Perfect knowledge requires hearing from a perfect authority, not speculating with imperfect senses and mind.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Room Conversation and Interview — July 3, 1972, New York 720703R1-NEW YORK [76:28 Minutes] Conv_720703R1-NEW YORK Interview_720703R1-NEW YORK Guest (1): Yes, I guess it would be hard to define in terms of a search. Man's..., man's search for something divine. I'd..., I'd define it in terms of, of a search for the divine. I've been studying Russian Elders in the Orthodox Church. Perhaps that's a tradition that you're familiar with in some way.
They seem to have found the divine. I guess that's religion too. It seems to me both are, but perhaps you have a better definition than that? Prabhupāda: Yes. When you are searching with some hope, what is that hope?
Why you are searching? When you are missing something, then there is a question of searching for that missing point. You said religion means searching after the divine. So that means you are missing the divine.
Is it not? Guest (1): That's right. Prabhupāda: Now, the next question will be, What do you mean by this "divine"? Guest (1): Oh, I'm not..., I'm not sure, Your Grace. Prabhupāda: The other day we were talking with some scientist. We came to this conclusion, that the scientist, big scientist, they are simply concerned with the laws of nature. Because the laws of nature are very stringent. For example, there is death.
Everyone will die. So nobody can check death. However great scientist he may be, he cannot stop death. By laws of nature one is becoming old. By your scientific advancement you can stop first of all.
So the science means they are trying to overcome the stringent laws of nature, but so far... Not so far—even in the past, in the human history, they could not. In the present also they are unable. They say in future they will be able. But how we can believe in future?
Because in the past they could not; in the present also they are unable, how they can overcome the laws of nature in the future? History repeats. Same failure there is [indistinct]. Therefore the divine means, as we define, the divine means the controller of the laws of nature. Laws of nature there is, and everyone is under the laws of nature.