Prabhupāda: You have to see that the Vedic injunction says śāstra cakṣuśā . . . śāstra cakṣu. "Your eyes should be the śāstra." There is another crude example. Just like who is your father? How to understand? Through the vibration of the mother. The mother says: "He is your father," you accept it. Otherwise there is no experiment. So things which are beyond your perception, beyond your defective senses, that should not be speculated. Na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. Acintyā khalv ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. These are the injunction. What is beyond your perception, beyond your speculation, don't waste your time, so-called argument and logic. What is argument? Mother says, "He is your father." Where is the argument? You cannot apply any argument.
Professor: No, I said old tradition in India has been going into argument since . . .
Prabhupāda: No, argument you can go on, but if you want to know the truth it will not be attained by argument, because argument is also within your thinking power—thinking, feeling, willing. So if your thinking, feeling, willing is imperfect, what is the use of your argument? What is the use of your so-called advancement of knowledge? Basically, if the senses, knowledge-acquiring senses, are imperfect, then how you can get perfect knowledge?
Professor: How, what do we do with all techniques, all systems, that have been developed? I am thinking only in India, I am not thinking other places, and on your own tradition, I said since . . . since Śaṅkara onwards, of different ways to think, to study, to go deep to all these relations between . . . truth . . .
Prabhupāda: Śaṅkara has interpreted. Śaṅkara has interpreted by his limited knowledge. So that is not perfect knowledge. Therefore we don't accept Śaṅkara's philosophy.
Professor: Yes, but I said he belongs to the same tradition, and you belong to the other . . .
Prabhupāda: That tradition is nothing. Tradition is just temporary. You make your tradition; he makes your tradition. That is another thing. But . . . fact is fact. That is not dependent on tradition. Tradition we can make, tradition. "We believe." Just like somebody says: "We believe." What is the use of such saying, "We believe"? You may believe something which is not fact.
Professor: Yes, but we could say that since Upaniṣads and later on, all things . . . (indistinct) . . . have been sustaining the thing you have just said a moment ago, that there exists an identity between ātman and Brahman.
Prabhupāda: Identity is there. That, therefore, I have already said: nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānaṁ. Both of them are identical so far nitya is concerned or cetana is concerned, but one is dependent and other is maintainer. That is difference.
Professor: Yes, but I said also all . . . (indistinct) . . . it has been said that truth and . . . (indistinct) . . . and you are saying also the same.
Prabhupāda: Both of them are truth. Both of them truth. You are truth, I am truth. You are living; I am living, existing. This is truth. This is truth. But you are professor and I am something else. That is temporary. But so far you are, as living being, and I am, as living being, that is truth. But your dress and my dress, that is temporary. So we have to understand like that. In this material world we are mixed up with temporary and eternal. The living entity is eternal, but his body is temporary. This is the position. So the problem is: why the eternal has got temporary things? That is the . . . that is hampering his ānanda. Just like I am sitting here. Now, if somebody says: "Now you'll have to die and accept another body," this is not very pleasing to me. Or even I am sitting in this apartment, and somebody . . . "No, you change your apartment. Come. Come here." Again I change another apartment. So I'll seek after, "Why I am changing this apartment? Is it not possible to get an eternal apartment?" That should be the brahma-jijñāsā. That is . . . Vedānta-sūtra first says, athāto brahma jijñāsā. "Why I am subjected to this change?" That is intelligence. "Why not eternal apartment if I am eternal?" That is intelligence.
Professor: Did you say that for the ātman, as far as he is eternal and. For the ātman, it is a need for the things for the purpose, of ānanda.
Prabhupāda: Ānanda, yes.
Professor: That means he is required . . .
Prabhupāda: Nature, nature ānanda.
Professor: This other thing, they have it because of līlā, pleasure, playing.
Prabhupāda: That is also ānanda.
Professor: Yes, but that means that he needed it . . .
Prabhupāda: Just like somebody goes within the water. Nowadays it has become a fashion. What is that? Go within the water?
Devotee: Diving. Diving.
Prabhupāda: But he does not belong to the water, but he takes some pleasure.
Professor: He needs the pleasure. (laughs)
Prabhupāda: Therefore he's seeking pleasure. That is the real aim. Therefore he's going into the water. He has no business to go to the water, but because he is seeking pleasure—"Let me see if there is some pleasure. Experiment." That's all. But he does not get . . . just like they are going to the moon planet, moon planet, "Let us see." Because there is no ānanda, he is seeking another type of ānanda. And now they have failed. Now they're going to Venus, or what?
Devotees: Mars.
Prabhupāda: Mars. This is going on. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). He's not seeking after where is eternal happiness. He's . . . temporarily, he's seeking here, seeking there. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate. In this way his life is finished, seeking ānanda, and he gets another body, another term. So his intelligence is not coming to the point that, "What is this ānanda? I am eternal. I am seeking eternal ānanda. Why this ānanda? Sometimes this body, sometimes this position, sometimes that position—what is this?" That is intelligence.