Vidyara vilase meaning – Godless knowledge is the intellect’s monument to illusion

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Today we’ll discuss about the Vaishnava song Vidyaar Vilase.
Vidyaar Vilase So here this is a song in which Bhaktivinod Thakur exposes the futility of material knowledge and he speaks over here Vidyaar Vilase Vilase means to delight in I delighted in knowledge I spent my whole time my whole life in delighting in knowledge and this was my great courage Paramahamsa say aami Paramahamsa say this was my very great courage and I thought also myself to be a very great hero by knowledge I will conquer I’ll understand the world I’ll understand the mysteries of life through my intellect through the power of my intellect and I will bring everything under Bhaktivinod Thakur lived at a time of when in the contemporary intellectual milo there was scientific triumphalism scientific triumphalism means the triumphalism means the the over optimistic over zealous over confidence in something so one is actually not one but one is going around bragging I won the match I won the match I won the match so that is triumphalism scientific triumphalism means especially that at that time the idea was that by science man will be able to bend nature to human will and by science one by one all the problems that man is facing will be countered and humanity will attain eternal will make paradise on earth by the power of science and in this way we will be able to deliver ourselves so now Bhaktivinod Thakur is writing this song in this intellectual milo and of course today although scientific triumphalism is not so much there but still there is technological paradise there is the idea that the just by developing more and more technology we will make life better although people have understood the technology alone cannot make us happy but still there is an immense infatuation with technology and the same principle that future breakthroughs in knowledge in especially material knowledge Bhaktivinod Thakur here uses the word Vidya in terms of material knowledge largely so he says how that does not lead to any salvation any solution lasting solution that is what the theme of the song of Bhaktivinod Thakur so Paramahamsa at that time with the scientific knowledge the idea was that man no longer needed God as the controller of nature through technology man would himself be able to control nature and thus man would become God that was the idea prominent among people at that time and with this idea in mind people had this great courage so Bhaktivinod Thakur is representing the contemporary mindset over there and Paramahamsa said this was a great courage audacity that they had they felt that God will become redundant when man learns the mysteries of nature and learns to control nature tomara charane na bhaji nukabhu ekho na sharana tumi tomara charana tomara charana means your lotus feet na bhaji nukabhu I never worship your lotus feet my lord ekho na sharana tumi now you are left as my only shelter I have no shelter apart from you ekho na sharana tumi so now how has the situation come about that at one time I was in Vidyara Vilas and now I am in a situation where I have no shelter apart from you that means Vidya is not giving me any Vilas so how has that situation transpired that’s what Bhaktivinod Thakur will tell through his autobiographical narrative which is actually a biographical narrative of the intellectual of his times and beyond his times to our times also it is at large the biography of any person intellectual who thinks that I can succeed in life by the power of the intellect so what happened continues podi te podi te bharasa badila gyan gati ha bemaani se asha bifala se gyan durbal se gyan agyan jaani so podi te podi te bharasa badila podi te bharasa badila so podi te podi te as I studied and studied more and more bharasa badila my confidence increased what was the confidence gyan gati ha bemaani that knowledge itself is a destination and if there is just the state of having more and more knowledge will lead me to a destination and if knowledge does not lead me to a destination if knowledge itself is not the destination then knowledge will show me the way to destination that means knowledge itself will give me happiness and in case knowledge does not give me happiness by knowledge I will know where to find happiness but in any way in either way knowledge is the solution gyan gati ha bemaani hmm hmm it does happen when a student studies in his childhood and gets good marks the parents may be very happy and parents say okay you want chocolate you want a toy you want a cycle I will give you a cycle and then this studying helps to get so many things and then as a child grows up and goes into college and then he finds he goes into say 10th standard and then he studies really well studies really well and then he finds he has come to the merit list and his name comes in the newspaper wow studies is the gateway to success with the gateway to fame studies is the gateway to it is what will gyan gati and then as he gets into some professional college and gets a degree and then by the power of