Prabhupāda: Oh, Bateriya. So Mr. Bateriya, this process, this transcendental knowledge, super, superhuman knowledge, you cannot think first of all. You cannot think. You have to learn.
Guest (1): To realize all these things.
Prabhupāda: Realize after learning from the authority.
Guest (1): Because you see, this question I have asked from 1939... There was a little problem in Karachi. I was very fond of my father. He died when I was only ten. I thought on, "What is this?" and all these things. "Why we are, humanity is suffering all these things?" It was this question in my mind and what other, I thought of these problems. This appeared as invisible, you see, and material, but to me, inside, it is, you see, a teaching because it was not taught for any individual or for any kind of... It is taught for all men beyond the world so that we can bring that kind of life...
Prabhupāda: No, you are thinking from your side.
Guest (1): Not from my..., as a particular person but as of the, our own humanity, as a spiritualist.
Prabhupāda: The spiritual knowledge is called tat knowledge, tat, oṁ tat sat.
Guest (1): Oṁ tat sat. Ahaṁ brahmāsmi.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Oṁ tat sat. So the tat knowledge is recommended in the Bhagavad-gītā, tad-viddhi. Tad viddhi praṇipātena (BG 4.34). Praṇipātena. You understand praṇipāta? Surrender.
Guest (1): Surrender.
Prabhupāda: So tad viddhi. If you want to understand that transcendental knowledge, then you have to accept this process, praṇipāta. Praṇipāta means surrender, and surrender means there must be somebody to whom you surrender.
Guest (1): Whom you surrender, yes.
Prabhupāda: There are two, not alone. So you cannot alone think of tat knowledge. You have to surrender to somebody. That is the process.
Guest (1): There are eight kinds of getting the knowledge, means bhakti...
Prabhupāda: No, no. Bhakti is a process. Bhakti is not knowledge. That knowledge you acquire by your sense perception, and bhakti is the pure activities of the senses.
Guest (1): No, surrender means bhakti. One surrenders to...
Prabhupāda: No question of bhakti. That is the process. If you want to know about tat, then that is the process. You have to surrender. So long you will think that "I can think of, I have got power," you'll be failed.
Guest (1): That consideration of "myself, I am thinking," that is not there.
Prabhupāda: Then who is thinking?
Guest (1): Thinking means...
Prabhupāda: No, no, don't use abstract knowledge. As soon as you are thinking, you are thinking.
Guest (1): No, that sometimes thinking, when you are listening inside you...
Prabhupāda: Anyway, listening or thinking, these are different process of acquiring knowledge, but you are doing that.
Guest (1): Yes, my outer form is doing that.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest (1): But inner form may be...
Prabhupāda: What is that inner form? You are inner form. Your outer, your coat, is not thinking. Your shirt is not thinking. What you mean by outward, inward? Inward you are. Outward your coat and shirt. Do you think your coat and shirt is thinking? You are thinking.
Guest (1): Yes, I am thinking, but, you see...
Prabhupāda: There is no "but." You are thinking.
Guest (1): I am thinking. One is at the lower level, and one is at the higher...
Prabhupāda: That is another thing. Either in the lower level or in the higher level, you are thinking.
Guest (1): Yes, all right.
Prabhupāda: And therefore, because you are thinking in the lower level, therefore your thinking is imperfect. So to be in higher level, you have to surrender to a higher personality.
Guest (1): Higher wouldn't be better than that.
Prabhupāda: Just like child is thinking something. His thinking is lower level. But when he inquires from his father, that is higher level. The same thinking is he, but one stage his thinking is lower level; in another stage his thinking is higher level. But thinking always, he.
Guest (1): Yes, thinking is his always.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So tat knowledge is higher level, and therefore you have to accept that tat knowledge from a higher level personality, not from by yourself, because you are in the lower level.
Guest (1): No, how do we know lower level and higher level?
Prabhupāda: Because you do not know, therefore you... Why you are thinking? Because you do not know.
Guest (1): No, it is not that...
Prabhupāda: Then there is no question of asking me. Then you think yourself.
Guest (1): No, we were trying...
Prabhupāda: First of all you try to understand the principle. Why you have come to ask me?
Guest (1): Not ask but just...
Prabhupāda: Because you are thinking on the lower level.
Guest (1): No, no, to configure over it, not to ask or...
Prabhupāda: Why configure? Configure does not mean that you have thought something in lower level; I have to confirm that.
Guest (1): Not even that. We have all...
Prabhupāda: Then, if you are thinking right, if you are thinking on the higher level, there is no question of coming to me.
Guest (1): There is no question of coming or going. Just it was that...
Prabhupāda: Anyway, inquiry.
Guest (1): No, no, spiritual endeavor. There is no use in that. It may be in lower level or higher level.
Prabhupāda: No, no. There is. There is. There is. Higher level, lower level, there is, as soon as there is thinking, feeling, and willing. These are the activities of the mind, and there is higher level, lower level, etc...
Guest (1): In that we are missing the main twist out of whole thing.
