Prabhupāda: Yes. First of all you receive the sound, then apply your instruments. And when you find it, it is correct—that is the realization. So our process is to receive knowledge from the perfect. That's all. We are not perfect. But the knowledge we are getting, that is perfect. So according to that perfect direction, if we mold our life, then we are successful. Otherwise you go on experimenting, speculating. Ciraṁ vicinvan. Ciram, you understand, "Perpetually", vicinvan, "thinking." Ciraṁ vicinvan.
- athāpi te deva padāmbuja-dvaya-
- prasāda-leśānugṛhīta eva hi
- jānāti tattvaṁ
- na cānya eko 'pi ciraṁ vicinvan
- (SB 10.14.29)
What is the use of speculating with imperfect senses? Useless waste of time.
Professor: Never the less they will say that many of the . . .
Prabhupāda: But that is the tendency of modern world.
Professor: No, that's even of ancient Indian . . .
Prabhupāda: They do not accept that their senses are imperfect.
Professor: Well they find some . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: They want to see something, distant place, with microscope . . . what is called?
Hṛdayānanda: Telescope.
Prabhupāda: Telescope. Telescope. But the telescope is manufactured by you. It is imperfect.
Professor: I would say that even in India, where ancient tradition . . . there were several proposals of how to arrange our periscope to be able to see more correctly . . .
Prabhupāda: You have to see that the Vedic injunction says śāstra cakṣuśā . . . śāstra cakṣu. "Your eyes should be the śāstra." There is another crude example. Just like who is your father? How to understand? Through the vibration of the mother. The mother says: "He is your father," you accept it. Otherwise there is no experiment. So things which are beyond your perception, beyond your defective senses, that should not be speculated. Na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. Acintyā khalv ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. These are the injunction. What is beyond your perception, beyond your speculation, don't waste your time, so-called argument and logic. What is argument? Mother says, "He is your father." Where is the argument? You cannot apply any argument.
Professor: No, I said old tradition in India has been going into argument since . . .
Prabhupāda: No, argument you can go on, but if you want to know the truth it will not be attained by argument, because argument is also within your thinking power—thinking, feeling, willing. So if your thinking, feeling, willing is imperfect, what is the use of your argument? What is the use of your so-called advancement of knowledge? Basically, if the senses, knowledge-acquiring senses, are imperfect, then how you can get perfect knowledge?
Professor: How, what do we do with all techniques, all systems, that have been developed? I am thinking only in India, I am not thinking other places, and on your own tradition, I said since . . . since Śaṅkara onwards, of different ways to think, to study, to go deep to all these relations between . . . truth . . .
Prabhupāda: Śaṅkara has interpreted. Śaṅkara has interpreted by his limited knowledge. So that is not perfect knowledge. Therefore we don't accept Śaṅkara's philosophy.
Professor: Yes, but I said he belongs to the same tradition, and you belong to the other . . .
Prabhupāda: That tradition is nothing. Tradition is just temporary. You make your tradition; he makes your tradition. That is another thing. But . . . fact is fact. That is not dependent on tradition. Tradition we can make, tradition. "We believe." Just like somebody says: "We believe." What is the use of such saying, "We believe"? You may believe something which is not fact.
Professor: Yes, but we could say that since Upaniṣads and later on, all things . . . (indistinct) . . . have been sustaining the thing you have just said a moment ago, that there exists an identity between ātman and Brahman.
Prabhupāda: Identity is there. That, therefore, I have already said: nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānaṁ. Both of them are identical so far nitya is concerned or cetana is concerned, but one is dependent and other is maintainer. That is difference.