Mental speculators (BG and SB)
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Chapters 7 - 12
One who has a little faith in Bhagavad-gītā should learn Bhagavad-gītā from a devotee, because in the beginning of the Fourth Chapter it is stated clearly that Bhagavad-gītā can be understood only by devotees; no one else can perfectly understand the purpose of Bhagavad-gītā. One should therefore learn Bhagavad-gītā from a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, not from mental speculators. This is a sign of faith. When one searches for a devotee and fortunately gets a devotee's association one actually begins to study and understand Bhagavad-gītā. By advancement in the association of the devotee one is placed in devotional service, and this service dispels all one's misgivings about Kṛṣṇa, or God, and Kṛṣṇa's activities, form, pastimes, name and other features. After these misgivings have been perfectly cleared away, one becomes fixed in one's study. Then one relishes the study of Bhagavad-gītā and attains the state of feeling always Kṛṣṇa conscious. In the advanced stage, one falls completely in love with Kṛṣṇa. This highest perfectional stage of life enables the devotee to be transferred to Kṛṣṇa's abode in the spiritual sky, Goloka Vṛndāvana, where the devotee becomes eternally happy.
As a devotee hears more and more about the Supreme Lord, he becomes enlightened. This hearing process is recommended in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: "The messages of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are full of potencies, and these potencies can be realized if topics regarding the Supreme Godhead are discussed amongst devotees. This cannot be achieved by the association of mental speculators or academic scholars, for it is realized knowledge."
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
This knowledge that the energy of the Lord is simultaneously one with and different from the Lord is an answer to the mental speculators' attempt to establish the energy as the Absolute. When this knowledge is factually understood, one sees the conceptions of monism and dualism to be imperfect.
Those who are not conversant with the activities of the Lord and His transcendental realm are sometimes favored by the Lord in His adventures as incarnations wherein He displays the eternal bliss of His association in the transcendental realm. By such activities He attracts the conditioned souls of the material world. Some of these conditioned souls are engaged in the false enjoyment of material senses and others in simply negating their real life in the spiritual world. These less intelligent persons are known as karmīs, or fruitive workers, and jñānīs, or dry mental speculators.
To the gross materialist who cannot see anything beyond the gross material body, there is nothing beyond the senses. Therefore his occupational activities are limited to concentrated and extended selfishness. Concentrated selfishness centers around the personal body—this is generally seen amongst the lower animals. Extended selfishness is manifested in human society and centers around the family, society, community, nation and world with a view to gross bodily comfort. Above these gross materialists are the mental speculators who hover aloft in the mental spheres, and their occupational duties involve making poetry and philosophy or propagating some ism with the same aim of selfishness limited to the body and the mind.
There are two classes of materialists, namely the fruitive workers and the empiric philosophers. The fruitive workers have practically no information of the Absolute Truth, and the mental speculators, after being frustrated in fruitive activities, turn their faces towards the Absolute Truth and try to know Him by mental speculation. And for all these men, the Absolute Truth is a mystery, as the jugglery of the magician is a mystery to children. Being deceived by the jugglery of the Supreme Being, the nondevotees, who may be very dexterous in fruitive work and mental speculation, are always in ignorance. With such limited knowledge, they are unable to penetrate into the mysterious region of transcendence. The mental speculators are a little more progressive than the gross materialists or the fruitive workers, but because they are also within the grip of illusion, they take it for granted that anything which has form, a name and activities is but a product of material energy. For them the Supreme Spirit is formless, nameless and inactive. And because such mental speculators equalize the transcendental name and form of the Lord with mundane names and form, they are in fact in ignorance. With such a poor fund of knowledge, there is no access to the real nature of the Supreme Being.
Everyone within the creation of the Lord is rendering service to the Lord indirectly or directly. No one is an exception to this law of the Lord. Those who are rendering service indirectly, being forced by the illusory agent of the Lord, are rendering service unto Him unfavorably. But those who are rendering service unto Him directly under the direction of His beloved agent are rendering service unto Him favorably. Such favorable servitors are devotees of the Lord, and by the grace of the Lord they can enter into the mysterious region of transcendence by the mercy of the Lord. But the mental speculators remain in darkness all the time.
