True spiritual knowledge means knowing Krishna directly, beyond impersonal abstraction or philosophical speculation.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Hayagrīva: ...that ymasundara treated, but they're somewhat incomplete, so I will read. I've gone to the primary sources. He used a college outline series that wasn't really adequate. So I went to the primary sources, and I'll read a little, and if you want to comment on it, comment. If you don't feel like commenting on it, I'll just go on to the next section. Once a student of Socrates--this is a section on Socrates--said, "I cannot refute you, Socrates." To this Socrates replied, "Say rather that you cannot refute the truth, for Socrates is easily refuted." This is by way of saying that the Absolute Truth is not a subject of mental speculation or personal opinion. The truth, or the good, for Socrates stands separate from mundane relativities or personal opinion.
Prabhupāda: Well that is our opinion. We accept Ka the supreme authority, and therefore we cannot refute what Ka says. And our philosophy is perfect because we follow Ka. He is the Supreme Perfect. This is our position. In other religious systems, taking it our Ka consciousness movement religious... It is religious, because our religion means the..., to carry out the order of God. That is the sum and substance of religion. We don't manufacture religion, and neither religion can be manufactured. Manufactured religion is useless. That has been described in the Bhagavad-gt, er, rmad-Bhgavatam as dharma kaitava. Means cheating. So this is not cheating religion. Our basic principle is dharma tu skd bhagavat-pratam [SB 6.3.19]. Dharma means the order which is given by God, and if you execute that--that is dharma. Just like law. Law is given by the government. You cannot manufacture law. That is not law. So our perfection is there, how we are
executing the order of God cent per cent. One who has no conception of God, neither the order of God, they can manufacture religious system. But our system is different.
Hayagrīva: [aside:] This is picking up fine, you hearing? Socrates considers the contemplation of beauty to be an activity of the wise man, but relative beauty in the mundane world is simply a reflection of absolute beauty.
Hayagrīva: In the same way, good in the relative world is simply a reflection of the absolute good. In either case, absolute good or beauty is transcendental.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our opinion. Beauty, knowledge, strength and the opulence--everything--they are transcendental. Here in this material world, it is perverted reflection. Just like the example is the mirage. A fool--animal, is thinking there is water in the desert, and he is running after it, and after sometimes he dies of thirst because there is no water. But a sane man knows there is no water; it is simply a reflection by the sunshine, and this foolish animal is running after it. So he does not..., a sane man does not go for this false water. But a..., another thing is that because there is no water in the desert, it does not mean--there is no water. Water is there, but not there. Similarly happiness, beauty, opulence--everything is there. That is in the spiritual world. Here it is only a perverted reflection. So generally people have no information of the spiritual world; therefore they imagine something God, something spiritual world. They do not take that, "This is imagination, this material world." And when Ka says, tyaktv deha punar janma naiti mm eti [Bg 4.9], they are reading Bhagavad-gt, but this simple thing they can not understand. That a devotee of Ka, after giving up this body--the body has to be given
up--then what happened? Ka says mam eti, "He comes to Me." And other system says that after death he goes to hell or goes to heaven. So that is to some extent fact. This human life, if he understands Ka, he goes to the eternal abode--you can take it as heaven or something. Otherwise he remains in this material world to undergo the same cycle of birth and death. That is hell. It can be taken in that way.