Prabhupāda: You don't accept authority?
Allen Ginsberg: Not enough to love.
Prabhupāda: No, love, apart from love.
Allen Ginsberg: Not enough to...
Prabhupāda: Consult.
Allen Ginsberg: ...going to accept authority. It's just that...
Prabhupāda: Consult, consult.
Allen Ginsberg: I can't even understand an authority that says that I am there when I don't feel myself there.
Prabhupāda: Well, suppose when you are in some legal trouble: you go to lawyer. You cannot understand. Why do you say you cannot understand? Where you have disease, where do you go to a physician? You see? Authority you accept.
Allen Ginsberg: In America we've had a great deal of difficulty with authority.
Prabhupāda: No, that is, that is...
Allen Ginsberg: No, here is a special problem.
Prabhupāda: That is, that is, I mean to say, misunderstanding. Authority we have to. The child has to accept authority. Always ask mother, "What is this, father? What is this...?" Why? That is the beginning: ask, ask, ask. That is the way of acquiring knowledge. Tad vijñānārthaṁ sa... The Vedic injunction is there: if you want to understand that science, you must to go to guru.
Allen Ginsberg: But do you understand your previous lives from the descriptions in authoritative texts, or from any introspective recollection...
Prabhupāda: No, we have to corroborate.
Allen Ginsberg: ...of your own?
Prabhupāda: Corroborate. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that śucīnāṁ śrīmatāṁ gehe yoga-bhraṣṭo 'bhijāyate (BG 6.41). One who could not finish this Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he gets birth in two places—either in very rich family or in a very pure brāhmaṇa family, brahminical cultured family. So from my life I experience, when I was very little child, six or seven years old, I was very much fond of Kṛṣṇa. And I got the opportunity of this two things. Although my father was not very rich, but he was pure Vaiṣṇava. He was great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Allen Ginsberg: I assume in Calcutta.
Prabhupāda: In Calcutta. And accidentally, I was born in a very rich family. You have seen that picture in my Calcutta, dancing. In that, there is a Kashi Mullik's family.
Indian woman: (Bengali) Kashi Mulliker?
Prabhupāda: They are very aristocratic family. I do..., I did not belong to that family, but I was born in that family, you see? And from the very beginning the Kashi Mullik, they have got nice Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa temple. So I was standing before the Deity, and I was seeing, "Oh, He is Kṛṣṇa. Oh, people say He is dead. How He is dead?"
Like that I was thinking. And then my..., I asked my father, "Oh, I shall worship Kṛṣṇa. Give me." So my father gave me Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, so I, whatever I was eating, I was offering Them. So the statement of the śāstra and my practical experience corroborates.
So we have to take instance like that, you see? Sādhu śāstra guru vākya. We have to test everything from three position: the spiritual master, scripture and holy man. Scripture means, just like Bible. What is Bible? Scripture. Why the scripture? It is fully contains the instruction of sādhu, holy man, or spiritual master, Lord Jesus Christ; therefore is scripture.
The scripture means the statement of liberated holy man. That is sādhu. Therefore, scripture should be tested through the holy man and spiritual master. Spiritual master should be tested through scripture and holy man, and holy man should be tested through spiritual master and scripture.
Allen Ginsberg: What is the difference between holy man and spiritual master?
Prabhupāda: No difference, but one has to test whether he is holy man. Then you have to..., he has to corroborate with the statement of the scripture. A spiritual master is to be tested whether he is holy man, and whether there is corroboration in the statement of the scripture. Sādhu śāstra guru vākya tinete koriya aikya (Śrīla Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura).
Just like the law court, the experienced lawyer's speaking and giving evidence. Sādhu-śāstra. And the judge is giving judgment, "Here is a statement, here is this law book." He has the judgment, you see. So he is also testing. The judge is also testing how the lawyer is speaking, and how it is corroborates to the law book.
So similarly, everything has to be tested in that way. The scripture should be consulted, and we should have to see whether it is corroborated. So we should not accept any man as spiritual master or holy man if he does not corroborate with the statement of the scripture. He's at once rejected.
(Srila Prabhupada Conversation with Allen Ginsberg, Columbus, Ohio, May 11, 1969)
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