bodily concept of life. So this is illusion, because I am not this body, you are not this body. Because at the time of death we can understand the body is there, but my relative is crying, "Oh, my son is gone," "My father is gone." Where he is gone? The body is there. Where is your father gone? No. Then we can . . . after death we can understand that, "My father or my son was not this body. He was something else." So this is called illusion.
So mistake, illusion and cheating. Everyone wants to cheat others. This is the dealing. Suppose we are businessman, making some agreement. So I am trying to make the agreement in my favor; you are trying to make the agreement in your favor. I am thinking, "I have cheated this person. I am so clever." You see? So the cheating propensity is there, even we hide something. Even husband and wife, we cheat one another, what to speak of man. Even sometimes father and son, what to speak of other relation. So cheating propensity is . . .
First that we commit mistake, we are illusioned, we cheat, and at the end, all our senses are imperfect. Just like we are very much proud of seeing. Everyone says: "Can you show me? I want to see." And what you can see? What is the power of seeing? At night, if there is no sunshine, you cannot see, so what is the use of your seeing? If there is wall, you cannot see what is beyond the wall. You are seeing every day the sun, but we are seeing just like a small disc. But actually it is fourteen hundred thousand times bigger than this earth. Similarly, we cannot see which is situated a very long distance. We cannot see even the eyelid, which is actually with the eyes, but we cannot see it. In this way, if you study, every one of your senses you will find imperfect.
So your senses are imperfect, you are cheating, you are illusioned and you commit mistake. How you can give perfect knowledge? Therefore we don't accept any knowledge from an imperfect personality. That is . . . because that is imperfect knowledge, what is the use of that knowledge? Theorizing. No theory. We want to know fact. That is perfect knowledge.