Ishopanishad Systematic Overview Pune 2012 – 15 classes

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
To set up, I’ll give some background about how I plan to take this course.
So, generally, last year also, I took Isha Upanishad and Bhagavad Gita in the Bhakti Shastri batch. So, normally, when I take Isha Upanishad, we go over systematically over the full book. So, we’ll be reading out the book and I have divided the purports into sections based on topics.
So, I will show you, say one paragraph, one reference to this. And then, we will discuss based on the points which are highlighted in the paragraph. So, I’ll discuss basically from four points of view.
One is, some common questions that arise. Second is, some insights we might have from previous Acharyas’ writings. Third is, some current preaching applications.
And fourth, which will be less frequent, some personal applications. So, philosophical doubts, previous Acharyas’ insights, contemporary preaching applications and personal applications. General nectar of instruction, the most personal application orientated book in Bhakti Shastri.
And Isha Upanishad is probably the most philosophically orientated. And in this, although we have our Acharyas’ commentaries on Isha Upanishad, I will not be referring to them. Because, our focus here is on the Bhaktivedanta purpose.
So, when, if I take Bhagavad Gita in future, in the Bhagavad Gita, I’ll refer extensively to previous Acharyas’ purpose. And we will try to understand the internal flow of the Bhagavad Gita. The, why I’m not going to refer much to Acharyas’ purpose here, is because, the Upanishads, as we see, can be interpreted in multiple ways.
And even within our Sampradaya, different Acharyas have interpreted in radically different ways, the same verses. And I will talk about differences within, differences among Acharyas later on. But the point is, reconciling those differences takes a lot of time.
And it doesn’t add much to our understanding of the philosophy. If you see that way, if we look at our philosophy, it is much more founded on Bhagavad Gita than it is on Ishopanishad. So, that’s why, going into the previous Acharyas’ insights about Bhagavad Gita is more valuable than going into the Ishopanishad.
So, first reason is that there are widely different, different understandings. And unless our philosophical basics are clear, going into the different understandings of the previous Acharyas may be a little premature. So, we make the basic philosophical understandings clear over here.
And then, when we take Bhagavad Gita in future, then we will look at the previous Acharyas’ points also. So, here, I will use previous Acharyas’ points, not to give multiple translations of Ishopanishad verses, but to explain the philosophical points that are being told over here. So, till now, I have taken this twice.
Ishopanishad once here, last one in Karnataka. And again, I have taken this in Calcutta. Then, once I took it in Hindi for the Juhu devotees.
Back in the time when I had the fractures, so I completed the course in Bhagavad Gita course full twice. So, once I took it for the Juhu devotees here. And once, when I had the fracture, I couldn’t move, I went to Wada.
And there, I took it for the Wada devotees. So, based on the feedback that I got from different places, I have made some changes this time. So, my main focus is, I won’t be having many like group exercises, but we will be having a lot of questions.
So, in the last few sessions, last whenever I took it, we would have questions, whenever anybody had any questions, we would immediately ask the question. And we would, I would try to answer that. And we would have a lot of good philosophical discussion based on that.
But while going through here, and when I did the course in Wada, Sanath Kumar also attended the full Bhagavad Gita course. So, he also gave the same feedback, that sometimes the question answers go just too far away from the main topic. And, I didn’t want to stop the question answers, because they lead to a lot of confusion.
So, I asked Gaurang Prabhu, whether the series of Bhagavad Gita, which I had done in Wada, if Gaurang Prabhu can get that fully transcribed. So, I had given a Sunday feast lecture in Chowpatty on the occasion of the Bhagavad series. And, then I asked Gaurang Prabhu, One has to learn the hard way sometimes.
So then I felt, I talked to Jinnahji before. So this time what I am planning is, I will be speaking for 20 to 25 minutes. And then we’ll have time for question and answers.
So question and answers will be at the end of the class. But if I am taking one topic, I’ll complete the topic, it is a subtopic within the topic of the class. If the class is one and a half, two hours, so 20 to 25 minutes generally I’ll speak.
And after that, we’ll have time for question and answers. So that can go on for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, if there are no questions, then I’ll go to the next part. So if you have any questions, you can just, even in the middle of the class, you can raise your hand.
I will just note it. I won’t have the questions at that time. Because let me complete what I am going to speak.
Because sometimes when I start answering questions, I may even forget what I was planning to speak. So that’s why I will take one subtopic for 20 to 25 minutes. And after that, we’ll have question and answers.
Then I’ll take the next topic. So now, if you start at 9.30, probably we’ll go on till 11 or 11.15. Then we’ll have 15-20 minute break. And then we’ll go on to 1.15. So we will have, in this sense, if we have say 20 to 25 minutes for the talk, and then 5 to 10 minutes for question and answers.
So within that, say in a 1.5 hour unit, we’ll probably have something like, we can even have 30 minutes for question and answers, if it is required. But the question and answers in the class will be clearly divided. So the main topic which I am going to take, that will be, so let us start.
Has anybody taken this class on why these four particular books are there in Aditya Shastra? What is the significance of these four particular books? No. So this is just, I’ll come back to this. I’m just showing this to you.
So here, you see, P1 to 5, that is paragraph. So paragraph 1 to 5 is having this main point. Paragraph 6 to 7 is having this point.
So Vedas give universal and axiomatic wisdom. Vedic knowledge is superior to perfection in the world. So like this, I have divided things.
It will be a part. I won’t go much into this. But this is something which we need to know in general.
So in Indian Vedic history, there have been the traditional six systems of philosophy. Shri Prabhupada talks about this. In the first scant joke, he says that a person who is speaking in the Vyasa Sangh should know how to refute the six systems of philosophy.
Many of us, we don’t even know what are the names of the six systems of philosophy. So the principle we have to understand, the principle is that whatever schools of thought are opposed to the Bhagavad Siddhanta, the speaker should be competent of refuting it. At present times, most people are not really proponents of the six systems of philosophy.
So probably we need to know a little bit about how to refute materialism, how to refute impersonalism, how to refute evolutionism, these sort of things. So basically the idea is the Bhagavad Siddhanta needs to be established. So there will be six systems of philosophy.
Now in Indian history, there have been basically Astic and Gnostic philosophies. I won’t go into the details of all of them. Astic means, generally we use the word Astic in terms of one who believes in God and Gnostic as one who does not believe in God.
But in the Indian tradition, Astikta is faith in Vedas, not faith in God. Mahaprabhu mentions that the philosophy is Gnostic. Of course, it doesn’t believe in God also.
But the important thing is they don’t believe in Vedas. So in the Gnostic schools of thought, there were three, Buddhism, Jainism and Charvakism. So Charvak’s philosophy never became widespread, but it got a widespread condemnation from everyone else because it was, as we know, totally materialistic.
So these are called as heterodox or Gnostic. Heterodox is the opposite of orthodox. Orthodox is that which accepts the tradition.
Heterodox means that which rejects the tradition. So in the heterodox, there were these three philosophies. Buddhism, Jainism and Charvakism.
In the orthodox, there were six systems of philosophy. So Vedanta is the culmination of these six systems. So does anyone know the name of the six systems of philosophy? Shri Ramana Maharshi, Sankhya, Yoga.
These are the six systems. So I will not go into much detail about all of them. Just a quick understanding.
In one sense, modern people feel that these six systems are contradictory. They are all competing schools of thought which were there developed independently by independent sages in India. But Suvatra Maharaj has written a quite insightful book on six systems of philosophy.
In there, he describes how these six were originally progressive. Progressive in the sense that you start first of all with, say, Sankhya. He analysed.
What has this middle world made up of? It means earth, water, fire and air. Then after that is Vaisheshika. Sankhya’s proponent was Kapila.
Then there is Vaisheshika. Okay, all these elements are there. But what are these elements made up of? They are made up of Atman.
So basically what is happening in this, the whole purpose of these six systems of philosophy is to take our vision deeper and deeper to penetrate apparent reality and go to actual reality. Apparent reality means what we see with our senses. So here we see so many beautiful sense objects, so many sources of pleasure, so much variety.
