John Lennon: How do we know if somebody else, Yogananda, Maharsi, and all these different people that have translated it, how are we to tell that their version isn't Kṛṣṇa's word from your version?
Prabhupāda: Therefore I say if you are serious student, then you study Sanskrit, original.
John Lennon: Study Sanskrit? Oh, now you're talking.
George Harrison: But Vivekananda said that books and rituals and dogmas and temples are secondary details, anyway. He said they're not the most important thing, anyway. You don't have to read the book in order to have the perception.
Prabhupāda: Then why Vivekananda wrote so many books? (laughter)
George Harrison: Well, it's the same as in the Gītā.
Prabhupāda: No, no. He said there is no use of books. Then why he wrote so many books?
George Harrison: But in Hrishikesh, when we meditated for a long time, one man got tired of meditation, and he thought... He made the excuse to read the Gītā so he could come out of meditation, and he opened the Gītā and it said, "Don't read books. Meditate."
Prabhupāda: Who says?
George Harrison: The Gītā said it.
Prabhupāda: "Don't read books"?
George Harrison: It said, "Don't read books. Meditate."
Prabhupāda: Where?
Yoko Ono: No, but you see, you...
Prabhupāda: He said, brahma-sūtra-padaiś caiva hetumadbhir viniścitaiḥ (BG 13.5). He refers that "This scientific knowledge, the Absolute Truth, is explained very nicely in Brahma-sūtra, Vedānta-sūtra." He refers to the book. Another place Kṛṣṇa says,
- yaḥ śāstra-vidhim utsṛjya
- vartate kāma-kārataḥ
- na sa siddhim avāpnoti
- na sukhaṁ na parāṁ gatim
- (BG 16.23)
"Anyone who does not follow the scriptural injunction, his attempt will be failure. He'll never be happy. And what to speak of being promoted to the spiritual world.?" These things are there. How you can say Kṛṣṇa has not recommended to read books?