Akṣayānanda: I was recently told by one devotee that the ācārya does not have to be a pure devotee.
Prabhupāda: What?
Akṣayānanda: That the ācārya does not have to be a pure devotee.
Prabhupāda: Who is that rascal?
Akṣayānanda: Well, he said it. Who said it?
Prabhupāda: Who said? Who is that rascal? The ācārya does not require to be a pure devotee?
Akṣayānanda: He said it. Nitāi said it. He said it in this context. He said that Lord Brahm is the ācārya in the Brahma-sampradāya, but yet he is sometimes afflicted by passion. So therefore he is saying that it appears that the ācārya does not have to be a pure devotee. So it does not seem right.
Prabhupāda: So who is that rascal? I want to know who has said.
Akṣayānanda: Nitāi. Nitāi dāsa.
Harikeśa: Nitāi said that?
Prabhupāda: Who is Nitāi dāsa?
Harikeśa: Our Nitāi.
Akṣayānanda: Nitāi.
Prabhupāda: Oh, our Nitāi? Oh.
Akṣayānanda: He said he couldn't understand it, but he thought, he said that he thought...
Prabhupāda: He manufactured his idea. Therefore he's a rascal. Therefore he's a rascal. Nitāi has become an authority?
Akṣayānanda: No, actually he said that he thought...
Prabhupāda: He thought something rascaldom, and he is expressing that. Therefore he is more rascal. These things are going on. As soon as he reads some books, he becomes an ācārya, whatever rascal he may be.
Akṣayānanda: So there's no doubt that Lord Brahma is a pure devotee?
Prabhupāda: Whatever he may be, he is ācārya. So you... Then Kṛṣṇa is also passionate. Kṛṣṇa is also passionate. Kṛṣṇa danced with so many gopīs; therefore He is passionate. They... These things are to be seen in this way, that "Such exalted person, he sometimes become passionate, so how much we shall be careful." This is the instruction. Then we petty things, petty persons, how much we shall be careful. It is not that "Ācārya has become passionate, therefore I shall become passionate. I am strict followers of ācārya." These rascals say.
Harisauri: So Lord Brahma's being attracted to his daughter, that is just as an example...
Prabhupāda: So why you discuss this? Therefore you shall be attracted with your daughter, mother? Do you think so, like that?
Akṣayānanda: No.
Indian man: In this world this is our disease. This is our disease.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That disease... Brahma... Lord Śiva also, he was attracted to the Mohinī. So they are īśvara. They are controllers. So the instruction is that even such personalities may be sexually attracted, so how much we shall remain careful. This is the instruction. (break) ...like the other rascal. Who was saying that "Kṛṣṇa was killed by a hunter; therefore hunter is greater than Kṛṣṇa"?
Indian man: Raja Gopalācārya, he has written in Mahābhārata that Kṛṣṇa was killed by a hunter.
Prabhupāda: Therefore the hunter is...
Indian man: "Kṛṣṇa Passes Away," the heading of his chapter.
Harikeśa: You said about a couple of years ago that "What ordinary man would be killed if he was shot in the arrow by a heel," I mean, "shot in the heel by an arrow?" No ordinary man dies that way.
Prabhupāda: So who reads Raja Gopalācārya's Mahābhārata? (laughter) They are rotting at Bharatiya Vidyabhavan.
Akṣayānanda: They're rotting in the bookshelves and the insects are eating.
Indian man: But in Somanath... I went last year there when I was in Gujarat. The people, they don't believe, the people of Somanath, that he was killed by... like that. So these philosophers, simply for their name, they put some kind of theories so that people can, "Oh!" They can understand all this nonsense. (break)