So basically the idea is to search for the underlying unity that is below the variety. So one way, Sankhya says, what is the unity? There is so much variety, but there are at least 24 elements. So Vaisheshika goes further and says, there is another way of analysis.
Ultimately, everything is made up of atoms and molecules. Now there are some significant differences between the understanding of atoms and molecules in modern science and in Vaisheshika. But the principle is, look at the unity.
What is the unity? So don’t get attracted by the variety of this world because ultimately it’s atoms and molecules. And going further, when we go beyond Vaisheshika, one starts coming to, okay, there is all this matter, but there has to be some organising principle for that. Then people come to, the progression can be in different ways.
But one way is that people come to Vimamsa. Vimamsa is what? If you remember Karmanmahamsa, Lord Krishna. And ultimately this world is governed by law.
So if you follow the law, you have to be rewarded. Even the demigods are forced to reward. So beyond the patterns of matter, one goes to the laws underlying matter.
But one has not understood the lawmaker beyond laws. One thing is even the lawmakers are under the law. There is no lawmaker beyond the law.
So this is how the vision is going deeper and deeper. Then there is of course, foundationally what is called as Nyaya. Nyaya is logic.
So logic was itself a fully developed school of thought. What sort of logical arguments are valid? What are invalid? So there are many systematic steps in that. If we get time, I will show something from Jinkoswami, how he presents logic.
In western logic, there is mainly three steps. There is a premise, a minor argument and a major argument. We will discuss this later.
But Nyaya was something which was used by all schools of thought. Because logic is something which is required not only to make sense of the world, but also to make sense of scripture. Because sometimes scripture may say something contradictory.
So then, it is apparently contradictory, but we need some sort of logic to reconcile the apparent contradictions. So Nyaya is sort of like a foundation which is used by all schools of thought. But then, historically, originally all these schools were progressive.
But historically, they developed into independent schools. So now, Nyaya as it is understood today is an independent school of thought. And by logic, one can never achieve at ultimate truth.
By logic, I can try to prove and I can prove that God exists. But there is no logic by which I can prove that God is a bluish black complexioned youth playing a flute. For that, there is pure logic.
So that is actually theology. So the fundamental difference between philosophy and theology is that philosophy is that which you can reason about. And theology is that which you primarily depend on revelation.
In theology also, there may be some reasoning. And even if we, so I will first separate and then I will mix. So clearly, philosophy means that which we do reasoning and logic about.
You can apply. So does God exist? Does he really exist? We can do reasoning, design argument upon argument. There are other arguments, moral argument is there, pathological argument is there.
So that is, philosophy means that which we do reasoning about. Theology is primarily about revelation. So this is, in one sense, a broad separation.
For example, now Krishna’s most dear associate is Radharani. How can you do any reasoning for this? There is no reasoning. Or if you ask, why does Krishna now curse? There is no reason for it.
Why is Krishna more powerful? It’s history. Somebody may say that, you know, if you are interested in milk, often people use more milk than cow. But Krishna is not Bhaispa.
Krishna is Gopal. Why? That is his choice. And here we come to the concept that when we come to theology, there is personality.
And personality has only three choices. Now we can use some further explanation and say that, for example, there is a story that the Rajrasis tell that why Krishna wears a peacock feather. So one time there was a peacock and Krishna was chasing that peacock.
Krishna and the Gopas were playing and they said, let us see who catches this peacock. That peacock was running. So that peacock started running, running, running.
And peacock ran to Varsana. And that’s how Krishna landed in Varsana. He was very happy that the peacock brought him to Radharani’s village.
And to thank that peacock, while that peacock was running, one of his feathers had fallen off. So Krishna took that feather and put it on his head. So now there may be some stories, but the stories don’t necessarily provide a logical reason.
They are more like a russic understanding. So the point is, theology is primarily based on revelation. Philosophy is based on reason.
But it’s not so black and white. Because even in theology, there will be some reasoning. And even philosophy will require some revelation if it has to come to conclusion.
But that is the broad division. So we are talking now about the six systems of philosophy. So in Mimamsa, the understanding is there that there is some law.
So there they use the word dharma or they use the word rita. The Vedas use the word rita. So rita is the underlying law that governs this world.
But beyond that, there is a law. But what is the reality? If you have seen Karma Mimamsa, Krishna talks about it in 8.42-43. And he says, people want to go to Swarga and enjoy. So he condemns that.
He says, they are avipashchit. They are non-discriminating. So yoga, Patanjali’s yoga, starts the transition from matter to spirit.
Till now, the analysis has only been of matter and the laws underlying matter. Yoga starts, is there some spirituality? What is that? What is the reality? And then there are practical exercises, physical exercises, psychological exercises, to try to come to the understanding of what is that absence. Now, if you look at Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra itself, Vyasadeva himself wrote a commentary on the Yoga Sutra also.
If you see it, there is not much description of who is the Ishwara. He says that one of the limbs of Ishtang Yoga is Ishwara Pranidhan. But he doesn’t describe who is that Ishwara.
So the idea is that yoga is meant to link with the higher reality. But what is that higher reality that is not described? That higher reality is described in Vedanta. So Vedanta is the sixth school of philosophical thought.
And it focusses on the absence of it. So the literal word is Vedanta, the conclusion of the Vedas. And the conclusion of the Vedas, as we know the Bhagavad Gita says, वेदाईश्च सर्वाई अहम् एन वेदाईश्च। Krishna has become God.
Now the Vedanta Sutra is a book that evaluates all the other philosophies, refutes them and establishes Vedantic philosophy itself. See the other philosophy that I talk about, it talks about not Buddhism per se, but the Buddhistic ideas. Because it is Buddha who gave a Philip to those ideas.
It’s not that ultimately in this world, all schools of thought keep reincarnating. Atheism is there, materialism is there, impersonalism is there. So these schools of thought will keep reincarnating because all these are excuses for the conditioned souls to refuse the authority of surrendering to Krishna.
Refuse the authority of Krishna and refuse to surrender to Krishna. So certain philosophies will become prominent when some influential personalities start taking up and propagating. So materialism was there in the past also, materialism is there now also.
But materialism has become popular now because many people have sort of championed it. All these schools are there. All these schools have always been there.
And when we talk of Vedanta Sutra, it takes these different schools of thought and one by one refutes them. It refutes Sankhya, it refutes Yoga, it refutes Buddhism, it refutes everything and it establishes how the Vedanta is the highest. Now when it refutes Yoga, it is not exactly refuting the original Yoga Yoga was a progressive step within a ladder.
But when one step within the ladder is treated as a conclusion, then what happens? It becomes wrong. So it’s not incorrect. Yoga in itself is not incorrect, it is incomplete.
But when the incomplete is thought to be complete, it becomes incorrect. That’s what happens. So Vedanta Sutra is refuting all these schools of thought.
Now, so, I’ll show you. So, this is… All you should know about Indian philosophy, what does it mean? So, Vedanta. In Vedanta, there are two primers.
One is Vedanta, and the other is Buddha. And actually, to achieve the Vedanta, one has to re-cultivate his religion. Time to go into that.
But, the idea is that in Vedanta, that means, those who follow Vedanta, they accept certain books as authority. Primary authority. In Vedic scriptures, there are so many scriptures, and there are so many meanings of those scriptures.
It’s difficult to understand. Therefore, in the Vedic scriptures, there is a hierarchy. There is a certain book which is primary, certain book which is secondary.
So, just like, Jiva Goswami in the Sattva Sundarva explains how Srimad Bhagavatam, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu calls it the Amalam Purana. Jiva Goswami calls it Sarva Pramana Chakravarthi Bhoota. Chakravarthi means, not just king, emperor, king of kings.
So, he says, Bhagavatam is Sarva Pramana Chakravarthi Bhoota. And he gives reasoning, why among all the scriptures, Bhagavatam should be considered the highest one. Primary reason, of course, is that Vyasadev wrote it in his own maturity, after he had written everything else.
