Vedic process of gaining knowledge | Sri Isopanisad

“In the Vedic disciplic succession, the spiritual masters always base their statements on what they have heard from authoritative sources, never on personal experience.

Trying to understand things by one’s own direct experience is the material process of gaining knowledge, technically called pratyaksa. The Vedic method is different. It is called sruti, which means, “to hear from authoritative sources.” That is the secret of Vedic understanding.

With your imperfect senses you should not try to understand things that are beyond your experimental powers. That is not possible. Suppose you want to know who your father is. Can you find out by experimenting? Is it possible? No. Then how can you know who your father is? By hearing from the proper authority, your mother. This is common sense.

And if you cannot know your material father by the experimental process, how can you know the Supreme Father by the experimental process?

Krishna is the original father. He is the father of the father of the father, all the way down to you. So if you cannot understand your immediate father, the previous generation, by the experimental process, how can you know God, or Krishna, in this way?

People search for God by the experimental process, but after much searching they fail. Then they say, “Oh, there is no God. I am God.” But the Isopanisad says that one should try to learn about God not by the experimental process but by hearing.

From whom should one hear? From a shopkeeper? From fanatics? No. One should hear from those who are dhira. Dhira means “one whose senses are not agitated by material influence.”

There are different kinds of agitation–agitations of the mind, the power of speech, and anger, and agitations of the tongue, belly, and genitals. When we become angry, we forget everything and can do any nonsense and speak so much nonsense.

For the agitation of the tongue there are so many advertisements: “Here is liquor, here is chicken, here is beef.” Will we die without liquor, chicken, or beef? No. For the human beings Krishna has given so many nice things to eat–grains, fruits, milk, and so on.

The cow produces milk abundantly, not for herself but for human beings. That is proper human food. God says, “Mrs. Cow, although you are producing milk, you cannot drink it. It is for the human beings, who are more advanced than animals.”

Of course, in the infant stage animals live off their mother’s milk, so the calves drink some of the cow’s milk. But the cow gives excess milk, and that excess is specifically meant for us.”

The Laws Of Nature, The Way of Knowing God

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