You Yourself descend to propagate the transcendental science of devotional service unto the hearts of the advanced transcendentalists and mental speculators, who are purified by being able to discriminate between matter and spirit. How, then, can we women know You perfectly?
The mental speculators misunderstand Him as the Supreme Person, and they consider His impersonal features as inexplicable Brahman to be all. Such a conception is also the product of conditioned life because they cannot go beyond their own personal capacity. Therefore, one who considers the Lord on the level of one's limited potency is only a common man. Such a man cannot be convinced that the Personality of Godhead is always unaffected by the modes of material nature. He cannot understand that the sun is always unaffected by infectious matter. The mental speculators compare everything from the standpoint of experimental knowledge of their own selves. Thus when the Lord is found to act like an ordinary person in matrimonial bondage, they consider Him to be like one of them, without considering that the Lord can at once marry sixteen thousand wives or more.
The wives of Lord Kṛṣṇa were made to forget the immeasurable glories of the Lord by the internal potency so that there might not be any flaw of exchange, and they took it for granted that the Lord was a henpecked husband, always following them in lonely places. In other words, even the personal associates of the Lord do not know Him perfectly well, so what do the thesis writers or mental speculators know about the transcendental glories of the Lord? The mental speculators present different theses as to His becoming the causes of the creation, the ingredients of the creation, or the material and efficient cause of the creation, etc., but all this is but partial knowledge about the Lord.
The highest perfection of life is attained by remembering the transcendental nature of the Lord at the last moment of one's life. This perfection of life is made possible by one who has learned the actual transcendental nature of the Lord from the Vedic hymns sung by a liberated soul like Śukadeva Gosvāmī or someone in that line of disciplic succession. There is no gain in hearing the Vedic hymns from some mental speculator. When the same is heard from an actual self-realized soul and is properly understood by service and submission, everything becomes transparently clear.
SB Canto 2
The Vedas say that He is so complete that even though the whole complete identity emanates from Him, He still remains the same complete whole (pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation)). As such, there is no validity in a material conception of the Lord produced by the mental speculator. Thus He remains always a mystery for the mundane scholar, even if he is vastly learned in the Vedic literatures (vedeṣu durlabham adurlabham ātma-bhaktau (Bs. 5.33)). Therefore, the Lord is beyond the limit of conception for mundane learned scholars, philosophers or scientists. He is easily understandable for the pure devotee because the Lord declares in the Bhagavad-gītā (18.54) that after surpassing the stage of knowledge, when one is able to be engaged in the devotional service of the Lord, then only can one know the true nature of the Lord.
It is the Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa who gives liberation. By thinking of His lotus feet at every second, following in the footsteps of authorities, the devotee in trance can see the Absolute Truth. The learned mental speculators, however, think of Him according to their whims. May the Lord be pleased with me.
There is an intimate relationship between the swan and the lotus stem. So the comparison is very appropriate: without becoming a swan, or paramahaṁsa, one cannot enter into the network of the lotus feet of the Lord. As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā, the mental speculators, even by dint of learned scholarship, cannot even dream of the Absolute Truth by speculating over it for eternity. The Lord reserves the right of not being exposed to such mental speculators. And because they cannot enter into network stem of the lotus stem of the Lord, all material speculators differ in conclusions, and at the end they make a useless compromise by saying, "as many conclusions, as many ways," according to one's own inclination. (yathā-rucam). But the Lord is not like a shopkeeper trying to please all sorts of customers in the mental speculator exchange. The Lord is what He is, the Absolute Personality of Godhead, and He demands absolute surrender unto Him only.
The Lord, being the Lord of intelligence in everyone (even in the nondevotee), favors His devotee with proper intelligence so that automatically the pure devotee is enlightened with the factual truth about the Lord and His different energies. the Lord is revealed not by one's speculative power or by one's verbal jugglery over the Absolute Truth. Rather, He reveals Himself to a devotee when He is fully satisfied by the devotee's service attitude. Śukadeva Gosvāmī is not a mental speculator or compromiser of the theory of "as many ways, as many conclusions." Rather, he prays to the Lord only, invoking His transcendental pleasure. That is the way of knowing the Lord.