The point is that, because there are so many scriptures, and sometimes there may be some contradiction between the scriptures. So, to resolve the contradiction, there is a hierarchical arrangement of scriptures. And in that hierarchical arrangement, there are certain nirnayak, and some which are called as nirnayatara.
Nirnayak means deciding, and nirnayatara means to be decided. For example, you may say, during Srila Prabhupada’s time, two disciples had some difference of opinion. Should we do like this? Should we do like that? Now, what will they do? They will go to Srila Prabhupada to ask.
Srila Prabhupada is the nirnayak authority. And these two, they may also be senior disciples, they may also be authorities in their own right. But they are nirnayatara.
So, nirnayak means the decider, and nirnayatara is that which is to be decided. So, that means certain scriptures are considered primary, and other scriptures are secondary. So, it’s not that the other scriptures are wrong, but they have to be understood in the light of the primary scriptures.
Now, in one of the Tamasic Puranas, Matsya Purana, Lord Shiva is telling that if there is any contradiction in the Sattvic and Tamasic Puranas, then the Sattvic Purana should be considered first. So, the point is, certain scriptures may give contextual realities. They may not give intimate realities.
They may give what? Contextual realities. These are true, they are valid for that particular time. Like, if you see that way, Buddha is God.
And God is speaking a philosophy, but he will not accept God’s words. What kind of devotees are we with this? Why? We are living because God is speaking for a particular purpose. What to speak of Buddha? Even Krishna is speaking Karmanavamsa.
And we reject Krishna’s words. Can you tell how much arrogant it is for a Krishna devotee to reject Krishna’s words? No, because certain scriptures give context. So, we don’t reject any scripture as wrong.
It is valid within that context. So, in Vedanta, traditionally, three books have been considered to be Nirnaya. And everything else is Nirnaya Tara.
So, which are these three books? There are Vedanta Sutra itself, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. They are called as Shruti. Shruti is that which is heard.
That which is heard means, if you see the original Vedas, along with that, I will discuss a little bit about what the Vedas are in a few minutes. But in the original Vedas, the idea is there were great sages who directly heard the word of God and then they spoke it. So, Shruti is that which is directly heard.
Smriti is not that which is heard directly from God. It is that which is heard from God, understood, meditated and elaborated. So, Puranas, if you see, what are they? They are conversations.
And in the conversation, certainly divine knowledge comes up. But divine knowledge is often elaborated. So, now there are two different approaches.
Some people feel that Shruti is more authoritative than Smriti because Shruti is the direct word of God. And Smriti is not the direct word of God. It is the word of the sages.
But there are other schools of thought, even the Vaishnavacharyas, they say that actually Smriti is more important than Shruti because Smriti helps us understand Shruti. And there are verses to this effect also in the scriptures. We are not going to go into that right now.
We are just trying to understand the position of Ishopanishad and the position of the four books within this broad hierarchy. Smriti is the Puranas, the Itihasas, the Pancharatras. Generally, the Vedas have three parts.
The Samhitas, Aranyakas and the Krishnas. So, Rigveda Samhita, Yajurveda Samhita, Atharva Samhita. So, these are books which glorify the Devatas and contain rituals for getting fruitive results.
Aranyakas, as the word indicates, Aranyu, going to jungle. Now you have done enough fruitive activities, it’s enough. You start announcing.
And Upanishads start talking more about philosophical contemplation. So, it’s a progression. The Samhitas talk about Dharma, Aratna and Karma.
And the Aranyakas and Upanishads start talking about Moksha. So, in that sense, it’s a progression. So, generally speaking, the Vedic rituals are performed by the Brahmins.
The Kshatriyas don’t themselves perform. They get them back. When Ashwamedha Yajna is being performed or Ashwamedha Yajna is performed, we can say the Yajman is Yudhishthira Maharaj or Ramachandra.
Actual performers are the Brahmins. So, it’s a cooperation of Brahmins and Kshatriyas. So, the Brahminas, Aranyakas, Upanishads and Samhitas.
These four are the sections. Now, Brahmana, if you see, this classification is not watertight. I’ll come to the point of watertight classification little later.
There is a book called Brihad Aranyak Upanishad. So, it is Aranyak also and it is Upanishad also. So, but Aranyaka and Upanishad are considered to be two different categories.
So, when we come to the first verse, when we talk about Yajurveda, I’ll show with a diagram how the Ishopanishad belongs to Yajurveda and which Upanishads belong to which Vedas. We’ll discuss that. But at this point, let me complete this point and we’ll have some question answers.
So, Shruti, Smriti and Nyaya. Now, Nyaya is what? Logic. But this Nyaya is different from the school of thought called Nyaya.
There is a school of thought called Nyaya that is now left aside. We are now, if you remember this diagram, we are focussing only on Vedanta. In Vedanta, to understand what is the actual truth, logic is required.
So, Vedanta Sutra is practically all about logic. It’s very intense logic. We’ll discuss that.
So, now in this hierarchy, where does Ishopanishad fall? Shruti. Where does Bhagavad Gita fall? Shruti. Actually, Bhagavad Gita, technically you can say it is in Smriti because it is a part of the Mahabharata.
But because it is the word of God, it is Shruti. So, it can fall either way, even if you consider it as Smriti, Smriti is there over here. Now, for us, for all of us, the Nyaya is commentary on Vedanta Sutra, that is Shrimad Bhagavatam.
So, we will study Shrimad Bhagavatam later. So, for Bhakti Shastri, we have these four books. Actually, Prabhupada was asked one time, which are the primary books that devotees should read? Prabhupada mentioned these four books.
Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavatam, Shruti and Shruti. Primary books he said. So, now if you see, the Bhagavad Gita and the Ishopanishad in our present course, they are more on the theoretical side.
They are providing the philosophical understanding. And after we understand the philosophy, how? So, we will be focussing primarily on these two books, Bhagavad Gita and Ishopanishad, where we study the philosophy. And along with the philosophy, there has to be application.
So, Nectar of Instruction tells us how to apply. And Nectar of Devotion gives us a devotional understanding. I will come to that a little later again when we discuss about how the Vedic literature have a progressive scheme.
About how Nectar of Devotion actually figures in this. So, the idea is, there is philosophical knowledge and there is practical application. So, two books of philosophical understanding, two books of practical application.
And two books on the negative axis. There is Karmakand we talked about. So, this is the progression.
So, basically the Vedic literature start with materialistic. Because most people are materialistic. Even if you are materialistic, come within the house of scripture.
Your material desires will be fulfilled within the house of scripture. And once you come within the house of scripture, then gradually scripture has an internal pushing mechanism. It will push you forward.
You won’t be satisfied with material results. Think of something else. So, the futility of material results is when people realise it, they come to the Jnana.
Think of something else. And gradually, from the Jnana, the Karmakand comes to you. It starts with the liberation in the Vedic texts.
In Kali Yuga, because of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy, confusion is made directly accessible to us. Very easy. We don’t have to go through this process of You can directly get the ultimate knowledge.
And it’s easy to pass it. So, any questions? Please. It’s a good point.
Is it the way the world thinks? Or is it the way we classify? Okay. Now, there is a fundamental difference in approach to studying scripture from the modern point of view and the traditional way. The modern approach is called as the analytic approach.
The traditional approach is called as the synthetic approach. A simple example to understand the difference between the two. So, if a small child learns language, how does he learn? He thinks, this is a noun, this is a pronoun, this is an adjective, this is an adverb.
He just learns to speak. And how does he learn to speak? By seeing people speak. By seeing people speak.
His mother, his father. He just learns to speak. So, that is a natural, organic or synthetic way of learning.
Where, by seeing something lived, by seeing something used, one imbibes it. On the other hand, if say, if we decide that we want to learn German. Now, what will we do? We are not living among people who are talking German.
So, we will go into the this is the noun, this is the grammar, this is the subject, this is the predicate. We combine this. This is a grammatically correct sentence.
