0:24We know the story, how Shila Bhakti Vedanta Swami Maharaj was in the train with Shila Bhakti Raksha Kshitar Devgasamy Maharaj? I think with him he was the third and Bhaktisarang with him. If I remember correctly, Shrila Bhaktisaranga Maharaj also was there. There was a story that Bhaktisaranga Maharaj came back from Europe and said that philosophers ask such questions that it is impossible to answer them.
1:14And Shrila Bhaktisaranga Maharaj came back from Europe and he told that it was a little bit difficult to answer all questions which people were asking. My first question why he could not answer this question because he is very elevated Vaishnav.
1:50And which kind of questions people asked?
2:00And which kind of questions it could be?
2:18In that conversation, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was remembering that Śrīla Bhakti Raksa Śrīdhāmarāj, he said, tell me what the questions were, what were the questions they were asking? And then, when he heard them, then he explained, he gave the answers to all of those questions, all of those types of challenges. And then Srila Prabhupada, at the end of the discussion, he said, oh, today India has conquered Europe. So, it is seen that Srila Bhakti Rakshat Siddha He had formal training in Western philosophy, and he also, of course, knew the Vedic philosophy.
3:28It's not clear and not aware if Parampujabhad Silla Bhakti Sranga Goswami Raj has a training in the Western philosophy. But for sure, Silla Bhakti Rakshak Shidam Raj had formal training before he came to the Mats. He was in the English education system here in India, and he studied philosophy, and he was an advocate.
3:56He was a lawyer. So for his law degree, he had to also have a background in philosophy. So he was familiar with Greek philosophy and also European philosophy like Kant and Hegel and other European philosophers. So, whether it seems, I cannot say for certain, so you cannot quote me on this, but it seems from the situation that Saranga Goswami may not have had a formal education in European philosophy.
4:36So, the pure Vaishnava knows everything. In principle, he knows everything and does not make a mistake. That means he's free from Brahm. That is the mistake of thinking that the body is the Self.
5:01He's free from the mistake of thinking that the physical objects around us in this world are self-existent. So two types of Brahm. The Brahm related to misunderstanding the Self and also the hallucination or the projection onto the world that it is existing of its own accord out, and that is not actually the Viratrup, the universal form of the Supreme Lord, just like we were hearing yesterday, that if a devotee hears something which is unpalatable or something negative, apparently negative, happens, then the devotee says, Si-Vishnu, Si-Vishnu, Si-Vishnu.
5:44It means actually Vishnu is everything. It removes all inauspiciousness. So it may be that because of not having the training in Western philosophy, it may not have been clear to him what the questions were. If someone asks a very detailed question, and they themselves are steeped in a particular worldview, then the way that they're using words, it's completely different. The way that they use the words is completely different. So in any philosophical discussion. First, there has to be some agreement about the terminology and things like this. So, if someone is from a totally different worldview, then the actual dialogue cannot go on. So, it's necessary that each side have some, for a deep dialogue to take place, it's necessary
6:56that each side have some training in the philosophical system of the other side. So, Srila Bhaktino Thakur, he also studied all Western world philosophy, actually, Vedic and Western philosophy, and he wrote a book called the Tata Sutra.
7:26And there he has gone through all the prominent philosophers and given some suggestion, where they are correct, where they are incorrect, and where the Vedic system is more complete. So at the time when Saranga Goswami was in Europe, he was in England, he was also in Germany, and at that time, European philosophy. There were persons like Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, and these philosophers were putting forward different types of existentialism and phenomenology, Ferdinand de Saussure as well. So these are some of the European philosophers at that time. And it was very obscure, very obscure analysis of
8:37things. So I suspect that even the questions themselves, they were framed in such a way that it was difficult for him, without having a formal training in that system, and just spontaneously on the spot to give an answer. So, for example, Srila Jeeva Goswami has written and Tattu-sandharabha, and all the Bhagwat-sandharabha, the six Sandharabhas.
9:16And in the Sandharabhas, he's presented the Siddhanta of Chaitanya Mahapur and of our Gaudiya line based mainly on Srimad Bhagavatam. Srimad Bhagavatam is the best Praman, and he's given some other Pramans in other places, not to support the Bhagavatam, because Bhagavatam doesn't need any support.
