264 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?
Srila Prabhupada: 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: srotriyam brahma-nistham. The
word srotriyam 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.
Srila Prabhupada: 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 hear-
ing from Krsna, God, and from Him understand who is perfect. Or we
hear from His representative, who does not contradict Krsna 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.
Srila Prabhupada: No, it is not a difference of age. The difference is
knowledge. In the Brahma-sutra the question is raised: Who is God? First
of all there is this question.
Mr. O’Grady: Who taught God?
Srila Prabhupada: No. First of all there is the question who is God. Then
we Shall ask who taught God. The Vedadnta-stitra says, athato brahma-
jijfidsa: 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.
Srila Prabhupada: Who God is, is explained in the Brahma-stitra. Jan-
mady asya yatah: God is He from whom everything emanates. That is
God—the Supreme Being from whom everything emanates. Now, what
