How can we establish the authenticity of scripture?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
How do we establish the authenticity of scriptures? Basically, there are three points in this. There is the principle, there is the process and there is the fruit, fruit or the result. The principle is that if we look at the world around us, we see that our basic needs are provided for.
We have hunger and food is provided for. We have to work to acquire it but our work doesn’t produce the food. It only procures the food for us.
It is already produced by nature. We breathe and there is already air. We have thirst and there is water.
So our basic needs in nature are provided for. Now one need that is also very important is knowledge. If say on someone’s birthday a friend gave a very complicated machine, you could clearly see that this is a really expensive complicated machine and they gave no manual with it.
Now what friend would do something like that? What is the use? If you spent so much money made such a machine then they would actually give something with it to guide it. So like that we see our body is very complicated, the world is very complicated, not just complicated in a messy sense, it’s complicated also in an organized sense. So would the same God who has provided us food, light, air, water, heat, he has provided us all this for living would he not give us knowledge about the purpose of living? So in principle it is a logical inference to say that God would give us some knowledge and that knowledge is what comes to us in the principle of revelation.
That is the principle. And the second part is the process. So for example say if this is a machine I have and this is the manual I have, this is the book which I have.
Now how do I know that this book is the manual for this machine? One way is that I can basically read the manual and see if first it helps me to make better sense of the machine and second if it helps me to work better with the machine. Similarly we can see if we study the Bhagavad Gita. Does the Bhagavad Gita help us to make better sense of life? Does the Bhagavad Gita help us to respond to life better? Everybody is going to face problems in life but just as every machine, no machine is perfect, every machine has problems but you have manual then it gives some troubleshooting measures for it.
Do this, do this, do this. So like that we look at the Bhagavad Gita. Does it help us to do troubleshooting better whenever we face problems in life and if we understand the Bhagavad Gita properly we will see that it does help us to make better sense and help us to work better and this is the process.
How do I normally check whether a book is a manual? By using it. Similarly if we use the Bhagavad Gita we can see for ourselves that this does make a difference. Now one advantage which we have over other religions, we are not in the competition over here but other religions claim that their way is the only way, that is their book is the only book but the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t claim like that.
Our tradition says that same God can give his wisdom and his grace in many ways. So it is not that if we once look at the principle that God will give knowledge to enlighten us, yes he can give it in many ways. And of course not all manuals are equally relevant.
Sometimes the manuals may be for an older version of a machine, sometimes may be for different countries the same manual might be told in a different way. So like that there are variations. But the principle is there and there is process.
And then we look at the fruit. The fruit is that it is related to the process itself but actually the Bhagavad Gita is not just a manual for doing things in the outer world. It is actually meant for doing things in the inner world.
Science can make things better. Scripture can make people better. Science cannot make people better.
If somebody is short tempered, science cannot say take this pill and your anger will go away. You can give a pill which can make the person go to sleep. But when they wake up all the anger is still there.
It is not so simple. But of course they can do some chemicals temporarily in the brain but that is not the cure. It is suppression.
Whereas there is purification that can happen by the scripture guideline. So in that sense just as we have knowledge for dealing with the outer world we need knowledge for dealing with the inner world. And when we see that the Bhagavata does help us to reform ourselves internally then we again get that deepened conviction.
So rather than in today’s age approaching with scripture as the absolute authority of God, the infallible word of God, rather than presenting scripture that way we can present scripture as an experiential way for self-transformation. You experience yourself and you see the transformation that happens in your life. And actually that is also Krishna’s approach.
18.63 in the Bhagavad Gita he says at the end of the Bhagavad Gita now deliberate deeply and decide what you want to do. So Krishna is not a God who gives commandments do this, don’t do this. Krishna says Krishna is a God who gives choices and tells consequences and then he appeals to our intelligence.
So he says deliberate deeply and decide what you want to do. That means use your intelligence and decide what you want to do. That means you have your independence.
Use your independence wisely. So by understanding the principle that God will give us one of the needs for living that is knowledge and by looking at the process of checking how whether a manual helps us to make better sense of the device and use it better and thirdly recognizing that this provides a fruit that nothing else can provide. Other sources of knowledge can help us to improve the outer world but this is a source of knowledge that can transform our inner world.
By that we can establish the value of scripture and this is a pragmatic way. We don’t have to necessarily prove that every single word in scripture has been written has been spoken by God and that is very difficult to prove but we can establish through a chain of inferences that scripture offers us very valuable knowledge and as people practice bhakti as people develop devotion for Krishna then their faith in scripture also increases more and more. Thank you.