Scripture without guru is deluding

[Talk at Brisbane, Australia]
Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Now, audible to you behind? So, I’ll speak today in the Bhagavad Gita, fourth chapter, thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth verses which talk about how truth is to be understood.
So, text thirty-fourth says, it says that tattva-darshi is one who is seer of the truth. Tattva-darshinah is a plural. Those who are seers of truth, approach them and learn from them.
And then, the next verse says, what will happen if you learn from them? Once you come to know about them, then you will, once you get this knowledge, again you will not fall into illusion. The kind of illusion you have fallen in right now. By this, you will see all living beings without exception.
Everybody as spiritual and everybody as situated in me. So, basically, when all these two verses tell us the process and the purpose of gaining knowledge. The process of gaining knowledge is to learn from a spiritual teacher.
Not a spiritual teacher, but from spiritual teachers. And the purpose is to be able to be free from illusion and to see everyone spiritually. Everyone includes ourselves.
So, all of us, when we function in the world, we need knowledge. And say now, after you go back from this home and somebody asks you, somebody asks you to describe this room. On an average, even a ceiling which looks very smooth and well-painted, you see it very carefully under a microscope.
You could see thousands of small, small spots on it. But how many of us notice that? In general, whenever we function in life, we basically, because the world itself is so complex and so many things can be known from it, we zero in on the knowledge that matters for us. So, science gives science studies matter.
Whereas, scripture studies what matters. So, we could do a mechanical engineering study of how this house is constructed. And for somebody who is constructing a house, or somebody who is a mechanical engineer, that might be of interest.
But for most of us, this house is primarily a place where we are sitting so that we can have a discussion. So, you might remember how are the acoustics of this house, because that matters to you. You may remember how warm or how cold it is.
When we are studying, whenever we are acquiring knowledge of any kind, we zero in on the knowledge that matters. Not knowledge of matter. Sometimes the knowledge of matter also matters.
But that is not the primary knowledge that matters, that we focus on. So, now when we look at knowledge that matters, Arjuna asked Krishna, What is the nature of what should I do, basically? What is my dharma? That means, dharma isn’t referred to as religion or religious duty. It basically refers to the right action.
It’s a very generic word. How can we act in a way that will be meaningful and fruitful in life? That’s a universal question we all have. Now, we may come up with specific answers.
Sometimes we may give the answer that, oh, as a child I need to study. As a professional I need to work. All these are true.
But what is it ultimately meant for? Is what I’m working for going to be of any ultimate value? So, this is the knowledge that ultimately scripture gives us. Now, scripture tells us what matters. So, what matters most importantly for us, whenever we acquire any knowledge, we first need a purpose.
Okay, what do I want to do? And then, what I want to do, then we look at three things. What do I want to do? What will come in my way? And what will get me along the way? Just like we came to this programme, all of you came for this programme. So, you had a purpose.
This is your destination. Then, what will get you along the way? Okay, you can take a car, you can take a ride, you can come by, you can drive, maybe you take a public transport if it’s available, whatever. And then, what will come along, come in the way? Maybe there’s a lot of traffic somewhere.
Maybe you have to avoid that path. You have to take some other path. So, like that, for all of us, these three things, we could call it as purpose, obstacle, and process.
This is what we generally want to know. You can use the acronym POP. What is that? So, purpose, obstacle, and process.
In general, this is the knowledge that we need for doing anything in life. So, scripture broadly is meant to give us this knowledge. Where to go, what will come in the way, and what will get us along the way.
So, this can also be called as sadhan and sadhya. Sadhan is, sorry, sadhya is, what is the purpose? Where do you want to go? And sadhya is, what will take us along the way. And along with sadhya comes vigna.
Vigna is obstacles. So, the sadhya is basically meant to help us deal with the vigna, with the obstacles, so that we can move forward in life. Now, what Krishna is telling is, this you need to learn.
There are two distinct kinds of directions which Krishna gives. Here, in 434-435, he is saying that go to a person who has seen the truth and learn from them. But, in 1624, he also says that tasmat shastram pramanam te karyakarya vyavasthitau jnatva shastra vidhanoktam karmakartam iharase tasmat shastram pramanam te.
Therefore, go to understand shastra and mould your life according to shastra. karyakarya vyavasthitau. Understand what to do and what not to do according to shastra and then act accordingly.
So, scripture is a guidebook. By the same time, Krishna says, learn the truth from a guide. So, a guide and a guidebook, both need to go together.
Why is that? Because, a lot depends on context. Whenever we study scripture, every statement comes in a particular context. And, if we just read the guidebook, say for example, if somebody decides to learn the English language and they start reading a dictionary.
