Spiritual life is a razor's edge requiring strict discipline; without temple routine and regulative principles, devotees inevitably fall into maya.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Room Conversation — September 19, 1973, Bombay 730919R1-BOMBAY [83:11 Minutes] Conv_730919R1-BOMBAY Prabhupāda: ...kaṇḍūtivan manasijaṁ viṣaheta dhīraḥ [SB 7.9.45]. Dhīras tatra na muhyati [Bg. 2.13]. If you can quote ślokas, that will be first class. In India especially.
In your country they do not care. Our Bhavānanda Swami, because he could not quote śloka, so he was saying, "Oh, because you have quoted some śloka, it is authorized?" [chuckles] He was saying like that. Western people, they cannot imagine that by quoting a Vedic version it becomes immediately authorized. They cannot imagine.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't accept that authority.
Prabhupāda: Eh? Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't accept that source of authority.
Prabhupāda: They don't accept any authority. Therefore they are changing Bible also, according to their whims. They don't accept authority. Therefore father..., son goes out of home.
This is the basic principle of Western civilization. They don't accept any authority. Everyone is his own authority. Now that contamination has come here.
And nobody can be authority also, because if I accept somebody authority, he has not followed authority, so how he can be authority? Do you follow? Suppose if somebody respects his father, but father never followed any authority. So actually father is not authority.