Knowledge of the Absolute must be received from authorized spiritual masters, not pursued through imperfect conditioned senses.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Lecture, Śrīla Prabhupāda Listening to His Own Recorded Lecture — April 23, 1969, Buffalo 690423LE-BUFFALO [42:57 Minutes] Lecture_690423LE-BUFFALO Prabhupāda: om ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ [Gautamīya Tantra] [I offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master, who with the torchlight of knowledge has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance.] [aside:] It is recording? The meaning of this verse... It is offering obeisances to the spiritual master. The spiritual master opens the eyes of the ignorant disciple in the matter of transcendental knowledge. Therefore it is the duty of the disciple, before speaking, to offer obeisances to the lotus feet of the spiritual master. Our Vedic process is not research work.
Just like in the mundane scholarship, one has to show his academic career by some research work. The Vedic process is different. Vedic process is that our research work is not complete, because the instruments and the means by which we make progress in research work are blunt and imperfect. We are conditioned. At this stage of our material existence, we are conditioned by so many laws of nature.
Under the circumstances, every conditioned soul has four defects. Just like to commit mistake. There is no man, even great man, who does not commit mistake. More or less, he commits mistake. Just like in our country there was Mahatma Gandhi.
He was supposed to be a very great personality, mahātmā, but he also committed mistake, because when he was killed, five minutes before his coming to the meeting, he was warned by his confidential associates not to go to that meeting, but he persisted, and as soon as he entered the meeting hall he was killed. So I am giving an instance that even a great personality like Mahatma Gandhi, he also committed mistake. So in the conditioned state of our life, committing mistake is very natural. Just like we say, "To err is human." Any human being is susceptible to commit mistake. Another imperfectness is that every man is illusioned.
Illusioned means to accept something which is not, phantasmagoria. Just like every one of us in this meeting, we are under the impression that "I am this body." But actually I am not this body. This is called illusion, māyā. So to commit mistake; to become illusioned, number two; and number three: a cheating propensity. Everyone, conditioned soul, thinks himself very expert, and he talks with his, I mean to say, fellow man as a very intelligent man.
And he has got every... Just like in business. In business you go to a storekeeper. He'll say, "Oh, you are my great friend. I am not taking a farthing profit from you." But you must know that he is taking profit at least fifty percent.
So this is called cheating propensity. One who is not in the knowledge, but he puts forward his theories and theses and so many by the words "perhaps," "it may be," like that—this is called cheating. So to commit mistake, to be illusioned, and cheating propensity, and at last, imperfectness of the senses. Our senses are limited.