9:41Bhagavatam is the best Praman. So you don't prove Bhagavatam by quoting somewhere else. You can prove everything else by quoting Srimad Bhagavatam, the validity of anything else. But where the same Siddhanthas which are given in Bhagavatam have been explained, certain details and nuances of that have been explained in other scriptures, he has quoted them to elaborate on those points.
10:08Then Jeeva Goswami, he wrote a commentary, his own commentary on the Samadharapas called Sarvasambhadini. So Samvard means discussion. Sarva Samvardi means all discussions. And so at the time of Jeeva Goswami, of course, and before that, before the time of Jeeva Goswami, you have Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankhya, Yoga, Darshan, Purvami, Mansa, and so on.
10:42And then since that time, up to the time of Jeeva Goswami, so many other philosophical schools and developments came about, Like the Spottvaad school, the Varnavaad school, they had developments, later developments. Nyai became Navya-nyai, and so new categories or new analysis of logic had developed just some time before the appearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
11:10So there in Sarvasambharini, Śrīla Jīva Goswāmīpār, he is addressing so many different philosophical systems and showing their faults and showing why Sumed Bhagavatam's conclusion is the best.
11:27So, there may be many, many pure devotees, but if you ask them the questions about this discussion in Sarva Samvadini, that doesn't mean they're not pure devotee. That they know everything means they know Krishna, Vasudevam Sarvamiti, they know everything. But that doesn't mean that spontaneously on the spot, They'll be able to explain all these different aspects of Saravaksam Vardini because without having some full training in that other system that you're interacting with, then it's not possible.
12:08So, different Acharyas are entrusted with different responsibilities in preaching.
12:22And in Jaiva Dharma, Srila Bhakti Nortakur describes that. What Swarup Damodaga Swami has given, what was the responsibility of Haridas Thakur. Sir Damaradaw was giving the system of bhajan, and he divided it into two parts, anta-panta and bahya-panta. He gave the bahya-panta to Bakrasara Pandits, who gave to Gopal Guru, who gave to Dhyana Chandigaswami, and the anta-panta he gave to Rupa Goswami, who gave to Raghunathas Goswami. Hirdas Thakur, it was his responsibility to preach the glories of the Holy Rūpan Sanātana, their responsibility was to show the intense humility in the path of Raghunuga Bhakti.
13:20Rūpa Goswami was entrusted with explaining all the ingredients of rasa. Raghunathas Goswami, showing the exact proportions to mix them, like this. So, in this way, different associates were trusted with different things. And so, in the same way, one Acharya, he may be entrusted with manifesting this kind of teaching. Like, let us say, a Sarva-Sambhadini. So, Silabhakti Rakshakshidramar, he was of that category, that he was ready for Sarva-Sambhadini.
13:59Let's discuss Kant, let's discuss Hegel, let's discuss Plato. So, whereas another Acharya would be interested to give more teachings about Sharnagati or about Naam Tattva or about the glories of the holy Dharma and Parakrama and things like this.
14:24So, we should not think that any devotee is more or less on the basis of which aspect of the preaching field they are being interested with.
14:36Sometimes persons who are very interested in the philosophical and logical categories, then they think this is the best thing. But the fact of the matter is, if you go very much specializing in these complicated philosophical discussions, then your audience becomes less and less and less, until maybe there's only three people in the world who know what you're talking about. And so Mahapu's mission has a, it is a, he has a preaching mission in this world. That's one aspect. That's one aspect of Mahapu's pastime, raga-maga-bhakti-logi-karite-pracaran.
15:34And so this is a pracara teaching to others. But that field of, there are so many people with so So many different sanskars.
15:46So the persons who are interested in Edmund Husserl and Ferdinand de Saussure and Wittgenstein or since that time Jacques Derrida and Yogan Hebamas and Theodore Adorno, right? So most people they have not heard. You have heard and Jiva Priya because you are philosophers. us. So then the audience starts to get very small. So Srila Bhakti No. Thakur has done a wonderful thing. He touched so many different philosophical schools. But just as we were hearing the other day, the meaning of Acharya, Achinotiya Shastratam, the Acharya is the person
16:54who the Vedic literatures, they're like a jungle. Krishna said in Bhagavad Gita, when When you have passed out of the dense jungle, of all that is to be heard, you will become indifferent to what is to be heard. Because the Vedas, they have, it is vast. There's Karma Kanda, Jnana Kanda, these are so vast.
