Prabhupāda: Detachment, when you will understand that, "This is good," "This is bad," naturally you'll have detachment for the bad. Unless you know, "This is good," "This is bad," how there can be detachment? When you are offered two kinds of foodstuff, and if you know, "This is good," "This is bad," then naturally you have detachment for the bad and pick up the good. First of all you have to know what is good and bad.
Then, when you are convinced, naturally you know, "Oh, this should not be taken." Detached, automatically. Paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate (BG 2.59). Therefore knowledge is first required for detachment. Jñāna-vairāgya-yuktayā (SB 1.2.12). Jñāna, first of all knowledge, then detachment. Unless you have knowledge, artificial detachment will not work.
(pause)
Devotee: There are many that tell about knowledge for being good, but how do you really know? Is it just a feeling?
Prabhupāda: Hmm? Hmm? Knowledge means culture. Just like we were discussing. This is the process of knowledge: inquiry from right person and take the answer. That is knowledge. Just like a child takes knowledge from his father, "Father, what is this?" He gives knowledge. So you must inquire rightly from the right person. Then you get knowledge. This is the process of knowledge.
Brahmānanda: The child also has faith.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Brahmānanda: The child also have faith in the father, that the father will give him the proper answer.
Prabhupāda: No, no. Faith or no faith. Child does not know that he has got faith, but naturally he's asking father. That is the natural source of knowledge. When you approach the right person, you may have faith or no faith, you get the right knowledge. It doesn't matter. Just like fire: if it is real fire, you touch it, it will act. You know or do not know, it doesn't matter.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Just spontaneous.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
(pause)
Just like somebody says: "I have no faith in God." He may have faith or no faith. It doesn't matter. God is there. If somebody says: "I have no faith in death," does it mean that he'll not die? So faith is useless. Faith is created according to one's sense. It is not very essential. If there is something positive, you have faith in the negative, so it doesn't matter.
Brahmānanda: Doesn't negate it.
Prabhupāda: No. Fact is fact. Whether you believe or not believe, it doesn't matter. Hiraṇyakaśipu thought that, "I shall not die on the land, on the water, on the sky." But death was there. Asuric. This is asuric thinking.