How do we know that the knowledge coming through disciplic succession is authentic?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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The other question about disciplic succession How do we know it is authentic? Whatever knowledge is coming down that is succession Again this is, we have to look at what is knowable for us We can look at the fruit It means, say if there is a sequence of 50 people in a queue and they are all having cough and there is a doctor who gives medicine and the doctor gives the medicine to the first person that first person gets, cough gets cured and then from that first person the medicine is passed on to the second person third person, fourth person and I am the 50th in the queue Now when I get the medicine how will I know that that medicine is the right medicine same medicine, somebody could have put that real medicine in the pocket and put a counterfeit over there How can I know that? Now I cannot be there right from the first person to the 50th person checking everyone Even in ordinary medicine also, there are sometimes furious medicines which come up We can’t be there checking everything What we do is phalye na parichayate phalye na parichayate means no by the fruit So if the first person took the medicine and their cough got cured and I take the medicine and my cough gets cured then I can be reasonably safe to infer that ok the same medicine has come to me also So like that, if we look at the Bhagavad Gita and see what was the effect on its original student and then I look at what is the effect today.
So basically scripture tells us, scripture has a lot of knowledge but there are two essential things that are told in scripture that is sadhya and sadhan sadhya is what is the goal of life what is it that is to be achieved in life ultimately and sadhan is what is the means to achieve it sadhya and sadhan this is what scripture primarily tells us So what was Arjuna’s understanding? Arjuna himself understood that he is described in the Bhagavad Gita itself in 10.13, 14, 15 he tells that param brahma param dhama pavitram paramam bhavan, Krishna you are the supreme truth and at the end of the Bhagavad Gita in 18.73 he tells, karishye vachanam tava I will do your will So Arjuna understood that the sadhya is Bhagavan, Sri Krishna and Arjuna understood that the sadhan is surrender to Krishna, practicing bhakti doing seva to him and today thousands of years down the line if we come in the association of devotees in the Krishna consciousness movement we will see that what is their understanding they get the same understanding that the sadhya is Krishna, sadhan is bhakti So in this way by phalenu parichayati we can understand that because the same fruit is coming at the start of the reciprocal succession when the knowledge was given and the same fruit is coming now today we can see it in those who are trying to live the Gita that is what their understanding is so we can be reasonably assured that the essential knowledge has come down safely through the parampara ok