17:28And there are so many rishis and philosophers, By logic, you cannot establish anything. And by studying so many Vedic scriptures, one will say this, one will say that, one will say another. And all the rishis who are interpreting the Vedas, they all have different opinions and so on. So it's like a jungle and you can get completely lost.
18:02So who is the Acharya? Who, going into the jungle of all the scriptures, he extracts the doctrines, the tattvas. This is Naam Tattva. You have to understand Naam Tattva. This is Guru Tattwa. This is Bhagat Tattwa, Shakti Tattwa, Leela Tattwa, Rasa Tattwa, Prema Tattwa, like this. So the Acharya is the person who has gone into the jungle of all the Shastra and all the philosophical opinions.
18:36And he has extracted the practical doctrines. And then he lives them and he teaches his students how to live them and realize them also. So Srila Bhaktanota Thakur has done a wonderful thing, being the seventh Goswami, he has taken from here and there the most essential things to enter into Raga-Marg. Because if one's samskara is too much in all the vikalpa, mainly philosophy is vikalpa.
19:24All the different philosophies, they are non-correlated thought constructs. But the actual project of philosophy is moving from being trapped in vikalpas and becoming free from them. It's like an 80-80. It's a negation of your own misconceptions.
19:46and that's as much as the intellect can do, the negation of one's misconceptions. So you come to the point where, okay, now I understand clearly that I don't understand anything. You see? That's what Socrates did. Socrates was traveling everywhere and discussing with the different scholars and learned persons and defeating them. But he was defeating them only to show that because the oracle at Delphi had made the announcements that no one is wiser than socrates so socrates was thinking how can that be i'm a fool how can that be true but oracle cannot be wrong because that was the praman for them that's their praman oracle praha that's so he set off not to prove that he was the wisest person but only to
20:50defend the oracle. So, and then by doing the Socrates Alentius, that means his method of interrogation, and leading the person into a state of aporia. Aporia means that whatever convictions they hold, they end up being filled with contradictions that have no resolution. So, by doing this, he was showing that, yes, no one is wiser than Socrates because everyone thinks they know something but they don't know anything but only socrates knows that he doesn't know anything like this so his pastime is like that so philosophy is the becoming free from the confusion of one's own misconceptions of course socrates he used to go into trance so there were things he knew he knew you're not the body and he knew about reincarnation and he knew that when
22:00When you die, then it's not the end, there will be another world, and there are a series of worlds. And ultimately the foundation of everything is samambhanam, that is the totality of good, the totality of the good. So even though he said he doesn't know anything, that is in his humility, but there are some principles that he knew.
22:31So, Srila Bhakti Nortakur, in regard to philosophy, he said that when a person turns away from God, then they go into a duality and they either become materialists or idealists. That is, everything is matter or everything is mental. Matter is the cause of consciousness or consciousness is the source of the world, your own mind.
23:00So they become either idealists or materialists. And Srila Bhakti Nurtakura said that the central point is theism. So all philosophy is only persons who are situated in the extreme positions moving towards the center.
23:18That's the project of philosophy. So the central point is that there is God. So if a person already believes that there is God, now what do you do? Well, you should serve Him, right? Like this. So it seems that all the philosophical discussion, it's a very elite, it's a very elitist society, but they are just on the extremes, extreme misconceptions on either side of the central truth.
23:59And at most, the best they can do is just come to that point that God exists. So Baladeva Dibhushna has said this also in his commentary on Srimad Bhagatam. But in the prayers when the Devatas, the God of Astuti, the demigods, are glorifying Krishna when he's in the womb, they say that, Oh my Lord, your existence can be inferred from the Gunas.
24:51So, in the commentary, in commenting on this prayer of the devas, says that the logicians, those who are trying by their own reason, the best that they can do, the best they can do, is come to understand that there is a cause of this, of the world, that there is an adhikarta, an original prime mover, like Aristotle.
