So don't go to rascal. If you want real knowledge, take it from Bhagavān.
Lecture on SB 3.26.1 -- Bombay, December 13, 1974: You must know, have to analyze Bhagavān. That is there in the śāstra. This word Bhagavān is used not loosely. It has got many characteristics.
Just like Kṛṣṇa said when he was present, He said, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat: [Bg. 7.7] "Nobody's superior than Me." He proved it. So long Kṛṣṇa was on the planet, he proved it, that no one superior. Even from ordinary life as gṛhastha... Kṛṣṇa was gṛhastha, householder. Now he married 16,108 wives. So who has got this potency to marry sixteen thousand? One wife... It is very difficult to maintain one wife. One lady in America, she had a grown-up son. So I asked her, "Why don't you get your son married?" "I have no objection if he can maintain wife here. I have no objection." Then I understood that it is very difficult to maintain wife here. And actually it is difficult to... Even from material point of view, Kṛṣṇa, as far as we can calculate, we cannot conceive even at the present moment to maintain more than one wife or two wife. But He was maintaining sixteen thousand wives, 16,108.
But, because we have no conception of God, we take it, "This is all fictitious. God..." When God gives His reality, identification, and it is recorded in the śāstra, not by any loafer class writer but like Vyāsadeva, and we take it fictitious. Just see our position-Vyāsadeva has bothered his brain to write something fictitious! Just see how low-grade persons we are! We don't believe writing of Vyāsadeva. Or sometimes we say, "No, no, this was not written by Vyāsadeva. It is interpretation." If it is interpretation, then why the ācāryas have accepted? They're also fools-Rāmānujācārya, Madhvācārya, Viṣṇu Svāmī... They have made commentary on the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and they mention, they have accepted, "Yes. Kṛṣṇa has sixteen thousand wives." So Vyāsadeva has written and the ācāryas have accepted. Then I have become such a great scholar that I say it is fictitious. And we have to believe these rascals.
So don't go to rascal. If you
want real knowledge, take it from Bhagavān. bhagavān uvāca. Then your knowledge is perfect. That is our process. We, we have taken Bhagavad-gītā as it is, and we are preaching. We don't preach anything else which Bhagavān does not say. Bhagavān says, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī mām... [Bg. 18.65]. We are canvassing, "My dear sir, you just become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. You always think of Kṛṣṇa." Kṛṣṇa says, man-manā bhava mad-bhaktaḥ. We say, "You just think of Kṛṣṇa." The same thing. There is no change. We do not interpret any way, "This man-manāḥ means this, and mad-bhaktaḥ means that." No. We don't do that. We present as it is. Therefore if Kṛṣṇa sees that "One is presenting My message as I have given," then He is pleased. Therefore, it is said, kintu prabhor yaḥ priya eva tasya. He has become very dear because he does not, nonsensically, he does not nonsensically change the meaning, that "This meaning's that, this meaning's that." Why? When Kṛṣṇa has said, that is everything perfect. Why should I change it? That is guru-priya. Suppose if you say something and if somebody takes it as it is and behaves like that, then you become pleased. And if you say to your son or to your servant something and he misunderstand and talks something else, then he becomes angry: "What this nonsense has understood?" Similarly, a guru does not change the word of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore he's called Bhagavān, servant Bhagavān. Kṛṣṇa is the master Bhagavān, master God, and the guru, who is serving Kṛṣṇa sincerely, he's the servant God. Therefore śāstra says, sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstrair uktas tathā bhāvyata eva sadbhiḥ **. In the morning also these boys, they sing Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, āra nā koriho mane āśā. If you have got a pure, bona fide guru, then whatever he says, you do it. You don't think of anything else, āra nā koriho mane āśā. No more. That is all right.
