Let logic be our minister not our master

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I will discuss about the role of logic and the role of doubt in spiritual life. And we’ll focus on the mood in which we discuss question and answers.
And I’ll discuss what logic can do, what logic can’t do in our spiritual life. So, in the future, as we have discussed in this, as all of you have been given the questions, which we will be discussing in the future classes, some Radhe Shampo and I will take, some I will take, and some Radhe Shampo alone will take. So, but we will, more or less, through these classes, set up the mood for how we are going to discuss the question and answers so that we know the strengths of logic as well as the limitations of logic.
So, as the title of this presentation is, let logic be our minister, not our master. Minister means that logic is our concept. Logic gives us some insights, some guidance, just as a king gets some advice from the minister.
But for the minister, the minister is not superior to the king. So, logic, ultimately, we are not just logical creatures. We are spiritual creatures.
And logic is a material faculty, not a useful faculty, but it has its limitations. So, it should be our minister, not our master. Let us see what this means.
So, you can recite this verse. This is from the Srimad Bhagavatam 326.30. It describes the characteristics of intelligence. samshayo atha viparyaso nishchaya smriti revacha svabhiti ucyate buddhe lakshana-vrtti-tah prathah So, lakshana is characteristic.
So, lakshana-vrtti-tah prathah. So, the characteristics of intelligence, prathah is different characteristics. Of buddhe, they are described.
What are the five characteristics? samshaya. So, it’s interesting. The first characteristic of intelligence is described as doubt.
So, only an intelligent person can doubt. A person who is foolish, a person who is gullible, that person believes whatever is shown to the total person. And all the advertisements are filled with fairy tales.
And people believe those fairy tales. You know, I was just coming from Mayapur. So, I was at the Calcutta airport.
Just above the check-in counter, there was a TV. There was some advertisement of some Bollywood star who was there. And there was some young man who was watching, looking at some woman.
And they didn’t even notice him. And then suddenly some Bollywood star appeared. And all these women just squealed and ran to him and hugged him and kissed him.
And this fellow was so sad, forlorn, envious. And then the Bollywood star came and embraced him. Want to know my secret? He said, it is some personal care product.
Some face lotion or something like that. And then, after that, this person applies the face lotion and next time he’s walking along and all those women come and squeal and embrace and hug him and kiss him. Now, an advertisement like this is an insult to both female and male intelligence.
You know, the idea that women will find some man attractive whom they were not noticing at all, just because now that person has applied some lotion on the face, it’s an insult to female intelligence. And the idea that men will believe such nonsense and purchase the product, that is an insult to male intelligence. So, gullible people, people who don’t have intelligence, if something is just presented very attractively to them, then they will believe it.
So, doubt is a function of the intelligence. And doubt is very valuable. In the 1930s, in 1929 to be more specific, at that time the harmful effects of alcohol, of cigarette smoking were not known.
So, the cigarette selling industries, they found that we have reached a saturation. That all the people who can, who have the financial capacity to smoke, they are smoking. So, how do we expand our market? Suddenly one of them got a brain wave that 50% of humanity is not yet tapped, because women don’t smoke.
So, then they made a special sleek, longish, stylish cigarette for women. And then during the Independence Day Parade of America in 1929, they got several female celebrities to, as they were walking along the parade, at the most strategically visible point, they paid all these models and female celebrities to whip out a cigarette from their pocket and in public view start smoking it. And it created a sensation.
And these cigarettes were labelled as the torches of freedom. The torches of freedom. So, according to cultural taboo, women should not smoke.
So, the women who have the courage to smoke, they are free. And the symbol of the freedom of the women are these torches of freedom. Now, in the ensuing emotional appeal that was created, thousands of people in the next few years, women started smoking.
And only after some decades, the harmful effects of smoking on women, especially women during pregnancy, that was discovered later on. But during that emotional period, emotional appeal period, people just didn’t question, what has cigarette smoking got to do with freedom? How are they the torches of freedom? So, people talk about doubt. You know, why should we have faith in God? Why should we have faith in spiritual life? But people have faith in such senseless advertisements.
So, actually it requires it. It requires intelligence to be doubtful. So, doubt is an important characteristic of intelligence.
samshayo atha viparyaso So, first I have doubt. Is this correct? Then viparyaso means, no, I understand. No, it is wrong.
So, if I just see something and believe it, then I lack intelligence. samshayo atha viparyaso nishchaya smatirevacha nishchaya, okay, then that is wrong. Then what is right? Then I come to a certainty, I come to a correct understanding.
