Real understanding of God comes only through a self-realized spiritual master who reveals Krishna consciousness as humanity's universal, eternal dharma.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 7.1 — December 20, 1975, Bombay 751220BG-BOMBAY [43:47 Minutes] BG-07.01_751220BG-BOMBAY Prabhupāda: śrī bhagavān uvāca mayy āsakta-manāḥ pārtha yogaṁ yuñjan mad-āśrayaḥ asaṁśayaṁ samagraṁ māṁ yathā jñāsyasi tac chṛṇu [Bg. 7.1] The yoga system which is known as bhakti-yoga... [children making noise]
Devotee: [indistinct] take the children outside. Girirāja: The children won't understand the lecture.
Prabhupāda: Everyone is trying... Not everyone; at the present moment, practically nobody wants to understand what is God. Everyone is busy to fulfill the desires and necessities of the body. yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma ijya-dhīḥ yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij janeṣv abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ [SB 10.84.13] Go-kharaḥ. Go means cow and kharaḥ means ass.
So according to Vedic culture, one who has accepted this material body as self... Ātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke. This body is a combination of matter, and the living force within this body is not this combination of matter; it is the spirit soul. That one has to understand before coming to the platform of spiritual life. So long one is attached with this material body it is not possible to understand what is spiritual life.
If one continues to be attached to this material body, he is no better than go-kharaḥ, cows and asses, animals. So our Vedic culture... Vedic culture means that human culture, not animal culture. Animal culture means to satisfy the needs of the body, and Vedic culture or human culture means to satisfy the needs of the soul. That is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā.
One who is reading Bhagavad-gītā... In India practically everyone reads, but because one does not take the instruction of Bhagavad-gītā as it was instructed by Kṛṣṇa, he cannot take the benefit of Bhagavad-gītā's instruction. One tries to understand Bhagavad-gītā by erudite scholarship, or good position in the society—political, social, economical—but that is not the way to understand Bhagavad-gītā. The way to understand Bhagavad-gītā is said in the Bhagavad-gītā, tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā updekṣyanti te jñānaṁ jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ [Bg. 4.34] Unless you approach a person who is representative of Kṛṣṇa and tattva-darśī, who has seen the truth, jñānī, and full of knowledge, from him you can understand what is Bhagavad-gītā, what is Bhagavān.
Otherwise you cannot understand. Nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ [Bg. 7.25]. If you remain covered by the material energy, then you cannot understand Bhagavad-gītā. The purpose of Bhagavad-gītā is to understand real religious life.