Prabhupāda: The reconciliation I have explained several times. Just like the sun globe, the sun-god and the sunshine. They are one, the light and heat. But still, sunshine is not the sun globe, and sun globe is not the sun-god. This is reconciliation. Anyone can understand. The three things, they are one by heat and light, but at the same time, when the sunshine is within your room it does not mean the sun globe is within your room or the sun god is within your room. This is the reconciliation.
Woman guest (4): Do you believe that Jesus and Buddha and Kṛṣṇa are all manifestations of the same God? Or do you believe Kṛṣṇa is the only . . .?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Do we believe that Jesus and Buddha and Kṛṣṇa are all manifestations of the same God, or do we believe that Kṛṣṇa is the only one?
Prabhupāda: No. They are manifestation of God. That is all right. We say, keśava dhṛta-buddha-śarīra jaya jagadīśa hare: "O my Lord Buddha, now you have come as Buddha, but you are the same Kṛṣṇa." We pray like that.
Guest (5): I would like to ask this question. You said that the mere repetition Hare Rāma, Hare Kṛṣṇa helps us along with the path of God realization. Take a simple thing, like assuming I was hungry and I said: "Food, food, food." That will not necessarily fill me. I'll still be hungry. How could the mere repetition of words bring about God realization?
Prabhupāda: "Food, food, food." (laughter) That is the difference between God's name and material name. In the material name, the food, the name of food and actually food—rice, ḍāl, cāpāṭi, food—they are different. They are different. But in the spiritual world, God and His name is the same.
Guest (5): But the significance that we give to the word "food" is the creation of man's mind. The word "God" is also the creation of man's mind. We attach spiritual significance to one word and not to the other. But if you speak of everything emanating from God, that ultimately means everything He is.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So if you become intelligent more, then you'll inquire, "Wherefrom the food comes?" At the present moment you may chant "Food, food, food," and you get food. Then if you are intelligent, you'll inquire, "Wherefrom the food came?" That is the next step.
Guest (5): And I understand food must come from the earth, but the . . .
Prabhupāda: Food is coming from God. That you do not know. You are simply interested with food, but you do not know wherefrom the food is coming. That is your innocence. If you are advanced student, then your next inquiry will be, "Wherefrom the food comes?" Then you'll come to God. At the lower stage you are interested with food, but in the higher stage you'll be interested wherefrom the food comes. That is intelligence.
Guest (5): I'm not denying that one has to go through that stage. The other question I'd like to ask you . . .
Prabhupāda: You want to stay in the food stage, that's all. (laughter) So we are advising go further, more. That is our advice.
Guest (5): (indistinct) . . . in going further. I'd like to know . . .
Prabhupāda: No. This is intelligence. If you are interested in food, that's all right. Everyone is interested in food. The child, he is interested with food only. Anything he gets, he puts into the mouth. He is interested in food. But when he grows up he understand that the food is supplied by the father, by the mother. That is progress of life. If you don't want progress, if you want to remain in the childhood stage, that is another thing.
Guest (5): One other question I have. That is, the question earlier . . . that is the question of authority. We have a spiritual master who takes it upon himself to tell us, the ignorant, what we should do. What things makes the spiritual master realize that he is the one master to show the ignorant that this is the path? Isn't it perhaps too much reponsibility to take it upon ourself, giving oneself this authority? Because as yourself finds out that . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: His question is that . . .
Prabhupāda: God is infinite?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: What is the special quality that makes one a spiritual master to describe the infinite, when God is beyond speculation?
Prabhupāda: God is beyond speculation, that's it. But the spiritual master says what God says. He does not change. That is spiritual master. Just like a child, he asks his father, "Father, what is this?" The father says: "My dear child, it is microphone." So when the child says: "It is microphone," this is correct, although he is child. So spiritual master means he says in toto what he hears from God. That's all. That is spiritual master. He does not make any speculation. That is the qualification of spiritual master. He speaks what he has heard from God. That's all.
Guest (5): But isn't that an assumption also that he has heard from God, not acts from his own conditioning?
Prabhupāda: God cannot be all. God is one. God means He has no equal, He has no . . . nobody above Him. That is God, asamaurdhva. Nobody is more than God; nobody is equal to God. Therefore God is one.
Guest (6): If we assume that the Vedic scriptures are the, well, the realizations of realized souls and that these come from God, we have to work with the assumption that these literatures are actually telling us about God. And if we have to read the literatures and experience these truths, it is not necessarily truth as such, but maybe the condition that we have been rendered to by . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: In the Vedic literature the father, the teacher, the king, they are advised to look upon them as God. This is for the common person. But when he is advanced, then he goes above, that there is God above father, above king, above teacher. So according to the stages, there are different literatures in the Vedic knowledge. Sometimes demigods are also accepted. So they have also got power, but . . . controller, they are also controller, but the ultimate controller is fixed up—īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (Bs. 5.1). "The supreme controller is Kṛṣṇa." That is the verdict of the Vedas. Īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7): "There is no more superior controller or person than Me." So that is Absolute. Everywhere you will find. Suppose if you accept me God, but I am controlled by somebody else, so I am not absolute God. But if you can find out somebody—He is not only controller, but He is not controlled by anyone—then He is absolute God. That is Kṛṣṇa.