Below is a very nice conversation by Srila Prabhupada with some  students at Boston .

He explains to the intelligent questions first about How is the Name of Krsna selected for God, and then what is the actual process to find God? And how to find that person who can give you God. Very nice explanation and easy to follow his logic.

Hare Krsna

damaghosa das

Young woman: How do you know that a name is approved?

Prabhupāda: How do you know even your name? How do you know?

Young woman: It’s given by a human being.

Prabhupāda: Huh?

Young woman: It was told to me by a person.

Prabhupāda: So who? Who told you?

Young woman: I suppose my mother.

Prabhupāda: Why do you believe her? That is your name?

Young woman: Why do I believe her?

Prabhupāda: Yes. Why do you believe her? I say that it is not your name. Why do you believe that this is your name?

Young woman: I can choose my name if I don’t like the name I have.

Prabhupāda: That is all right. But why do you believe? When I say, “What is your name?” you put your name which is given by your parents? And why not by your friend?

Young woman: It’s arbitrary.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Young woman: It’s arbitrary.

Prabhupāda: But you accept it.

Young woman: Yes.

Prabhupāda: So you have to accept because your mother is authority.

Young woman: Yes. But who is the authority for telling me…

Prabhupāda: That’s all right. This is the principle. So you have to accept the name of God from God. You cannot manufacture.

Young woman: How do you know that “Kṛṣṇa” is a name of God?

Prabhupāda: That, it will take some time. How do you know he’s your father? Some gentleman comes. Your mother says, “He’s your father.” How do you know it?

Young woman: I have no proof?

Prabhupāda: Can you have any proof, that he’s your father?

Young woman: I suppose there will be biological…

Prabhupāda: No. You are not born at that time. How can you know that he is your father? You have to take, accept, your mother’s version. That’s all. That is your authority. Your mother says, “This gentleman is your father.” You have to accept it. There is no other way to understand.

Young woman: …convenient to accept it.

Prabhupāda: Yes. So you accept the authority. Then you know Kṛṣṇa, who is God, who is Kṛṣṇa.

Young woman: Then who is the authority?

Prabhupāda: Just like your mother is authority, similarly, there are authorities. This is the process. This is the process. If you want to know who is your father, you have to know it from your mother. There is no other alternative. Is it not a fact?

Young woman: I might know…

Prabhupāda: First of all, you answer this. If you want to know who is your father, who can be better authority than your mother?

Young woman: No one. But she may also make…

Prabhupāda: That’s all right.

Young woman: …mistakes.

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Young woman: No one, but she may also make mistakes.

Prabhupāda: That is your misfortune. If your mother misleads you, gives you misinformation, then that is your misfortune, but there is no other way to know who is your father except your mother.

Young woman: But also there is no way for me to know who my mother is.

Prabhupāda: That may be, but I am speaking of the process to understand. This is the process. I may be the, the man who is presenting or the woman who is presenting somebody as your father, she might be misleading you. That is a different thing. But you have no other process to understand your father except your mother.

Young woman: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That’s it. Similarly, there is a process how to know God. So you have to accept that process. Then you‘ll know God. There is no other alternative.

Young woman: Yet you say that there are several processes for knowing God. Is that right? That are written? And that only one can be used now?

Prabhupāda: That several processes may be, but you have to take any process from the authority. Any process you accept, that means you accept the authority.

Young woman: How does the authority know to tell you?

Prabhupāda: That he knows. You have to accept that he knows that… Your mother knows. You have to accept it. Otherwise, there is no question of believing your mother. Unless you believe that your mother knows who is your father, then there is no question of asking her who is your father. If you don’t believe your mother, then you have no necessity of questioning who is your father. First of all, you have to believe that your mother is the only authority to let you know who is your father. If you are not convinced in that point, then don’t ask. Then always remain in oblivion who is your father.

Young woman: I understand the first example, but not the analogy.

Prabhupāda: Why? If you want to know your father, you have to know it from your mother.

Young woman: I understand.

Prabhupāda: That’s all right.

Young woman: But…

Prabhupāda: But, if you don’t believe your mother, then there is no other way to know your father.

Young woman: I understand that.

Prabhupāda: That’s all. Similarly, here are scriptures who are telling, speaking about God. If you have no faith in scripture, there is no other process to know God.

