Professor Durckheim: May I come back once to my question, Master, the relationship between belief and experience? Because this is a great question for us today, especially also in the religious circles, and theologians, the priests and the monks.
Prabhupāda: No, believe the authority. That is the . . . that is better than experience.
Professor Durckheim: Yes. And that is what in our country is . . . I have very much to do with people who are living in monasteries or churches and so on.
Prabhupāda: (aside) Please come here so that he'll not be disturbed. You come here. Belief . . .
Professor Durckheim: They realize that now belief, which is not faith, has to be, well, renewed by real experiences. And, you see, we have so many priests today who say they can't pray anymore. They lost the connection because of so much formalism and so much traditional beliefs. And they are looking for a new source and new beginning in their hearts. And they don't believe what you tell them; they just want to feel it, to experience it. And there is a big change today in this direction, and there is a . . . big movements. You see all these trends today to learn meditation. It's only one longing to feel something and not only to believe. (to guest) That is the situation now very much in Germany, isn't it so?
Dr. P. J. Saher: Yes, it is.
Prabhupāda: Yes. So thing is that . . . first thing is that you have to believe, but whom to believe? If the person whom I believe, if he is perfect, then my belief is perfect. And if I believe a person who is not trustworthy, then there is no meaning of this belief. Therefore we have to find out the person or the statement which are to believe. That is accepted in the Vedic culture, that the knowledge in the Vedas, that is perfect. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). If one is perfect in Vedic knowledge—Veda, Veda means knowledge, perfect knowledge—so that belief is perfect. Just like we are believing Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is accepted as the perfect, the supreme perfect. So far we Indians are concerned, there are ācāryas, just like Śaṅkarācārya, Madhvācārya, Rāmānujācārya. Actually, these ācāryas are controlling the Indian culture. So all of them are unanimous to believe Kṛṣṇa, the supreme perfect person.
Professor Durckheim: May I ask a question, Master? You see, the belief, the understanding, is always depending on the level of the one who wants to understand, and that's the level of our quite natural, normal mind of the usual general person. And there is another level, where certain experiences open the door to some deeper consciousness. And, as you know, one of the key words of the Christian religion is, in the Gospels, that you have to turn around, to make annoia, to pierce through a certain skin to get quite another level.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Professor Durckheim: And from this level the heaven opens to those who didn't understand what the heaven means. They thought it was behind the clouds. You see, there is a natural way to look at God, and this natural way to look at God is lost as soon as people go through the rational mind. And then there is no other way out but to have a personal, initiated experience. We talk about initiation when people are capable to go through a certain death and to discover another level, and only . . . and so, the great wisdom which you are talking about, I am sure that it also touches people on two levels. There is the ordinary man, and he might believe, but there is a deeper level, where things start to change yourself, to transform yourself in deeper experiences.
Prabhupāda: Yes. That is . . . that is the beginning of instruction in the Bhagavad-gītā. (indistinct background comments) The beginning of knowledge . . .
German lady: Excuse me. Would you please explain for some people who don't speak English here, in German, because we don't know all of your words?
Professor Durckheim: Yes, but I didn't want to interrupt the Master.
Prabhupāda: No. I have no objection if somebody translates into German.