If scripture is eternal, are all pastimes given in scripture destined?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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And thus, we can perceive the spiritual realities, both the Atma and the spiritual reality of Krishna. And these sort of discussions primarily come in the first of the Sandarbha, Tapo Sandarbha, which is talking about epistemology. Epistemology means knowledge about knowledge.
What is the method by which we can understand which systems of knowledge are reliable and which are less reliable. So he is talking essentially about the eternality of scripture to talk about the necessity of scripture as the most authoritative way of acquiring knowledge. So it’s not necessary when he’s talking, every point is always made in a particular context.
And if we don’t take that point, if we divorce that point from that concept, the purpose, as I said, very philosophical point is like a weapon. That weapon can be used for a particular purpose or it can be misunderstood and misused for another purpose. Somebody can say that, oh, the soul is… Some person may say, consider the knowledge of the soul.
The soul is eternal and they may use it to rationalize it to kill people. Anyway, kill them, they are not going to die. They are souls, they are eternal.
But no, that is not the point of the knowledge of the soul. The point of the knowledge of the soul is something different. It is to focus on the eternality of the person, not to rationalize unjustifiable violence.
So like that, when we talk about scripture and its eternality, we have to understand that scripture is shabda. There is scripture which manifests as sound. There is scripture that manifests as text.
That is grantha. There is shabda and there is grantha. And these two are not the same.
So for example, we say Vyasa Nehru wrote the scriptures 5000 years ago. That means scripture which is eternally existing as shabda manifests as grantha. So for example, we have Krishna speaking the Bhagavatam to Brahmaji at the start of the universe.
That is spoken in a condensed form. So that is basically a shabda. It is known as grantha.
So when we think of scripture, we tend to think of it only in terms of grantha. But it is not in terms of grantha. It is in terms of shabda also.
So when we have say, we have at the start of the universe from Brahmaji, we have the demons stealing the Vedas. So it is not just the grantha that is stolen, it is the shabda that is stolen. They try to control the shabda.
So anyway, the point which I am making here is that we shouldn’t have this idea that scripture is only limited to a particular narrative. There is Krishna’s will and Krishna’s pastimes which are manifested and Krishna himself is unlimited. So because Krishna is unlimited, so he can act in different ways and the shabda that is the root of grantha, that shabda will manifest accordingly.
So Krishna and the various characters that are there in scripture, they can act according to their own will. They are according to their own Krishna’s will. Krishna and the various characters in his pastimes will act and the way they act that will be manifested in the scripture when it is manifested at that particular time.
So rather than thinking of scripture as containing only one narrative, we should understand that scripture is like a network of narratives existing in a subtle form as shabda. And depending on which particular narrative is called for at a particular time, that will be recorded in the grantha when it comes. That’s why we have a difference and sometimes the same pastime is described differently in the Mahabharata than the Bhagavatam.
The reason for that is the Mahabharata has a particular focus of the narrative and the leela that has happened at a particular time in the universal history is described in the Mahabharata. The Bhagavatam has a different narrative focus and that’s why the leela that happened in another yuga or another kalpa, another time in the cosmic span, that is described at that time. So it is not that Krishna and everyone else has to act according to only, it’s not that Krishna, they all have to act according to the script and nobody can deviate from the script.
It is not like that. The script itself is something which is flexible and the multiple narratives, the multiple scripts are present in a latent form and depending on which leela Krishna manifests at a particular point or depending on which, what a particular sage wants to recollect and share at a particular time, that particular pastime is manifested in the scripture. Does this answer your question? We will have to think about it a little bit.
These are subtle things. The important point is scripture is not, scripture is a reflection of Krishna’s will. It is not the determiner of Krishna’s will.
So Krishna’s will can manifest in different ways and that will be recorded and reflected in scripture. It is not that Krishna has to act according to scripture. Scripture manifests according to Krishna’s will.
And because Krishna’s will can act in various ways, that is manifested in a subtle form through the shabda form of scripture and that becomes manifested in the karantha form of scripture depending on how the sages recollect and describe at particular times. Any other questions?