Unknowable
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Chapters 7 - 12
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
SB Canto 2
SB Canto 3
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
- kleśo 'dhikataras teṣām
- avyaktāsakta-cetasām
- avyaktā hi gatir duḥkhaṁ
- dehavadbhir avāpyate
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
- jñāne prayāsam udapāsya namanta eva
- jīvanti san-mukharitāṁ bhavadīya-vārtām
- sthāne sthitāḥ śruti-gatāṁ tanu-vāṅ-manobhir
- ye prāyaśo 'jita jito 'py asi tais tri-lokyām
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures
General Lectures
Philosophy Discussions
Prabhupāda: Successful means one who understands that I am not this body. You ask, you take census, in this Nairobi city, you will find that 99.9%, or more than that, people do not know what he is. Everyone knows that "I am this body." So perfection of life means one who understands that "I am not this body..." They become impersonalists, something like that, or voidists. Out of them—those who have understood perfection, that "I am not this body"—one can understand Kṛṣṇa. Out of many thousands of people who have attained actual perfect. So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness is actually not so easy, but these devotees are actually realizing Kṛṣṇa. Why? By the grace of Kṛṣṇa. Because the devotees are engaged in His service, He is revealing Himself. That is the process. Not by this, Kant's speculation. It is not possible.
Śyāmasundara: He says that although this ultimate reality appears unknowable, still the mind seeks to discover it.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He cannot be satisfied. He is seeking Kṛṣṇa.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. So he says that the real world or the ultimate reality becomes a reconstruction of the mind by speculationists; that they take the contents of this world and reproduce it into what they believe to be the real world.
Prabhupāda: By speculation, the real world for them is negation of this world. That is voidism. I am experiencing everything here material, so this material thinking and other material thinking induces him to conclude that it must be opposite. It must be opposite. This is material. So spiritual means not this form, or formless, or void. So that is also material thinking. Just the opposite number.Śyāmasundara: In fact he recognizes three such ideals of pure reason: one is the soul, two is the ultimate world or reality, and three is God. He says that these three ideals are a priori to the reason. They are born with us. We know these things.
Prabhupāda: That is also true. We also accept. Nitya siddha kṛṣṇa bhakti. Our tendency to offer service to the Lord, that is natural. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that He is eternal servant; therefore that tendency should be natural. But it is some way or another covered by material ignorance.
Śyāmasundara: He says whereas sense perception cannot provide the information about the soul and about God, pure reason can penetrate into the unknowable and provide us with conceptions in order to grasp the whole of reality.
Prabhupāda: This is not very clear, that sense perception cannot reach soul. But he says that reason is beyond the senses.
Śyāmasundara: Yes. He says that we can grasp conceptions of God and soul and reality through the use of pure reason.
Prabhupāda: How the reason is exercised?
Śyāmasundara: He comes to the conclusion that these ideals of perfect knowledge are set up, but they are unprovable and unknowable. We can never know any more than that, that there is God, there is soul, there is reality, but we cannot know anything more than that. We don't have any more information than that.
Prabhupāda: Anything cannot be known more than that by his personal attempt. But they can be known through a process which is called paramparā.Page Title: | Unknowable |
Compiler: | Archana, Haya |
Created: | 12 of Dec, 2008 |
Totals by Section: | BG=1, SB=3, CC=0, OB=1, Lec=5, Con=0, Let=0 |
No. of Quotes: | 10 |