Won’t picking and choosing sections of philosophy or process rationalise rejecting important aspects of bhakti?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

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so the question is that if we start using this works for me based on that we can pick and choose within scriptures we can pick and choose within regular principles we start picking and choosing selectively yeah actually there are two aspects to this one is every individual is a free individual and even Krishna doesn’t control people’s freedom so who are we to control so if people are going to pick and choose they are going to do that and we can’t stop them from doing it that’s from the individual’s perspective if that is what they want to do that is what they are going to do so we are not following one regular principle they are following one regular principle also atleast they are giving up some level of undesirable activities chanting atleast something they are moving forward that is good at that level but if somebody really wants to develop love for Krishna there is a process that is given in scripture there is a process that is given by by Raja I guess and that needs to be followed so the picking what we are talking about picking and choosing is not it is not a license for picking and choosing anything and everything there is a basic there is a basic framework of faithfulness we want to follow the Bhagwat we want to follow Shila Prabhupada we want to be faithful to those who have given us Krishna at the same time we also have an intelligence and with our intelligence some things don’t make sense now how can we be both devotionally faithful and be intellectually honest ok I have come from a scientific background I have got a particular conception of physics particular conception of the universe and of this I have to be intellectually honest this doesn’t make sense to me so we are trying to we are trying to talk here about how we can balance being intellectually honest and being devotionally faithful and everyone of us will have challenges in that but if somebody is not devotionally faithful itself thinking that within the devotional principles only I will pick and choose then the amount of spiritual advancement they make will be very limited they will make some advancement because they are doing something but we are talking here that there is a basic platform of faithfulness but does faithfulness require that we just have to reject our intelligence or is there a way even with our intelligence we can make sense of this works here, this works here and we move forward so see whenever we try to use our intelligence to understand things there is always the danger that we go down a slippery slope and then we start relativizing even core principles but the security there is the danger of relativizing that which is absolute but but as a fearful reaction to that is that we absolutize even the relative are you getting this? we say if I change if I try to adjust this, if I try to understand this, if this way I try to understand this way I will relativize even the core principles that’s my fear but that’s a valid fear but an extreme if we consider a pendulum one extreme of the pendulum is to relativize the absolute but the other extreme of the pendulum is to absolutize the relative so absolutize the relative means, see as I said even in our tradition itself the bhagvatan cosmology was never seen as a competitor to the jyotisha cosmology that’s coming from our tradition itself from our acharyas itself so when our acharyas have not made this into an absolutist issue or a faith issue for the bhagvatan they have commented on the bhagvatan cosmology but for astrology they have used jyotisha cosmology so they have not made this an absolutist issue so we don’t have to absolutize that which may not be absolute so that’s why again we have to consult senior devotees, use our intelligence and there is of course the sincerity of one’s own heart which is important so there is a danger of relativizing the absolute but the security against that is not absolutizing the relative absolutizing the relative means everything just as it is Prabhupada himself he did not do the same thing as it is in America and India many things are different in America many things are different in India so if I say everything as it is, which as it is in America as it is or India as it is everything as it is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava or Raja Gaudiya Vaishnava as it is or Odiya Vaishnava as it is so there are different aspects over there so the important thing is that we use our God-given intelligence with the guidance of senior devotees to understand that which is central and that which is not central and make sure that the central doesn’t change does that address your question? yes there is a question there