Visnujana [repeating a question from the audience]: Is showing miracles like some svamis do the way to bring people back to spiritual life?

Prabhupada: Why should I show miracles? What is the business? I have to speak the truth, that’s all. What is the use of miracle? When you go to college or school, we want to see miracles, or you learn books and knowledge? Krsna never said that you go to a guru who can perform miracles. He never said that. He said,

tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti tad jnanam
jnaninas tattva-darsinah

Go to a jnani, and who has known the truth, not to a jugglers, magician. Science is not magic. Science is knowledge. That is the Vedic injunction. Tad vijnanartham: in order to understand that science, not to see jugglery and magic. The jugglery and magic is here present: all these meat-eaters, drunkards, woman-hunters, now Vaisnava. This is real magic. If you have got eyes to see, see the magic. If you are blind, then that is different question. This is magic.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.2 — April 12, 1975, Hyderabad