studies he gets a hugely lucrative job knowledge is the key gyan gati ha bemaani gyan gati ha bemaani but then he suddenly changes the mood over here changes the tone and he says se yasha vipal se gyan durbal se gyan gyan jaani se yasha vipal oh but that asha that hope has turned out to be vipal that has turned out to be in vain se gyan durbal that knowledge has turned out to be weak powerless se gyan gyan jaani indeed actually I have come to know that this knowledge is actually ignorance so now this is quite a heavy statement to make knowledge is ignorance what is he trying to say by this he will explain in the future verses also but let’s focus on what he said over here se yasha vipal what was the asha gyan gati ha bemaani that by gyan I will get by gyan is my destination gyan is the gateway to my destination se yasha vipal that actually even if I get knowledge even if I get huge quantity of knowledge that knowledge is not going to lead me to happiness that knowledge does not provide me happiness in fact we see that no matter how much knowledge a person acquires that knowledge especially if it is material knowledge it does not lead to the development of character it does not lead to inner satisfaction many of the most famous authors of the last century if we see they were brilliant authors as per as literary capacities were concerned but then they committed suicide out of frustration in old age and similarly those people who are considered to be one of the greatest thinkers there was a philosopher he was a brilliant writer but then he was frustrated in his life and he said the only philosophical question is whether to commit suicide or not whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow life is meaningless existence is suffering therefore suicide is the solution the only question is whether to commit suicide tomorrow or today there was Nietzsche who was also a brilliant philosopher in his own way but then he proclaimed to the world that god is dead and his intelligence died before him and he lived insane for the last part of his life that knowledge which is divorced from god that knowledge which promises us happiness independent of god it is Durbal it does not live up to its promise suppose somebody comes and tells us that I will be your bodyguard and we trust that person and then when the crisis comes that person some thugs come and attack us and then that person is easily overpowered and we say Se Gyaana Durbal this bodyguard is powerless I trusted this bodyguard now I have been disappointed so the promise of the knowledge does not is not something that is delivered so the knowledge promises a lot but we see that if you look at the history of science Einstein is widely considered to be the greatest brain of the last century and his greatest insight is the interchangeability of matter and energy e is equal to m c square and that very insight led to the greatest man made calamity of the last century that is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it was Einstein who wrote a letter to the American president Eisenhower saying that America should develop atomic weapons and then those atomic weapons were used against Japan although it was unnecessary because Japan was more or less defeated and Einstein regretted that bitterly he said that the disaster that happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the chain of events started off which culminated in that disaster so he started off with his letter so his greatest insight led to the greatest disaster of the last century it is not to blame Einstein but it is to point out the nature of how what seems to be like progress may well end up as a regress in terms of making more of a harmful contribution than a positive contribution so he is saying that se gyaana durbala not only is this gyaana weak, powerless it does not deliver but se gyaana gyaana se gyaana, this knowledge I declare it to be ignorant, I have found that I have realised that it is ignorance why is it ignorance? because this knowledge does not satisfy the human heart this knowledge, material knowledge which is divorced from God does not satisfy our human longing for meaning Einstein as a famous scientist atheistic scientist he said that the more we understand the more we comprehend the universe the more it seems pointless the more it seems pointless and Nobel laureate scientist Schrodinger he also pointed out that actually science may answer science may help us to make sense of the world and to put things in a majestic consistent order but when it comes to dealing with questions, with issues that are very dear to us with beautiful and ugly with life, with immortality and death with taste and colour science has no answer to these questions which are intimate to the human heart science maintains a ghastly silence so on one side we think that we have advanced a lot in knowledge but at the same time actually we are going into deeper ignorance due to our inability to realise that this knowledge is not addressing the issues that are closest to the human heart and in that way a person who is ignorant at least knows that I am ignorant a person who is ignorant