And then, you know, material life, a life in the material world is a sequence of repeated temptations and delusions. So, temptations can come not only on the material path, temptations can come on the spiritual path also. Some spiritual teacher can come and tell, I have not come to tell you that I am God.
I have come to tell you that you are God. So, what greater titillation can be there for a false ego of a person than to think that I am God? Most of you have probably seen, some people have this slogan on their T-shirts, I was an atheist. Did I discover? That I was God.
So, what happens is, this sort of delusions can come on a repeated basis and that’s why what we have learned, what we have asserted, nishchaya, we have to remember that, smriti. So, all these, nishchaya, smriti, revacha, the characteristics of intelligence. Interestingly, swapna, sleep is a characteristic of intelligence.
Normally, we don’t do anything intelligent while we are sleeping. So, how is sleep a characteristic of intelligence? Actually, what it means is that, during sleep, our intelligence or our consciousness goes into a different mode. Like right now, we are in jagruti, we are awake, we are hearing.
In sleep, we just get transported to a different world. And the existence or the experience of an entirely different reality, during dream phase, forces a person to think. When I am sleeping, that seems real.
When I am awake, this seems real. What actually is real? So, the dream and sleeping itself is not necessarily an intelligent activity, but sleeping guides us. Sleeping, if it is thought of with intelligence, it can guide us towards a higher reality.
So, samshaya. So, I am living materialistically. Is that all that there is to life? So, isn’t there something more? You know, I live, I live, I struggle to succeed.
I study, I work, I build a career, and then suddenly, when I am going along the street, some bump, some vehicle comes and hits me. It’s all over. Is that all that there is to life? So, samshaya.
And then, ataviparyaso. Maybe there is something more. Maybe whatever I think of as life is not the ultimate reality.
We can infer this in various ways. If this is all that there is to life, then we see everything here is temporary. If everything is temporary, and that is all that we are meant to be, then why do we at all have a desire for something eternal? Where does our longing to live forever, in a world where nothing stays forever, where does such a longing come from? That means, say, if I see this whole room is made of stone floor, and suddenly I see a gold tablet fallen over it.
Where did this gold tablet come from? Isn’t it? So, like that, everything in this world is bound to be destroyed. Then, why do we at all have the desire to not die? To stay forever. Where does the desire come from? So, that comes from some aspect of our being which does not belong to our material surroundings.
So, ataviparyaso. Yeah, what I am thinking of myself is wrong. And then, nishchayaha.
Then, I come to a point where I say, yes, there is a spiritual side to my being, and that is the real me. And then, smriti. Then, when I am living, repeatedly, the tendency will be, I will act on the bodily level.
I will forget that I am this one. So, I have to keep remembering. And, you know, actually, if you want to understand that I am not the body, it’s very easy.
Just go to sleep. Why? Because when we go to sleep, we experience so many things. We may experience somebody chasing us, we may experience panting, and coughing, and huffing, and panting, and straining ourselves.
But, actually, for all practical, the body is safely in the bed. So, if I am experiencing something, but the body is not experiencing anything, therefore, I, the experience, am not the body. So, it’s simple.
So, if you want to understand that I am not the body, just go to sleep. But, if you want to understand I am the soul, we have to wake up and chant Hare Krishna. We can understand the unreality of our current identity just by the experiences of sleeping.
But, what is the reality of our actual identity? For that, we have to practise a process of sadhana, of spiritual life. So, this is one example of how this five-fold aspect of intelligence works. So, doubt is a sign of intelligence.
So, Srila Prabhupada writes in the Parpot over there, but it is not the only sign of intelligence. Doubt is a sign of intelligence, but if a person keeps doubting, that will not lead to any positive knowledge. I’ll explain why.
So, Prabhupada writes, doubt is one of the important functions of intelligence. Blind acceptance of something does not give evidence of intelligence, as we discussed in the example of privatisations. Therefore, the word samshaya is very important.
In order to cultivate intelligence, one should be doubtful in the beginning. One should be doubtful, Prabhupada is saying. One should be doubtful.
But, doubting is not very favourable when information is received from the proper source. In Bhagavad Gita, the Lord says, doubting the world’s authority is the cause of destruction. 4.40 in the Bhagavad Gita.
He says, this doubting soul, is destroying this world or the next world. So, let’s try to understand this aspect more now. So, the utility and the futility of doubt.
So, what is the use and where doubt has no use. See, doubt can show us what is wrong. But, it can’t show us what is right.
For example, to understand this whole concept of the role of doubt, if I am sick, and if I go to a doctor, now the doctor tells me, say, I have a stomach upset. And the doctor tells me that, you know, you have to amputate your leg. I said, what? My stomach is upset.