Now, a dictionary is very useful, but, sometimes one word can have maybe 5 meanings, 7 meanings, 10 meanings. And, there is a, I think the word run has the maximum meanings in English. There is an article, I think Cambridge Dictionary website that has run, run mad.
So, why? Because run has something like 640 meanings. Of course, these are small variants. For example, he has run away to India.
How long did it take for him to run to India? That doesn’t mean physically run away. You could say, she is running for the elections. That’s not running.
So, my computer is not running. Do you need to catch it then? So, now we, now, how do we know which meaning of the word run is being used? It’s through context. Many times when jokes happen, there is humour because a word has one meaning and then it is used in another sense at some time.
So, then it is used in another sense. Oh, what does it mean? So, that’s how some humour also happens. But, in general, the idea is that we, there is a dictionary which describes words and their meanings, but there is a live language as it is used in speaking or writing.
And then we, by the context, we understand, oh, this word means this in this context. And then it makes sense for us. So, we keep doing this adjustment constantly whenever we hear words.
I remember, I had gone to England and I gave a class in Leicester and there is a youth meeting and very lively question answers after the youth meeting. And then the organiser who had organised the programme, organiser, who had organised, he came to me with a big smile on his face. He said, you killed it! I was a little taken aback.
What did I kill? I thought, had I sat on some insect or something, I killed it. So, what did you kill it mean? It’s actually, you did very well. It’s like a metaphor drawn from a hunting context.
Like an animal, somebody is shooting and you killed it. Oh, you shot so well. So, now I took the word in the literal sense, he was taking it in non-literal sense.
So, sometimes if you don’t understand the context in which a word is being used, then it can lead to a lot of, lead to confusion. So, similarly, Scripture is spoken in context. And Scripture has to be lived in our context.
So, that’s why there is a textual tradition and there is a living tradition. So, the guidebook is the text. But the text does not, text does not make sense out of the, out of its context.
So, what do I mean by this? That there are many people who feel apprehensive nowadays because there is so much religious violence. Actually there is much more negative propaganda about religious violence than there is religious violence. Because if you consider, people’s historical memory is so short that if you consider the communist regimes in Russia and China, both of them, more than a hundred million people were killed.
That’s more than what were killed in World War I and World War II. And that’s far, far more than what were killed in any war, even if you associate them with religion. Now, this is not to minimise any violence.
All violence is bad. All deaths are bad. But the point I’m making over here is that because there is an atmosphere of religious violence, there is an atmosphere of fear associated with religious violence, because of that, whenever people hear about the Bhagavad Gita, and especially people are completely new to the context, they say, oh, God told a peace-loving person to fight a war.
So they become very uncomfortable with that. Now, one way to look at it is, how many people have been inspired by the Bhagavad Gita to fight a war? If you look at the various commentators throughout history, Ramanacharya, Madhvacharya, they all lived at a time when Islamic invasion was quite aggressive in India. But still, nobody’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita says, now, we all have to fight a war, because Krishna fought a war.
The only commentary like that was written in 1920 by an Indian National Congress leader, who said that actually, just as Krishna descends time and time again to protect Dharma, so now the Indian National Congress is the incarnation of Dharma. And this British colonial Raj is a Dharma, is Kauravas. And we have to fight against them.
But that side of commentary never gained much traction. So, now, the Bhagavad Gita uses that provocative context to stress the point of devotion and devotional surrender. So, now this, if we look at the tradition, we will understand that nobody has taken this meaning.
But that kind of meaning can be inferred by somebody who does not understand the tradition. And that’s why studying scripture in its context, what does it require? It requires those who understand the context. And it requires those who can understand how that text will apply in today’s context.
Now, this is where the living tradition in terms of the guide is required. Now, I talked about what matters is what is given in scripture. Now, what matters? In one sense, the territory of the material world never changes.
Ultimately, there is old age, disease, death. We are all struggling from various kinds of difficulties in life. But, the specifics change significantly.
The overall generic doesn’t change, but specific does change. And, if you don’t understand the context, you can become confused by scripture itself. One of the most famous leelas of Krishna is the Govardhan Leela.
At least visually, it is depicted. There are 2-3 images of Krishna which are most popular. One is the image of Krishna stealing butter.
The other is of Krishna lifting Govardhan. The third is probably Krishna dancing in Raas Leela. So, now, if you look at the whole Govardhan Leela pastime, in that pastime, Krishna speaks before that, just to provoke Indra.