This is a semantically meaningful statement. So, now, actually, the analytic way of study is to some extent, unnatural. It’s unnatural.
So, I was giving this in a class. Mr. Gaurav Rao started laughing. He said, he said, there are some people who are very technical about music.
He said, okay, music, this taal should be like this, this pitch should be like this, this voice should be like this. He said, if you’re trying to go and learn all that, whatever your enthusiasm you have to sing, you will lose that also. Why? Because there is a natural way to sing and there is an analytical way to learn.
Okay, this pitch has to balance like this, this has to balance like that. So, in general, in the tradition, how was philosophy learned? Synthetically. Guru, brahmachari gurukule, pasandanta guru dedo.
You just come to the guru’s ashram, live and you see how the guru is living. Like we also say, Krishna consciousness is more caught than taught. When we see other devotees living, then we learn.
So, the point here is that this sort of categorisation into theology and philosophy, this is not a Vedic categorisation, it’s a western categorisation. Because that way if you see, there are no equivalent words to theology and philosophy in the Vedic literature, literally speaking. One word, tattva gyan, you can call bhagavad gyan, but bhagavad gyan is actually not such a common word.
In Vedic tradition, there was no philosophy that was independent of revelation. All philosophy was based on revelation. So, even if somebody had to concoct his own philosophy, they had to try to show how it is based on revelation.
Like say, the Mayavadis came up with their own philosophy, but they had to interpret scripture and show, no, it is based on scripture. So, in that sense, this categorisation is western categorisation. So, when you talk about degrees in theology, yes, they also do some reasoning, because as I said, within theology also there is reasoning.
It’s like the difference in the western classification is, where is your base? In theology, the base is scripture. In philosophy, the base is logic. So, that means, now with the base of scripture, you may have to use logic.
On the other hand, in philosophy, with the base of logic, you may use scripture. It makes sense. Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill.
Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill, how did he find the centre of gravity of Govardhan Hill to lift it up? Krishna doesn’t have to find the centre of gravity, because he is the source of gravity. He will just stop the law of gravity for Antigua sometime. So, what happens is that, what is the foundation for looking at something? So, when the philosophy, the philosophical approach, the foundation is logic.
And then one is evaluating everything from a logical point of view. So, you know, I wrote recently an article about Krishna’s pastimes. So, they seem very miraculous and fantastic.
So, the article I wrote was fantastic, yes. Fantasy, no. That means what? They are fantastic.
They are extraordinary. They are not fantasy. They are not imagination.
They are actual. Because Krishna had the control of the laws of nature. So, in that sense, in the Vedic culture, all philosophy was founded in scripture.
And reasoning was always subordinate to scripture. We will discuss a little later about how reasoning and logic were used in the Vedic tradition. But they were used in harmony with scripture.
Anything? Any other question? So, this is a good question. In the scripture, is there a way to know which is the highest scripture? Yes, different laws of physics will give answers for different books. But we have to look at the internal narrative of scripture.
If you look at the internal narrative, it is very clear that Vyasadeva himself, after writing everything, lies in scriptures. He didn’t need writing scriptures. So, if you look at the internal narrative of scripture, you will see that half of it is scripture.
Now, some people may not accept. One thing has to be very clear that in the Vedic culture also, we sometimes tend to have a, although we are personalists and we accept variety, we think that there was no variety in Indian history. Everybody was a pure devotee in the past.
It’s not like that. Pure devotional service is not for no reason called as Durlabha by Krishna. Actually, there were other schools of thought even at that time.
And Krishna has created this material world for different schools of thought. So, people do. See, there are basically two kinds of gratification.
One is physical, second is intellectual. So, physical gratification comes from senses and intellectual gratification comes from spiritual. Krishna has given these two sources.
So, now our Acharya, say, Jiva Goswami, Udipa Goswami, and Vibhagya Gopalakrishna, they have done vastu-scriptural analysis and logical presentation to show how the Chinta-Vinayaka-Tapu is a confusion of scriptures. But there may be others who do not accept. And so, if those people are influential, our Acharyas will debate with them and defeat them.
But the point is there will always be different interpretations. There will always be different interpretations. But if you look at the meta-narrative, narrative means the story, meta-narrative means the story under the story.
If you look at the meta-narrative, it’s very clear that Bhagavata is the confusion. And that’s why from the self-authority of the scriptures, you can see that Bhagavata is the confusion. Then these Mayavadis or other people, they have to somehow interpret and explain away Bhagavata in such a way that they can try to establish their own authority.
But they can’t do that. They may do that and some people may get mistreated. If we look at scripture in an objective and honest way, Bhagavata is the confusion.
No other book like that. Guru Goswami also did another analysis. He says that you look at different books and see what is their focus.
For example, Shiv Purana will start with saying, please tell me the glory of Lord Shiva. It’s fine. You don’t mind hearing the glory of Lord Shiva.
But is that a universal conjecture? Look at which book is answering universal conjectures. If you look at Bhagavatam, the first verse, Om Nama Bhagvate Vasudeva is not part of it. It is an invocation.
What is the first verse? Nama Vyasyata. And that whole thing goes on. There is no name of any Lord.
What is being told over there? Objective definition of the Absolute. And he, him, and everything. The Bhagavatam, at least if you look at the first verse, is completely nonsense.
It is not saying that this book is going to glorify Krishna. It is going to focus on the Absolute. This is the first focus of Shiv Purana.
Second focus if we see, the sages are asking, the editors are asking, please tell us, what is the essence of this scripture? Please tell us, what is the way by which people will get the greatest joy? Third focus of Srimad Bhagavatam, the Rishis Maharaj is asking, what is the duty of a person about it? And what is the duty of a person doing it? If you look at these three sort of seeds of Bhagavatam, none of them are factual. All of them are dealing with universal truths. If you go to any other books, it is not like that.
If you go to, say, Shiv Purana or other Puranas, they are specific, at least similar to the laws of Lord Shiva. The laws of Lord Shiva will destroy the whatever, sins and this and that. Why? People do that.
Lord Shiva will force you to do it. Original questions are not to be asked. In the Bhagavatam, it starts with universal truth.
This is, to answer the question, I have to explain the question first. So, this question is that, different scholars try to say that there is a progression in the scriptures and they say that, if this book’s Sanskrit is very old, and this book’s Sanskrit is new, and therefore, this is an older book, and this is a recent book. And somehow, here they have the idea, old is good.
Or modern science says, new is good. But they say, old is good. So, they say, Bhagavatam is new.
Rig Veda is old. That is good. Some idea is there, but it is a strange idea.
But the point is, this is not necessarily true that the different kinds of Sanskrit necessarily indicate different ages. They can just indicate different audiences. They can just indicate different audiences.
You see, if I am giving class, if I am giving to a Sunday feast audience, and I am giving to a scholarly audience like all of you, then my language will be different, my content will be different. Or, if say, I have seen how Bhakti Samvat Maharaj speaks in Belgao, and how he speaks in Jogar. It is very different.
Because the audience is different. So, now it is very clearly told, Mahabharata is for the speech, or the jivanbhuna. It is told very clearly.
So, the different sort of level of language, different level of content, does not necessarily indicate different ages. And Bhakti Samvat Maharaj gives an additional explanation. When he was asked this question, he said that, even if we grant that there are different ages, and say, the Puranas are in more recent Sanskrit, and the Vedas are in the more ancient Sanskrit.
This is all that it means is, Smriti has an essential message, and that message is explained by the Acharyas at one time, for instance. So, he says, in that sense, actually, Smriti will always be in a more contemporary language. Because it is given to people at a particular time according to them.
So, this is not our conclusive understanding, but while discussing with the scholar, Bhakti Samvat Maharaj also gives this understanding. This is the fundamental difference between Smriti and Shruti. What is that? In Smriti, the form may change.
