Śyāmasundara: Our Western scientists have never read Vedic literature, but they understand why there is leaves on a tree at a certain time and why not. It's not a very difficult thing to understand.
Prabhupāda: This is speculation. If we do not follow the standard knowledge, (indistinct), then you have to speculate. Same thing, same example: if we do not take this information who is your father from your mother, then you have to speculate. This is the same example. But if there is process to understand who is my father simply by asking my mother, why shall I speculate?
Devotee: We went over this intuition yesterday, that intuition is experience. Actually it is experience. So that intuition about the soul, one must have a memorable experience of the soul. But we haven't had that. We have not had experience of the soul, so how can we have intuition?
Devotee (2): Nor do we have direct perception. Nor do we have direct perception of the soul. We cannot see the soul. Not with these eyes.
Śyāmasundara: No. This... All that I've described so far is only the first part of this process to understanding... He comes to the idea eventually that everything is spiritual, or noumenal, that what we see is merely a reflection. He comes to that point. So far, all I've described is the first part, so I don't think, if we make judgments on the philosophy so far, that it makes (indistinct). But actually he was very, very thoughtful and spent many years on this philosophy. So he's not stupid. He hasn't just concocted something. But his ideas are...
Prabhupāda: These arguments, he may not be stupid, these arguments, but arguments, one can..., a very learned man can be called stupid. (laughter) Because as soon as he... If you take by argument (indistinct), that's all.
Śyāmasundara: But if you judge his argument..., his whole philosophy, on only seeing part of it, then that doesn't seem fair.
Prabhupāda: Now we are coming to (indistinct). He says that we are concerned with only the phenomenon, what we see.
Śyāmasundara: Starting with that. Starting with that. Reducing everything to the...
Prabhupāda: Starting with that, that's all right. But how he'll come to the perfect knowledge? Not by speculation. That is our point.
Śyāmasundara: But...
Prabhupāda: And intuition is also wrong way. You cannot come to the perfect knowledge by speculation or intuition. You must approach a person who knows (indistinct). The same example repeated: you cannot understand who is your father by speculation and intuition. You must approach your mother and ask her, "Who is my father?" That will be perfect knowledge. That is the process. But when..., if you insist on that "Without asking my mother I will understand my father by speculation or intuition," that is nonsense. That is stupidity. That stupid he is.
Śyāmasundara: If you are still so primitive and juvenile in your understanding that you don't even know there's such thing as a father, first you have to find out that there is such thing as father, then you can ask who is father. These Western philosophers...
Prabhupāda: But if he does not know that there is need of father for my birth, then he's a (indistinct).
Śyāmasundara: No. I'm just giving you example. These Western philosophers, they have no..., they're starting from zero, from zero point. They have no knowledge whatsoever. So I begin with the idea...
Prabhupāda: But zero, that is our point. From zero knowledge you cannot go to the perfection by zero speculation. That is our point. You, if you are zero, you must go to someone who is one. And when zero is added to one, it becomes ten. Otherwise you go on adding zero, zero, zero—it is all zero.