Why do I have to amputate the leg? It doesn’t make sense. So, when we go to a doctor, doctor gives some diagnosis, we have to use our intelligence to evaluate it. Now, that helps us to separate the good doctors from the doctors who are out to fleece us.
At the same time, by doubting, we can never come to the conclusion of who is the right doctor. Doubting can tell us which doctor is not right. But at a particular point, when we go to a doctor, the doctor’s diagnosis makes reasonable sense, then we have to put faith.
Only when we put faith, can we actually take the step forward and then understand. If the doctor’s treatment works, then our faith was right. If the doctor’s treatment doesn’t work, then our faith was wrong.
So, actually, at one particular stage, we do need to put faith. So, doubt is not the only sign of intelligence. So, utility of doubt is in showing us what is wrong.
But the futility of doubt is that it can never show us what is right. So, that’s why scepticism. Scepticism means whenever we hear something, we ask questions about it.
And we try to find faults with it. So, some people are sceptical. They always doubt whatever they hear.
So, that is fine. Scepticism, as I said, is a characteristic of doubt. But scepticism as a philosophy of life will lead us to a dead end.
Because we will not be sure of anything at all. So, there was a sceptical philosopher who said that doubt is everything. So, as we said, doubt is a sign of intelligence.
But not the only sign. Doubt is everything. So, he said, unless you doubt every single thing around you, you can never know what is right and what is wrong.
So, it seems to make a lot of sense. Doubt is everything. But then the question comes up, is the statement doubt is everything subject to doubt? So, if yes, then doubt is not everything.
Isn’t it? So, that means, nature of the statement is such that actually if it is true it is false, if it is false it is true. If doubt is everything, is subject to doubt, then doubt is not everything. But if doubt is everything, is not subject to doubt, then again doubt is not everything.
So, anyway, if you don’t understand it, don’t bother. The point is that if you just go by doubting, then sometimes we see that a computer just gets hung. If you know a little bit about internal technology, essentially when a computer gets hung, it is going into an internal endless loop.
And it goes into an endless loop, the only way out is to press the power button. Start it off. So, like that, actually if we just go into doubt, our intelligence will get hung.
We will never be able to come to any specific conclusion at all. So, one of Prabhupada’s senior disciples, His Grace Ravindra Swaroop Prabhu, he did his doctorate in philosophy. And he was doing it before he was introduced to Krishna Consciousness also.
So, he was philosophically inquisitive. So, when he took his philosophy course first year of the college, so one of his professors asked him, so, what is your understanding of philosophy? So, he asked his students, so he raised his hand. It was William Deadweiler at that time.
So, yes, philosophy means to ask, who am I? Where did I come from? And where am I going? In this campus, there is one student who goes around asking questions like this. And to that question I tell, I am Professor Green, I came from Hall A, and I am going to Hall C. So, he was basically dismissive about the questions. So, then he found that there are these brilliant philosophers who would give their philosophy, but in the philosophy course, each philosophy would survive for one day.
Because today, the professor would present this philosophical philosophy, and the next day, he would present some other philosophy which would refute the previous philosophy. And it just go on and on and on. Logical argumentation, series of argument and counter-argument and counter-argument.
When this sort of thing happened, after some time it just became a game. Any philosophy is presented, fine-fold with it. Fine-fold with it.
So, on the altar of scepticism, he’d hold it and shoot it down. Sceptical about every philosophy, except the philosophy of scepticism. So, by scepticism, I can fine-fold with all philosophy.
I’ll only come to the conclusion of what is wrong. In my scepticism, a tiny for Krishna to enter through. So, what happened was, over a period of time, he said, I realised that this whole cycle of argument comes.
So, I developed a rule of thumb. If I want to practise any philosophy, if I want to adopt any philosophy, a simple criteria would be, you know, if I follow a philosophy, if I follow a philosopher who has taught a philosophy, at best, I’ll become like that person. So, that person is the exponent of the philosopher.
And do I want to become like that person? This criteria, because many of the philosophers, there’s a philosopher, atheist philosopher Albert Camus, and he wrote an essay called The Myth of Sisyphus. And in that, he writes that life is meaningless, life is full of suffering. Therefore, the only meaningful philosophical question in life is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow.
So, the philosopher thought like that. He realised that philosophy is not to see any material propensity, any flippancy, any sincerity in any other philosophy. And then I asked Prabhupada, he said, Prabhupada, I used to believe whatever philosophy comes across, you can find fault with.
So, Prabhupada says, scepticism is rascalism, sour grapes, because I can’t reach the grapes, so the fox says, the grapes are sour. So, by our own analysis, by our own logic, we can never come to any conclusion. We can just go on endlessly in cycles.
