Prabhupāda: When we are in doubts, therefore we have to refer to the authority. Just like when you are diseased, so you go to the physician, "What is the cause of my this trouble?"
Mr. Wadell: True.
Prabhupāda: Similarly, when you are in doubts, you have to approach an authority to clear the doubts. Otherwise you will remain in doubts, ignorance.
Mr. Wadell: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Therefore our Vedic injunction is, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Tad-vijñānārtham: in order to clear the doubt, to be in perfect knowledge, one must approach the authorized bona fide spiritual master.
Mr. Wadell: Can we go back to the physician? It is possible for a physician to be wrong.
Prabhupāda: Yes, we are always in wrong, because we are born ignorant. Everything is wrong because ignorant, foolish. Madman's conception. This is all wrong, childish. Therefore we send our boys, children, to school, to correct the wrong ideas.
Mr. Wadell: But some of the teachers may not be correct.
Prabhupāda: No. The process is you have to go to the teacher. But if the teacher is a cheater, then the whole thing is spoiled. A teacher must be teacher, perfect teacher. But if he happens to be a cheater, then the whole thing is spoiled.
Mr. Wadell: But the human situation is often a sort of mixture of the two. Sometimes . . .
Prabhupāda: No, mixture of two, that may be, but the process is that we have to approach the real teacher. Just like I approach the mother. Mother is supposed to be not cheater. But if the mother happens to be a cheater, then I am cheated. I am cheated. I don't get the information of my real father. But it is expected the mother should not cheat.
Mr. Wadell: Yes, oh, I know that it is expected of the teachers.
Prabhupāda: So it is my misfortune; if I get a cheater mother, then my whole life is spoiled.
Mr. Wadell: But the teacher may be wrong without wishing to be wrong.
Prabhupāda: No, he is not teacher. If a teacher is wrong, he is cheater. That is our proposition.
Mr. Wadell: Well, I'm sorry, this is a point which we must surely get right.
Prabhupāda: This is the real point. If you have to go to a teacher, you must go to a real teacher. You don't go to a cheater.
Mr. Wadell: But suppose I teach you something, a subject in which knowledge is not complete. There may be other discoveries.
Prabhupāda: Then you should not be teacher. Then you should not be teacher. Then you are cheater.
Mr. Wadell: But . . . no, because knowledge is . . .
Prabhupāda: That is, that is, that is our . . . teacher means . . . when I approach a teacher, he must be a bona fide teacher. He should not be cheater. If he has no sufficient knowledge, he should not pose himself as a teacher.
Mr. Wadell: Well, I am afraid I would be right out of court, 'cause you see I have often to confess to my pupils that I do not know.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is going on, but that is not the system. If you do not know, you should not become a teacher. That is our proposition.