Young woman: I see. But I understand why I should have faith in my mother for biological reasons, and I don’t see why I should have faith in…

Prabhupāda: But that is the rule. You may, biologically, may be different, crazy, but that is the rule.

Young woman: (indistinct)

Prabhupāda: Well that is the rule. How can you change the rule? You are female. You have got some specific rules. You have to follow. He’s a man. He has got some specific rules he has to follow. This is the nature’s law. How can you avoid it?

Young woman: Sorry?

Prabhupāda: How can you avoid it? You have certain feelings, propensities, as woman. How can you avoid it? So you cannot avoid the nature’s law.

Young woman: But then some, some rules have to be told to me or read from the scriptures. And some I know inherently, in myself.

Prabhupāda: What you know inherently, that is not correct. Then why do you go to school? You know that the…

Young woman: Yes, but there are…

Prabhupāda: No. You know that the sun looks for your… By your direct experience, you see the sun just like a disc…

Young woman: Yes.

Prabhupāda: …but when you go to school, you understand it is many hundred thousand times bigger than this earth. So your knowledge is always imperfect. You have to know from authority. That is the rule. If you want to know about the sun, you have to go to the authority who knows about the sun, not by your intuition, you think, “Oh, it is a disc. It is like this. It is like that.” You go on speculation, but it is not perfect knowledge.

Young woman: When I go to the authority, and he tells me about the sun…

Prabhupāda: Anyway, wherever you go, first of all you believe that “Here is the place where I can know the real thing.” That is the authority. If you have no faith, then you have no knowledge. You remain with your own knowledge. Go on speculating. Therefore the Vedic instruction is tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet [MU 1.2.12]. If you want to know that science, then you have to approach a bona fide spiritual master. There is no other way. You cannot speculate. You cannot manufacture. That is not possible, because your senses are all imperfect, your capacity is imperfect, so you cannot have any perfect knowledge. You have to get it from authority who has got perfect knowledge. That is the principle. So if you want to know God, then you have to approach a bona fide person who knows God. Otherwise, it is not possible. If you don’t find such person, then you‘ll always remain ignorant what is God. That is the process. But there is authority. There is possibility, provided we are fortunate, we get in contact. Then everything is all right.

Bhaktijana Does Jesus Christ reside in the Vaikuṇṭhas or Brahmaloka?

Prabhupāda: No. Vaikuṇṭha. He’s person. Brahmaloka, Brahmaloka is within this material world, and Vaikuṇṭha, in the spiritual world.

Do you follow what I say? That if you want to know God, you have to approach a person who knows God. Otherwise there is no possibility. If you think that “Here is a man who knows God,” then you ask him. If you don’t think that in this world there is no man who knows God, then you have to remain in ignorance about the knowledge of God.

Young woman: That seems a very hopeless situation.

Prabhupāda: Then hopeless for you, but not for others. One who accepts…

Young woman: How, how do I…

Prabhupāda: One who accepts the authority, then it is not hopeless for him. It is very simple. Just like one is asking, “Swamijī, what is this?” I say, “It is rose flower.” Then the knowledge of rose flower is there. Then, if somebody says, “I don’t accept it,” then he may not know. So you have to accept authority. There is no other alternative. Now you have to find out who is authority. That requires intelligence. If you go to a bogus man and ask him about God, you may be misled. That is a fact. That is your duty—to find out a man who knows God. Then you‘ll get. Just like… This is commonsense affair. Suppose if you want to purchase something in the market, some milk. So you have to know that “I’ll have to go to some store.” You don’t go to a hardware man, hardware dealer’s. If you go to a hardware dealer and ask him, “Give me one bottle of milk,” he’ll say, “You are crazy. This is hardware shop.” So you must have such common sense where to go and ask for God. That common sense must be there. And that is also very easily understood. Those who have devoted their life for God and they have no other business than God, to serve God, he is the right man.

Young woman: May I ask another question?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Young woman: Thank you. Do you say that God has nothing to do?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Young woman: But He has lots of energies, and…

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Young woman: …it is the energy that creates beautiful things?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Young woman: How is the energy ordered?

Prabhupāda: How is the energy…?

