Spiritual knowledge requires approaching a surrendered guru through disciplic succession, not imagination.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 4.34–39 — January 12, 1969, Los Angeles 690112BG-LOS ANGELES [92:59 Minutes] Bg-04.34–39_690112BG-LOS ANGELES [kīrtana] [prema-dhvani] [devotees offer obeisances] [indistinct background comments by devotees] [Prabhupāda enters, devotees offer obeisances] [27:50] Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa. Page? Page? Devotees: One thirty-one. Verse 34. Prabhupāda: Hmm.
Go on. Madhudviṣa: Verse thirty-four: "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth." Purport... Prabhupāda: This is the process of understanding spiritual knowledge. "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master." So if you want to learn, this is a commonsense affair.
Whatever subject matter you want to learn, you have to find out an expert. Suppose if you want to learn engineering, so you cannot go to a butcher; you must find out an engineer. You must admit yourself into the engineering college, learn how to practice engineering. Suppose if you want to become a medical practitioner, so you have to admit yourself in some medical college. Similarly, if you want to know about spiritual matter, then you must approach a spiritual master who knows the things.
How you can learn it from anywhere and everywhere? One must be expert in spiritual knowledge. From him you have to learn. Therefore it is said here, "Just try to learn the truth by here..." "Truth" means the Absolute Truth, not relative truth.
Or even if you want to know relative truth, you have to approach a particular expert. But here, it is indicated, truth means the Absolute Truth. So Kṛṣṇa indicates that "Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master." Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet. "To understand these things properly, one must humbly approach, with firewood in hand, a spiritual master who is learned in the Vedas and firmly devoted to the Absolute Truth." [Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.2.12] That is the Vedic injunction. In the Kaṭhopaniṣad the Vedas says that "If you want to learn transcendental science, so you have to approach a bona fide spiritual master." And who is bona fide spiritual master? That is also described, śrotriyaṁ brahma-niṣṭham: "One who has heard from his spiritual master." This is...
Spiritual master becomes by disciplic succession, ascending process. Just like we learn "Man is mortal" from some higher authority—from my father, from mother or any other authority. Or just a child. A child is attracted generally to his mother—in human being, in animals, everywhere. So if a child wants to know his father, then the authority is the mother, and there is no other authority.
The child cannot know the name of his father by his own imagination or speculation. If he thinks, "Oh, he may be my father," "He may be my father," "He may be my father...," go on imagining, speculating, but you will never be able to understand who is your father. But the mother indicates, "My dear child, he is your father"—immediately business finished. You see? So if you want to speculate how is God, who is the supreme father, you go on speculating for lives together.