Prabhupāda: You can give some prasādam. Take some prasādam.
Sir Alistair Hardy: You don't know what the time is? Good gracious, quarter to six. Yes. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: No, we are very glad to meet together, and we are ready to help you in your research work, provided you take our help. That will be very nice for you.
Revatīnandana: I'll say one thing. If you want to see where in the world people are experiencing God, experiencing their relationship with God, you should examine this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, I think.
Sir Alistair Hardy: Yes, well I've, I've . . .
Revatīnandana: You'll see people who are living in every minute of every day in relation with God, and their experience is joyful . . .
Sir Alistair Hardy: Yes.
Revatīnandana: . . . and full of knowledge.
Sir Alistair Hardy: Yes.
Mukunda: Actually, it's not that we're studying the past, but we study a principle called dharma, which means that principle of life which never changes.
Sir Alistair Hardy: Yes.
Mukunda: That's our main concern.
Sir Alistair Hardy: Well, I'd very much like to have records of experience, accounts of present-day experience. Although as I say, at the moment I'm rather tending to concentrate on the Western. I'm hoping to get scholars who are really Sanskrit scholars, and those people who can really understand the language of Oriental . . . (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: No, first thing is: this, this is a different science. Science of God is not material science. Simply material, academic career will not help.
Sir Alistair Hardy: No, no. I agree.
Revatīnandana: "Eastern-Western" will not help.
Sir Alistair Hardy: No, I get example to both, both from the East and from the West.
Prabhupāda: Simply by becoming Sanskrit scholar or Latin scholar, it is not sufficient. He must be God-realized, purified. Then it is possible. Ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ (Brs. 1.2.234): "By your these blunt senses it is not possible to understand what is God, what is His form, what is His name, what is His quality, what is His kingdom, what is His paraphernalia." These things are to be understood.
God means . . . just like when we speak of "king." King does not mean alone. King means he has got his queen, he has got his kingdom, he has got his secretary, he has got his minister, he has got his palace, he has . . . so many things, king, royal. When we speak of Queen, we immediately remember the Buckingham Palace, his (her) bodyguard and so many, so many other things. Similarly, God means He has got His entourage also, everything. He's not alone. To understand God means to understand everything of God—His name, His fame, His līlā, His pastimes. So nāmādi.
With all these blunt senses, how can we . . . we cannot understand even the Personality of Godhead, what to speak of other things. "God is a person"—it is a very difficult subject matter for ordinary man to take it. Very difficult subject. That is stated in the . . . even the demigods, they cannot understand. That is . . . because he's thinking materially that, "This cosmic manifestation, then creation, is so big, and it is created by a person. How it is possible?" But . . . because they do not know what is that person. Simply by the word "person," he is afraid: "Oh, oh, oh, oh."
Revatīnandana: "He's like me. I can't do it; therefore not a person."
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Revatīnandana: "No person except He's like me."
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore the Vedic scripture says, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). His person is different, sac-cid-ānanda. That is not exactly with our personality. This is material. This is temporary personality. Now I am man. Next time I may become dog, next time become demigod. It is changing. It is not eternal, sat. So God is not like that.