But that doesn’t mean there is no conclusion. That doesn’t mean there is no absolute truth. There is God and he knows the absolute truth, he is himself the absolute truth.
And when he reveals the knowledge, that knowledge is the absolute truth. So, at our own level of reasoning, we are like the fox who wants the grapes but can’t reach up there. But, when God descends down and gives the knowledge, and that knowledge, at the same time, when we say the knowledge of spirituality can satisfy all our needs, we also have to evolve in our understanding.
So, let’s look at this point about evolution. So, what logic can do and what logic can’t do. So, ultimately, the purpose of spirituality is not just intellectual analysis.
It is to provide a spiritual experience. If there is some higher reality, I want to experience that reality. And not just one time.
So, what can logic do? Logic can examine the rationale for spiritual experience. Is there something like a spiritual experience? On what basis do I believe that it is there? You can examine that. And then, you can examine the contents of spiritual experience.
Somebody says, Prabhupada, you came in yesterday night in my dream and you told me to take drugs. Prabhupada said, it was not me, it was maya coming in my garb. So, anybody can claim anything as a spiritual experience.
So, logic can help us to examine the contents of spiritual experience. Another person, somebody touches me, I get an electric current in my body. Put your hand in that socket.
So, God comes and saves us from the shocks. So, it’s 18.58 in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna doesn’t come to, that is not the test of Godhood.
So, it can help us to examine the contents of spiritual experience. Or again, going back to the example of the treatment. First of all, when I go to a doctor, then logic can help me to evaluate.
Okay, is what this doctor is saying making sense? So, it can examine the rationale for spiritual experience, examine the rationale for the treatment. And then, when the treatment is going on, actually, the doctor will tell me, okay, after three days, your fever will go away. After five days, the pain will completely go.
So then, when I know this general map, then I can examine, I can use my logic for that. So, logic can help us to examine the rationale and the content of treating the child and is finding out what is the imbalance in that biochemical unit. And I want to correct that.
So, the doctor knows about the child. The mother knows the child. So, similarly, if we don’t practise spiritual life, if we don’t chant Hare Krishna, if we don’t render devotional service, we will know about God, but we will not know God.
To know God, we have to develop a personal relationship with Him. And that personal relationship comes by offering our heart. We offer our heart through service.
So, that’s why, it’s important that we ask questions, but at the same time, it’s also important that we think that just questioning and seeking answers is the essence of spiritual life. No, spiritual life, it involves cultivating remembrance of Krishna. That is the level of spiritual reality.
So, now logic, in that sense, is like a map. A map, I’ll give you three examples to explain the role of logic. Now, what is the relationship between logic and doubt? By logic, we can get doubts, isn’t it? This doesn’t make sense.
This is logical. So, by logic, we get doubts. So, now, logic is like a map.
A map shows us the way, but a map is not the way. So, we have to journey along the map, along the path shown by the map, and then we can reach the destination. Similarly, our logical analysis can show us the way, but it is a practise that will take us along the way.
Or, our intellectual analysis and intellectual understanding is like a doctor’s prescription, as we discussed. The prescription is not, then actually the treatment happens. The third example is of a cooking recipe.
Now, I can get a recipe for gulab jamun, and I can even memorise the recipe, but memorising and repeating the recipe is not going to give me the taste of gulab jamun. For that, I have to cook according to the recipe, and then I can relish. Similarly, we can know about scripture, and there are many academic scholars who know a lot about scripture, but they don’t practise anything, and that’s why there is no transformation.
They are conscious that their heart never gets transformed. Doubts are important, but we also should know the limitation and the strength, both of doubts. logic as master becomes a tyrant that locks us into a meaningless and purposeless existence.
Logic as a master becomes like a dictator. I won’t accept it. In our own day-to-day life, even people who claim to be logical, but those same people, they will become a spider-man.
What happened to their logical faculty at that time? What happens is, for the supernatural, it’s natural because Krishna is the supreme reality, but now we reject Krishna, we forget Krishna, and then we try to find So, actually speaking, the idea is people get attracted to so many things. So, it’s all meaningless. So, logic as minister helps us separate real spirituality from shadow and pseudo-spirituality.
So, as I said, the idea that such claims which go on in the name of spirituality, we can use logic to separate them. For example, recently there was a movie Now, what it has done is, it has made religion into a business and they wear a saffron garb and pretend to be Now, such people are definitely there of such characters. Critique is very good.
However, it succumbs to the error of what it does is, as I said, doubt is a sign of intelligence So, what happens is, we are assuming that all human beings who are in the field of religion are evil, are crooked, are bad. Then, we are not just saying that religion is bad, we are saying about human nature. One of the episodes was about malpractice in the medical profession.