He says, actually, you don’t need to worship Indra. If we just do our duty, we don’t need to worship any gods. Because, if we do our duty, the gods are duty-bound to give us rains.
And, actually, this is not the philosophy of Vedanta. This is a mechanical view of nature where if we do our duty, then everything God is obliged to provide. This reduces God to simply a mechanical device rather than a personal functionary.
So, now, God is speaking this, but we need this tradition to tell us that what God is saying is not exactly right. He is speaking this simply to provoke Indra. So, there is context which helps us make sense of things.
When Prabhupada went to America, at that time also, the context played a very important role. Because, the Gita lives through those who live the Gita. The Gita lives through those who live the Gita.
Now, when Prabhupada went to America, at that time, there were people whose conception of happiness was taking drugs. And they thought that by taking drugs, like LSD, we will become enlightened. In fact, LSD is the chemical name of a drug.
But they had renamed it. Anybody who takes LSD joins the League of Spiritual Discovery. So, with that idea, they were thinking that we will take drugs.
So, once Prabhupada was talking about the spiritual world and how there is unlimited happiness over there. So, he was asked, so one stoned, one stoned person who was high on drugs, he came to Swami. Prabhupada said, Swamiji, what is the bliss of Vaikuntha like? And Prabhupada replied, it is like an ocean of LSD.
An ocean of LSD. I want to go there. Now, somebody could, a sceptical could ask, where in scriptures is it said that the bliss of Vaikuntha is like an ocean of LSD? Now, yes, it’s a fair question.
But, the point is not just to get it right. The point is to get it across. The point is not just to get it right.
Say, for example, in today’s western world, there is some speaker who knows Shastra very well, who knows Sanskrit very well, comes and gives an excellent class in Sanskrit. They’ll get everything right and they’ll get nothing across. Isn’t it? Because most audience, almost none of the audience will understand a full class in Sanskrit only.
So, the point is not just to get it right, the point is to get it across. And, that is where the living teacher is required. And Srila Prabhupada, even after he established the Krishna consciousness movement, he, even within two, three, less than one year, he had his students giving classes.
He started travelling and when he went to India, he said, all of you should continue the classes. Now, the students were not at all, they were just one year old, what knowledge, what realisation they would have. But, Prabhupada knew that it is a living tradition.
And, in fact, if you look at the broad culture of bhakti or even the culture of spirituality that was there across the world, it was primarily spread by the living tradition, by the oral tradition. In the past, writing books was very difficult. In fact, people would have to handwrite everything and then send it from one place to another.
So, every village would have its local sadhus. And, those sadhus would act like the teachers over there. And, these teachers would be, some would be travelling sadhus and some would be local priests.
And, they would, the local priests would conduct the local ceremonies, like, say, the naming ceremony, the marriage ceremony, something like that. And, there were travelling teachers who would often speak philosophy. And, it was that the tradition was continued primarily by these people.
The oral tradition has always been much more vibrant than the written tradition. India is also a place where because it’s so hot, it’s tropical, so things don’t last for very long. The whole principle of refrigeration is they put food in the fridge.
It’s cold, it lasts longer. So, even if we use leaves to write something down, paper was not there in the past. So, leaves cannot last for very long.
So, scripture, first of all, writing was very difficult. And, even if it is written, it’s not so easy to preserve what is written. So, the tradition was continued primarily through the oral means.
And, Prabhupada stressed that. So, when we are practising our bhakti, we can read shastra, we can read the Vedas, we can read the Upanishads. Of course, very few of us have time to do that.
But, even if we had the time, we read it. In scripture, there are many different words, many different meanings. I don’t think it’s completely bewildered by them.
In fact, the Vishnu Sahasranam, which is a compilation of thousand names of Lord Vishnu, Madhacharya has written a commentary on it. And, each name of Vishnu, he has given thousand explanations of those names. So, there are thousand names, and each name has thousand explanations.
So, how much does it become? One million. It’s beautiful. Many people in South India, they memorise the Vishnu Sahasranam and they recite it.
But, they start going into the technicalities of the meanings. It’s quite complex. It’s not at all easy.
So, there is a subhashita in the Vedic tradition, which says that अनेक शास्त्रम् बहुवेधितव्यम् अल्पश्चकालः बहुवश्चविग्न That, अनेक शास्त्रम् There are many, many scriptures and बहुवेधितव्यम् Each word in scripture can also have many different meanings. अल्पश्चकालः The time that we have is very little. And even the time that we have, we start studying scripture and our phone notification rings.
बहुवश्चविग्न Many, many distractions. Many, many obstacles are there. तसारभूतम् तदुपासितव्यम् Therefore, just focus on the essence and hold that.