For example, when Krishna speaks the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna, and Krishna is telling that, I spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Sun God. So, now when Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Sun God, Krishna will obviously not have spoken the verse, Long ago, I spoke this message to the Sun God. So, because Smriti is in the form of a conversation, so naturally, depending on the context of the conversation, certain things will get added.
And certain things may be relatively recent and contemporary language. So, what the point Bhakti Samvat Maharaj is making is, that even if we grant that the language is more recent, all that it proves is that it has been re-articulated recently. That doesn’t prove that the message itself is recent.
It is present in the contemporary language. That’s why in our understanding of Vedic literature, we have Vedic literature and literature in consonance with the Vedic literature. So, why does Smriti as a category have to exist separate from Shruti? Because Shruti is like frozen thoughts.
Frozen not in a negative sense, but frozen in a literal sense. Even the words don’t change. In the Vedas, even now the words are always the same.
As if you look at it, Yashka was a commentator who wrote in 7th century and there are other commentators who wrote at different times. What they are writing in the letters of the Vedas are exactly the same. But even Yashka is writing that the scholars at this time don’t know what is the meaning of these words.
They knew the verses, they lost the meaning. So, in Shruti, the letters are considering. In Shruti, the meaning is considering.
So, the letters may change. Letters may change. Meaning would remain the same.
So, people say that Puranas are reoccurring in the region. They are not accommodating. So, there are basically two ways of dealing with this.
First is show, first of all show the continuity of characters and themes in the Vedas and the Puranas. Whether we are talking about Indira, Puranas are talking about Indira. Whether we are talking about Chandra and Varuna, Puranas are talking about Chandra and Varuna.
The characters are the same. And if we look at the themes, the focus is different but overall themes are similar. So, Rig Veda also talks about points where there are sages sitting and having conversations and talks.
If you look at Rig Veda itself, there is no place or incident described like that. But that happens in the Puranas. So, there are references in the Vedas to situations which refer to the Puranas.
And the characters are also similar. The thing that changes is the systems. From Karmakant to Varuna.
That’s why in general, the current approach, there is a whole school of thought called IKS. IKS means Indian Knowledge Systems. Say, we want to revive all the Indian knowledge systems.
And India had developed so much material knowledge but all that material knowledge was lost because India became too religious. And they said, let’s put aside all the religion and recover the material knowledge. So, we want to recover all the material knowledge but with no religious baggage.
These sort of people, they are the people who focus on the Vedas and the Upanishads. And the whole branch, there are six Up Vedas, there is Ayurveda, Dhanurveda, and Gandharva Veda, all those things. Because they feel this material knowledge we can get.
So, what is happening is there is a whole class of Indian nationalists who want to use the Vedic literature to boost their national false ego. So, they have no interest in God. They have no interest in religion.
They want to use the Vedas to boost their own national false ego. Not individual false ego, national false ego. See how great we were.
What was our greatness? We got so much material knowledge. Yes, we got material knowledge. That material knowledge is found in the religious and spiritual culture.
And the reason why these people have the attitude is because they feel religion is irrelevant to India. But if we can show these people how religion and spirituality contribute, have contributed so much throughout the history of India, and are contributing even today. So, when we see that actually spirituality is not just otherworldly in terms of rejecting this world.
It is also in terms of reforming this world. When people can see not just the otherworldly benefits of spirituality, but even the this-worldly benefits of spirituality. What are the this-worldly benefits? When Prabhupada went to Mayapur, it was a completely run-down area.
There was nothing there. But now it has become a huge community. And even from a material point of view, there is so much business developed, so much finances have come up, so many people have got jobs.
The same has happened in India. There was a scholar from America who came and wrote a whole book about Hare Krishna’s in America, in India. Hare Krishna’s in India.
And he talked about how the devotees’ presence in Vrindavan has revitalised Vrindavan. So, even from the material point of view, India attracts more tourists who come for spiritual tourism to India than any other part of the world. Spirituality also has this-worldly benefits.
We don’t reject this world. I was not just meditating on the Lord and thinking, people are starving, it doesn’t matter. No, he took his bow and he was ready to punish Bhoomi Devi because she was not giving.
So, what has happened is, people have got this notion that spirituality is the cause of India’s downfall. And that’s why they think, put aside all the religion and focus only on the material part. Actually, if it has happened, it has happened not because of Vedic culture, it has happened because of Buddhism.
Because Buddhism had this whole idea of non-violence. So, what happened was, if you are completely non-violent, it is impractical. And it was the influence of Buddhism which sort of took away the Kshatriya spirit of many Kshatriyas.
It happened with Ashoka, and he is glorified as the Apostle of Peace. Which is fine to avoid unnecessary violence, but there are times when violence is an issue. So, there are people who feel that the spirituality of India has led to India becoming materially unambitious and impotent.
And one Shrila Prabhupada will ask this that If the whole world does Hare Krishna, then how will the world survive? So, Shrila Prabhupada could have given a different answer. So, one time Shrila Prabhupada asked, If everybody becomes Brahmachari, then who will continue the world? Shrila Prabhupada replied, There will be enough fools like you who will not become Brahmacharis. So, Prabhupada could be quite blunt at times.
But this time, he gave a very different answer. Shrila Prabhupada said, If you think that the devotees only do Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, then you have not seen the devotees yet. You see, in the history of India, who are the two biggest devotees? Hanuman and Arjuna.
What are they doing? They are not doing Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. They are fighting a war. So, a devotee is one who fights a war.
If you don’t know this, this is how bhakti happens. So, Shrila Prabhupada knew how to give answers according to the time, place, circumstances. Not just the art of giving answers, but it’s also a reality.
A devotee is not this other world. Certainly, if Prabhupada wanted to be otherworldly, he could have just lived in Vrindavan. He wanted to change the world.
So, to the extent that people see that spirituality is contributing to this worldly betterment also. Although this worldly betterment is not our focus, but that doesn’t mean it has to be neglected. I will discuss about this.
Some people have this idea that if I take medicines, am I interfering with my destiny? No, I am supposed to suffer. It’s an absurd idea. You can take this further and say a mother has a baby and the baby is crying for mother’s milk.
The mother may think, if I give my baby milk, the baby is meant to be hungry by destiny. I am interfering with her destiny. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? So, there is destiny, but there is duty.
If an enemy is attacking a Kshatriya’s kingdom, the Kshatriya cannot think it is his destiny to lose the kingdom. He has to fight. This has been an unfortunate result.
Actually, Chanakya says that a Kshatriya should never associate with a Buddhist or a Jain. Why? It’s not that he hates Buddha or Mahavira or anything like that. But just that those two schools of thought are so otherworldly, he doesn’t care for this one.
Of course, modern Buddhists and Jains are not like that. Modern Jains are quite good at business. And modern Buddhists, actually they are Buddhists in name only.
What happened was, because of first Shankaracharya’s reputation and then Islamic attack, Buddhism was practically annihilated from India. But then, Ambedkar found that the caste system was not just going out of India. Just after independence, just three months before he died, he embraced Buddhism.
And when he embraced Buddhism, along with several lakhs of people embraced Buddhism. And then he wrote his own idea of what is Buddhism. And in his idea of Buddhism, he does not accept reincarnation, he does not accept the law of karma.
So there was a, in Kolkata, there was a lama, not Dalai Lama, another lama. He said, this is not what Ambedkar has accepted, it is not Buddhism, it is Ambedkarism. It is just whatever he wants to accept, he has accepted.
So, of course, Ambedkar has his own idea that he felt that Buddhism is a religion that has developed in India. So he said, rather than accepting a religion which has developed outside India, like Christianity or Islam, let me accept a religion which has developed within India. So he just wanted to rebel against Hinduism.
That’s why the Buddhists that are there today, in India, they actually have no interest in non-violence. They are all quite violent people. They are quite aggressively against Hinduism.
And because they didn’t accept Buddhism for any philosophical purpose, they accepted only for a political and utilitarian purpose. So, again, the point which I am making is this idea that we should take only the material part of the Vedas and the religious part is all mythology or something like that. It has come because of this.
