Devotee: "This statement of Kṛṣṇa is authoritative because Kṛṣṇa cannot be subject to illusion. If individuality..."
Prabhupāda: Yes. If the Māyāvādī philosopher says that this statement of Kṛṣṇa is in māyā, that "He says that 'Everyone was individual in the past.' No, in the past everyone was one, lump sum, homogeneous. By māyā, we have become individual." If the Māyāvādī says like that, then Kṛṣṇa becomes one of the conditioned souls. He does not... He loses His authority. Because conditioned soul cannot give you the truth. I am conditioned soul. I cannot say something which is absolute. So Kṛṣṇa is accepted as the Absolute. So if the Māyāvādī theory is accepted, then Kṛṣṇa's theory has to be rejected. If Kṛṣṇa is rejected, then there is no need of reading Kṛṣṇa's book, Bhagavad-gītā. It is useless, waste of time. If He's a conditioned soul like us... Because we cannot take any instruction from a conditioned soul. So the spiritual master, even if you take that he is conditioned soul, but he does not speak anything from his own side. He speaks from Kṛṣṇa's side. So unless... The Vedic principle is that unless one is not liberated from the material conditions, he cannot give us any perfect knowledge. The conditioned soul, however he may be academically advanced, educated, he cannot give us any perfect knowledge. Only one who is above the condition of these material laws, he can give us the perfect knowledge. Similarly Śaṅkarācārya, he's also impersonalist, but he accepts Kṛṣṇa the supreme authority. Sa bhagavān svayaṁ kṛṣṇa. "Kṛṣṇa is that Supreme Personality of Godhead." The modern Māyāvādī philosophers, they do not disclose this statement of Śaṅkarācārya. To cheat people. But Śaṅkarācārya's statement is there. We can give evidence. He accepts Kṛṣṇa as the supreme authority. He has written so many nice poems praising or worshiping Kṛṣṇa. And at the last time he says, bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ mūḍha-mate. "You rascal fools. Oh, you are depending on grammar to understand. This is all nonsense." Bhaja govindam. "Just worship Govinda." Bhaja govindaṁ bhaja... Three times he says. "Just worship Govinda." Bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindam. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu says three times, harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma (CC Adi 17.21). Three times means giving too much stress. Just like we sometimes say, "You do this, do this, do this." That means no more denial. Finish all stress. So as soon as one thing is three times stressed, that means final. So Śaṅkarācārya says, bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ bhaja govindaṁ mūḍha-mate. Mūḍha, mūḍha I've several times explained. Mūḍha means rascal, ass. You are depending on your grammatical understanding, dukṛn karaṇe. Dukṛn, these are grammatical affix and prefix, pratya, prakaraṇa. So you are depending on this verbal root, that verbal root, and creating, interpreting your meaning in a different way. All this is nonsense. This dukṛn karaṇe, your grammatical jugglery of words, will not save you at the time of death. You rascal, you just worship Govinda, Govinda, Govinda. That is the instruction of Śaṅkarācārya also. Because he was a devotee, he was a great devotee. But he pretended to be an atheist because he was to deal with the atheists. Unless he presents himself as an atheist, the atheist followers will not hear him. Therefore he presented Māyāvāda philosophy for the time being. The Māyāvāda philosophy cannot be accepted eternally. The eternal philosophy is Bhagavad-gītā. That is the verdict.