That show had ended with saying, health is good, but don’t bother about doctors and medicine. Don’t just believe that everything the doctor says is right. So, the idea that God is good, you should believe in God, but don’t believe in rituals, don’t believe in spiritual teachers, don’t believe in spiritual path, don’t believe in spiritual institutions, that is the basic message of that movie.
That is like saying, health is good, but doctors and medicines are bad. For practical purposes, it’s a useless message. How will you do that? So, we connect with God through the representatives of God.
Now, even in this movie, there is this hero, who is saying, don’t follow any spiritual teacher. Well, but if we shouldn’t follow any spiritual teacher, why should we Even one who tells us, don’t follow anyone, don’t follow any teacher, that person is acting as a teacher and is telling us to follow him. So, in that sense, again, this idea of So, logic has logic limiters.
This is a part of the next PPT, but here we have to understand that there is a we need to evolve. So, there are certain things which are No, it’s a small five year old girl, five year old girl wants to understand what is pregnancy. How does one become pregnant? She grows up, then she So, similarly, this is not just true in spiritual life.
There are so many fields of knowledge, which are so complex to understand. So, Neil Gore said, if you think you have understood quantum physics, then you have not understood it at all. So, because he said this quantum physics is so complex, even Einstein felt very, and many were disgusted with quantum physics, because I won’t go into the technical details of quantum physics.
It’s quite complex. But, according to quantum physics, if I look at the sky and I see the moon, the idea is the moon exists only as long as I’m seeing it. So, if I see it now, and if I see it afterwards, it was here after one hour, it was here.
So, I logically think that the moon was here, but according to quantum physics, an object exists only when there is an observer observing it. Otherwise, the object doesn’t exist only. So, Einstein said, how can you believe that the moon doesn’t exist just because we are not looking at it? So, is this the implication of quantum physics? That is the implication of the main interpretation of the collapse of the Schrodinger wave, of the quantum wave, as per Schrodinger equation.
It’s a whole technical thing, but the point is quantum. So, there is a for those students who, you know, if you want to study quantum physics, he says, shut up, stop asking questions, start calculating. Just see the equation, how the equations work.
Don’t try to make sense of things, just calculate. So, even in material life, you know, in the history of science, there have been two bodies of thought, two schools of thought that have, with the development of quantum physics, run in conflicting directions. These two bodies of thought were empiricism and rationalism.
Empiricism is prateksha pramana, empiric, what I can observe with my senses. Rationalism is anuman pramana. So, Einstein himself oscillated between the two.
Actually, Einstein said, the whole purpose of a theory is to explain what we observe, and theory is sound to the extent it explains the observable world. So, in this approach, the observable reality is the fundamental reality. And we propose our theories to explain the observable reality.
Isn’t it? That’s empiricism. So, that’s how, for example, Newton observed a fruit falling. Now, he had a doubt.
It was intelligent, isn’t it? You know, a foolish person will say, not so intelligent person will say, fruit has fallen, just pick up and eat it, and forget everything else. So, that requires intelligence. So, but the idea is, okay, now, so, in empiricism, what happens is we, to explain the visible phenomena, propose something invisible.
Isn’t it? So, even science actually proposes an invisible entity. Now, law of gravity is not something which anybody has seen. So, in empiricism, the visible reality is considered to be primary, and invisible entities explain the visible reality.
Gravity is proposed to Now, this is how science is, one Nobel laureate asked another Nobel laureate, you know, what is it that makes an electron move at the speed of light around the orbit, or in its orbit around the nucleus? Because science can explain the difference between how and why. How is a question of nature. So, the question, why the apple fell down? Actually, the answer was, how the apple fell down? It is because of gravity.
Why? Because, you see, now, what is the definition of gravity? That causes, that says, keeps the So, where is the explanation here? See, in philosophy of science, there is a big explanation of a phenomena, and we observe a phenomena, we find a mathematical quantification for it, and then we give a name for it. Now, giving a name for a phenomena is a description. It is not an explanation.
So, what we have about gravity, as per Newton’s theory, is not an explanation. It is a description. In fact, one of the peers of Newton was Leibniz.
So, he was at his time. He was very critical. He said, your whole theory of gravity smacks of occultism.
Occultism means some recorded correspondence between Newton and his peers. I am not talking about the fundamental nature of gravity. I am simply giving a mathematical that helps us to correlate observed phenomena.
So, he gave basic knowledge, progresses, not by resolving all doubts, but by accepting, even when doubts are present. So, as I said, originally, observe and then propose a theory. Successful in terms of predicting phenomena and modelling behaviour.