This thinking that the religious part has caused India’s downfall. If it is the religious part which has caused India’s downfall, then how was India such a prosperous country that Anvedas from all over the world came to India? Nobody will go to loot Somalia because there is nothing to loot over there. Isn’t it? So, right from Alexander and before, till the time of Akbar and even after Akbar, you know, Ibrahim Lodhi and so many other people kept coming again and again to India.
And that prosperity was because of Dharma. Dharma leads to Ardha. So, when people understand this point that spirituality contributes not only to otherworldly but also this worldly benefits, then people will not want to have to change What about Shiv Goswami in his books? Of course, most of them are from the Bhagavatam or from the Sanskrit Puranas.
Why not in the Shudras? Shiv Goswami historically had a very unique challenge. What was the challenge? That he had to establish the Gaudiya Sampradaya’s authority. At the same time, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had said that there is no need for any commentary on the Bhagavatam on the Vedanta Sutra because Bhagavatam is a natural commentary.
So, when he had said this, traditionally, in Vedanta, in Vedanta, if anybody has to prove their philosophy, establish their philosophy of authority, they have to write commentaries on these three books, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and Vedanta Sutra. These three books are called the Prasthanatraya. Prasthan means pillars.
And has to write commentaries on this. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said you should not write commentary on Vedanta Sutra. Now, there is a difference between a natural commentary and a literal commentary.
A literal commentary means there is a verse and there is an explanation. There is a verse and there is an explanation. That is a literal commentary.
Now, natural commentary means the same theme is expanded. Say now, say now I gave a class and say after the class some devotees came and said, I didn’t understand anything. Then I said, maybe I’ll elaborate tomorrow.
If I elaborate tomorrow, it’s not that I’ll take this sentence. If I spoke the sentence, this is the expression of the sentence. I take this sentence, I’ll explain this sentence.
No, I won’t do that. I’ll just take the theme and I’ll explain it in a more simpler way. So, what happens? When the same speaker is explaining the same theme in a simplified way, that is a natural commentary.
So, Bhagavatam is what? It’s a natural commentary on the Vedanta Sutra. The same talk is taken and explained not just in a simplified way, but in an expanded way. But the literal verse to verse connection may not necessarily be seen.
And that’s why there are some people who claim to follow Vedic literature today and they don’t accept that Bhagavatam is the commentary on Vedanta. So, their talk is so different. Where is the verse to verse connection? So, but because Shaitani Mahaprabhu had said this, so he did not, he could not directly disobey Shaitani Mahaprabhu, at least not at that time.
And Baldevidya Bhushan also had no intention of disobeying Shaitani Mahaprabhu. At that time it was a matter of maintaining the honour of the Sampradaya. And our Sampradaya was not being accepted at all.
Then he had to show this. We need a commentary and he wrote a commentary. Baldevidya Bhushan wrote a commentary on all three books.
He wrote on the Bhakti Shastras, he wrote on the Gita, and he wrote on the Vedanta Sutras. Although Chakravarti Path had earlier written a commentary, his guru had written a commentary on Bhagavad Gita. He wrote again because Chakravarti Path’s commentary was more rasic and his commentary was more philosophic.
So, now what did Jiva Goswami do? Jiva Goswami is basically trying to establish in the Sandarbhas, how our philosophy, Aurya-Vishnu philosophy, is itself coherent, is logically convincing, and it is based on scripture. So, the whole Tattva Sandarbha is to establish that Bhagavatam is the authority. And once it is established that Bhagavatam is the authority, then just go ahead.
Speak only on the Bhagavatam. Just like, say, if we are preaching to new boys, at that time, we may use D.Y.S. and that time we will quote from this scientist and that scientist and we may use science as authority. But once the bridge has been built and once people have come in, they have developed faith in Krishna Consciousness, now if I want to resolve some philosophical doubt, I may quote Prabhupada.
I may quote Chakravarthy. I don’t have to quote Albert Einstein for anything. Because this audience already has faith.
So, like we have the D.Y.S. course which brings people from the world of science to the world of Krishna Consciousness. So, like that, in Jiva Goswami’s works, Tattva Sandarbha is the book which brings people from the world of the Vedas to the world of the Bhagavatam. And once people have come into the world of the Bhagavatam, then he quotes from the Bhagavatam.
So, if you want to see Shrutis, quotes from Shrutis for the Gaudiya Vaishnavi Siddhanta, then that is done by Nirmal Devi Bhagwati. And it’s remarkable that Baldev Vidyabhushan doesn’t quote from the Bhagavatam too much. Not only does he not quote from the Bhagavatam too much, he doesn’t quote from the Gaudiya Acharyas themselves too much.
Because he is writing to an authority who is not going to accept Gaudiya Vaishnavas. Necessarily. See, I hope this point is clear that, you know, every authority has a particular scope.
If we say Krishna is God, why? Because Prabhupada said so. So, yeah, we can accept that within those who accept Prabhupada. But those who don’t accept Prabhupada, then we have to do Shastra.
So, you know, every authority has a scope. So, of course, Krishna’s authority has the complete scope on everyone, but not everyone will accept it rightly. So, then, according to what people accept authority, we have to take it.
So, for Baldev Vidyabhushan, when he is establishing, writing Govindabhashya, he is writing to people who accept the Upanishads as authority. So, he quotes primarily the Upanishads. He doesn’t even quote the Sandarbhas.
He doesn’t quote Chakravarthy Padavas. Chakravarthy Padavas is more on the Rasik side. So, he gives philosophy, no doubt, but every book has a particular purpose and a particular context.
It may also have eternal value. We’ll come to this point in the first verse performed about how every book has a contextual message and an internal message. So, understanding the difference between the two is very important.
So, in the context of Jiva Goswami, much of Sandarbhas may not feel relevant to us because the people whom we are speaking to, they don’t accept Bhagavatam as authority. They don’t accept Vishnu also as authority. So, what we learn from the Sandarbha is the principle of systematic and logical presentation of our mission.
So, we may have to use that principle in an entirely different way today. That’s why Bhaktivinoda Thakur in his times, because he was preaching to India, which was still quite traditional. So, in his, he had some sort of Bhakti Shastri course which was planned.
There he included studies of Sandarbhas. At least Sandarbhas. But Shri Prabhupada did not include it.
Why? Because that is not relevant today. It’s not that we should not study it. But there is so much to study, we have to prioritise what we study.
We have to prioritise. Sandarbhas can also be studied by his contemporaries, but after they are rooted properly in the road maps, in our foundational knowledge. The question is that, if both the literal commentary and the original book have the same message, why don’t students of both the books go to the same conclusion? So, I am asking when one comes to the conclusion of Krishna, why doesn’t one come to the same conclusion while studying Vedanta? Why do people go towards the impossible? The Vedanta literature is very, very diverse.
It has three pillars. For example, I will just give, maybe, later on I will give more examples, because our Krishna answer will be too long. Tattva samanvayat.
Samanvay means reconciliation. Tattva samanvayat. So, that should be reconciled.
It’s not clear what is that? And what is to be reconciled? This is sutra. Tattva samanvayat. So now, okay, that now it is only the acharyas who will tell us that.
So, in general, Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya, Ramacharya, they generally agree on what is being referred to. They say Tattva refers to the Vedic scriptures. The Vedic scriptures are to be understood through samanvayat.
Samanvayat is reconciliation. That means, okay, this verse is saying this, this verse is saying this. You have to find some way to reconcile.
So, this is, so we have the first Athata Brahmacharya answer. Then there is Mahadeva’s answer. And then, there is Shastra Yonitva.
Shastra Yonitva. How can you know about the absolute truth? Only through Shastra. But in Shastra there are so many truths.
Tattva samanvayat. To be reconciled. So, now, of course, if you look at the previous verse, what Tattva refers to is very easy to understand.
But you go later on, it’s very difficult to understand. Without the acharyas’ commentaries, you cannot understand only what is being referred to over here. It’s so terse.
