Accepting the impersonalist view of voidness or the nonexistence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead negates all study of the Vedas. Impersonal speculation aims at disproving the conclusion of the Vedas

Expressions researched:
"Accepting the impersonalist view of voidness or the nonexistence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead negates all study of the Vedas. Impersonal speculation aims at disproving the conclusion of the Vedas"

CC Adi-lila

Accepting the impersonalist view of voidness or the nonexistence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead negates all study of the Vedas. Impersonal speculation aims at disproving the conclusion of the Vedas. Therefore any impersonal speculative presentation should be understood to be against the principles of the Vedas, or standard scriptures.

CC Adi 6.14-15, Purport:

“Materialists sometimes give the argument that as straw eaten by a cow produces milk automatically, so material nature, under different circumstances, produces varieties of manifestations. Thus originally matter is the cause. In refuting this argument, we may say that an animal of the same species as the cow—namely, the bull—also eats straw like the cow but does not produce milk. Under the circumstances, it cannot be said that straw in connection with a particular species produces milk. The conclusion should be that there is superior management, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.10), where the Lord says, mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram: "This material nature is working under My direction, O son of Kuntī, and it is producing all moving and unmoving beings." The Supreme Lord says, mayādhyakṣeṇa ("under My superintendence"). When He desires that the cow produce milk by eating straw, there is milk, and when He does not so desire it, the mixture of such straw cannot produce milk. If the way of material nature had been that straw produced milk, a stack of straw could also produce milk. But that is not possible. And the same straw given to a human female also cannot produce milk. That is the meaning of the Bhagavad-gītā’s statement that only under superior orders does anything take place. Matter itself has no power to produce independently. The conclusion, therefore, is that matter, which has no self-knowledge, cannot be the cause of the material creation. The ultimate creator is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

“If matter were accepted as the original cause of creation, all the authorized scriptures in the world would be useless, for in every scripture, especially the Vedic scriptures like the Manu-smṛti, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is said to be the ultimate creator. The Manu-smṛti is considered the highest Vedic direction to humanity. Manu is the giver of law to mankind, and in the Manu-smṛti it is clearly stated that before the creation the entire universal space was darkness, without information and without variety, and was in a state of complete suspension, like a dream. Everything was darkness. The Supreme Personality of Godhead then entered the universal space, and although He is invisible, He created the visible cosmic manifestation. In the material world the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not manifested by His personal presence, but the presence of the cosmic manifestation in different varieties is the proof that everything has been created under His direction. He entered the universe with all creative potencies, and thus He removed the darkness of the unlimited space.

“The form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is described to be transcendental, very subtle, eternal, all-pervading, inconceivable and therefore nonmanifested to the material senses of a conditioned living creature. He desired to expand Himself into many living entities, and with such a desire He first created a vast expanse of water within the universal space and then impregnated that water with living entities. By that process of impregnation a massive body appeared, blazing like a thousand suns, and in that body was the first creative principle, Brahmā. The great Parāśara Ṛṣi has confirmed this in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. He says that the cosmic manifestation visible to us is produced from Lord Viṣṇu and sustained under His protection. He is the principal maintainer and destroyer of the universal form.

“This cosmic manifestation is one of the diverse energies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As a spider secretes saliva and weaves a web by its own movements but at the end winds up the web within its body, so Lord Viṣṇu produces this cosmic manifestation from His transcendental body and at the end winds it up within Himself. All the great sages of the Vedic understanding have accepted that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the original creator.

“It is sometimes claimed that the impersonal speculations of great philosophers are meant for the advancement of knowledge without religious ritualistic principles. But the religious ritualistic principles are actually meant for the advancement of spiritual knowledge. By performance of religious rituals one ultimately reaches the supreme goal of knowledge by understanding that Vāsudeva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the cause of everything. It is clearly stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that even those who are advocates of knowledge alone, without any religious ritualistic processes, advance in knowledge after many, many lifetimes of speculation and thus come to the conclusion that Vāsudeva is the supreme cause of everything that be. As a result of this achievement of the goal of life, such an advanced learned scholar or philosopher surrenders unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Religious ritualistic performances are actually meant to cleanse the contaminated mind in the material world, and the special feature of this Age of Kali is that one can easily execute the process of cleansing the mind of contamination by chanting the holy names of God—Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.

“A Vedic injunction states, sarve vedā yat padam āmananti (Kaṭha Up. 1.2.15): all Vedic knowledge is searching after the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Similarly, another Vedic injunction states, nārāyaṇa-parā vedāḥ: the Vedas are meant for understanding Nārāyaṇa, the Supreme Lord. Similarly, the Bhagavad-gītā also confirms, vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ: (BG 15.15) by all the Vedas, Kṛṣṇa is to be known. Therefore, the main purpose of understanding the Vedas, performing Vedic sacrifices and speculating on the Vedānta-sūtra is to understand Kṛṣṇa. Accepting the impersonalist view of voidness or the nonexistence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead negates all study of the Vedas. Impersonal speculation aims at disproving the conclusion of the Vedas. Therefore any impersonal speculative presentation should be understood to be against the principles of the Vedas, or standard scriptures. Since the speculation of the impersonalists does not follow the principles of the Vedas, their conclusion must be considered to be against the Vedic principles. Anything not supported by the Vedic principles must be considered imaginary and lacking in standard proof. Therefore no impersonalist explanation of any Vedic literature can be accepted.

"If one tries to nullify the conclusions of the Vedas by accepting an unauthorized scripture or so-called scripture, it will be very hard for him to come to the right conclusion about the Absolute Truth. The system for adjusting two contradictory scriptures is to refer to the Vedas, for references from the Vedas are accepted as final judgments. When we refer to a particular scripture, it must be authorized, and for this authority it must strictly follow the Vedic injunctions. If someone presents an alternative doctrine he himself has manufactured, that doctrine will prove itself useless, for any doctrine that tries to prove that Vedic evidence is meaningless immediately proves itself meaningless. The followers of the Vedas unanimously accept the authority of Manu and Parāśara in the disciplic succession. Their statements, however, do not support the atheistic Kapila, because the Kapila mentioned in the Vedas is a different Kapila, the son of Kardama and Devahūti. The atheist Kapila is a descendant of the dynasty of Agni and is one of the conditioned souls. But the Kapila who is the son of Kardama Muni is accepted as an incarnation of Vāsudeva. The Padma Purāṇa gives evidence that the Supreme Personality of Godhead Vāsudeva takes birth in the incarnation of Kapila and, by His expansion of theistic Sāṅkhya philosophy, teaches all the demigods and a brāhmaṇa of the name Āsuri. In the doctrine of the atheist Kapila there are many statements directly against the Vedic principles. The atheist Kapila does not accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He says that the living entity is himself the Supreme Lord and that no one is greater than him. His conceptions of so-called conditioned and liberated life are materialistic, and he refuses to accept the importance of immortal time. All such statements are against the principles of the Vedānta-sūtra."