Are the material problems of a devotee solved automatically?
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so in the sense Bhagavatam is the solution to all problems and for pure devotees we also see that material problems are also solved by their practice of bhakti so how do we understand this Bhagavatam is the ultimate solution to all material problems it is not the immediate solution it is the ultimate solution but is there any place where the Srimad Bhagavatam forbids the taking of Ayurvedic medicines there are places where it is described that when somebody is wounded they take some herbs, they have some mantras for curing so now we have to understand that Ayurveda again there is a spiritual understanding but it is material you have this disease, you put this herb in the body you regulate your diet in this way so it is material mechanisms for countering material problems it is done with a spiritual understanding but there can be Ayurvedic doctors who may be completely atheistic also it is not that Ayurveda is a spiritual knowledge system, it has come from the broad spiritual body of knowledge but it is primarily offering material mechanisms for solving material health issues and there is no place where the Bhagavatam says that if you have to have faith in Bhagavatam that means you should not take Ayurvedic medicine it doesn’t say like that for that matter if we see when Maharaj Pruthu his citizens they come to him and say that we are starving the digestive fire is burning us from within just as the forest fire may burn all the living beings in the forest so at that time we didn’t tell him chant Hare Krishna and everything will be happy he actually makes arrangements for food for them so time and again we see that when there is a material problem there are material solutions provided for it so the Bhagavatam offers us ultimate solution to material problems now I would say that this kind of statement that the Bhagavatam is a solution to all problems we might find something said like that by Prabhupada if we just search but Prabhupada gives context Prabhupada himself in the last days he told Giriraj Maharaj how will the Krishna consciousness movement spread he said by organization and intelligence he did not say by chanting Hare Krishna he did not say by following four Vedic principles he said by organization and intelligence so the organization and intelligence these are material principles they can be used for transcendental purposes but they are not themselves transcendental so the point is that this kind of statement is that the Bhagavatam is a solution to all problems. Now I would personally consider them as intellectually responsible statements.
They seem to be very devotionally faithful statements but in the name of being devotionally faithful they are actually neglecting the reality that the reality is the Bhagavatam gives us various kinds of knowledge but that knowledge is not exhaustive. See when we have some statements like say Bhaktsyanshu Thakur said all the books in the world were destroyed and I had only one book I would choose Srimad Bhagavatam now that is fine but that is for what purpose is he saying that from Srimad Bhagavatam if I am in an unknown place I will learn how to cook food is from Srimad Bhagavatam I will learn how to break trees and make it into wood if I have to live on an island no it is for the purpose of living in this world in terms of pursuing the ultimate goal of life then for that purpose we don’t need so much literature but for practically working in this world one of my friends he has done his PhD in Bhaktsyanshu Thakur so he showed that Bhaktsyanshu Thakur had a big book which was basically like when students want to give GRE they have a vocabulary book so it was Bhaktsyanshu Thakur’s vocabulary book now he would memorize English words so he spent a lot of time because English was a language which he wanted to use and he spent time doing that so he did not think I will learn English from studying Srimad Bhagavatam he spent time learning English so separately so it’s not that so you know when we make exaggerated claims we alienate intelligent people when you make exaggerated claims and think that this is the proof of my faithfulness it’s not a proof of faithfulness it’s simply sentimentality and we alienate intelligent people by that so we can learn a lot from scripture we can learn material things also from scripture but it is not that scripture itself is the source of all kinds of knowledge that was not there in the tradition itself Jiva Goswami he when he wanted to establish and defend Gaudiya nationalism he went to Varanasi which was at that time the capital of Mayavadi. Now Prabhupada said Varanasi is the Vrindavan of the Mayavadis so he went to Vrindavan he went to Varanasi and there he learnt Sanskrit from Madhusudhan Vidyavachaspati so the thing is so it is not that if I want to learn Sanskrit I can learn it simply from Srimad Bhagavatam no he had to go to some other source to learn Sanskrit so you know we have this is a strong statement we have often concocted a definition of faithfulness that is unfaithful to the tradition our notion of faithfulness being faithful to the tradition we have ourselves concocted something nobody in the tradition has ever considered scripture as a source of all kinds of knowledge to study Bhagavatam we have to learn Sanskrit if you want to study the original Sanskrit Bhagavatam and it is not that by studying Bhagavatam I can learn Sanskrit I can’t do that.
Bhagavatam Sanskrit is quite complex you want to learn Sanskrit Mahabharata is useful, Ramayana is useful because their Sanskrit is relatively simpler Bhagavatam Sanskrit is quite difficult so material and spiritual are different branches of knowledge and spiritual knowledge will guide us in our material life it will help us to direct our material knowledge but it is not that spiritual knowledge is a substitute for material knowledge is that clear? ok ok