and thinks that I am in knowledge is actually in greater ignorance because that person will never think of acquiring knowledge because that person thinks I already have knowledge so materialistic knowledge, godless knowledge is in that sense ignorance certainly we may have advanced in terms of facts and figures and even understanding of matter per se but in terms of the purpose of matter and the purpose of existence we have not got any knowledge as Martin Luther King said that our scientific progress our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power we have guided missiles and misguided men that is the tragedy of our age and understand that this knowledge is actually ignorance Jada Vidhya Jata Jada Vidhya Jata that means that this is Jada Vidhya this is knowledge about matter alone and Mayar Vaibhava, Vaibhava means greatness, sense of greatness that we acquire Jada Vidhya Jata, Mayar Vaibhava this is the Vaibhava of Maya and Tomar Bhajane Badha Tomar Bhajane to your worship this is a badha it’s obstacle and it gives birth to illusion Anitya Samsare it makes us think that this is where we will find happiness and it makes the soul into a gadha, into a donkey meaning by this Jada Vidhya Jata Jada Vidhya so most of modern scientific knowledge is actually what can be called more technically not just scientific knowledge but scientistic knowledge there is a branch of knowledge called scientism and scientism is the belief that science is the only way to knowledge and that there is nothing beyond matter, matter is all that exists this is fanatical materialism and there is also functional materialism which holds that other things may exist but they don’t matter matter is all that matters either way these are misconceptions and these misconceptions are extremely harmful for our overall growth because as long as we think that matter is all that matters or matter is all that exists then we never care for our spiritual side so Jada Vidhya Jata and right from the dawn of scientific knowledge or dawn of the age of modern science science is focused on the measurable quantifiable aspects of things and because of its focus on measurable quantifiable aspects that which is immeasurable that is non quantifiable science has chosen to neglect that and by choosing to neglect such things the result has been that science has been left with that humanity has been left with a knowledge that is dangerously partial that does not that makes one proud of one’s knowledge but does not deal with the issues closest to the human heart so it is maya ravaibhava maya ravaibhava all this advanced technological knowledge it is the it is a monument to illusion maya ravaibhava and a monument to illusion that means it is a it is a big monument but actually it does not take us out of illusion in fact it makes us proud of being in illusion because it’s one thing to be in illusion but it’s one thing to it’s quite another thing it’s much deeper form of illusion to be proud of one’s knowledge while being in illusion so we stay in illusion about the purpose of life about our essential identity and yet we think that we have advanced and got a lot of knowledge so therefore because it makes us proud of our material advancement it becomes tomara bhajane baada it is a obstacle in worshipping you my lord kunti maharani prays how there are four things which take away the impetus to serve the lord to even call out to the lord janmaiswarashruta shribhir idhaman madhah poman naivarathya vidhatum vaitamakinchana gocharam janmaiswarashruta shribhir janmaiswarya birth in a high family wealth shruta is learning and shribhir is beauty these four things make one feel complacent make one feel as if I have whatever it needs to be happy therefore I don’t need anything else and so let me let me just increase these and delight in these one of those things is shruta bhaktivinoda thakura is also saying here that this knowledge shruta learning vidya what happens tomara bhajane baada we feel that there is no need for god at all Laplace was a famous mathematician and when he made an equation of mathematics and he presented it to the french king which was supposed to describe the motion of the cosmic bodies and at that time the king asked where is god in this equation he said I have no need for that hypothesis he said so now what he meant was that in his specific mechanistic explanation of the universe that god is not needed but people extrapolated from that and they said that actually in general there is no need for god to explain things so that is a that feeling that god is unnecessary that is the greatest obstacle to bhakti because a devotee feels that even my existence is impossible without Krishna and actually it’s not just a devotee’s feeling it’s an ontological reality that if god were not sustaining the world nothing would exist but we don’t realise that and that’s why we stay caught trapped in material existence and the knowledge which makes us feel that god is more and more unnecessary that is a obstacle to devotion so it gave birth to illusion so knowledge is meant to remove illusion but what bhaktivinoda thakur says is this knowledge