So, how is scripture to be lived in our life? That is what the living tradition teaches, helps us learn. And I’ll talk about three things which the first part of the class was about how we need the living tradition. So, the living tradition basically means there is शास्त्र, शास्त्र, साधु and गुरु.
So, गुरु is, we could say, our particular teacher. साधु is the general body of spiritual teachers. And शास्त्र is the body of textual or scriptural knowledge.
Now, all these three have an inbuilt check-balance system. We know in general, any hierarchy Hierarchy means there is a structure, any hierarchy can go towards tyranny, where it can become domineering. That’s why if there is only the king as the head of the state, then power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So we have, for example, in the modern governmental system, with the judiciary, we have the executive and the legislature. And there are three distinct things, and there is inherent check and balance among them. So similarly, in the tradition, guru, sadhu and shastra, these three offer an inbuilt check balance system.
So the check balance ensures that we don’t rely, over-rely on one, and let ourselves get misled. So if you consider, suppose somebody considers shastra alone as important, and I don’t care for any teachers, who, I will just study the original language, I will study the original book, and I will get to understand it. Well, it’s one approach to it.
But the problem with that is, say consider, there is a book on Ayurveda, which has cures for many complex diseases, say cancer, and Alzheimer’s, and diseases which are incurable in today’s medical system. In that book on Ayurveda, there are these cures. So now, suppose that knowledge from Sanskrit is translated and made available in English, and you have two people who do it.
One is a linguistic scholar, that person knows English very well, that person also learns Sanskrit, and then they translate the book. And the other is a person who is an Ayurvedic doctor, who has treated thousands of people, and who knows Sanskrit. And then that person wants to share the knowledge with the broader world, in the broader world today English is widely known, so that person learns English.
And then that doctor translates the book, and then prescribes, take this medicine, take this medicine. So if, say, if the life of a loved one was a threat, would we go for consultation to the linguist, or to the doctor? Why? The doctor’s English may be unclear, may be poor. Why is that? It’s practised, it’s actually cured people, isn’t it? So similarly, when we talk about the tradition, if somebody thinks that language mastery is the key to understanding scripture, they are misunderstanding the nature of scriptural knowledge.
It’s because often the traditional books are written in a language that is not commonly spoken, Sanskrit. So anybody who knows Sanskrit, often what happens is, people start respecting that person a lot. But, while Sanskrit knowledge is good to have, you can have it, and Sanskrit is a valuable language to learn to continue our tradition.
But, it’s like, just because somebody knows English, do you think that they can explain a book on quantum physics written in English? What do you think? One of the most prominent quantum physicists, he said that, if you think you have understood quantum physics, that is the proof you have not understood it. Quantum physics is not only stranger than you think, it is stranger than what you can even think. So, it’s a peculiar idea that, just because we know a language, we can understand anything that is written in that language.
No, language is one thing to know, but there is so much ocean of knowledge can be there in that language. So, if somebody just says, I’ll read the books myself and I’ll try to understand them. Okay, it’s good to read the books, but we have to understand that these books are meant to be lived.
And we need to understand what the language, how the book has been lived in the past, how the Ayurvedic knowledge has been applied to heal people and how we can apply it to heal ourselves. So, scripture can become endlessly confusing if one neglects the point that we need to go to a living teacher. Now, so if one studies only scripture, but doesn’t go to the living tradition, living teachers, then it’s like studying a medical book simply by reading the book and trying to prescribe medicines or going to somebody who’s only learned language and getting the medicine from them.
That will not work so well. On the other hand, you might go to the other extreme and think that I’ll just go to my teacher and not care about scripture. The problem with that would be that the teacher may be a great person, but they will be limited by their own knowledge.
And one’s spiritual growth will depend on the growth of that spiritual teacher. A teacher who is not based on scripture, then they have no very deep foundation in tradition. And that’s why what they can teach becomes very limited.
So, the Upanishads say that, तद्विज्ञानार्थम् सभुरुम् एवाभिगच्छेत् Surrender to that spiritual teacher and समित पानी श्रोत्रियम् One who is very learned in scripture. I mentioned that Prabhupada was in America and then he travelled across the world. So, he found many people who were supposed to be very popular spiritual teachers.
But nowadays the idea is, and that idea has actually even become more popular now than it was in the past. Some people who say that, I am God. There was this particular spiritual teacher who says, He said that there are many spiritual teachers who come and say that they are God.
He says, I have not come to tell you I am God. I have come to tell you that you are God. Now this sounded like a very titillating message for people.
