Chapter 12: Earnestness

“If You kindly remove my blindness for a moment, I would like to see that great, noble figure of Yours that others have seen.”

“No, no, it’s not necessary for your blindness to be removed. If I just say ‘see!’, then you will see Me.”

By His will, by His order, Dhṛtarāṣṭra saw, without his blindness being removed. “Yes, being blind, you can see me!” Despite being blind, he could see, so what sort of sight is He? He can be seen only by His order. So, neither eyes nor our mental preparation backing the eye are indispensable to see Him. He ordered Dhṛtarāṣṭra, “See me!” and he could see without eyes or without the mentality of sight. Dhṛtarāṣṭra was janmāndha, blind from birth; he had no idea of any colour or figure, but still he could see — by the Lord’s order. His position is such, so if we try to approach Him, what should our attitude be? How much earnestness should we have to approach that land?

It is easy — it is difficult. Easy, because it is our inborn tendency. It is home. But now, we are far from home. It is home, my own, so there is hope that I may reach there one day. It is my home, and I won’t find satisfaction anywhere else, so I must go there, but I am far away from that home comfort. There is the difficulty — I have lost that land.

Jñāne prayāsam udapāsya: scholarship is poison! Are you ready to admit this? All your learning is nonsense! You are plodding in the mud. All knowledge of misrepresentation — not a bag full of money, but a bag full of rocks. The brain is taxed and filled up with all misleading things. Are you ready to admit this? Not so soon! What do you say? Many of us boast of our knowledge. But the bhakti school is striking a hammer on the head of knowledge or jñān. Rather, ignorance is better than knowledge! Can you accept that? Knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance!!

Why? Because the so-called learned are proud by comparison. They are more confident that they are holding a higher position, and to remove them from that position is very difficult. Qualitatively, they are in a position above the ordinary labourer, so they are confident of their superiority. So to relieve them of that proud superiority is more difficult than to relieve an ordinary labourer of his ignorance. That would be easy. It is easy to educate an uneducated person, but to educate an ‘educated’ person is more difficult. He has firmly entrenched himself in his superiority, so he won’t budge an inch from that position.

se du’yera madhye viṣayī tabu bhāla
māyāvādī-saṅga nāhi māgi kona kāla

The company of ordinary persons, misguided souls in the ordinary street, is somewhat better than the company and influence of the so-called scholars. That sort of subtle poison is very dangerous and difficult to remove. They’re proud, thinking, “I know. I hold a higher position than the ordinary mass.” That sort of fine ego is very difficult to remove. Ordinary persons may think, “Yes, we are culprits.” Also, the ego of the ordinary religious men is very difficult to remove. “Oh, I am a religious man.” It is very difficult to cross his so-called faith and religion, to give him something higher. This is the practical experience, and it is also advised in śāstra.

vedāśraya nāstikya-vāda bauddhake adhika

Half-truth is more dangerous than falsehood. As in Śaṅkar’s māyāvād, there is atheism in the garb of theism. They say, so ’ham: “I am the highest substance.” They take the authority or the law as nondifferentiated like zero. It cannot assert. Therefore, they cannot admit, “I am among the creation.” They imagine it is possible for them to hold the higher position. There is no God. There is no such thing as God who automatically holds the highest power and all that be, because ultimately there is a region of unknown and unknowable substance, and wherever there is enlightenment as a human, a wise man, he holds the highest position. “We hold the highest position.” But if we have to admit God, then we have nothing. If we are his created objects, play dolls, we have nothing. As soon as we have admitted God, then we are dispossessed of everything! So much renunciation is impossible. To hold that, “I am the absolute authority”, means that I am nowhere. Such self abnegation is not so cheap! Any questions?

Devotee: What can help an intellectual to develop śāstric (scriptural) vision?

Śrīla Guru Mahārāj: When the sleeping aspect will be awakened, the cover will vanish automatically. Intellectualism cannot be utilized, but that real causeless eternal wealth within should be awakened and strengthened, and this cover of proud intellectualism will evaporate. Karma and jñān are only foreign covers.

vāsudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ
janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ jñānaṁ cha yad ahaitukam

If somehow with the help of the scriptures and His agents, the devotees or saints, we can develop our devotion, bhakti. Then, the proper knowledge and proper apathy towards worldly substances will follow us. Healthy, proper knowledge and healthy energy will come to follow us if the reality within awakens and we become adjusted by it.

This doesn’t refer to the knowledge or energy found in this plane. This is entirely distinct. Energy is the capacity to work, to move. And knowledge is to have a conception. That will come in the retinue of devotion.

Sambandha-jñān — ‘what is what’. A new world will awaken within. Misleading ideas will evaporate and retire, and the proper reading will evolve from within. Sambandha-jñān. “I am such and such to my Lord, and these are the Lord’s friends, the Lord’s lovers, etc., and what sort of knowledge and movement should be mine in this new environment.”

In that way, readjustment will come from within. The present type of knowledge and energizing will have to retire and be dispelled like darkness. Conceptions may be utilised only when proper conception awakens. When the professor will point out our misconceptions, we can learn the proper conception. “In this way you are misconceiving things; your proper conception is this, but did you misconceive this thing for that?” “Yes sir, I thought like that. Now I see the real thing is this. This is not mine. Not to speak of mine, I also belong to Kṛṣṇa — my Lord.”

“Everything belongs to Him. I am not a master; I am a slave. I don’t hold the position of a master, not to speak of possessing so many properties. Even I am property to another possesser.” The calculation must begin from that plane, and a new land will be found. That aspiration and aggression to think one can conquer the whole world by the atomic energy is a false notion. It is suffering human intellect to think one has a position to challenge God: “God is only a superstition, an imaginary thing.” We need this wholesale and radical cure: “I do not belong to me; I have my eternal master.” We need slave mentality.

During the time of my Guru Mahārāj’s preaching, one newspaper in Kolkata complained, “Gauḍīya Maṭh is spreading slave mentality to the country — this is most objectionable. This will destroy the military spirit of the land, so they can’t be encouraged to spread slavery. They have no patriotism. What are they!” The atheists cannot tolerate the call to come hither and live in Vaikuṇṭha. They can’t tolerate the spreading of this ‘poison’ within the country. And they hold that in Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa supported war. But that was not from their standpoint.

Yadā yadā hi dharmasya... The Lord says, “Sometimes the world is so thickly attacked by the atheistic influence that I have to come down again to re-establish the religious environment here. The enemies are vanquished and the good thinkers are given certain relief in their lives. I have to come.”