Devarṣi Nārada was directly instructed by Brahmājī, who was also directly instructed by the Supreme Lord; therefore the instructions imparted by Nārada to his various disciples are as good as those of the Supreme Lord. That is the way of understanding Vedic knowledge. It comes down from the Lord by disciplic succession, and this transcendental knowledge is distributed to the world by this descending process. There is no chance, however, to receive the Vedic knowledge from mental speculators. Therefore, wherever Nārada Muni goes, he represents himself as authorized by the Lord, and his appearance is as good as that of the Supreme Lord.
Success or failure has no meaning for a pure devotee because he is a soldier in the field. Preaching the cult of devotional service is something like declaring war against materialistic life. There are different kinds of materialists, such as the fruitive workers, the mental speculators, the mystic jugglers, and so many others. All of them are against the existence of Godhead.
There are two kinds of living entities. There are the ever-liberated, unconditioned living beings as well as the ever-conditioned living beings. Of the ever-conditioned living beings, there are two divisions. They are the faithful and the infidels. Of the faithful there are again two divisions, namely the devotees and the mental speculators. The mental speculators desire to merge into the existence of the Lord, or to become one with the Lord, whereas the devotees of the Lord desire to keep separate identities and constantly engage in the service of the Lord.
It may be argued that Śukadeva Gosvāmī is not the only authority of perfect knowledge in transcendence because there are many other sages and their followers. Contemporary to Vyāsadeva or even prior to him there were many other great sages, such as Gautama, Kaṇāda, Jaimini, Kapila and Aṣṭāvakra, and all of them have presented a philosophical path by themselves. Patañjali is also one of them, and all these six great ṛṣis have their own way of thinking, exactly like the modern philosophers and mental speculators. The difference between the six philosophical paths put forward by the renowned sages above mentioned and that of Śukadeva Gosvāmī, as presented in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is that all the six sages mentioned above speak the facts according to their own thinking, but Śukadeva Gosvāmī presents the knowledge which comes down directly from Brahmājī, who is known as ātma-bhūḥ, or born of and educated by the Almighty Personality of Godhead.
Mind is material and thus knowledge presented by material speculators is never transcendental and can never become perfect. Mundane philosophers, being imperfect in themselves, disagree with other philosophers because a mundane philosopher is not a philosopher at all unless he presents his own theory. Intelligent persons like Mahārāja Parīkṣit do not recognize such mental speculators, however great they may be, but hear from the authorities like Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who is nondifferent from the Supreme Personality of Godhead by the paramparā system, as is specially stressed in the Bhagavad-gītā.
The disciplic succession from Brahmā, Nārada, Vyāsa and Śukadeva Gosvāmī is particularly different from others. The disciplic successions from other sages are simply a waste of time, being devoid of acyuta-kathā, or the message of the infallible Lord. The mental speculators can present their theories very nicely by reason and arguments, but such reasons and arguments are not infallible, for they are defeated by better mental speculators. Mahārāja Parīkṣit was not interested in the dry speculation of the flickering mind, but he was interested in the topics of the Lord because factually he felt that by hearing such a nectarean message from the mouth of Śukadeva Gosvāmī he was not feeling any exhaustion, even though he was fasting because of his imminent death.
One can indulge in hearing the mental speculators, but such hearing cannot endure for any length of time. One will be exhausted very soon from hearing such hackneyed ways of thinking, and no one in the world can be satisfied simply by hearing such useless speculations. The message of the Lord, especially from a personality like Śukadeva Gosvāmī, can never be tiring, even though one may be exhausted from other causes.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and, primarily, the Bhagavad-gītā are both meant for delivering a person from the misconception of "I" and "mine," and Śrīla Vyāsadeva transcribed them for the deliverance of the fallen souls. The living entity has to be situated in the transcendental position where there is no more influence of time nor of the material energy. In conditioned life the living entity is subjected to the influence of time in the dream of past, present and future. The mental speculator tries to conquer the influence of time by future speculations of becoming Vāsudeva or the Supreme Lord himself by means of culturing knowledge and conquering over ego. But the process is not perfect.
