Indian reporter: What about so many saints who are preaching yoga and religion all over the world?
Prabhupāda: Anyone who does not know the science, they are not saint; they are cheaters. If they do not know the science, what is spiritual life, what is material life, so their speaking is simply cheating. Therefore we should state the standard, Bhagavad-gītā, the ācāryas. In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said ācāryopāsanam. Take the ācāryas—Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, even Śaṅkarācārya. So there must be standard. It is . . . some of them are manufacturing some spiritual life. Just like Vivekananda did, daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā. Is there any such word in our Vedic śāstras, daridra-nārāyaṇa? Nārāyaṇa has become daridra? One has to worship daridra-nārāyaṇa.
Indian reporter: You don't agree with what has been preached . . .
Prabhupāda: Why shall I agree? Because there is no such thing in the śāstra. Is there word, any word, in the whole Bhagavad-gītā, daridra-nārāyaṇa-sevā?
Indian reporter: No, but what Ramakrishna Paramahaṁsa . . .
Prabhupāda: Ramakrishna, how he become paramahaṁsa if he does not know the śāstra? That is the difficulty. Everyone becoming self-made guru, self-made avatāra, self-made saint. That is the difficulty. Without any reference to the authoritative śāstra.
Indian reporter: So it's a very revealing thing, you deny Ramakrishna Paramahaṁsa . . .
Prabhupāda: I don't deny. You accept, you accept. My point is unless it is authoritatively mentioned in the śāstra, we reject.
Indian reporter: But śāstras were written say thousands of years ago. Life might have changed.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. In the śāstras it is not said that after passing of many years the śāstra becomes obsolete. This is another ignorance. Śāstra is not like that—you write some mental speculation, and after some years it changes. That is not śāstra. Śāstra is this. Just like the Bhāgavatam was . . . five thousand years ago it was written, and the symptoms of Kali, Kali-yuga, is written there in the Twelfth Canto.
Indian reporter: The complete purport was written five thousand years back.
Prabhupāda: Yes.