Prabhupāda: If I want to cut this table, I must have proper instrument. If I want to cut this table with this book, "Let me cut this," how it will be possible? You must know that for cutting this table it requires this instrument.
Professor: Yes, they say that the only way to acquire knowledge is through śabda.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Śabda-pramāṇa.
Professor: And I think other pramāṇas will be also possible according to those.
Prabhupāda: Just like I am trying something, and some experienced man says: "Do like this." This is śabda-pramāṇa. The śabda-pramāṇa, one who is . . . knows, he says: "Do like this." The "Do like this" means śabda, sound, and it enters your ear, and you do adjustment. Therefore śabda-pramāṇa. Just like you are sleeping, and one is . . . another man is coming to kill you. And another friend says: "Get up, get up, get up! There is enemy. He is coming to kill you." Then you wake up. Therefore the sound is the pramāṇa there was enemy. These are crude examples. When you are asleep, you cannot understand. You have got eyes, you have got hands, you have legs but no experience, but the ear gives you warning even if you are sleeping. There is enemy—your eyes cannot see, your hand cannot touch, but the ear can give you evidence, "Yes." As soon as you are awakened you say: "Yes, here is enemy. He is coming to kill me." Therefore the aural reception, sound reception, is the evidence. Knowledge received through authentic sound vibration, that is perfect.
Professor: (laughing) Make another question?
Guest (1): Perhaps I would like to ask a question this way. We don't doubt what you said, the assumption that individual ego is eternal and also subordinate to that which is eternal, hierarchically higher, nevertheless is the part of that what is the eternal reality. And that is I understand Vedic . . . (indistinct) . . . that what you later developed. Question: Is this statement what you made a statement of fact based on direct perception, or it is something what rather follows traditional belief and is just the axiomatic basis of your philosophy, or similarly as other philosophies have axiomatic bases.
Prabhupāda: No, this is axiomatic basis because you have to accept that your senses are imperfect. So you, by speculation, cannot have perfect knowledge. This is axiomatic truth.
Guest (1): With that epistemological truth, all right, we may go along, and, as a matter of fact, doubt about the truths of direct sensual perception is the basis, one of models of the scientific activity.
Prabhupāda: Direct perception . . .
Guest (1): My question is, rather, this statement, this basic statement about eternal ego and so on, is a statement which you somehow give to us as revealed message, something what is . . .
Prabhupāda: Yes, revealed.
Guest (1): . . . or is . . .? Yes. Yes.
Prabhupāda: Revealed. It is revealed. Hmm? Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā the vibration is coming from Kṛṣṇa. Now, you practically realize it, "Yes, what is said is correct." That is direct perception. First of all you receive the message, and then apply your logic and see that it is fact. Therefore it is perfect. When you receive the knowledge and when you directly apply it to your perception, when you see it is correct, that is the proof that the message which you received, that is correct.