The summary is that due to ignorance the conditioned soul is encaged in the temporary varieties of material forms. But the Supreme Lord has no such temporary form like the conditioned souls. He is always possessed of an eternal form of knowledge and bliss, and that is the difference between the Lord and the living entity. One can understand this difference by the process of bhakti-yoga. Brahmā was then told by the Lord the gist of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in four original verses. Thus Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is not a creation of the mental speculators. The sound of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is transcendental, and the resonance of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is as good as that of the Vedas.
The Lord says that Brahmā may take the answers as He explains them. This means that transcendental knowledge of the absolute Supreme Being can be known if it is made known by the Lord Himself. By the mental speculation of the greatest mundane thinkers, the Absolute Truth cannot be understood. The mental speculators can reach up to the standard of impersonal Brahman realization, but, factually, complete knowledge of transcendence is beyond the knowledge of impersonal Brahman. Thus it is called the supreme confidential wisdom. Out of many liberated souls, someone may be qualified to know the Personality of Godhead.
The impersonalists can imagine or even perceive that the Supreme Brahman is thus all-pervading, and therefore they conclude that there is no possibility of His personal form. Herein lies the mystery of His transcendental knowledge. This mystery is transcendental love of Godhead, and one who is surcharged with such transcendental love of Godhead can without difficulty see the Personality of Godhead in every atom and every movable or immovable object. And at the same time he can see the Personality of Godhead in His own abode, Goloka, enjoying eternal pastimes with His eternal associates, who are also expansions of His transcendental existence. This vision is the real mystery of spiritual knowledge, as stated by the Lord in the beginning (sarahasyaṁ tad-aṅgaṁ ca). This mystery is the most confidential part of the knowledge of the Supreme, and it is impossible for the mental speculators to discover by dint of intellectual gymnastics. The mystery can be revealed through the process recommended by Brahmājī in his Brahma-saṁhitā (5.38).
Universal consciousness is factually achieved by coordinated service of all concerned to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and that alone can insure total perfection. Therefore even the great scientists, the great philosophers, the great mental speculators, the great politicians, the great industrialists, the great social reformers, etc., cannot give any relief to the restless society of the material world because they do not know the secret of success as mentioned in this verse of the Bhāgavatam, namely that one must know the mystery of bhakti-yoga.
SB Canto 3
There are many topics for different persons in different modes of material nature, but the essential topics are those in relationship with the Supreme Lord. Unfortunately, materially affected conditioned souls are all more or less averse to topics of the Supreme Lord because some of them do not believe in the existence of God and some of them believe only in the impersonal feature of the Lord. In both cases there is nothing for them to say of God. Both the nonbelievers and the impersonalists deny the essence of all topics; therefore, they engage in topics of relativity in various ways, either in sense gratification or in mental speculation. For the pure devotees like Vidura, the topics of both the mundaners and the mental speculators are useless in all respects. Thus Vidura requested Maitreya to talk of the essence only, the talks of Kṛṣṇa, and nothing else.
The difference between the impersonalistic mental speculators and the pure devotees of the Lord is that the former pass through a miserable understanding of the Absolute Truth at every stage, whereas the devotees enter into the kingdom of all pleasures even from the beginning of their attempt. The devotee has only to hear about devotional activities, which are as simple as anything in ordinary life, and he also acts very simply, whereas the mental speculator has to pass through a jugglery of words, which are partially facts and partially a make-show for the maintenance of an artificial impersonal status.
The buddhi-yoga process of self-realization with intelligence transcendental to the mind (devotional service) can alone elevate one from the conditioned state of material entanglement in the cosmic construction. The conditioned state of the living entity is like that of a person who is within the depths of a huge mechanical arrangement. The mental speculators can reach the point of buddhi-yoga after many, many lifetimes of speculation, but the intelligent person who begins from the platform of intelligence above the mind makes rapid progress in self-realization. Because the buddhi-yoga process entails no fear of deterioration or retrogression at any time, it is the guaranteed path to self-realization, as confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (2.40). The mental speculators cannot understand that the two birds (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad) sitting in one tree are the soul and the Supersoul. The individual soul eats the fruit of the tree, while the other bird does not eat the fruit but only observes the activities of the eating bird.
