Why does God send different teachers who teach different paths?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So the question is that when we see there are different teachers who are sent by God only and they teach different things and people go off in different directions so why is it like that? Why does God give different teachings like this? See one of the fundamental features of the Vedic literature is that it offers what in today’s language we could call user friendly spirituality So user friendly spirituality means that it recognizes that different people are of different natures, different orientations, different levels of consciousness different stages on their spiritual evolution and so all of them cannot take only one path that’s why there are various devatas and worshipping them is also scripture. It may not be the highest in scripture but it is also within the house of scripture. So the Vedic idea is that anybody who is on the spiritual path in some way or the other anybody who is pursuing something higher than the basic bodily person, basic materialistic life that anything higher is good and how much higher a person can go that will vary according to time and circumstance so if we look at the Abrahamic religions they have the idea this is one conception of God, this is one messenger of God, this is one holy book you accept this you will be liberated.
You reject this you are going to go to hell forever. So this portrays the path to God as very narrow and if God is unlimited why should the path to him be so rigidly limited God manifests his mercy in many ways and not just in many ways but to many degrees so some paths to God take people up to a particular level. They will not take them all the way.
Some paths may take them so for example the path of Karmakant it involves worship of the Devatas and that also is good because people are at least accepting the existence of some higher being and by that they are rising above just gross materialism and they are evolving in their consciousness it may take time but they are on the progressive path. Similarly Gyan Marga and similarly impersonalism is also not wrong. Impersonalism is also a valid realization.
In fact impersonalism is a very exalted realization. We think of impersonalism as very bad but it is not. It is a very exalted realization.
In the Bhagavatam Shamik Rishi is described as an impersonalist and he was a great saint Parikshit Maharaj was not offered away since his time and of course he did not offer enough for the whole issue but the point is Shamik Rishi was considered an impersonalist and he was not considered anything bad Mayavad is, the problem with it is there are various parts and they move forward, they take people to various levels up the problem comes when something which is of the intermediate level is thought of as the highest and a bigger problem comes when the intermediate is normally thought as the highest, the highest is made as lower than the intermediate so there is impersonalism and there is Mayavad they are two very different things impersonalism is that God has an impersonal feature and I am attracted to that impersonal feature and I want to go there that is not offensive but Mayavad is God has an impersonal feature that is the highest feature and the personal aspect of God is just a temporary illusion, it is a convenient fiction that people can use for meditating on ultimately to realize the impersonal Brahma so this is what is the problem so impersonalism is a valid realization the worship of Devatas is a valid form of worship, so the Vedic path offers various modes of elevation for people so they can take spirituality at their pace and move onwards gradually so nityo nityanam chetanas chetananam eko bhavunam yo viddhati kama the one supreme being he maintains many other beings and he maintains them according to their desires eko bhavunam yo viddhati kama eko bhavunam yo viddhati kama that one being maintains others according to their desires that means that desires are not just gross desires for eating, sleeping, mating different people also have their conceptions and Krishna maintains them according to their conceptions this is what you want to believe fine, believe this and follow this and you will be elevated in a small way now if a great devotee’s mercy comes in a person’s life then that person may be very much in the form of Tamoguna but that person can also be elevated to the highest spiritual level so that is a devotee’s mercy exalted devotee’s mercy can take a person from the path of gradual elevation to the path of rapid elevation not only that can the mercy take a person from the path of gradual elevation to the path of rapid elevation the mercy of a devotee can take a person from the path of rapid degradation to the path of gradual elevation that is the path that is the path but where the culture is inclusive thank you very much prabhupada ki gaura bhakta vrinda ki daigaura premanande