Prabhupāda: So main twist... But main you are not missing. The point is that if you continue to think on the lower level, then how you can reach to the higher level?
Guest (1): What is the distinction between higher and lower?
Prabhupāda: You do not know? A child is thinking.
Guest (1): No, let us think of what is the highest thing.
Prabhupāda: That you have to learn from the highest man. Yes. That is Bhagavad-gītā. Just like Bhagavad-gītā says that tad viddhi: "You understand that transcendental knowledge by surrender." So if you do not surrender, there is no possibility.
Guest (1): But I might have surrendered myself to my own...
Prabhupāda: That is another foolishness. You are thinking lower level, and how you can surrender to yourself? Then how you can get advance? Your surrender means to a superior person, as soon as you call surrender. And without this, there is no possibility.
- tad viddhi praṇipātena
- paripraśnena sevayā
- upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ
- jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ
- (BG 4.34)
We have to accept these principles; otherwise how it can make the... There is no possibility. Just like if you want to be educated. You have to be admitted to an institution, in school, in a college. If you say, "I shall be educated at home," that is not possible.
Guest (1): Many have...
Prabhupāda: No "many." This is the general process.
Guest (1): No, general process sometimes have failed.
Prabhupāda: No, why fail? The schools are going on. Colleges are going on.
Guest (1): Therefore they are fearing also...
Prabhupāda: Still, they are not closed.
Guest (1): Closed... Today they are coming to that.
Prabhupāda: That is another theory. But the process is, our Vedic process, tad-vijñānārtham sa gurum eva abhigacchet: (MU 1.2.12) "In order to understand tat knowledge one must approach a spiritual master." Gacchet. If you don't accept these principles, then how you can make progress? Tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsur śreya uttamam (SB 11.3.21). If you don't accept this principle, there is no possibility. Then you can go on thinking in your own way. There is no question of going to anyone. You make yourself perfect by thinking, as many others are doing, speculating. That is possible but never to the perfectional point.
Guest (1): Perfectly, you see... What is the category of different perfection?
Prabhupāda: That you have to learn. That you have to learn.
Guest (1): No, no, learn from whom?
Prabhupāda: From the higher authority.
Guest (1): So how we know?
Prabhupāda: That is another thing, who is higher authority. That you have to search out. That you have to search out.
Guest (1): We must understand what is higher person and what is lower and whether Buddha is correct or not.
Prabhupāda: Now, higher authority... Suppose we accept Kṛṣṇa as the higher authority. Our, this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, we accept Kṛṣṇa as the higher authority.
Guest (1): It is accepting.
Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be, we accept Kṛṣṇa as the higher authority. Do you accept that?
Guest (1): I mean, I am shown the form. You see...
Prabhupāda: There is no question of shown. Kṛṣṇa is accepted higher authority not only by us by big ācāryas like Śaṅkarācārya, Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, those who are guiding our Vedic life in India, Caitanya. So Kṛṣṇa is accepted the highest authority. (break) Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nāsti: "There is no more higher authority than Me." Then, if you don't accept Kṛṣṇa as the higher authority, that is your business, but we accept Kṛṣṇa as the higher authority.
Guest (1): So something is coming in that way because Kṛṣṇa, that was what He had said in a particular time or country...
Prabhupāda: No, no, no. Authority means..., it does not mean a time.
Guest (1): No, for that time.
Prabhupāda: No, no. First of all try, try... Authority means...
Guest (1): For the time.
Prabhupāda: All the time. That is authority.
Guest (1): No, but later, later many lights shining...
Prabhupāda: (knock on door) Yes, open it. Anyway, to make cut short, to make cut short, so far we are concerned, we have declared, "International Society for Krishna Consciousness." Our process of propaganda is that Kṛṣṇa is the highest authority. That is our... You may take it that we are limited; that is your business. But we have taken this. Now, if you don't accept Kṛṣṇa as the higher authority, then there is no question of inquiring from us.
Guest (1): What is the form, you see, I mean...
Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa is the form. Here is Kṛṣṇa's form.
Guest (1): No, no, not that form.
Prabhupāda: Then what form?
Guest (1): What I mean is we are accepting anything to bring ourselves to certain destination which will satisfy us all. For that we are...
Prabhupāda: Nothing can satisfy everyone. That is not possible. There is no such thing within this material world which can satisfy everyone. There is no such thing.
Guest (1): Because we...
Prabhupāda: No, no, because... There may be so many "because." But the fact is that there is nothing in this material world which can satisfy everyone.
Guest (1): There can be a method which can...
Prabhupāda: Maybe, but we do not know.
Guest (1): Therefore beyond that, you see, I came...
Prabhupāda: Just like Kṛṣṇa. We accept Kṛṣṇa the supreme authority. Kṛṣṇa says, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. Who is accepting this? We have accepted. Some others may have accepted but you have not accepted. So therefore even Kṛṣṇa's injunction is not accepted by everyone, what to speak of others? So therefore you cannot find out within this material world anything which can satisfy everyone. That is not possible.