Knowledge—our knowledge, your knowledge or anyone's knowledge—we are defect in four principles. Our . . . we commit mistake. Every one of us who are sitting in this meeting, nobody can say that "I have never committed any mistake." That is not possible. We commit mistake, everyone. We commit mistakes and we are sometimes illusioned. Illusioned. That we can make experiment, that every one of us at the present moment is illusioned. How it is? That I have . . . am not this body, but I am accepting this body as "I am." The whole world is—I may say whole world, but at least the majority portion—everyone is under the impression that "I am this body." But I am not this body. I am soul.
That will be instructed in the Bhaga . . . I am not this body. I am soul. I am spirit soul. There are so many evidences. If I am this body, then when the soul is not there, the living entity is not there, the body is simply a lump of matter. That is the difference between a dead body and living body. Living body means that the soul is there, therefore the body is moving. And as soon as the soul is not there, the body is nothing but a lump of matter. I think somebody as my father. I call, "Father," father immediately replies, "Yes, my son." But when the soul of the father is not there, then the father, this body of the father whom I am seeing as father, although he is there, still he cannot reply. This is the distinction.
So Kṛṣṇa is replying that "You are afraid of fighting with your kinsmen, but you are mistaken. You are mistaken." Every one of us is mistaken, because there are four defects in our conditional life. This is our conditional life. So long we are within this body, material body, that is our conditional life. We live under certain conditions. But actually, we are spirit soul, we are part and parcel of God. As soon as we are free from this conditional life, that is our real, actual life. That is called liberated life.
The human form of life is meant for getting this liberation. So long one does not get this human form of life by the evolutionary process . . . There is evolution, from aquatic to birds and beast and then . . . Jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi (Padma Purāṇa). First aquatic life, then plant life, tree life, then insect life, then bird's life, then beast life, then human life, then civilized human life. So this is the process of evolution. Now, we are supposed to be civilized human being. This life is especially meant for how to get out of this evolutionary process. How to get out of this evolutionary process. The evolutionary process means transmigration of the soul from one body to another. We do not wish to die, but we have to accept death. This is our conditional stage of life. I do not wish to take birth; still, I am forced to go into the womb of my mother by the laws of nature. After giving up one body I enter another body. And there is no security what kind of body I shall get next. It may be human body, it may be animal, it may be trees or it may be better than human being, because there are three divisions. One division is called demigod, and one division is called the human being. The other division is called lower than the human being. Nṛ-tiryag-deva. Deva means who are very highly advanced in knowledge. They are called devas, and God conscious, Kṛṣṇa conscious, such men. There are different planets also for different kinds of living entities.
So this knowledge is being imparted by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, not by a person like me or like you who are defective in four principles. That I was going to explain. The four defects are that we commit mistakes, we are illusioned, and our senses are imperfect and therefore sometimes we cheat others. Although I know . . . I do not know a subject matter very clearly; still, I say something as authority. That is cheating. We should not cheat. If we want to give knowledge to the people, we must give perfect knowledge.
So perfect knowledge, how it can come? The perfect knowledge can come from the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is the process of acquiring knowledge, so far we are concerned. Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2).
(This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost.)
The knowledge, perfect knowledge, is coming from Kṛṣṇa, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and if we receive that knowledge in cool head and assimilate, then our knowledge is perfect. Just like we are preaching this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. This is perfect knowledge. If you inquire whether I am perfect or my disciples who are preaching this Kṛṣṇa conscious movement, they are perfect, we may be imperfect. We are imperfect. We accept we are imperfect. But we are distributing the perfect knowledge. Kindly try to understand. We may be imperfect, but perfection means one who assimilates the perfect knowledge, he is perfect.
I shall give you one example. Just like a post peon delivers you one hundred dollars. The post peon is not rich man. He cannot deliver you the hundred dollars. But he . . . The money is sent by some, your friend. He is honestly carrying that money and delivering you. That is the post peon's business. Similarly, our duty to receive perfect knowledge from Kṛṣṇa and distribute it. Then it is perfect. This knowledge, what we are distributing, it is not that we have created this knowledge by research work or by so many other ways, by inductive process. No. Our knowledge is from the deductive process. Kṛṣṇa said, "This is this." We accept. That is our movement, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We may be imperfect, but Kṛṣṇa is perfect. Therefore, whatever Kṛṣṇa says, if we accept it and if we . . . Not accept blindly, but you can employ your logic and argument and try to understand, then your knowledge is perfect.