I saw, I was in University in America, that somebody had put a notice on their T-shirt. I was an atheist, till I discovered I was God. Now, actually this is such a distortion, oversimplification to the point of distortion of the idea that God is, when it says, सर्वं खल्ममिदं ब्रह्मा और अहं ब्रह्मास्मी What it means is that we are a part of that spiritual substance, which is the foundation of all of reality.
But that doesn’t mean that we are God. We are not God, we are Gods. So, God apostrophe S. So, we are not Gods, we are Gods, apostrophe.
I wrote an article about how a missed apostrophe can cause a catastrophe. So, there are so many misconceptions that can come up if one thinks that one will only go to the teacher and not go to the scripture itself. The teacher and the scripture, when they work together, then there is a synergy between the two.
And then we all need like-minded guys. Like-minded means that, it doesn’t mean that they think like us, rather they understand how we think like. Nowadays in the western and westernised world, there is an increasing group of people who identify themselves as SBNR.
Does anyone know what is SBNR? Spiritual but not religious. Yes, spiritual but not religious. So, I was at an interfaith meeting and there was one Christian pastor who was telling, explaining his experiences about the SBNR group.
He said he was on a TV show, he was on a radio show with one Jewish rabbi and a Muslim mullah. And then there are different people coming and asking questions. So, there is one man, he asked a question, he says, I am a Christian, I don’t belong to any church, but I am a Christian.
And he very cautiously asked him, gently asked him, Can I know why you are not connected with any church? He said, I have not yet found a church that agrees with my philosophy. I have already got my philosophy and the church is going to agree with my philosophy. Not that we go to learn the truth, but I already know the truth.
So, what they have is not philosophy, it is foolosophy. It is the sophistry of fools. Sophistry is the false logic.
Now, what happens when we think that, so this SBNR group, they say that we don’t need any teachers. Let us be our own teacher. Yeah, we are our own teachers in a sense that we have an intelligence and we have a mind.
And our intelligence needs to be like the teacher for our mind. That is true, but our intelligence also needs a teacher. Otherwise, one who becomes one’s own guru has a fool as a disciple.
One who becomes one’s own guru has a fool as a disciple. So, when we practise bhakti, we all get connected with the community of devotees and we feel inspired by them. There are various reasons why people come to Krishna Bhakti.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells in the seventh chapter that there are four kinds of people who come to him. Those who are distressed, those who are distressed, those who are distressed and those who are distressed. Almost everybody who comes to a spiritual path, there is some undercurrent of dissatisfaction or distress.
Krishna of course says there are four categories, those who are curious, those who are knowledge seekers, those who are in distress and those who are wealth seekers. It is true, but in today’s world even if somebody wants wealth, they may not go to God, they will go to a bank. Somebody is poor, somebody is in distress.
Traditionally it was there that the Christians would say, O father, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, give us our daily bread. Now mostly in the western world people are not worried about bread, they are worried about butter. So, what has happened is, even if there is distress, people feel there are so many other solutions to distress.
So, it’s only when the distress becomes very foundational, even if they feel there is some shortage, they can feel we can deal with the shortage in many different ways. But it’s only when some deep rooted distress that people turn towards something higher and start exploring something higher in life. So, we may start the spiritual journey because of any reason, whatever it may be, but over a period of time, it’s important to recognise that when we connect with a community of devotees and within that community, a particular spiritual guide, that’s where our connection becomes solidified.
So, I talked about how we might have a scripture, we might follow scripture without teacher, or we might follow teacher without scripture. But now what about the guru and sadhu? How does that work? The tradition is like a university. And our particular spiritual master is like the head of the university or you could say the head of the department in which we are studying.
And they formalise our admission into the university. And then, for example, if you are in a particular department, whatever teaching happens in that department is under the HOD. But all the classes may not be taught by that head of department only.
There can be different people who teach. So, we get connected with a whole community of teachers within the university. And suppose we are specialising in a particular subject in a particular field, say we are doing a PhD or something like that, then we might have a specific PhD guide.
Specific PhD guide may or may not be our HOD, depending on what our field is. So, this is how the sadhus can refer to the previous teachers who have come before our spiritual master. The sadhu can also refer to our current teachers apart from our spiritual master.
That’s how we have shiksha gurus and we have diksha gurus. So, that’s why Krishna also in the Bhagavad Gita 4.34 says that there are, that he uses the plural, not the singular. tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasthena sevaya upadekshanti te jnanam jnaninas tattva-darshi Is it? Darshinaha.
Tattva-darshi is singular. Tattva-darshinaha is plural. So, we learn from a multiple body of teachers.