engenders illusion this knowledge breeds illusion what is the moha this world is temporary no matter what we do that we cannot change the temporary nature of this world it is temporary and it is going to stay temporary but unfortunately when we think that in this world we can become happy by ourselves without needing god then our illusion becomes deeper as it is we have forgotten god in this world but when we further think that we can do without god then our illusion becomes much worse much deeper so we get plunged deep into this temporary existence gadha gadha means that it makes the soul into a ass now what is the characteristic of an ass the ass works and works and works and gets very little results for its work but materialistic people so similarly even materialistic intellectuals they often work and work and work and they may get some transitional sense of meaning and achievement through their work but ultimately their achievement of their sense of meaning is within a framework of meaninglessness and that’s why it ultimately becomes the important thing is we need to recognise that this knowledge will put us into illusion and will not help us advance in our life and that’s why this knowledge has to be carefully balanced subordinated to spiritual knowledge otherwise the soul works like a ass but at the end of the life soul has nothing left with it and even in this life the soul may lose everything what to speak of the next in the bhagavata one of the characteristics one of the twenty items of knowledge says adhyatma jnana darshan tattva jnana darshan the eternal that actually it is spiritual knowledge that is eternal and that’s why that is what should be primarily pursued but unfortunately that realisation doesn’t come to those who are so caught in materialistic knowledge and Bhaktivinoda Thakur makes this same narrative brutally autobiographical brutally autobiographical he is telling this is my own story hello so say so it is Bhaktivinoda Thakur saying that I am not just doing some abstract analysis of some distant phenomena I am actually telling the story of my own life that I have become a gadha like this I have become a ass I have become a donkey who slaved to get slaved in the pursuit of knowledge and what happened samsara boja I carried the burden of samsara of material existence for a long long time see that there may be even among intellectuals there can be people in goodness in passion and ignorance and people who are in goodness will relatively be good will relatively be better than other people but just as the overall society goes towards the lower modes passion and ignorance then even the intellectual community goes towards passion and ignorance and that’s why even among the intellectual community there is envy there is politics there is backbiting and where the stealing of credit one person does research and another publishes one’s own name and of course there are measures to counter all this also the point is that that knowledge promises salvation but it doesn’t leave alone salvation salvation refers to a permanent solution it doesn’t offer even a lasting solution in this world all the problem the promise of knowledge actually turns out to be a disappointment and one finds that even in the pursuit of knowledge one is entangled more and more in material existence because even in the pursuit of knowledge one has the battles of prestige, position, power, lobbying, politics all these things come up and then therefore what happens samsare rebhoja that by becoming a donkey like this I have been carrying the burden of material existence for a long time bahino aneka kaala bahino aneka kaala for a long time now Bhaktivedanta Thakur himself in his life he lived at a time when the British government was ruling India and the British government had set competitive exams to select candidates who would work in its companies and Bhaktivedanta Thakur himself studied for various exams till he finally got a stable job where he worked as a district magistrate so and of course along with his studies for getting a job he also studied philosophy quite deeply and he studied Christianity also seriously so the point is that he spiritualised most of his quest for knowledge but even he had to pursue material knowledge for his material career and now he is saying bahino aneka kaala for a long time I did this but then bardhakya ekho na shakati rabhaave bardhakya but then old age comes along and then shakati rabhaave shakti is no longer there now this refers not just to physical energy which definitely decreases as we grow old but along with that there is actually even the intellectual energy goes down as people grow old they start forgetting things and and also some people might be exceptions and they often become celebrated because they are exceptions in general there is a decline of intellectual faculties and nowadays it’s very grievous when there are so many people who get degenerative intellectually degenerative diseases where people get sometimes Alzheimer’s and they forget even their own their names and their loved ones and their caregivers may care for years and decades and these people for whom