It’s so terse. For example, you know, say, two devotees had an elaborate philosophical discussion earlier. And now today you come and they are continuing the discussion.
And their discussion is today referring to everything that they discussed yesterday and you have no idea what that was. So, what happens is, it just doesn’t make much sense. So, they are living in, so Vedanta Sutra is spoken in the culture where everybody is familiar with the Upanishads and everybody knows which are the debatable sections of the Upanishads and everybody knows, okay, this verse is to be debated.
Is this the correct understanding? Is this correct understanding? So, we don’t know any section of the Upanishads what to speak of the debatable sections. So, then what happens is, it becomes very difficult to relate with the Vedanta Sutra. And that’s why the Vedanta Sutra, because it assumes so much past knowledge that without that past knowledge to come to the right conclusion becomes difficult.
The Bhagavatam doesn’t do that. Bhagavatam doesn’t assume that way. So, that’s why I said although it’s a natural comment, it’s also an elaboration.
It’s a huge exposition. Vedanta Sutra, Sutradhar basically 670 or something like that. It’s only a few hundred verses.
Bhagavatam 18,000 verses. It’s huge. Correct.
Can logic help us arrive at the conclusion? Yes, till we meet a better logician. Now, the point is that the other person doesn’t accept it’s a revelation. It’s my logic only.
So, the point is that’s why logic can be held as long as one’s logic is the best among those who are professing the logic. If somebody else is a better logician, that person can come and argue. So, that’s why even when we read books, if we go and read atheist books, then the arguments are quite strong.
It’s not that their arguments are strong, it’s just that they are so deep rooted in that that they have drilled and practised all those things. They can be refuted. But see, logic is a skill.
Logic is a skill. And that skill can reveal truth, that skill can obscure truth. So, it’s just like say somebody is playing say some piano for a devotee’s kirtan.
And somebody is playing piano for a song about man and woman. Now, just because a devotee is playing music for Krishna, does that make his piano skills better than that somebody who is doing it for sex? No. It depends on who has practised better.
So, although one is having a devotional purpose and other may be having a non-devotional purpose, the skill is not dependent on the purpose for which it is used. The proficiency in the skill depends on practise. Proficiency in skill depends on practise.
So, if somebody is a better practised logician, he can present in teasing ways. That’s possible. And such a person can reflect on even devotional conclusions.
So, that’s why, can logic lead to any conclusion by itself? No. Logic can help one to justify one’s conclusions. One may have some preconceptions and those conceptions can be moved towards conclusions by logic.
So, now, bhakti is primarily about anubhava. bhakti, paresha anubhava, tiraptiranya anubhava. Bhakti means parateesha anubhava.
Experience of God. So, now, logic cannot produce experience. Logic cannot substitute for experience.
These two things. What it cannot do? Just by logically proving that Krishna is a personality with six opulences, I cannot develop love for Krishna. Nor can my logical ability to prove how Krishna has six opulences substitute for my devotion to Krishna.
So, logic cannot produce experience. Logic cannot substitute for experience. What can logic do? That means, okay, last time there was Kirtan.
You need a logical example. Why did I feel so? I am the soul. I am touching the soul and what is that? Do we know? Do we have all the connections in the soul? So, I can examine the contents of experience using logic.
And I can explain the contents of experience. Why do you become so happy when you chant? I can do some explanation. But my explanation will not make that person happy.
I mean, that my explanation will not be a replication of that experience for the person. So, logic has its utility. But you have to be clear.
How does experience come? Experience comes by service. When we render devotional service to Krishna and Vaishnavas, that alone produces experience. Logic can never produce experience.
That’s why there are mundane scholars. Knowledge about Krishna based on scriptures may be better than us. But they have no knowledge of Krishna.
Why? Because of logic. But no logic. Now, if you want to present to people, we may need logic.
We need logic to present to people. But for our experience, we need our own script. We need our own script.
This will give us experience. And if we don’t have logic, then what happens is our experience will not be steady. Because the nature of bhakti is that sometimes you experience joy, sometimes you don’t experience joy.
So, if we are just going by experience, then, nowadays, there is something called New Age Spirituality. New Age Spirituality is what? Whatever feels good, that is spiritual. Whatever feels good, that is spiritual.
So, I go out to a park and I see a stream flowing by and I see the sky over there. It gives me some sensation. So spiritual.
So spiritual. Somebody’s boss doesn’t shout at his subordinate, my boss is so spiritual. So, the word spiritual has become highly abused nowadays.
What is their idea? If something feels good, something feels good, that is spiritual. So, what has happened is, spirituality is, in this case, divorced from rationality. There is no logic.
Whatever feels good, do it. That is spiritual. On the other hand, there are the sceptics.
They will have only logic and they will never try to get any experiences. Some people say that, we tell people, actually Krishna was in the science. You come into a temple and you chant Hare Krishna, you will experience happiness.
No, if I come to a temple, then no atmosphere will influence me and mimic me like you. Therefore, I will not come there. That means, what is it? They don’t want the experiences.
Then they just want to have only logic. So, only experience will make us irrational. And, only logic will make us sort of bad.
We will have no experience. So, now some atheists, like you say, some atheists are convinced. Some atheists may have had experiences which reinforced their atheism.
Like Ambedkar. He had very bitter experiences about how the caste discrimination was there in India. And that made him militantly anti-Hindu.
So, now what happens is, then he started using the whole project of how Manu Samhita is bad. Manu Samhita is the root of all evil in Hinduism. Therefore, Manu Samhita must be burnt.
So, why is he doing that? Because he used his experience, whatever he had, and he used his logic to justify that experience. So, ultimately, your bhakti involves not just logically presenting the truth, it also means giving experience to people. This was the difference between Shri Prabhupada and his contemporaries.
Shri Prabhupada’s godbrother went to America, or he went to Europe. They primarily focused on giving very eloquent presentations of the philosophy. And he succeeded.
Why? Because he was giving a militating endorsement of the philosophy. Because there is no experience of higher happiness. So, Shri Prabhupada went, and Shri Prabhupada also gave logic.
But along with that, he gave experience. He was chanting of the Lord in the name of engagement and devotional service, dancing in Athyatra. And experience, what happened? He had no experience.
And that’s why if somebody has had an experience, then that person becomes, his logic, his way of using logic completely changes. That’s why if somebody becomes a brahmachari, other people can’t understand, what happened to you? Why did you do such a crazy thing? Because what has happened is, our experience changes the very foundation where we apply our logic. And those who don’t have that experience, what happens is, if you become a brahmachari, what job satisfaction do you get? Well, there is no job, but there is satisfaction.
So, what is happening is, they have their own limited frame of experience, and within that, they are trying to apply logic. It just doesn’t make sense. Because they don’t have the experience of it.
So, bhakti, when we want to propagate bhakti, it’s not just about giving logical explanation. That’s why we’ll see in our youth camps also, our camps, in our youth pilgrimages, our camps acquire transformative experiences. They are coming for the sessions regularly, but that’s not the logic.
But when they come to the camp, they see the experience. They see the culture, they see the community. They say, the experience is good, it’s good.
So, we need a balancing act. So, this is the logic. The answer is no.
Logic will just strengthen what one has previously done. Or logic will strengthen what one has come to believe through one’s experience. That means, whatever I have come to accept as true based on my experience, I will use my logic to prove it.
That’s what the role of logic is. And sometimes, if I get some other experience, then logic will change. Then I use my logic to change my experience.
But logic, in and of itself, cannot change. So, logic is basically, the whole principle of logic is to remove emotion. Generally, don’t be emotional.
That means, logic and emotion are two separate things. But experience is all about emotion. That’s why, in our beliefs, they originate in experience and they are solidified by logic.
Yes. Different traditions, we have their own different era, because they are given by their acharyas in a particular historical context. And in that particular context, so, that particular book is important.
So, now, our understanding is that it’s not incorrect, it is incomplete. They may not accept our understanding. So, that’s why, that is something which we have to accommodate and live with.