So, when we have these three things, that we have the admission to the university, we have the textbooks, we have the structure or the teacher, the main person who is admission to the university and then we have our particular teachers. Then the growth in knowledge moves forward smoothly. So, even when we are reading Prabhupada’s books, now for us Prabhupada is the prominent spiritual master, preeminent spiritual master and his books are the basis by which we learn much about our tradition.
Now Prabhupada is also a person who spoke very strongly according to context and Prabhupada travelled across the world, met many many different people. Sometimes people can just take Prabhupada’s words and there can be conflicts based on that. Prabhupada said this, Prabhupada said that.
So, what Prabhupada said is important, but what was Prabhupada’s purpose was even more important. That means that, let’s take a couple of examples of what Prabhupada’s, how Prabhupada’s statements, two Prabhupada’s statements can be taken and they can just confuse people. Once, so Prabhupada said that.
I was going on a morning walk and he said, why do you accept Krishna as God? Prabhupada would like to play the role of the devil’s advocate. So, why do you accept Krishna as God? And devotees gave different answers. And then Prabhupada said, no, no, no.
And finally Prabhupada said, because Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, because the Bhagavad Gita says that Krishna is God. Bhagavad Gita is the authority to guide devotees. That is what tells us and we follow the Bhagavad Gita.
And then Prabhupada went to another part of the world and again he was on a morning walk. And again Prabhupada asked, so why do you accept Krishna as God? Now there is one devotee who has been there in the early morning walk. And he very eagerly said, because Bhagavad Gita says so.
He says, Prabhupada says, why should I believe your Bhagavad Gita? What? He is completely taken. Prabhupada said that because when we, why do you accept Krishna as God? Because when we chant Hare Krishna, we experience the ecstasy. Now what is going on over here? That it depends on context whether the authority of a text has to be emphasised or it depends on the context whether the authority of the transformational experience has to be emphasised.
So depending on context, different things need to be emphasised. And that is the expertise of the teacher. So when we take the step forward in our spiritual life and we connect with the living tradition through the connection with our teacher, then whenever the confusions arise, the confusions can be addressed.
So Prabhupada, for example, he, in scripture there is something which is descriptive and there is something which is prescriptive. I’ll conclude with this point. There is descriptive, this is how things work.
And prescriptive is, this is how you should do things. There are many, many things in scripture which we are talking about. Say, for example, in the Mahabharata, there is an example of polygamy.
One husband has many wives, one wife has many husbands. So now that is descriptive. Is it that if you today want to follow the Bhagavad Gita, we should all follow polygamy? No, that is descriptive, that is not at all prescriptive.
So there are many things in scripture which are descriptive. And we could go on. In fact, the whole caste system which was there, originally the idea of the caste system was a division of labour.
It was not meant to be discriminatory. And in the Manu Samhita is one of the most misunderstood books. And by some class of people, it is a reviled book.
They hate that book. In fact, there are some people who burn the Manu Samhita every year. But they feel that by burning the Manu Samhita, we are destroying the book that prescribes caste discrimination.
But the Manu Samhita itself has passages which state that, where Manu is saying that this is what I have, I have stated based on my experience. But if a council of wise people come together and feel that some other rule needs to be applied at a particular time, that’s what they should do. So that context sensitivity is very much a part of the tradition.
But when that context sensitivity is neglected, when that book is made into an absolute book, then it becomes a problem. So it can happen to the tradition, it can happen to Prabhupada’s words also. So the important thing is we need teachers who understand what Prabhupada has said, who understand what our level is and then guide us according to our level.
So when we have this, then we can move forward steadily and smoothly in our spiritual life. And that is how the vibrant living tradition that Prabhupada has given us can continue. And it can transform our lives and through us it can transform the lives of many others.
So I’ll summarise what I spoke. You can have a few questions if there are any. I spoke on this topic of how Guru, Sadhu and Shastra are in a balance to guide us in our lives.
I talked about how whenever we look for knowledge, we don’t look so much of knowledge of matter as knowledge of what matters. And knowledge of what matters means three things. Do you remember? He was purpose, obstacle, process.
What do I want to do? What will help me get along the way? And what will get in my way? So now that knowledge is what scripture provides. Arjuna also had this knowledge. What do I want to achieve? What am I meant to do? Dharma is what is the right thing to do in my life.
So now for that knowledge, scripture offers us, I talk about 4,4,30,4,30,5. We get knowledge from Guru and the purpose of that knowledge is we become free from illusion. We know how to act in the world.