So, that was his own theory. So, Einstein himself said, if a theory is coherent, then whether the observations match to it, they don’t matter. The theory is coherent.
The observation match, it doesn’t matter. This idea, a theory is important, the facts are not important. If it doesn’t make, even if you can’t observe it, the whole principle of quantum physics is based on that.
Now, the quanta we can’t observe for all practical purposes and none of the phenomena that the quantum world is filled with we can observe, but mathematically they make sense. So, therefore, the idea, so now empiricism, so which is primary? Is the observation primary or between Neil Bohr and Einstein? And they were close friends over the decades. Why? Because Einstein focused primarily on empiricism and Bohr wasn’t.
Bohr was a proponent of the quantum theory. Einstein was a proponent of relativity. They don’t, there’s just no way they come together.
They’re violently contradicting. Go deep into science. So, just as people don’t reject science just because there are doubts in it.
So, we understand there’s a proclamation. These things don’t make sense. So, put them aside and move forward with what makes sense.
Pragmatic approach. All of us have to have some basis for our practise of spiritual life and what that basis will be is something each of us has to decide. So, we can have, so we can have, you know, people generally decide what I should do based on four factors.
These four factors are there is mood, there is, there is nature, there is culture, there is tradition. So, what am I talking about? How we decide what we do. So, for example, should I wear jeans or should I wear baggy trousers or should I wear shorts or what should I wear? Now, so one factor is culture.
What does culture mean? Everyone does it. Everyone does it. That’s how I do it.
Another factor for our decision is tradition. Tradition means we have always done it. So, now why do I, if I’m a South Indian, I wear lungi.
Why do I wear lungi? So, that’s one factor for our decision making. Another is logic. It makes sense and one is mood.
It feels good. So, if you look at our own lives, practically all the things that we do, they are based on these four factors. It feels good.
So, you know, I go for a movie, maybe I spend so much money on it, spend so much time on it. Why? It feels good. So, actually we decide our things based on this.
But if you see, none of these are final authorities. All of them can go wrong because it’s not that everything that is there in the tradition is right. So many things that are there in the tradition are superstitions.
So many things that are there in the culture that are also another kind of superstition. They’re modern superstitions. So, and our moods can be dangerously unreliable.
I feel good right now. There’s a nice feast. I feel good about it.
I want to eat more and more and more. Poison in the end. So, our moods are remarkably fickle.
And similarly, some things make sense, but we do so many things which don’t make sense and we also do things which, there are so many things which make sense because our knowledge is incomplete. So, the only infallible authority is scripture. Because scripture is the word of God.
I’ll talk about scripture more. See, all these are parameters and all of them are useful. But all of them are man-made parameters.
The only infallible authority, sorry. The infallible authority is scripture. All these are fallible.
So, that’s why, why? Because God is infinitely wise and God knows everything. And when He gives us His wisdom, that is infallible. So, of course, how scripture is to be applied in our life, that will really depend on time-based circumstances.
But we have to understand that logic, just as moods are fallible guides, culture is a fallible guide, tradition is a fallible guide, it is a guide, no doubt. It can guide us. But that’s why when we study scripture, just like in science, when we study scripture, how things will work is that the knowledge that we will get actually will fall in four broad categories.
So, first will be things we understand immediately. Things we understand on first hearing. I hear it, it just makes sense.
For example, for many devotees, when we hear about how the world is so intricately designed, so you are talking about categories of understanding within spiritual knowledge. So, things which you understand immediately on first hearing. Say, for example, it could be design requires designer.
So, we all studied science, but no one really told us that all the complex designs that we are studying, they require a designer. Then, things we understand after deliberation. Deliberation means we think about it.
If you say you are not the body, you are the soul. Now, think about it. Experience matter.
A gulab jamun, but if it is not the gulab jamun, experiences it to be delicious. The gulab jamun is made of matter. If I am also made of matter, then how am I experiencing gulab jamun to be delicious? Boom! Suddenly, like that, we understand after deliberation.
So, this is, I am not the body. Then there are some things, things we understand after purification. That means, here, we just don’t have to use our intelligence, then we will understand after purification.
Why? Because just as a small child, and there will also be some things we may not understand in this lifetime. Why? Because we are finite. So, how can the finite So, accepting this requires humility.
That, we have to be intelligent enough to doubt the supremacy of our intelligence. We have to be intelligent enough to doubt the supremacy of our intelligence. Supremacy of our intelligence means, by my intelligence, I can understand everything.