they are caring these patients they don’t even recognise let alone acknowledge and it’s extremely distressing situation when all the memories that one has built to cherish for a lifetime they are wiped out not even at the time of that long before that so a person may become the president of America but if that person gets Alzheimer’s and starts losing the memory then in this very life that person has found that my being a president has forgotten that I was a president so it’s quite a grim grim prospect to think that how old age can make us miserable so a person may have been a famous intellectual but as a person grows old and the intellectual faculties decline then that person realises that I cannot go on being the kind of champion or genius whatever I was cause my memory is failing me my intelligence is failing me and then because the person is obsessed with the intellect and with exhibiting intellectual powers for the sake of getting name and fame when the intellect lets the person down then that person doesn’t know what am I supposed to live for what am I supposed to do kichu nahi lage bhalo kichu nahi lage bhalo that nothing seems pleasurable to me kichu nahi lage bhalo that actually there is what can I do that which I lived for suddenly the ability to do that has been taken away from me and of course this happens all the more for people who live for sensual pleasures suppose they get sensual impotency then they just don’t know what to live for that is of course quite grievous for those people who go through it but something similar happens and the intellectual potency goes away and the person doesn’t know what am I living for kichu nahi lage bhalo nothing seems pleasurable, what am I to do and such and such what happens jeevan jata na hoilo ekho na se vidya vidya bhelo avidya rajala ghatilo bishama se vidya hoilo she lo so he says jeevan jata na whole life has become a misery jeevan jata na hoilo ekho na the whole of life has become a misery because one is constantly tormented by the feeling of defeat of pointlessness of hopelessness what am I living for jeevan jata na hoilo ekho na se vidya vidya bhelo so that vidya turns out to be avidya so returning to the point which he had said earlier se gyaana agyaana jaani so he has made that statement bold claim that this knowledge I have realised to be actually ignorance and he is repeating that now se vidya vidya bhelo that knowledge I have realised to be ignorance now what does this mean again that actually knowledge is meant to prepare us for whatever problems life is going to give us suppose when we go on a journey then we usually take a map with us or we at least have to gain some knowledge ok how is the terrain I am going on a truck but is there a proper road or what can I go by a truck can I go by a car can I go by a bike knowledge is meant to ease our journey and decrease our difficulties in a particular journey but if that knowledge doesn’t provide us the necessary information and if in spite of having that knowledge we end up we got a map we got some knowledge but then we found out that some very important knowledge that was there that was not given there are dacoits on the way and those dacoits are going to plunder us and the highwaymen who plunder us will be furious you know we will be disappointed and we will be horrified furious that we were not told about it and if the people who allowed us we will feel disappointed by them betrayed by them and we will be horrified because those highwaymen are going to plunder us so say avidya vidya bhelo so like that that there is the great promise of material knowledge that it will bring pleasure and joy but actually it turns out the miseries of material existence continue and because our promise has been disappointed so the miseries increase more and more avidya rajwala ghatilo bishama avidya rajwala so avidya rajwala so this avidya has become like a flame ghatilo bishama and I am being burned in this flame and this very knowledge is now taunting at me oh I have a big degree in front of my name but still what is the point of it all I don’t know how to free myself from misery I don’t know why I am suffering and what is the use of all the peripheral knowledge that I have got as Sanatan Goswami says that people think that people call me a pandit and I also accept that I am a pandit but I don’t know why am I suffering the threefold miseries I don’t know that and therefore my claims to be a pandita are all pointless are all useless this knowledge which I claim to have that knowledge itself has become something which taunts me which which drives painfully agonisingly home to me the realisation that what I have acquired is ultimately pointless and then that apart from your lotus feet there is no other treasure there is no other treasure in all of material existence there is no other treasure therefore he gives us giving up this ignorance knowledge this knowledge of matter what does he do? he accepts your lotus feet as the essence of everything so now after pursuing other knowledge and realising the futility of that knowledge what is Bhaktivinod Thakur doing? he is stating that apart from your lotus