Will knowing more and more about Krishna from the Bhagavatam give us love for him?
If our end is to know more about Krishna, i.e. reading SB 10th canto over and over again, will we not get love? Because Krishna is non-different from SB and the information in it
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question is a question based on the Gita daily article.
Happiness comes not by the stocking of information, but the flowing of service. Chapter 6, verse 8. If our end is to know more and more about Krishna, that is reading Srimad Bhagavatam 10th canto over and over again, will we not get love? Because Krishna is non-different from Srimad Bhagavatam at the information in it. Answer Yes, Krishna is non-different from the Bhagavatam.
At the same time, that non-difference can be perceived and the purification result only when we have a devotional attitude. The deity is non-different from Krishna, but there are iconoclasts who want to desecrate the deities. So they may even touch the deity of Krishna, but because their intention is anti-devotional, it doesn’t purify them.
So we have so many interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita 18.70 Those who study the sacred conversation of ours O Arjuna, Krishna is saying, they worship me with their intelligence. So Krishna is saying that study of Bhagavad Gita is worship with the paraphernalia of the intelligence, just like in the month of Damodar. We worship Lord Krishna in his power as Damodar with the lamp.
So like that Krishna in the form of Bhagavad Gita, we can worship by using our intelligence, with the lamp of our intelligence metaphorically speaking. And yet we know that there are many commentators on the Bhagavad Gita who give such a radically incorrect interpretation of the Gita that it militates against Krishna’s words and Srila Prabhupada has strongly spoken against such commentators and commentaries interpretations and so have the previous Acharyas. Now those who appropriate and interpret the Bhagavad Gita for their own purposes, are they worshipping Krishna with their intelligence? Not necessarily.
Worship again is a matter of attitude. So if the study of the Bhagavad Gita is with the intention that one wants to substantiate one’s own world view based on the study of the Gita and then prove how one’s own world view is what the Gita is teaching. In such an attitude it is certainly not worship of Krishna.
And if it goes against the teachings of Krishna by for example saying that the impersonal Brahman is higher than Krishna, then as 7.24 says So Krishna is telling over there that those who consider that I was in manifest before and I have become manifest now that I was impersonal before and I have become personal now that means my personality is temporary, they are they are completely deficient, lacking in intelligence Krishna is saying. So certainly such an understanding and propagation of such an interpretation of the Gita is not worship of Krishna. In fact it is offence to Krishna.
Srila Prabhupada writes in the Bhagavad Gita introduction that interpreting the Bhagavad Gita without considering the will of Krishna is the greatest offence. So that means it is not just the study that is going to lead to purification, it may even lead to offence. Of course most of us are practicing devotees.
So it is unlikely that we will offend the Bhagavad Gita by giving some unwarranted interpretation. At the same time it is quite possible that we may be in a information hunting mode which is what is primarily the focus of discussion in this Gita daily. No, if somebody is reading the Srimad Bhagavatam 10th Canto, there are scholars who do it with critical attitude and they may know about the 10th Canto more than most devotees also but then they may not believe in Krishna his existence or they may doubt Krishna’s morality.
So then such study is not really very beneficial for them. If they are not offensive then if they are not misinterpreting Krishna’s word they are just doing a dispassionate academic study then that may not necessarily be offensive but still if they get an erroneous conclusion and propagate that conclusion it may become offensive also. Anyway, it will not enhance devotion.
Now what about us as devotees? If we are talking about reading the Srimad Bhagavatam 10th Canto again and again, if we have the proper philosophical understanding by reading the previous cantos then certainly reading the 10th Canto can increase our attraction to Krishna and actually if you are interested in stalking information, we will not be able to read the 10th Canto again and again. We will want to go to this Purana and that Samhita and this and that the very fact that we want to read the 10th Canto again and again indicates a devotional attitude where there is attraction to Krishna and because of the attraction to Krishna one wants to contact him again and again by various means and by that contact one gets purified and one’s attraction to Krishna increases. So if our goal is to become attracted to Krishna and to serve Krishna in this manifestation of Srimad Bhagavatam serve Sri Prabhupada and the Acharyas who have written their exalted commentaries in the Bhagavatam, then it is very good.
That will definitely increase our attraction to Krishna and we can even read other books if we have studied the 10th Canto systematically and that can also deepen our understanding of scripture. At the same time, the key principle which is the focus over here is if we are just hunting for newer and newer information then we are mostly at the mental intellectual level where we are just seeking titillation through information and not purification and attraction to Krishna through the knowledge about Krishna. So essentially it’s a matter of attitude, it’s a matter of intention what do I want by my study of Krishna and there are books about Krishna if I want to increase attraction, if I want to render service then definitely that is a limb of devotional service and of course if we really want to serve Krishna then we won’t stick only to reading Srimad Bhagavatam we will render other forms of devotional service also and they are also important.
So in a balanced way if we study the Shastras and then we develop a taste for studying the scriptures more and more in a devotional attitude, then that is the greatest fortune, Vasudeva Katharuchi described as the greatest blessing of one’s life that comes by the service of the devotees so we develop the chief of the Katha of Vasudeva serving the great souls so in this way if we have attraction for studying the Srimad Bhagavatam not to titillate ourselves with new information not to brag show off our knowledge about Krishna but because we feel devotionally enlivened and attracted to Krishna by reading that information and it inspires us in our all round devotional service then definitely we should tap that good fortune