If I think like that, then basically, what am I thinking? My intelligence is supreme. But, if I am tiny, if I am finite, how can my intelligence be supreme? Some things which are just beyond the scope of action of understanding towards it. So, for example, here I am saying things we may not understand in this lifetime.
One of these would be how we fell from the spiritual world. Now, certainly there is some understanding for that, and we will discuss this. But, ultimately, that something, because that event is just some basic understanding will get so it is also an understanding to understand that we can’t understand and that is also a level of understanding actually the thing that I can understand everything is a very serious misunderstanding I’m free from that misunderstanding are asked in a in a proper mood when he’s asking Arjuna so he doesn’t say come on show me the universal promise if you think it is possible so he says that it is he asks Arjuna how am I to understand this where there is inquisitiveness but there is also humility like somebody just becomes a devotee of doubt instead of a devotee of Krishna then what happens become the devotee of doubt that person not following any spiritual path is also a risk isn’t it by not following a spiritual path what are they going to do we are going straight to one destination that is the and after that whatever according to karma our destination is there so certainly if we have we are depriving us from the spiritual potential but it is like there’s a risk but if I am sick not taking a treat to any treatment is a bigger risk you know what person was that when he was taken to sober enough to understand that I was sober enough to understand that I was drunk so he said therefore you should not I was driving very carefully before you should not punish me I did not drive carelessly but the point is so drunk so it’s too drunk the person doesn’t even understand that so how does it happen and all the entertainment that is there numbers to physical pain numbers you see movies are basically psychological take painkillers the heavier rate of this over the decade as people have turned away from religion then over the decade the intensity the dosage of the painkillers increased you know maybe a 50 years ago that 40 some dishoom dishoom dishoom dishoom would happen now if actually there’s a big building boom it gets blown and people say mazaa gaya they are so dead end that they need some basic simulation what do I do baller ball tukur tukur that is playing defensively then there were so then you need T20 matches so what happens actually Indians had two primary painkillers one is Bollywood and so a few years ago both these painkillers got married living a life in fact it’s not just so what I’m saying is that so these painkillers make us forget the reality of life because I have a wrong card I’ll just go old get diseased and so Krishna so in 9.2 in the bhagavad-gita he describes that how this knowledge supreme knowledge discuss how it requires intrusive and generally of material life because doubt can tell us what is wrong but never what is right it will go beyond doubt to so what can logic do for us it can examine the rationale for experience it can explain examine just as by logic I can evaluate the treatment whether treatment makes sense and whether treatment is working but the logic itself is not the treatment and then we discussed after that how when we practise spiritual life we need to if we just state the logical levels for categories things we understand and first hearing things went so lastly concluded by talking about we don’t lose anything by by taking the lead by exploring spiritual path because the alternative is that we are anyway going to lose everything, we are going to die and we are going to lose everything, numbing us with experiential the devotee thinks he has understood everything whatever has been taught and he doesn’t have any doubts what does it mean? A devotee may not have a bad experience but when we say a devotee has understood everything till now everything has not been taught because there is so much to study so some people have an intellectual nature the important point is that we should practise so it’s not necessary for us to get doubts it’s not wrong but at the same time we have understood everything there is so generally people think I have understood everything then when you go to some new place then you have to come to a devotee and ask senior devotees what is the answer to this question, what is the answer to this question then we can get the answers so doubts are not necessary for spiritual advancement if we have found the right path then we can just go along the right path but in general we shouldn’t cover up doubts if we have doubts how can we understand so he says that by logic, logic is apratishta there is no foundation to logic ultimately we will never come to any questions come in our mind just stay over there what should we do at leisure time now if we let that question just bog us down then we are going into infinite loop what we should do is if we can’t find an answer to question we just keep that a question that situation a state of suspended animation put that question aside you know it is that there are certain devotees may be of scientific inclination they will be able to answer scientific questions if for example somebody is from a then you may have some questions about mayavad which may be quite intricate now those also have answers so what we should do is in a state of suspension and then eventually when we find the right devotee or when we become more spiritually mature then we will get the answers to those questions so if that doubt chokes the practise of our spiritual life then we are getting into an infinite loop just because we are having doubt that doesn’t mean they’re infinite loop so the doubt chokes us then it is infinite so then do not let the doubt choke us just put it in suspension and move forward with the practise of spiritual life over a period of time we will move forward so there’s a notice here that you can’t read what is there over here anyway whatever i wrote i whatever written there i have spoken that so in that sense you will have heard most of it and i’ll be giving this ppt at the end of the course also and if you want the ppt’s you can contact your facilitator they’ll give the ppt’s as you said to follow spiritual path what if it occurs with the mayavadi philosophy yes somebody may follow spiritual path like mayavad and may go on the wrong