Now, what we can do is, we can propagate our message in a persuasive way and attract more people. But in general, every school of thought will have its own hierarchy of scriptures. And we have to see whether that hierarchy is justified by the scriptural progression itself.
And often it is not. Somebody tries to say that Mandukya Upanishad is the most important of all books. What is the basis for it? Is that really sound? If you examine it, there is no other book like the Bhagavatam which says Vyasdeva is writing it in the maturity of his language.
No other book says that. That’s why the Bhagavatam is standard for saying that, or our standard for saying Bhagavatam is the highest is the most objective, at least. Others may have their own reasoning.
And even within that, we don’t have to make a sort of storm in a teacup. Storm in a small issue and make it very big. That means that even if there are some differences in Sampradaya, at one time, in Back to Godhead, the devotees published an article about how Chaitanya Mahaprabhu defeated Vallabhbhai.
And then Sulti Maraji was very upset and she wrote a letter to Vishalaprabha. Vishalaprabha told her, why did you have to publish this? Letters are not his letters. Let him check himself.
That is pretty good. You don’t have to alienate people. So there are differences, but it’s like, I will elaborate this later on more.
There are, say, for example, when Ashwathama is to be punished, there is a difference between Bhima and Yudhishthira. And there is also a difference of opinion between Yudhishthira and Duryodhana. But there is a big difference because the two personalities, mentalities are very different.
Bhima and Yudhishthira both are devotees. So like that, sometimes the Vaishnavacharyas may have small differences, but those differences are very minor. And there are differences between Vaishnavacharyas and non-Vaishnavacharyas.
They are like the differences between Yudhishthira and Duryodhana. So we don’t have to make small differences unduly big. First question is that do modern philosophies come in between schools of thought? Generally, most of them, to a large extent, adhere to Charvakism in their conclusion and Samkhya in their process.
Materialism is their conclusion and in the process of analysis, it goes to division into elements. Although the division into elements is not our thought prioritiser, it’s different. But the process is similar.
So to some extent, Vaisheshika also goes to division into elements. But in general, the modern philosophy, modern philosophy is in a state of sort of existential crisis right now. Why? Because since the age of science took over, at that time, science has the idea that that which cannot be seen with your senses, that there is no way to know whether it is real or not.
So there is no way to know whether it is real or not and what is the use of reasoning about it? In modern philosophy, that which is not perceivable by senses is made out of syllabus. So in philosophy, God, soul, morality, karma, all these are out of syllabus. So what is left in philosophy? Modern philosophy is primarily interpretation of language.
Somebody says this sentence, I will discuss about this later. If we see a sentence, if we say a sentence, where is the meaning in sentence? Is it in the beginning? Is it in the middle? Is it in the end? Or is it throughout? So we may relate this absurd question. But these are the kind of questions modern philosophy is preoccupied.
We will discuss about philosophy later. So the second question about mind, yeah, this is a typical post-modern idea. You know, there was actually modern times are outdated.
Modern times have become obsolete, at least in the west. It is becoming increasingly in India also. What are the characteristics? Pre-modern times, whether in India or the west, were characterised by faith in scripture.
Whether it was Bible or Quran or Vedas or whatever, faith in scripture. Modern times were characterised by faith in science. So, science took over the role of scripture as the arbiter of truth.
Science says this, it is true. But over the last, say from 1960-70 onwards, science authority has been severely challenged. Both theoretically and practically.
Practically because of the destructive effects of technology and theoretically because quantum physics has challenged many of the traditional understanding of science. So now, there are many books which have written which have shown science is also very relative and subjective over the world. Thomas Cohen, Karl Bocker, all these people wrote books which show how science is also relative.
So now, people have no faith neither in scripture nor in science. So, post-modernism means no authority but you cannot live without any authority. So, what is authority? My experience is my authority.
So, my experience is my authority. That means when I say my experience is my authority, everything is mine. So, people feel everything is mine.
Everything is mine. So, Radhanath Maharaj’s book, Journey Home, is written for a post-modern audience. When he is saying he discovered Krishna Consciousness, this is my path.
He is not saying this is the path. That’s what he will speak on the Vyasa Sangh. But in that book he will not speak that.
Because as soon as we say anything is the absolute truth, people get absolutely turned up. It is like that. That’s their post-modern attitude.
In post-modernism, the only authentic source of knowledge is experience. Experience opens a huge opportunity for Krishna Consciousness. Krishna Consciousness can provide many interesting, powerful and transformative experiences.
But unfortunately, Krishna Consciousness appears sectarian to us. Why is it? Why does it appear sectarian? Because, I had gone for a conference of a Hindu scholar. He told me, few ISKCON people have done something very difficult.
You should have given the most narrow-minded presentation of the world’s most broad-minded culture. So, then I asked him why he said that. Then he told me, you say they are fools and rascals and this and that.
Then I sat down. Three hours I have explained. Then he understood.
The point I will make, I will make it briefly now. I will make it later when we talk, we accomplish the Prabhupada’s heavy purpose. The point is, the point is that, this may be a little difficult one.
I will try to make it easy. In material life, wherever there is anything specific, people think it is sectarian. And anything that is non-specific, that is considered universal.
That means, if you wear a particular colour, that means you belong to a particular sect. If you wear a particular kind of dress, people think that anything specific refers to something sectarian. If you say Krishna, that is sectarian.
If you say God, that is non-sectarian. That is the idea. So, now if you see the progression in material life, specifics create conflict and diversity.
And if you come to non-specifics, if you come to generic, it creates universal. Now, if you go to the spiritual realm, in the material realm also there is generic and in the spiritual realm there is universal, that is the Brahman. No specifics.
But beyond the Brahman, there is Bhagavan. He is highly specific. He wears a peacock feather, no other feather.
No, he wears yellow dress only, no other dress. It can be here, but he wears yellow, purplish yellow. So, what happens is, in the Maharashtra, in the material world, when there is material, spiritual, spiritual, So, now, if we don’t present the spiritual specific in a systematic intellectual way, people think this is the same as this.
And they start thinking that we are also sectarian. Actually, if you see, you are saying Krishna is God and your path is the best path. We are not saying my path is the best path, because, you know, the whole idea of my is itself destroyed by understanding you are not the body or the soul.
The foundation of false ego is destroyed. So, the point here which we will discuss later in our classes is that, just like we have the past times of Radhakrishna, they are spiritual specific, but they are so easy to understand the material specific. So, if somebody is a renunciate in this world, you are renounced from this world.
If somebody is focused on Brahman, Brahman is the reality in the spiritual world, you can go beyond. So, just like the spiritual specific can be misunderstood as material specific, the spiritual specific can be misunderstood as material. So, that’s why we have to present it in a mature way.
And is everything in the mind? There is an objective reality also, in the world also. If I jump down from this building, it’s not just in the mind what will happen to me. Something will really happen to me.
Isn’t it? So, similarly, we accept that things are not just subjective in the physical realm. We accept that things have an objective reality in the physical realm. But, things have an objective reality even in the metaphysical realm.
Even in the spiritual realm, there are certain things which I do, they form specific motives. If I engage immediately, it has an objective effect on my consciousness. It is not just that if you think meat is nectar, it will have no effect on your consciousness.
Even in the spiritual realm, there are objective effects of things. And that, that’s why everything is not just subjective. If everything were subjective, there is no need for a unity principle, there is no need for chanting of the holy names.
There is no need for that. The idea is that there are objective things which have objective effects. And that’s why we have very objective rules.
Our spiritual advancement may be subjective individually. Okay, by chanting Hare Krishna, how much advancement I have had, there may not be any objective way to measure that. But still, over a period of time, there is an objective thing.
Over a period of time, I will see that my attraction to Krishna increases. A person repeatedly does sinful activities. Over a period of time, we will see that his consciousness will grow.
So, we will not be able to objectively measure the progression. But over a period of time, the objective effect can be seen. So, everything is not just me.
Thank you very much.