There are many theories and philosophical speculation all over the world about understanding the soul. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is concluding that, "Somebody's explaining wonderfully, somebody is hearing wonderfully, but even after hearing and speaking, it remains a mystery, and less intelligent person cannot understand it."
That is the fact. There are so many theories. Therefore we have to accept the reality from the authority. By theorizing, by speculating, we cannot come into any decision. I may be very good logician. You may be greater logician. So you can defeat my logic; I can defeat your logic. So what is the conclusion? This kind of talking, it is called ku-tarka, unnecessarily talking, because you'll not come to my decision, I'll not come to your decision. So everyone is mysterious.
So in this way we cannot understand which is beyond the perception of our knowledge. Acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāṁs tarkeṇa yojayet. Things which are beyond our perception, you . . . we should not simply try to understand by logic and argument. It is useless waste of time, because nobody can decide theory.
The modern so-called scientists, they also write like that, "Perhaps," "It may be," like that. "It may be millions of years. It was like this." "It may be." What is the value of saying "It may be." Say definitely. That they cannot do. All the scientists' theory like "Perhaps," "Maybe." "Perchance, if it comes to be true . . ." So such kind of argument has no value.
Therefore our śāstra says, acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvāḥ. Beyond your perception, beyond your sense perception, don't try to understand it by argument and logic. Then how to know it? Know it from the person who knows it. That is knowledge. Just like we are trying to get knowledge about the soul, not by experiment, but we are trying to understand from the words of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is the authority. So He says, in the beginning, dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā (BG 2.13). We can . . . Kṛṣṇa says, and we can think over it and ponder over it. Then we come to conclusion. And the other process, Vedic process, is:
- yasya deve parā bhaktir
- yathā deve tathā gurau
- tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ
- prakāśante mahātmanaḥ
- (ŚU 6.23)
Our process is descending process. We are not trying to understand by the ascending process. Inductive or deductive. We accept the statements of the Vedas. Therefore we haven't got to make much effort to understand the thing. Veda-vacana. Śruti, śruti-pramāṇa. There are three kinds of evidences: direct perception, and evidence from the Vedas, and evidence from history. Aitihya. Pratyakṣa, aitihya, śruti. Three kinds of evidences.
So pratyakṣa and aitihya is neglected. According to our Vedic system, śruti-pramāṇa, if it is statement, the statement is there in the śruti, in the Vedas, then we accept. We have got a society in India, they call veda-pramāṇa: "We cannot accept without it is not mentioned in the Vedas." That's a . . . that's nice. But there is another class, who are described in the Bhagavad-gītā by Kṛṣṇa Himself: veda-vāda-ratāḥ. They are simply unnecessarily fight on the basis of so-called Vedic knowledge. Vedic knowledge must be understood from the guru. That is injunction. They defy that. They . . .
The Vedic injunction is . . . Kaṭhopaniśad. Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet (MU 1.2.12). You . . . to understand the Vedas, you must approach a guru. Otherwise, you cannot understand. Just like it is forbidden that without becoming a brāhmin, nobody should read Vedas. Because he cannot understand. Unless one is qualified brāhmin, unless one has approached another qualified brāhmin who knows, there is no question of understanding Vedas. Just like Max Mueller translated Veda. What does he know about Veda? Such kinds of translation, understanding, is useless.
Tad-vijñānārthaṁ sa gurum eva abhigacchet. Abhigacchet means "He must!" There is not that "I may go or I may not." No, you must, if you really serious. In our vaiṣṇava-paramparā also—vaiṣṇava-paramparā is actually Vedic paramparā—that ādau gurvāśrayam. Ādau gurvāśrayam: "To enter into the spiritual life, first thing is first of all to accept a guru." That is . . . all big, big stalwarts . . .
Even Vyāsadeva. Vyāsadeva, the wonderful literature, this reading. We are reading Bhagavad-gītā. It is Vyāsadeva's literature. He heard from Kṛṣṇa and wrote it. And not only this—the Mahābhārata, the Puranas, the Vedānta-sūtra and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Wonderful literatures. There is no possibility of producing such literature by any scholar of these days. It is not possible. But he accepted guru, Nārada, Nārada Muni.
When, after compiling all the Vedas and Puranas, even Vedānta-sūtra, Vyāsadeva was not satisfied himself, he was seeming very morose. At that time his spiritual master, Nārada, came, and he asked that, "Why you are morose? You have done so much nice literary work. So why you are not very happy?" So Vyāsadeva replied: "Yes, my lord, I am actually not happy, but I cannot understand why I'm not happy. So you know everything. Kindly describe why I am not happy."
So at that time, Nārada replied him that, "All the literatures you have so far made, they are with reference to the body and the mind. You have nothing described very nicely about the Supreme Soul. So now you try to describe something about the Supreme Lord, about the Supreme Soul. That will make you happy."
Therefore he described the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. This is the history of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And his last contribution was, mature contribution, was Vedānta-sūtra. So from the Vedānta-sūtra, he began writing Śrīmad-Bhāgavata: janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1). This is the beginning of Vedānta-sūtra. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. He said, in a different language, jīvasya tattva-jijñāsā.
So a human life should be engaged inquiring about the Absolute Truth, and he should inquire from a person who . . . who has heard about the Absolute Truth from a realized person. This is a . . . therefore it is called śruti, paramparā, disciplic succession. One . . . just like Vyāsadeva is hearing from Nārada. Nārada is authorized. He has heard from Brahmā. Brahmā has heard from Kṛṣṇa. So this is the paramparā system, disciplic succession.