Expressions researched:
"It is only our nation who has produced all these intelligent persons" |"You go to the Parliament and Westminster Abbey. They have kept all the statues of Sir Isaac Newton and this Churchill, this.... Mean, they want to show that"
That is the tendency everywhere. The Britishers.... You go to the Parliament and Westminster Abbey. They have kept all the statues of Sir Isaac Newton and this Churchill, this.... Mean, they want to show that "It is only our nation who has produced all these intelligent persons."
Morning Walk -- January 3, 1976, Nellore:
Prabhupāda: He does not know. He does not say that "certainly school." "It may be."
Harikeśa: Well, if I'm convinced it's a school, it's a school. I mean, the only thing that really matters is my perception of that thing.
Prabhupāda: You learn from him that it is school. Before that, you did not know. Therefore you have to learn. That experience is valuable, when you learn it.
Harikeśa: Yes, but the only thing that makes it a school...
Prabhupāda: You cannot imagine by seeing a building that it is a school. You cannot imagine that. That is foolishness.
Harikeśa: But all the people inside, they are also imagining that it's a school.
Prabhupāda: So that is all...
Acyutānanda: Just like if there is a pen. If I use it to kill someone, it is a weapon. If I use it to mix something, it is an instrument. If I use it to write with, then it's a pen. So it is not a pen. It is not a weapon. It is my idea that I impose on the object that makes it what it is.
Prabhupāda: No. No. Your idea, that is foolishness. But you learn from a teacher that this is pen; this is not a weapon. You have to learn it. If you don't learn it, then you will go on making experiment whether it is pen or it is weapon or it is this or that. Go on. But it will never come to any conclusion.
Mahāmṣa: Like giving a child a pen who does not know...
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Mahāmṣa: ...that we have to write with it. He has to be taught that we have to write.
Prabhupāda: Everywhere you have to learn from the perfect person. Then his knowledge is perfect. So our proposition is that: learn from Kṛṣṇa and you get perfect knowledge.
Keśavalāl Trivedi: That is why he is jagat guru.
Harikeśa: We've invented this pen, so we can invent how to use the pen.
Prabhupāda: You have not invented. Some experienced more than yourself, he has done. You have been given the pen to use it for that purpose.
Acyutānanda: Yes. Whenever some scientist does something, the whole nation of that scientist takes the credit. That is another idea. They say, "We made the pen," or something. Everyone in India takes the credit.
Prabhupāda: That is animalism. Dehātmā-buddhiḥ. "I belong to some particular body, and he belongs to the same body or same nation. Therefore we become..." Instead of "I," we become "we."
Acyutānanda: Recently there was an atomic scientist whose all major education was in America and Europe, and he won a Nobel Prize award...
Prabhupāda: That is the tendency everywhere. The Britishers.... You go to the Parliament and Westminster Abbey. They have kept all the statues of Sir Isaac Newton and this Churchill, this.... Mean, they want to show that "It is only our nation who has produced all these intelligent persons."
Keśavalāl Trivedi: Yes, yes. From "I-ness" to "we-ness."
Prabhupāda: (break) This is basis of Gītā. Tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā (BG 4.34). Learn from the real person, tattva-darśinaḥ, who has seen, who has actual experience of the truth. Learn from him. The Gītā never recommends that you imagine and make your theories. Never said. That is the Vedic culture. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). Tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsur śreya uttamam (SB 11.3.21). This is the way. Take lesson from Kṛṣṇa or Kṛṣṇa's representative. Then you will get experience. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. What is the use of imagining?
Harikeśa: I mean, after all, all this talk about God was simply there because of man's desire to explain the unknown. He saw a thunderbolt and...
Prabhupāda: It is unknown to the rascal man. It is known to the sober man. (laughter) He should become sober instead of becoming a rascal. That is required. Vidyā-vinaya-sampanne (BG 5.18). Ācāryavān puruṣo veda: "He knows, who has accepted the ācārya."