We see everyone spiritually and act appropriately. So then I talk about the check balance system within scripture. There is Guru, Sadhu and Shastra.
I talked about if somebody only follows Shastra without Guru, then what happens? They don’t understand the context. It’s like you learn the language, but just because you know the language doesn’t mean we know everything that is taught in the book. It’s like some linguist translating an Ayurvedic book.
So I talked about how Krishna’s words also need to contextualise. Same Krishna who spoke of Bhagavad Gita when he speaks that I am a Govardhan Leela. He would accept his words when he says that he offers a mechanical view of nature rather than a personal view.
So then context has to be understood and the context is understood by those who are living the tradition. Traditionally, the tradition was carried on not just by the writing of books, of course, but also by the oral tradition. The Gita lives through those who live the Gita.
And so if we go to only Shastra, we will not be able to appreciate the context and we will make a mess of things. If we only go to Guru, then it will become like a personality cult when people will believe whatever the Guru says. And if the Guru is sincere, then we will go only as far as the Guru can take us.
There is no transcendental or timeless foundation to the Guru’s teachings. And then I talked about the living body of teachers as well as the preceding body of teachers, that is the sadhus. So when we join a university, we have textbooks, we have admitting authority and we have a whole body of teachers over there.
They are like our shiksha gurus. And then we have this whole balance. Then we can understand in scripture not only the context, but also understand what is prescriptive, what is descriptive.
And Prabhupada’s words also have to be understood through those who are carrying on Prabhupada’s teachings in their own lives. And then we won’t get caught in needless distractions. Talk about the point of scriptural teaching is not just to get it right, but to get it across.
And to get it across, the living tradition plays a vital role. Just as Prabhupada was vibrantly present, vibrant in presenting his message at his times. So that same scriptural message is being carried on in the living tradition.
And when we connect with the living tradition, then we can resolve our confusions and move forward towards illumination and enlightenment. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Any questions or comments? All clear. Yes, please. You said, Prabhupada, that knowledge is to be lived.
Can you give some example to make it more understandable? What do I mean by knowledge is to be lived? Yeah, it’s like thinking that simply reading books, reading spiritual books will make us spiritual. It’s like thinking that reading books on weight loss will help us to lose weight. Ultimately, without applying, it’s useful, but it’s not very useful.
So what is the, when we look at the spiritual path, what is that we are trying to do? It’s like we are trying to spiritualise our consciousness. Our consciousness is affected by the, by our consciousness is both affected by and reflected in our actions. The way we act shapes our consciousness and how our consciousness also is seen in how we act.
So in that sense, if you understand that the purpose of the spiritual journey is to spiritualise our consciousness, then that means our actions should also become spiritual. So if we understand hypothetically that say, I’m not the body and the soul, but if we live only for bodily pleasures, then that means there is no, that knowledge has not become applied in a transformation. We may not immediately understand, stop caring for the body.
That’s not the point. But to understand that I am the soul means not to stop, not to stop caring for the body, but to start caring for the soul also and to give some time for spiritual nourishment. So if somebody says that, somebody accepts that Krishna is God, but they never devote themselves to Krishna, they don’t worship Krishna, they don’t chant Krishna’s names, then that is indicative that they are not really living, they’re walking their talk.
So that is how scriptural knowledge is to be applied. By broadly speaking two things, it is seen that detachment from matter and attachment to Krishna. Bhakti, pareesha anubhava, viraktiran yatracha.
The process of bhakti is meant to give us pareesha anubhava, experience of that Lord who is transcendental. And when we experience that Lord, that experience is so fulfilling that it leads to viraktiran yatracha. It leads to detachment from other things.
So if we see these two things, now for ourselves, we could say internally experience God and the result of that experience is that we are less dependent on worldly cravings and worldly pleasures. But we are getting more spiritual fulfilment in our connection with the Lord. Yeah, but sometimes we become difficult, you know, in the practical life.
Like what we sometimes read and follow. That is perfectly understandable because there are multiple levels of following. In the Bhagavad Gita 12th chapter also Krishna talks about how there can be 12.8 to 12 talks about the descending ladder.
If you can’t always fix your mind on Krishna, then strive to fix your mind on Krishna. If you can’t do that, then just work for Krishna. If you can’t work for Krishna, then do whatever work you’re doing and offer the fruits to Krishna.
If you can’t offer the fruits to Krishna, then do what work you’re doing, but offer the fruits for some good cause. So Krishna has multiple levels at which we can work. So it’s not that say just because somebody is a devotee, that means that they will automatically be free from all anarthas.
