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THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
all these questions, one must approach a bona fide spiritual master.
Mr. O'Grady:  What if you have none? What if we are told that Mr. Nixon is the bona fide spiritual master? What do we do?
Śrila Prabhupāda:  No, no. [Laughter.] There is a standard for bona fide spiritual masters. You have only heard one line of the verse. Who is the spiritual master? That is the next line:  śrotriyam brahma-niṣṭham . The word  śrotriyam  refers to one who has heard from another bona fide source. A spiritual master is he who has taken the message from another qualified spiritual master. This is just like a medical man who has taken the knowledge of medical science from another medical man. Similarly, the bona fide spiritual master must come in a line of successive spiritual masters. The original spiritual master is God.
Mr. O'Grady:  Yes. Granted.
Śrila Prabhupāda:  One who has heard from God explains the same message to his disciples. If the disciple doesn't change the message, he is a bona fide spiritual master. That is our process. We take lessons by hearing from Kṛṣṇa, God, and from Him understand who is perfect. Or we hear from His representative, who does not contradict Kṛṣṇa and who has realized His message. It is not that we speak one thing and do all non-sense. One who does so is not a spiritual master.
Mr. O'Grady:  Now there's my poor old father, living west of Ireland. A simple old man, seventy-eight years now, your generation. He has gotten to the point at his age where he says, "They tell me, the priests, they tell me ultimately that it's God who knows. But I want to know who told God." Then he comes to me and says, "You went to school, and you read books. Tell me, who told God?" So I have no answer. That is the difference between seventy-eight and thirty-nine years.
Śrila Prabhupāda:  No, it is not a difference of age. The difference is knowledge. In the  Brahma-sūtra  the question is raised: Who is God? First of all there is this question.
Mr. O'Grady:  Who taught God?
Śrila Prabhupāda:  No. First of all there is the question who  is  God. Then we shall ask who taught God. The  Vedānta-sūtra  says,  athāto brahma-jijñāsā : now we should inquire who is God. Unless you know who God is, how can you raise the question of who instructed God? If you don't know God, the question does not arise who instructed God. Is this not so?
Mr. O'Grady:  Yes.
Śrila Prabhupāda:  Who God is, is explained in the  Brahma-sūtra .  Jan-mādy asya yataḥ : God is He from whom everything emanates. That is God—the Supreme Being from whom everything emanates. Now, what