If scripture is given by God, why is it not visible to a newborn child?
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Transcript
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Hare Krishna. Question.
Why is scripture, if it is given by God, not visible to a newborn child? Answer. For a newborn child, even the understanding of how to walk is not there, how to talk is not there. Does that mean that these are alien or foreign things? No, these are learned things.
But what is there within the child is the capacity to learn. The child has the innate capacity to walk and talk and over a period of time, by practice and by guidance, the child learns it. So similarly, scriptural knowledge, scriptural wisdom is also, just because it is not available to a newborn child, visible to a newborn child, that does not mean that that knowledge is invalid or it is unnatural or that it is not given by God.
But rather, we all have the capacity for spiritual inquiry, for philosophical inquiry. When we live in, as the child grows up, the child understands that, okay, I am living in this world and my parents are providing me food, they are providing me water. Like that, if we look further, we can see that, oh, in this universe, whatever are my necessities, they are provided for.
I need heat, light, air, water and these are all provided in the universe. Now, even my food, it’s not that I may be yearning to get the food, but I am not producing the food. If nature did not produce the food, I would not have that food at all.
So just by pondering our existence, we can understand that there is some arrangement that is there. And then we inquire, if there is a God who has provided for these things for me, then if he has provided me for the, provided me with the necessities for living, with the biological, physical necessities for living, then another necessity for living is the purpose for living, is the knowledge about the purpose for living. So, just like if somebody provides a child a very complex machine and also provides electric socket and electric connection so that child can run that machine, then the child will let person not provide some manual by which how to use that machine.
So then child will naturally look, where is the manual, how do I use this machine? So like that, if we see that the basic necessities for our life are provided for, the knowledge is also necessity, will that not be provided for? And that makes us look towards scripture as God’s manual. We cannot know in advance whether scripture is God’s word or not, for that we have to search. But that is the nature of life.
Just because something is not readily available, doesn’t mean that it should not be searched for. Most of the things that we value in life, we struggle for them, we cherish them, we achieve them. Just as if I was sick, would I say that, oh, if God had wanted me to be healthy, then God would have provided my medicine right in front of me.
And if God has not provided me medicine, that means there is no medicine available and there is no need for me to seek medicine. No. Actually, we will go out of our way to search for that medicine.
We will check which medicine works, we will use our intelligence and if some medicines are clearly quacks, we will reject them. And if some medicines may make sense, the doctor says makes sense, then we will try those medicines out. And if they don’t work for us, then we will reject them.
And we will keep searching till we find a medicine that cures us. So, just as we understand that searching for a medicine is a matter of necessity, it is a matter of great urgency for me. Similarly, a wise person understands that searching for God and the meaning of life and the God-given revelations which are going to bring meaning to my life, that is a vital necessity.
And therefore, I will search for it. So, when we understand this and then search for the purpose of life, then we show the requisite seriousness. And God will guide us in our quest to find scripture, to understand scripture wisdom and thereby gain the knowledge for making our life happy and successful.
So, God has given us scripture, but he has also given us intelligence by which to recognize the need for scripture and by which to recognize how we can search for and find scripture. So, what is our disease? We want happiness in life, but the things around us, they provide us only temporary titillation. They do not provide lasting satisfaction.
So, scripture provides us a process by which we can experience higher satisfaction which lasts forever. And it is in this satisfaction that becomes our confirmation of the truth of scripture. पत्यक्षावगमंधर्म्यम् चिसुकंकर्तुमव्यम् 9.2 the Bhagavad Gita says that पत्यक्षावगमंधर्म्यम् पत्यक्ष We can verify it directly by our experience.
Thank you. Great.