Secrets of the Soul 23

dehino ’smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.13]

We students of the Esoteric Teaching do not speculate or manufacture spiritual knowledge. That would be bogus. Knowledge of spiritual life has to be accepted and understood from the explanations of great authorities. Lord Kṛṣṇa is the greatest authority of spiritual knowledge because He is God Himself; therefore we study His Bhagavad-gita very carefully.

How can any human being manufacture perfect knowledge of spiritual life? We are imperfect in four crucial ways. It is said, “To err is human.” Human beings must commit mistakes. Also, we must be in illusion because of our materially conditioned consciousness. Our senses are imperfect by nature, and we have a propensity to cheat. These four defects are human nature. Anyone who is not mukta-purusa—a liberated soul—must have these four defects.

Human beings, even great human beings, must commit mistakes. For instance Mahatma Gandhi, even though he was such a great personality, also committed so many mistakes. On the day of his death, he was warned not to go to the meeting. His friends foresaw danger, but he went there anyway and was killed. So human beings are always committing some mistake: “To err is human.” That is not our fault, because it is human nature to commit mistakes.

We are also in illusion. Illusion means that, although we are actually spirit souls, we think that we are these material bodies. Aham brahmasmi: “I am eternal spirit.” But we are identified with this temporary material body. One man thinks, “I am Indian;” another is convinced, “I am American;” someone else thinks, “I am a brahmana;” but his brother thinks, “I am a sudra;” one soul thinks, “I am a man;” and another identical spirit soul thinks, “I am a woman.” This is illusion, because this body is only our temporary home.

And our senses are imperfect. We cannot see even what is on the other side of a piece of paper. We cannot hear what dogs and cats can hear, or smell what they can smell clearly. If we are left outside without clothing or other protective covering, we will quickly die of exposure to the elements. Our senses are not even as good as those of ordinary animals.

To commit mistakes, to be in illusion and to have imperfect senses are intrinsic parts of our human nature; and we also have a propensity for cheating. Actually, we do not know things as they are; still, we write big books on philosophy and religion. Big important scholars, with no clear ontological thought process, no clear epistemological understanding, still write books to educate people on spiritual life. But it is all just their opinion. Any scientific theory is actually just a hypothesis. They propose, “Perhaps; it may be like that,” and writing big books on anthropology, astronomy and physics, with no real proof, and people are taking knowledge from that book as if it is the truth.

What is the value of knowledge based on a hypothetical theory: “Perhaps; maybe”? The whole field of material science is like that. Our senses are imperfect, we are in illusion, we commit mistakes, and we have a cheating propensity. The cheating propensity means that even though we have no perfect knowledge; still, we want to give knowledge, to become a world-famous expert in the field. What is the value of writing books if you have no perfect knowledge? But we do that because we have a propensity for cheating.

But Vedic knowledge, the Esoteric Teaching, is not like human knowledge. There is no cheating, imperfection, illusion or error, because Vedic knowledge comes from sources higher than ordinary human knowledge. The original author of Vedic knowledge is Kṛṣṇa, or God Himself. He gave the Esoteric Teaching to Arjuna and all other great spiritual Master Teachers. It is stated in the beginning of Srimad-Bhagavatam:

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
janmādy asya yato ’nvayād itarataś cārtheṣv abhijñaḥ svarāṭ
tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye muhyanti yat sūrayaḥ
tejo-vāri-mṛdāṁ yathā vinimayo yatra tri-sargo ’mṛṣā
dhāmnā svena sadā nirasta-kuhakaṁ satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi

“O my Lord, Sri Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudeva, O all-pervading Personality of Godhead, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. I meditate upon Lord Sri Kṛṣṇa because He is the Absolute Truth and the primeval cause of all causes of the creation, sustenance and destruction of the manifested universes. He is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent because there is no other cause beyond Him. It is He only who first imparted the Vedic knowledge unto the heart of Brahma, the original living being. By Him even the great sages and demigods are placed into illusion, as one is bewildered by the illusory representations of water seen in fire, or land seen on water. Only because of Him do the material universes, temporarily manifested by the reactions of the three modes of nature, appear factual, although they are unreal. I therefore meditate upon Him, Lord Sri Kṛṣṇa, who is eternally existent in the transcendental abode, which is forever free from the illusory representations of the material world. I meditate upon Him, for He is the Absolute Truth.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.1]

Lord Sri Kṛṣṇa imparted the knowledge of the Esoteric Teaching, sabda-brahma or pure transcendental knowledge, unto the heart of Lord Brahma. Even Brahma, the greatest demigod, is not self-sufficient. Not even he can perceive the spiritual realm directly. Lord Brahma is the first Master Teacher in our Esoteric Teaching lineage. But actually the knowledge we accept is not originally from Brahma; Brahma got the knowledge from Kṛṣṇa: tene brahma.

Actually all knowledge is coming from Kṛṣṇa. The epistemological standard of the Esoteric Teaching is that, considering the intrinsic faults of human knowledge, we should not receive any spiritual knowledge from human sources. Instead we receive transcendental knowledge, in the form of this Bhagavad-gita, from Kṛṣṇa directly. As long as we keep it the same and do not superimpose our imperfect human misunderstanding, Kṛṣṇa can give us perfect knowledge of spiritual life directly through this book.

So we have to accept Bhagavad-gita as it is. We cannot interpret Bhagavad-gita in our own way, because we are defective in so many ways. That would not be the same Bhagavad-gita; that is something else. They take the Bhagavad-gita and add their own conclusion to it. But that is not Bhagavad-gita. If you want to study Bhagavad-gita, then you should study it as it is originally spoken by Kṛṣṇa. Then it is perfect; otherwise we have to take so-called spiritual knowledge from some defective human being.

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