​How much can logic be applied to scriptural study?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So how much logic can you apply when reading Prabhupada’s books? How much can we read between the lines to understand things? Firstly, it’s not a matter of how much we can or how much we cannot.
Just that all of us have our own intellectual levels. And certain people just not think of things so much. Others will others can’t not think.
So, I cannot really put a you know, this is good or this is bad. It just depends on how much our nature what our nature is. And if we have the nature to think a lot logically and evaluate things then we can do that.
But then we should, if we get questions we should ask those to those questions to people who are similarly logical. Because if we start asking if we start getting if we get questions other people are not getting and we start discussing those things then people may start thinking you are a gyani kind of person. And people are very easy it’s from their perspective that’s what they feel.
So if we are more logical then we have to find out those devotees are more logical and then maybe discuss those points with them. That’s the first point. Don’t bring too much logic in the general devotee circle.
Because not everybody has that level of thinking capacity or even that level of thinking need. It’s just like music. You know, some people they sing kirtans very nicely but some people get into such musical tunes that their kirtan is a performance not a participation.
Nobody can follow only the way they are singing. So that’s fine if that’s what their nature is but everybody doesn’t have to do like that. And ideally they should also not be doing that in a public kirtan.
Public kirtan is for participation. So if I have an intellectual need I see that that is just a part of my body-mind mechanism and I have to address it. But I don’t have to impose it on others.
I have to find out others who can also appreciate it and share it with them. And second thing is that we don’t emphasize the logic part so much that we see everything through logic. We say that on the spiritual path logic should be our minister not our master.
Like a minister, the king consults but master means you have to obey. So logic as a minister. There are things in bhakti which will be beyond logic because ultimately Krishna is beyond logic.
But that doesn’t mean that all logic is to be abandoned. There is illogical, there is logical and there is trans-logical. So we can use our logic in a mood of service to Krishna and we can read between the lines not in the sense that we want, like Prabhupada says no unwarranted meaning should be screwed out when he talks about realization.
But often, you know, scripture itself is unlimited. So between one verse and another verse we can think of the various kinds of connections. We can definitely try to understand more by raising more questions, by asking more things.
And sometimes if a particular section of scripture interests us a lot then we can read the previous Acharya’s commentaries or we can hear devotees’ classes especially if some devotees are very logical oriented we can hear their classes if they have given on those subjects a particular verse. So if we have a lot of logical nature then it’s good to combine hearing with reading. If I’m reading a particular section when I hear logical analysis of that section then that can deepen my understanding.
And in some cases, we just have to recognize that it’s not that all questions need to be answered right now. So we keep a pace of reading which we are comfortable at and if questions come up, we can just note them down somewhere We don’t stop reading just because I have got questions. Usually answers to questions also come over time.
So that means it’s our nature to be logical. We can’t stop using logic in Krishna’s service. But we shouldn’t be using Krishna in logic’s service.
That means we shouldn’t be just evaluating, rejecting things just because they are not logical. There are many things when we study scripture we just say, I can’t understand this but that doesn’t mean I have to reject it. I may just suspend judgment on it.
And eventually, when I have some senior devotees, I ask questions and then I get a better understanding of these things.