track it’s possible so if we are if we are having just our basic intelligence with us after some time we will start so just like if i’m going to take a treatment sometimes the treatment is wrong how will i know it not that we have to experience mayavad to understand it but beyond any organisation if soul is part and parcel of god then what does it mean that it was created and can god destroy the soul so the soul actually is never created when we say god is the creator god is the creator and even if the soul is creator god is creator of the material world of the material body that is also the form of the material world matter is also eternal the forms of matter are temporal so god created us that is more in a philosophical sense not in a time we are co-eternal with god so when we say god is the cause of all causes that cause is in a philosophical sense it is not yes and if you are not getting that does it mean that we are not intelligent no so if you’re not getting doubts you don’t have to bother about it we can start sharing krishna consciousness then others doubts will come to us and then we can ask those questions generally speaking we understand whether we have understood when we try to make others understand we understand whether we have understood when we try to make others understand teaching is a very good way to deepening our understanding you said that we cannot understand how we fell from the spiritual world but in bhagavad-gita arjuna is saying param dhama pavitram according this is once we were in spiritual world we are eternal we are entered in spiritual world we never come back as you said how can we fall down from spiritual world we cannot understand then why why krishna said we cannot we will never come back okay so when we say that we will never come back to the material as i said firstly it’s not that we can’t understand why we fell from the spiritual world we can but not it’s true that the soul has free will and the very meaning of free will is that it is free so it can be choose so the soul can choose to love krishna soul can choose to enjoy with krishna and that is so choices are always governed by governed by rationality but when we go then we have had that will ensure that we don’t make the wrong choices first time we had this daredevilish exploring spirit and that’s how we came here but now when we go back we will have the memory it’s not that constantly we’ll remember our stay in the material world once burnt twice once burnt and if i burned once that’s how krishna asked you yeah so where are you coming from we came from but once we go back because we have had the experience we will not we will not come back to the material world again that is krishna’s guarantee and krishna will give us the intelligence by which we will be able to so we also have n theory which can explain 11 dimensional universe you said quantum analysis and relativity contradicts but also vishnu purana and shiv purana contradicts okay now we will discuss about this later about we are going to have a full class on scriptures scriptures talk about multi-level reality and what is taught at one level is true at that level but there is a higher level reality at which there are different things on what is it about m theory which can explain what is the question about m theory how is it related which can explain 11 dimensional universe who had asked this question okay if you if you want to raise your hand you can just write another question explaining what is there’s no question over here there is just a statement over here so i don’t know what i should answer in this how intelligence and faith are interrelated in spiritual life and how can they be applied so that spiritual life will be smooth yes so intelligence reinforces our faith and our faith purifies our intelligence our intelligence reinforces our faith we use our intelligence to understand how how the bhagavad-gita is right it’s profoundly wise so by our intelligence when our faith is strong reinforces our faith purifies our intelligence means we start already start thinking more purely isn’t always think in terms of impure things so both jainism philosophy they state that same philosophy about soul and other things the only difference is conception and picturization of god jains worship tetankar which are persons but totally different in the description compared to krishna source of knowledge both is the same then whom do we trust see jainism is a religion that arose largely in response to the social conditions within india so the idea of jain thought it’s nihilistic that was there a long time but these specific ideas became prominent in a particular time jainism and buddhism they are religions that arose because of the caste discrimination became very oppressive in india so these religions espoused relative equality and they broke from so they are actually not atheistic religions they are pre-theistic religions pre-theistic means they encourage people to live at the moral platform be non-violent be good be principled and the idea is through that a person becomes prepared to come towards god so now it happens in every spiritual path that over a period of time the original or the primary teachers often their words are extrapolated beyond what they have said and their position exalted beyond what they have said jesus said i am the son of god but many christians consider jesus to be god they consider him to be as good as god so like that we see that jainism as far as its culture is concerned it is the goodness is culturally conducive to the practise of spiritual life but when you think our ideas the whole philosophy of jainism is uh that are similar six blind men and uh so we make other schools of thought we look at what is good and we also look at what is deficient so the conception of god the problem with it is that no god is infinite so we cannot know him by our own efforts it is only when god reveals himself that we can know him however in the case of jainism it flourished by so god’s revelation is coming in the very scriptures so when that revelation gets rejected then we can’t have a positive clear conception of god then whatever conception of god comes up that is so like the like the visual so there is there are there are devotees who have been jains and they serve a particular purpose of creating relative mode of goodness amongst practitioners so we have many questions and we will have many more sessions where we’ll have time for the question answers now what we’ll do is we’ll have a short break