Should we as followers of Srila Prabhupada also study the books of the previous acharyas?

Transcript

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then that’s fine, we can appreciate. Hare Krishna. Question Should we as devotees, followers of Srila Prabhupada also study the works of the previous Acharyas their Bhagavad Gita commentaries or Bhagavatam commentaries and other books given by the previous Acharyas? Answer Yes, definitely.
If we don’t study them who is going to study them? They are after all our Acharyas and they have given us the Gaudiya Vaishnava legacy and if we as the current generation of Gaudiya Vaishnavas don’t study it who in our generation is going to study it? Is it the non devotees? Is it the people following the other sampradayas? No. So it’s our responsibility actually to dive deep into the Gaudiya Vaishnava legacy by studying the works of Srila Prabhupada as well as the previous Acharyas. So it’s not a question of if, the more relevant question is when.
We live in a cultural context that is significantly different from the context in which the previous Acharyas wrote their books. That means, if we look at the works of Jiva Goswami, Rupa Goswami, if we look at the Shat Sandarbhas, there is enormous logic and reasoning in it, but it’s largely from within a Vedic context to prove the fundamental principles of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. But today we live in a place where, what to speak of accepting the authority of the Vedic scriptures, we have been brought up in a culture where even the existence of God, existence of soul, the law of karma, all these are also treated as merely articles of faith.
And they are subjected to skepticism and we need to build our faith even in these foundations. So, jumping into the works of the previous Acharyas without building our philosophical fundamentals will lead to our premature imagining ourselves as advanced devotees just because we know a few things which other devotees don’t know, whereas actually tattvataha, knowing in truth, we won’t be understanding in terms of internalizing even the fundamentals of spirituality. So, that’s why Prabhupada insistently and consistently hammers the fundamentals in his books and that’s very important for us.
And as we start understanding the fundamentals, Prabhupada also gives us deeper messages in his Chaitanya Charitamrita purports, in his Nectar of Devotion, even in Nectar of Instruction also. And his purports do go deep into the Gaudiya legacy but certainly Sri Prabhupada did not come to start a new personality. He came as a representative of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya to connect us with the Sampradaya.
So, it would have been his pleasure and his pride to see his followers become deep scholars as well as devotees in the Gaudiya Vaishnava legacy. So, sometimes Sri Prabhupada as well as Sri Prabhupada’s followers discourages in studying the Pre-Satyagraha’s books that is primarily to avoid premature jumping into advanced subjects. So, we need to get our philosophical fundamentals clear and reading Prabhupada’s books regularly ensures that those fundamentals become clear.
And once the fundamentals are clear, now how long that will take and when can we say the fundamentals are clear, that will vary from time to from person to person. But we can also along with studying Sri Prabhupada’s books also study Pre-Satyagraha’s books. Especially say if we want to study the Bhagavata systematically.
Then after we have read Bhagavata as it is a few times at least a few times, if not several times then after that we can even study Gita Bhushan, Babal Devdaya Bhushan or Vishnachitthakur, Sarartha, Varshini and these books can help us understand the Gita better. And same way for the Bhagavatam there is the Sarartha Varshini by Vishnachitthakur that also helps us to understand the Bhagavatam. So, some devotees say that Prabhupada’s books are enough and we don’t need any other books.
Yes, Prabhupada’s books are definitely enough for us to go back home, back to Godhead. But at the same time, Sri Prabhupada did not come to freeze the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya to himself. He came to connect us with the whole Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya.
In the first chapter of the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam itself, Prabhupada writes that serious students should study the commentaries of the previous Acharyas. And in that commentary, in that Acharya, he not only mentions Chakravartipada he not only mentions Gaudiya Vaishnava Acharyas but he also mentions other Vaishnava Acharyas who are not even Gaudiya Vaishnava. So, like Vallabha and others.
So, the point is, Prabhupada himself wanted that devotees study his books deeply and then, as their understanding of the philosophical fundamentals becomes clear, and as they want to understand the scripture better Now, some devotees think that if you want to study previous Acharyas’ books, that means we think that Prabhupada’s books are inadequate. It’s not like that. The scriptures are vast and no one Acharya’s commentary can give us exhaustive understanding of scripture.
And Prabhupada himself never said that his book is the only book that we should study. In fact, he said that even he wanted to write another commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Because the Bhagavad Gita has so many imports in it, which we can understand by a progressive and deeper study.
So, we root ourselves in the philosophical fundamentals so that when we start studying the previous Acharyas’ books, we have internalized the basics of spirituality and then those books which are, Prabhupada’s books take us from the contemporary cultural context to the cultural context in which the previous Acharyas have written their books. And then we can relish those previous Acharyas’ books in a way that is deeply purifying and uplifting, not just sentimentally titillating. Thank you.