Young woman: Is ordered? How is it that there are both roses…

Prabhupāda: Well, that energy is so perfect. Just like you are feeling some itching. You want to itch it. Immediately hand goes. It does not require that you have to train the hand to itch it. So you have got such energy. So just imagine—He’s complete. He’s full—how much His energy is perfect. He doesn’t require. Immediately He desires… Just like in Bible it is said, “God said, ‘Let there be creation,’—immediately there was creation.” So His energy is so perfect that He wanted to see this material cosmic manifestation—immediately there was. But because we haven’t got such energy we think this is all illusion or fictitious or something like that. Because if you want something immediately, you have no such energy that, immediately, the same thing is done. That is not possible. That is possible also when you are also in spiritual life. But now you are conditioned by the matter; therefore that is not being perfected. But when you are also in pure spiritual life, you can do like that, like God. Immediately, whatever you want, you can do. Immediately, wherever you want to go, you can go. That is the… That perfection is there.

Young woman: Does that mean that you can do it just so that you see it or so that other people can see it?

Prabhupāda: No, anyone who comes to the spiritual perfection, he can act like that.

Young woman: Then my question is if you have a man who has spiritual perfection and another man sitting next to him who does not have spiritual perfection, and the man who has perfection wishes to have a rose, and, and…

Prabhupāda: Wishes to have?

Young woman: A rose. And, a rose…

Disciple: A flower.

Prabhupāda: A rose? Oh.

Young woman: …and he might see the rose or have that rose because he has spiritual perfection.

Prabhupāda: Yes, that is possible.

Young woman: Can the other man see the rose?

Prabhupāda: That is possible.

Young woman: The other man can…

Prabhupāda: That is possible. That is the yogic perfection. If anyone… There are eight kinds of yogic perfection, and one is called prāpti. Prāpti means if actually a man is in yogic perfection, he can immediately have whatever he wants. That is possible.

Young woman: How do you measure…

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Young woman: ...your liberation from the laws of nature.

Prabhupāda: Well, that, as you replace yourself to Kṛṣṇa consciousness… You are under the laws of nature because you are material conscious. Just like one who is in criminal consciousness, he’s committing criminal activities and going to jail. It is the change of consciousness. The same man, if he changes his criminal consciousness, then he’s no more subjected to go to the jail. Similarly, liberation means, if you become complete in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you are liberated. All right. Have saṅkīrtana. (kīrtana; Prabhupāda leads prema-dhvanī) Thank you very much.

Devotee:

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale

śrīmate bhaktivedānta svāmin iti nāmine

Prabhupāda: Give me that paper. Distribute prasādam. [break] …this appreciation one thing. And another thing is how to produce a flower like Kṛṣṇa with my energy. Do you follow? Two attempt. One is appreciation of Kṛṣṇa’s energy, how great He is, that simply by His desire, His energies are so perfect that it is producing such nice flower. This is appreciation. And another thing is, how shall I get that power, yogic power, so that as soon as I desire, there may be a rose flower. Now, suppose I attain that power, to produce with my desire a rose flower. In Benares there was a yogi, Viśuddhānanda Sarasvatī. Whoever used to come to him, he would at once take a plate and give him, and at once he’ll find two nice sweetmeat. So by this extraordinary power, many learned scholars and professors and big men: “Oh, he is a great yogi. He can manufacture rasagullā.” You see? “In a plate, as soon as you go, there immediately he presents.” This is magic, they are captivated by the magic. They are not… They are so foolish that they did not consider what is worth this sweetmeat? Four cents and four cents, eight cents. So even if he has achieved that power, for producing this rasagullā what he has attained? It is worth eight cents. Suppose if I show some magical power and present one rose flower in your hand, you may be very surprised—now, “Oh, Swamijī is wonderful.” But what is the meaning of that wonderful? Say ten cents. That’s all. You can purchase one flower with ten cents. So don’t be after these magical things. Just try to appreciate Kṛṣṇa, how He’s great. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Do you follow what I say? Don’t be after magicians. The magic, magician can also play very nice, wonderful…, so many things. But that is not perfection. Suppose if I can create by my yogic power two rasagullā or one rasagullā, what is the worth? A few cents only. Just try to revive your eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa. That is the perfection of life. Then you get all perfection. Don’t be after… People are after magical things. What magic I can show God? Just like the scientists. They are trying to create life in the laboratory, although they have not been able to create even an ant. Suppose he’s able to create some living entity. Just like the scientist is very proud for inventing this flying machine. But just see how many millions and trillions of flying machines are flying in the sky created by God—without any machine. So you cannot surpass the intelligence and energy of God. Therefore you simply appreciate. That is your perfection. Yes.

See the light spectrum in the early morning light below