68 THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
Spiritualists. You cannot judge a movement simply by the number of its
followers. If one man is genuine, then the movement is successful. It is
not a question of quantity, but quality.
Reporter: I wondered how many people you think might have been
taken in by fake gurus.
Srila Prabhupada: Practically everyone. [Laughter.] There is no ques-
tion of counting. Everyone.
Reporter: This would mean thousands of people, wouldn’t it?
Srila Prabhupada: Millions. Millions have been cheated, because they
want to be cheated. God is omniscient. He can understand your desires.
He is within your heart, and if you want to be cheated, God sends you a
cheater.
Reporter: Is it possible for everyone to attain the perfectional stage you
spoke of previously?
Srila Prabhupada: Within a second. Anyone can attain perfection within
- a second—providing he is willing. The difficulty is that no one is willing.
In the Bhagavad-gita [18.66] Krsna says, sarva-dharman parityajya mam
ekam Saranam vraja: ‘‘Simply surrender unto Me.’ But who is going to
surrender to God? Everyone says, ‘‘Oh, why should I surrender to God?
I will be independent.”’ If you simply surrender, it is a second’s business.
That’s all. But no one is willing, and that is the difficulty.
Reporter: When you say that lots of people want to be cheated, do you
mean that lots of people want to carry on with their worldly pleasures and
at the same time, by chanting a mantra or by holding a flower, achieve
spiritual life as well? Is this what you mean by wanting to be cheated?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes, this is like a patient thinking, ‘‘I shall continue
with my disease, and at the same time I shall become healthy.” It is con-
tradictory. The first requirement is that one become educated in spiritual
life. Spiritual life is not something one can understand by a few minutes’
talk. There are many philosophy and theology books, but people are not
interested in them. That is the difficulty. For instance, the Srimad-
Bhagavatam is a very long work, and if you try to read this book, it may
take many days just to understand one line of it. The Bhdgavatam de-
scribes God, the Absolute Truth, but people are not interested. And if,
by chance, someone becomes a little interested in spiritual life, he wants
something immediate and cheap. Therefore, he is cheated. Actually,
human life is meant for austerity and penance. That is the way of Vedic
civilization. In Vedic times they would train boys as brahmacdris; no sex
life was allowed at all up to the age of twenty-five. Where is that educa-
tion now? A brahmacdriis a student who lives a life of complete celibacy
