How do we respond to ‘Ramayana and Gita are speculators delight’?

From: Keshav

How to answer those who say : ” Ramayan & Bhagavad Gita are Interpreter’s Delight ” Is this true for every Scholar ? Many people read Scripture’s as a delight , & if you go to them to tell about devotional service , they start chanting Sanskrit verse’s from everywhere to show their intellectualism. Why is it that 99.99 % intellectual’s today talk about god , but they are either fearful of him , or they discard him internally as per their thinking ? We see these type of intellectuall’s in every renowned Magazine or Newspaper or University .

Transcript

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Question from Keshav Prabhu. How to answer those who say that Ramayan and Bhagavad Gita are interpreters delights? Is this true for every scholar? Many people read scriptures as a delight. If you go to tell them to tell about devotional service, they start chanting Sanskrit verses from everywhere to show their intellectualism.
Why is it that 99.99% intellectuals they talk about God, but they are either fearful of him or they discard him internally as per their thinking? We see these type of intellectuals in every renowned magazine or newspaper or university. Answer? Broad conceptual level, we understand as the sign of Kali Yuga. In the Bhagavatam, it is described that one of the signs of Kali Yuga is satyatve dharshti me vahi.
Audacity is considered a sign of truthfulness. So, whoever speaks loudly giving some audacious explanation which has not been given by anyone else before and if the explanation is controversial, scandalous, all the better because it adds more publicity and tension and Pandityam shabda chaapalyam that jugglery of words is considered to be scholarship. So, this is what interpretation is all about.
Jugglery of words and audacity in delivering one’s message, one’s own ideas. At a practical level or at immediate historical level, we can see that this is because the parampara siddhantic understanding has not been presented adequately whereas the impersonalist understanding which involves a lot of interpretation and interpretation that usually ends in misinterpretation has been presented extensively and it is this which appeals the mind of the conditioned soul because the mind wants to be speculative. So, speculation in the realm of broad sense enjoyment leads to varieties of entertainment and speculation in the realm of scripture, in the realm of jnana leads to subjective and evasive interpretations.
So, people may delight in their interpretations but that is the only delight they will get. Their interpretations will not give them the devotional delight of learning to love Krishna. So, we have to understand and share with those who are open to this understanding that scriptural study has a particular purpose.
Scriptures are like the manual for life and they are meant to be approached in a particular way for study and are meant to be lived and then one gets the real understanding of it. Otherwise, if one gets a doctor’s prescription and does a handwriting analysis of that prescription, one may get one interpreter’s delight but one will not get the delight of an improved health. Similarly, when we approach scripture, people if they want they can interpret it in different ways but what is the purpose of studying scripture? If one wants to understand the fundamental truths of life as they have been revealed by God through the scriptures then one needs to approach them with the right attitude.
This right attitude is not dogmatic submission, is not just blind submission to some dogma but it is a directed application of the intellect where one seeks particular ends by particular purposes and in my Gita overview in Mumbai, I am talking about 18.63 especially 18.59 to 63, I have extensively explained how the Bhagavad Gita’s conclusion, the scriptures are not just inconclusive, they do give a conclusion. For example, the Bhagavad Gita although it embraces various threads of thought within its narrative, it concludes very specifically in pure devotion service. That is what I have analyzed in that class.
A similar analysis is possible for various scriptures. In Madhvacharya and Vishnu Tattva Vinayana, it analyzes the various scriptures and explains how Lord Vishnu is the supreme and Jyotish Swami in the Shastra Andharvas analyzes the various scriptures and then concludes how the principles of pure devotion service are the highest message of the Vedic scriptures. So those who are interested in truly understanding the scriptures for the right purpose, if we want just an interpretational understanding of scriptures, we will get that and that is all that we will get.
But if we want a transformational understanding of scriptures by which we become elevated to love of Krishna and love for all living beings and relationship with him, then we need to approach the scriptures in a particular way. We don’t have to become alarmed by the intellectualism of people who parade Sanskrit verses because it is not knowledge of Sanskrit that enables one to decipher the Vedic scriptures. It is the right attitude, the devotional attitude and training under a devotional practitioner, an exalted devotional practitioner, just as it is not that say knowledge of English enables us to understand a book of medicine that is written in English.
So once we understand the nature of spiritual knowledge, nature and purpose of spiritual knowledge, then we will not become intimidated by the intellectualism of speculative scholars. Thank you.