The saṅkīrtana just now we have performed, it is vibration of the transcendental sound. This will help us in clearing the dust which we have accumulated on the surface of our mind. The whole thing is misunderstanding. We, as pure soul, pure consciousness, naturally we are aloof from material contamination. But due to our long association with this material atmosphere, we have accumulated a great, thick layer of dust on the mind. So as soon as the dust is cleared off, then we can see ourself, what we are.
So we are discussing for the last few days on the constitutional position of ourself, myself, yourself—the soul, pure soul. Now, we have discussed that this pure soul is distinct from this material body. And we can understand this constitution of the soul by the presence of consciousness. The Lord says, Kṛṣṇa says that, avināśi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idaṁ tatam (BG 2.17).
You can understand what you are. You are present all over your body. You are present all over your body. Wherever you can try by pinching your body, you will feel some pain, this, this part of this body or this part of this body. And this pain feeling will be stopped as soon as the consciousness is taken away from this body. Dead body, where there is no consciousness, the dead body does not feel even he is chopped up by some chopper, because the consciousness is gone. Therefore, it is not very difficult to understand that "I am the consciousness. I am not this material body." We have discussed all this point.
Now, so far scriptures are concerned, there are different scriptures all over the world in the civilized society, but Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord says that "The essence of all scripture is to understand my constitutional position." That's all. All the rituals . . . we should not be stuck up to the rituals or to the formulas of the . . . of course, in the preliminary stages we require to stick to the formulas of religious scripture. But we must know that the whole idea is targeted to understand my real position. That is the whole idea of all scripture.
In the Bhagavad-gītā it has been very nicely described, yāvān artha udapāne tāvān samplutodake.
- yāvān artha udapāne
- sarvataḥ samplutodake
- tāvān sarveṣu vedeṣu
- brāhmaṇasya vijānataḥ
- (BG 2.46)
Brāhmaṇasya vijānataḥ. One who knows the constitution of the soul, he is called brāhmaṇa. Because the soul is Brahman: soul is not matter. So one who knows the constitution of the soul, he is called brahmin. We have already discussed this matter, that brahmin does not mean a particular class or born in a particular country. A brahmin means who knows the position of the soul, or the constitution of the soul. He is brahmin.