25:30Sanskrit Adikarta means the original agent. So, in Greek philosophy, that will be prime mover. So, this is as far as they can go, only to theoretically know that there's a prime mover. But they cannot actually know anything positively about the nature of God. And that establishment, that there's a prime mover, that logic is also Anyata Anupapati.
26:06by the only by the negation of all the other candidate theories because all other theories except for that god is the cause of the world are filled with a contradiction either incompleteness or contradiction therefore there must be god that's as far as they can go but to know something positively about that god it's impossible by reason and so in preaching there is a there is a field and there are those who if many people already believe in god so then from there we can say well how can god be known only by devotion that is if he's all-powerful then you can only know him if he reveals himself to you and therefore you have to live in such a way that
27:02propitiates him and persuades him and makes him want to reveal himself to you so why would you do that, only if he is pleased. So you have to please him. What is pleasing God? That's bhakti. So bhakti begins where philosophy ends. And for those persons who are not sure whether God exists or not, either atheists who are against God, or sceptics who are sceptical about everything.
27:40The sceptics, they are agnostic. They don't believe in God, but they don't believe that the atheists also have the answer either. They just, they think that anything which is true cannot be known. Like that is the modes of Agrippa, you know, the five modes of Agrippa. Agrippa is like the father of skepticism. So he said, look, there's only five ways of thinking about things. One, he said, there are so many philosophers, they all have different opinions. So there are so many different opinions, so we cannot trust any opinion. If this one says that he's right, then someone else will defeat him, and then someone else will defeat him, and someone else will defeat him, so there's no conclusion. Everyone has different opinions. Then he said
28:45that if someone gives a conclusion, then this conclusion, what's the proof? Something else. But what's the proof of that? Something else. What's the proof of that? Something else. So, if anyone makes a statement, either it leads to infinite regress or it's a brute fact. This fact is proven by this fact, but this fact has no proof, so it's just a brute fact.
29:12So, if you conclude your argument with a brute fact, then that means that all your other arguments, they all become worthless.
29:23Because you've said, the reason for this is this, the reason for this, and then no reason. So then everything becomes void. So either a brute fact which cancels all your reasons or an infinite regression or circularity. That is also called what? That is called the trilemma. There's a German philosopher also. I think Munchhausen. Munchhausen trilemma it is called.
30:02So the Agrippa, the five modes of Agrippa, five modes of skepticism, three of them together, they're named after one German philosopher as well, called the Munchhausen, I think that is the name, you can check, Trilemma. So the skeptics, they don't believe anything. They believe that you cannot come to any conclusion. And then the atheists, they say there's no God, and the theists, they say that there's God.
30:37So out of all the field of people that you meet, then those who believe in God, then for them, you can tell them, oh, if God is all-powerful, then we can only know Him by pleasing, so bhakti is the way. And then you can move on. You don't have to go into discussing existentialism and phenomenology and all of these things.
31:02And then with the skeptics and with the atheists, then some philosophy is necessary for them. But how does one become a skeptic? How does one become an atheist? This is due to sins.
31:26Your intellect has become, it is malfunctioning.
31:33Atheism and skepticism is a malfunctioning of the intellect due to turning away from God and then committing sins.
31:43So sinful persons, you know, there's a saying, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. So even if you'll defeat them philosophically, they'll say, ah, never mind. And then just go and smoke a cigarette and drink some alcohol. Because they don't really care. Because they're sinful.
32:06So what do you do? When you make some public program about enlightenment, people come just to see what's going on. Or people come even to challenge. but then you speak about meditation. Even atheists and agnostics say, yes, it's good to meditate, you have a peaceful mind, you can concentrate. And then you say, yeah, we are meditating by mantra meditation. And we'll do this also by music. And then you make a kirtan. By making the kirtan, it destroys their sins. Understand? Their sins become destroyed. And then some feeling comes, So what is the absolute truth?
32:49They start to become sincere. But because they still have some sanskar of confusion, now you can apply some philosophy. So a sadhu is like a doctor. A sadhu is not trying to become the greatest philosopher in the world, but he's like a doctor. So you have to look at the patients. This person believes in God.