Due to a poor fund of knowledge, the mental speculators try to bring the Supreme within the purview of words and minds, but the Lord refuses to be so intelligible; the speculator has no adequate words or mind to gauge the infinity of the Lord. The Lord is called adhokṣaja, or the person who is beyond perception by the blunt, limited potency of our senses.
It is said in the Brahma-saṁhitā that the mental speculator may fly through the sky of speculation with the velocity of the mind or the wind for thousands of millions of years, and still he will find it inconceivable. The devotees, however, do not waste time in such vain searching after knowledge of the Supreme, but they submissively hear the glories of the Lord from bona fide devotees. Thus they transcendentally enjoy the process of hearing and chanting.
The froggish calculator may raise the objection that if the Absolute is unknowable even by the controlling deities of speech, mind and ego, namely the Vedas, Brahmā, Rudra and all the demigods headed by Bṛhaspati, then why should the devotees be so interested in this unknown object? The answer is that the transcendental ecstasy enjoyed by the devotees in delineating the pastimes of the Lord is certainly unknown to nondevotees and mental speculators.
The science of Kṛṣṇa, or the science of God and the living entities, is so subtle that even a personality like Vidura has to consult persons like the sage Maitreya. Doubts about the eternal relationship of the Lord and the living entity are created by mental speculators in different ways, but the conclusive fact is that the relationship of God and the living entity is one of the predominator and the predominated. The Lord is the eternal predominator, and the living entities are eternally predominated.
The subject matter of the speculations of Brahmā in the beginning regarding the creation of the cosmic manifestation is still a subject matter for mental speculators. The most intelligent man is he who tries to find the cause of his personal existence and that of the whole cosmic creation and thus tries to find the ultimate cause. If his attempt is properly executed with penances and perseverance, it is sure to be crowned with success.
Mental speculators who want to understand the limit of the Unlimited are certainly nonsensical. Every one of them is captivated by the external potencies of the Lord. The best thing for them is to surrender unto Him, knowing Him to be inconceivable, for thus they can receive His causeless mercy. This prayer was offered by the inhabitants of the higher planetary systems, namely the Jana, Tapas and Satya lokas, who are far more intelligent and powerful than humans
The word saṁśaya means "doubtful knowledge." Speculative and pseudo yogic knowledge is all doubtful. At the present moment the so-called yoga system is prosecuted on the understanding that by agitation of the different stations of the bodily construction one can find that he is God. The mental speculators think similarly, but they are all doubtful. Real knowledge is expounded in Bhagavad-gītā: "Just become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Just worship Kṛṣṇa and become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa." That is real knowledge, and anyone who follows that system becomes perfect without a doubt.
In Bhagavad-gītā it is confirmed that only a devotee can understand Him as He is. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti: (BG 18.55) "One can understand Me only by devotional service, not otherwise." That understanding alone is real because although jñānīs, mental speculators, can realize only the effulgence, or the bodily luster, of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and yogīs can realize only the partial representation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, a bhakta not only realizes Him as He is but also associates with the Personality of Godhead face to face.
It is not true that Sāṅkhya philosophy is a new system of philosophy introduced by Kapila as material philosophers introduce new kinds of mental speculative thought to supersede that of another philosopher. On the material platform, everyone, especially the mental speculator, tries to be more prominent than others. The field of activity of the speculators is the mind; there is no limit to the different ways in which one can agitate the mind. The mind can be unlimitedly agitated, and thus one can put forward an unlimited number of theories.
