Rules and regulations cannot be escaped; choose to follow them voluntarily with a spiritual master, or suffer through forced compliance.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Room Conversation — January 30, 1974, Tokyo 740130R1-TOKYO [35:24 Minutes] Conv_740130R1-TOKYO Devotee: According to him, he hasn’t disobeyed the regulative principles of eating meat, intoxication, sex life. But he has some fantasyland in his mind, which he tries to live in. Prabhupāda: Why don’t you call him, to talk. Devotee: All right. Sañjaya! [break] Prabhupāda: [indistinct] So you have to learn so many things.
Don’t confuse yourself as authority. Then you will be misled. Therefore one has to accept a guru, just to give him direct. Anything, any field of activity, if one is know…Ācāryavān puruṣo veda [Chāndogya Upaniṣad].
One who is being directed by ācārya, he knows things. Not a vagabond. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda. Why one goes to college, school? Just to follow the instruction of the teacher, and then he becomes educated.
This is the general method. Anything you want to learn, you have to approach a person who knows the thing. Whimsically, if you create something in your mind, that is a madman’s theory. The Vedic injunction is, tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum evābhigacchet [MU 1.2.12].
You have to, if we are going to learn the supreme science, science of God... In ordinary life, if we want to learn how to typewrite, I have to go to a typewriting school and to put this finger that way, put this finger that way. We have to learn in that way. And if we are going to learn Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord, you don’t require anyone’s help: “Let us do anything whimsically, that is all right.” It is simply ludicrous, that’s all. That has spoiled the whole spiritual life of the present humanity.
Everyone manufactures his own way. There is no… If you learn to typewriting, you have to learn systematically: this finger here, this finger... Not that this finger there, this finger there. That is nonsense.
You cannot do anything whimsically. This is nonsense. You have to learn systematically, scientifically. Then you are actually learned in that subject matter.