Nobody is entirely free from the anarthas, but at least they are striving to be free. At least they are intending to be free. At least they are working in that direction.
And that is indicative of a healthy direction. So there is a walk or talk doesn’t mean that we won’t slip or fall while following a particular standard or particular way of life, but at least we’re trying to move in that direction. Does that make sense? Yes.
Well, you say that if someone is only thinking about the scriptures and does not take understanding from a guru who knows the scriptures, you can just mess it up. Just like Arjuna, all the reasons that he gave were ethical but not at the spiritual level. Unless you would have surrendered to Krishna, you would have just thought that he is right and you would have just not fought.
That’s true. If you do not take guidance, scripture itself, that is the verse in the Upadhyayana Sutra, that studying scripture is like crying alone in the wilderness. If you do not know the goal of scripture is Krishna, Aranyirditam, because scripture itself is like a vast ocean.
In fact, Krishna also uses that in the Bhagavad Gita in 2.53 where he says, यदाते मोह कलिलं बुद्धिर्विति तरिष्यति पदागन्तासि निर्वेदं श्रोथाव्यस्य शुतस्यजः शुति विप्रति पण्णाते यदास्थास्यति निष्चला समाधावचला बुद्धि सदायोगमवाप्सयसि So he says that when you understand this knowledge, then your intelligence will come out of the dark forest of delusion. It’s interesting he is not saying your mind will come out of illusion. See your intelligence will come out of illusion.
So that illusion which he is talking about is not the illusion of material existence with all its temptations. There what he is talking about is the illusion of the vast body of Vedic knowledge. In which there are many different prescriptions.
Do this, do this, do this. Because even the broad body of Vedic knowledge is also like a desire tree. In fact when a prominent Christian scholar missionary came to India and he read the Rig Veda he said this is the most materialistic religious book I have read in my life.
Now what do you mean by materialistic religious book? His point was you do this and you get this and you do this and you get this and you do this and you get this. So the Rig Veda itself if you look at it at a surface level there is not much philosophy in it. Of course there is a philosophy at a deeper level.
It is built on a particular philosophy but the specifics are all prescriptions. Do this, do this, you will get this prosperity, this get that prosperity. So he is saying that intelligence may get lost in the forest of the many Vedic teachings that are there.
So that’s why it’s important to have the Guru otherwise you can get confused even within scriptural knowledge. At what stage do you think we should consider having a Guru because we are advancing in doing what we do. At what stage do you think everyone should consider taking shelter of a Guru? At what stage should we consider taking shelter of a Guru? To basically increase your spiritual growth.
It’s largely a personal decision but there are some pointers we could say. One is that if we start recognising that there is a better way to live, there is a higher level of consciousness to be attained and there is a process to be followed by which we can attain that. Then there is an English word called Dilettante.
Dilettante is like a person who does something like a hobby. There are people who dabble with arts. So if I like it I will do it, if I don’t like it forget it.
So we can be initially we will all be like dabbling in spirituality. Explore this a little bit, try that out a little bit, try that out a little bit. And that’s also good.
Prabhupada also says that there should be a period of mutual testing between where the Guru tests the disciple and where the disciple tests the Guru. So both should happen. So initially we might be testing not just the spiritual teacher but we will be testing the whole idea of spirituality itself.
Do I really want to follow this? Then after that once we are overall committed, this path has transformed me a little bit. At least to some extent that has given me some conviction. And this path is also what I would like to incorporate in my life or orient my life according to.
Then we want to move straight forward. So once we are committed to the sadhana and the sadhya, Krishna is the goal and Prema for Krishna, love for Krishna is my purpose in life. Once we have understood that, that’s the time when we can seriously start seeking a spiritual master.
We are far away from Krishna and we are far away from Krishna Prem. At least in terms of the basic philosophical clarity has come that this is the goal and this is the process way to the goal. Once that has come, then we can start seeking seriously.
Some people it might happen even before in the sense that some people met Shila Prabhupada or we might meet a particular saintly person and we are just captivated by them. Irrespective of how, what the philosophy they are teaching or there are some charismatic leaders who might just captivate us. And that’s also good, but that should not become a part of it.
If you do not understand their teachings and just the charisma of a teacher, then it can become a personality cult. So it might be initial connection that is there or the initial connection might not be there. But it’s more when the commitment is there.
That’s when we can take the step towards solidifying their connection. It’s a specific spiritual teacher. So thank you very much.
Shila Prabhupada Ki Jai. Gaurav Bhakta Vrinda Ki Jai. Jai Gaur Premo Anand.
Udayas Chaitanacharya Prabhu Ki Jai.