Every word we hear has a meaning behind it. As soon as we hear the word "water," there is a substance—water—behind the word. Similarly, as soon as we hear the word "God," there is a meaning to it. If we receive that meaning and explanation of "God" from God Himself, then it is perfect. But if we speculate about the meaning of "God," it is imperfect. Bhagavad-gītā, which is the science of God, is spoken by the Personality of Godhead Himself. This is perfect knowledge. Mental speculators or so-called philosophers who are researching what is actually God will never understand the nature of God. The science of God has to be understood in disciplic succession from Brahmā, who was first instructed about knowledge of God by God Himself.
A devotee in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness appears superficially to be a great karmī, always working, but the inner significance of the devotee's activities is that they are meant for the satisfaction of the Supreme Lord. This is called bhakti, or devotional service. Arjuna was apparently a fighter but when by his fighting he satisfied the senses of Lord Kṛṣṇa, he became a devotee. Since a devotee also engages in philosophical research to understand the Supreme Person as He is, his activities may thus appear to be like those of a mental speculator, but actually he is trying to understand the spiritual nature and transcendental activities. Thus although the tendency for philosophical speculation exists, the material effects of fruitive activities and empiric speculation do not, because this activity is meant for the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
It is clearly stated herein that a pure devotee does not desire ekatva, oneness with the Supreme Lord, as desired by the impersonalists, the mental speculators and the meditators. To become one with the Supreme Lord is beyond the dream of a pure devotee.
SB Canto 4
There are different types of philosophers—mīmāṁsakas, atheists, astronomers, sexualists and so many other classifications of mental speculators. The real conclusion is that it is our work only that binds us within this material world in different varieties of life.
The question may be raised, "Since there are so many varieties of philosophers theorizing in different ways, which of them is correct?" The answer is that the Absolute Truth, Transcendence, is never subject to direct experience or mental speculation. The mental speculator may be called Dr. Frog. The story is that a frog in a three-foot well wanted to calculate the length and breadth of the Atlantic Ocean on the basis of his knowledge of his own well. But it was an impossible task for Dr. Frog. A person may be a great academician, scholar or professor, but he cannot speculate and expect to understand the Absolute Truth, for his senses are limited.
Even in this material world the so-called scientists, philosophers and mental speculators strive to merge into the spiritual sky, but they can never go there. But a devotee, by executing devotional service, not only realizes what the spiritual world actually is, but factually goes there to live an eternal life of bliss and knowledge. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is so potent that by adopting these principles of life and developing love of God one can very easily go back home, back to Godhead.
Devotional service cannot be practiced by a mental speculator. Devotional service is a special attainment which can be acquired only by a person who has surrendered unto a pure devotee.
When the senses are purified by devotional activity, the devotee understands everything about the Lord by the Lord's grace. In this verse the words pumbhir nāmabhir vā kriyā-guṇaiḥ are especially significant because God, Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has many names, activities and qualities, although none of them are material. Despite the fact that all these names, activities and pastimes are mentioned in the śāstras and understood by the devotees, the karmīs (fruitive laborers) cannot understand them. Nor can the jñānīs (mental speculators) understand them. Although there are thousands of names of Lord Viṣṇu, the karmīs and jñānīs intermingle the names of the Supreme Godhead with the names of demigods and human beings.
Sometimes these professional readers manifest very good scholarship and exhibit word jugglery. Unfortunately they are never devotees of the Supreme Lord. Consequently, they cannot impress upon the audience the real essence of knowledge, Kṛṣṇa. There are also many thoughtful writers and creative philosophers, but despite all their learning, if they cannot approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they are simply useless mental speculators. There are many sharply intelligent people in this material world, and they discover so many things for sense gratification.
SB Canto 7
After considering the oneness of existence, activity and paraphernalia and after realizing the self to be different from all actions and reactions, the mental speculator (muni), according to his own realization, gives up the three states of wakefulness, dreaming and sleep.
SB Canto 10.1 to 10.13
The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, the son of mother Yaśodā, is accessible to devotees engaged in spontaneous loving service, but He is not as easily accessible to mental speculators, to those striving for self-realization by severe austerities and penances, or to those who consider the body the same as the self.
| Page Title: | Mental speculators (BG and SB) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Sureshwardas |
| Created: | 30 of Dec, 2008 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=2, SB=48, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 50 |