feet there is no other treasure this was actually the realisation of Vyasadev also now today’s advancement of knowledge is largely divorced from God the knowledge that Ved Vyas wrote was not divorced from God it was just that it was not focused on God it was religious knowledge and it did talk about God but its focus was not on God it was focused on Karma Kanda of how how by practising Dharma by devoting some time to God one will get Artha and Karma and one will be happy and then the Upanishads talk about Gyan Kanda about Mukti but that also focused more on cessation of suffering not on the glorification of the Lord so even after that even that which was partial glorification of God even that didn’t bring satisfaction to the heart of Ved Vyas so what to speak of knowledge that has no glorification of God and that often has demigration of God how can that bring satisfaction to the human heart it will not so Bhaktivedanta was saying is that the only knowledge that can bring satisfaction to the heart is the knowledge that your lotus feet are everything that your lotus feet are the treasure that we should aspire for in life that it is in your devotion that all our aspirations for happiness will be fulfilled and everything else that promises to fulfil those aspirations is actually misleading and therefore we should stay away from it so tomara charana binaki chudhana apart from your lotus feet binaki chudhana there is no other treasure samsara na chaya ra there is no other treasure in samsara apart from your lotus feet and therefore bhagati vinodha there is no other treasure what does Bhaktivedanta have to do jada vidya chadi I am renouncing material knowledge, I am renouncing infatuation with material knowledge I am rejecting the promise of material knowledge that will bring happiness and tuva pada kore saara I accept your lotus feet as the essence I take shelter of those lotus feet. In the Bhagavad Gita also it is described in the Vedic context but again same principle applies who is jnanavan bahunam janmanamante jnanavan mam prapadyate vasudevah sarvamti samatmasu durlabham so bahunam janmanamante after many many lifetimes what happens the person comes to the realisation that after many lifetimes the person becomes jnanavan and surrenders to Krishna mam prapadyate and when one surrenders to Krishna then what happens vasudevah sarvamiti vasudevah that one who understands vasudevah sarvamiti that actually vasudev is everything is the essence of everything anything beyond vasudev we need to focus on that lord vasudev and achieve that lord vasudev what happens by that such a person samatmasu durlabham such a person is extremely rare sudurlabham so Bhaktivinoda Thakur is saying that in the spirit of this particular verse from Bhagavata that person becomes jnanavan and understands that vasudevah sarvamiti so similarly your lotus feet are the essence essence of everything, essence of all knowledge and the essence of all purposes of life, the essence of all treasures the essence of all liberations the essence of all dharmas they are the essence of everything those lotus feet I’ll take shelter of so in our lives also we have various, many of us nowadays most of us are knowledge workers we don’t do, we don’t walk on a construction site some people may be doing it some people do work on it some people work on construction sites some people drive cars and things like that but many people today are knowledge workers and the more knowledge a person acquires quite often the higher the salary the person gets the higher the position to which the person rises the greater is the prestige the person gets in society quite often it works like that so knowledge can infatuate us with its promises also but by remembering that yes knowledge may have some functional value in this world in terms of helping us to navigate this world, to earn a livelihood in this world to live respectably in this world but that is not the purpose of life and if we let the hope of knowledge intoxicate us and distract us from Krishna then we will miss out on life’s true potential and we will not we will become disappointed frustrated and exhausted even in this life, what to speak of the next but while using knowledge for whatever functional purpose we can use it for but we focus our head and our heart on Krishna we use our intellectual faculty to understand how Krishna is the essence of everything how it is Krishna whom we should be pursuing with everything and we use our emotional faculty our heart, we direct our emotions towards Krishna and seek his shelter knowing that it is only in Krishna that our heart’s aspiration for happiness love and joy will be fulfilled so when we get infatuated by things of this world we can remember my dear lord I take shelter of you, I make your lotus feet the essence of my aspirations please let me seek you my lord and nothing else let me not, let anything else distract me from you I have to do other things in this world let me harmonise them with you, let me subordinate them to you and let me pursue them as a means of pursuing you, as a means of serving you and let them not take me away from you my lord