33:10What do they need? Now you can show them. This person is a skeptic. What does he need? He's a skeptic and this one is an atheist. Why? Sins. What do they need? Everyone needs kirtan.
33:30And then those who have done some kirtan and their sins are becoming washed away, but their mind is not steady, so then the sadhu, as a doctor, will give them some philosophical explanation to steady their mind, because by their past sanskar some doubts they may be convinced but the doubts will come so they'll be oscillating like this so now how to make they become steady in their conviction so then some philosophy is necessary oh the agrippa the five modes of agrippa so can you remember i only told four of them i was just what are the five modes of agrippa infinite if anyone makes a truth claim if anyone says this is the truth the skeptic will say in five ways why it's not
34:40okay so one is infinite regression in sanskrit that is called an avastadosh an avastadosh the inability to stay in one place avastadosh needs to be situated so an avastadosh you put it here but actually your proof is that you are just deferring to the support of something else that was never proven, and you just keep deferring, deferring, deferring, deferring.
35:06So anavastadosh, that's one. The brute facts, yes. Circularity, yes. Yeah. Everyone has, every philosopher, there's always another philosopher. Who can defeat the philosophy of another philosopher? So that verse is also there in Bhaktriya Samrita Sindhu. Rupa Goswami is actually quoting from the Vyakyapadiya of Bharatri Hari. Bharatri Hari is from the Purvami Monsa school of philosophy, Jayamini Rishi's Purvami Monsa school, and he has written a book called Vyakyapadiya, and in Vyakyapadiya he gave a verse saying that whatever one logician establishes, another logician will be able to uproot it, and it will go on like this.
36:15And Mahaprabhu showed this in his Vid De Velas. When Mahaprabhu was a logician, then someone would give an argument, and he would refute it, and then he would refute that argument, and refute that argument, and in the end re-establish the first argument. Everyone was… he would confuse everyone. And the reason you can do that is because the very categories that you're using, they're vikalpa, they're non-correlated thought constructs.
36:44So, I don't know if everyone can understand these things. But even because logic, Vedic logic is based on jati, and jati corresponds to universals in the Aristotelian philosophy. But the Bhagavatam says that jati and vishesh, universal and particularity, are vikalpa. There's a verse that directly says this in Srimad Bhavata, they're all vikalpa.
37:17So why? It's a very interesting subject. If you're interested in philosophy, we can discuss it, but then others may fall asleep.
37:28Oh, yes. The fifth argument of the skeptic, that is the five modes of Agrippa, is that even if you say that this thing is like that, but we know from experience that everything looks different words, when you look at it from a different angle, right? So that's one of the… is that the fifth model?
38:00Anyway, the order is not important, but there are five. So the one is that all the logicians have different opinions. Then there's the trilemma, which is either, if you say a conclusion, it is either infinite regress or circular or a brute fact. And then, that one is that everything, whatever you claim about something, if you look at the same thing from another angle, you'll see that it's different.
38:36But this actually doesn't prove, this does not establish the relativity or moral relativity or anything.
38:46Because if you look at something from one angle, it looks like this. If you go to another angle, it looks different. But if you come back to the first angle, then it looks the same as it did before. so it doesn't prove that everything is absolutely relative even if someone says everything is relative then you can say tell them are you absolutely sure about that because if you say everything is relative then that itself is absolute so this is the nature of anything that you say which is not the glorification of god has its own internal contradiction it's nonsense everything that you say which is not about God, if you analyze it deeply, it's nonsense. That's what
39:38Socrates was doing when he was doing the elenchus, the interrogation of different people. He was demonstrating that everything that they say, everything that they think is nonsense. It's contradictory. And that is because of the level of consciousness. Because if someone is in God consciousness, then everything that you say is actually kirtan. It's glorifying the Supreme Lord.
40:04The person who is enlightened, when he speaks, he glorifies the Supreme Lord. The person who is not enlightened, when he speaks, he's speaking nonsense. But he only thinks it makes sense because he's in illusion. But even his nonsense, when the enlightened person hears it, he hears that it's the glorification of the Lord.
40:26So that's the difference between agyurudivrity and vidvadudivrity. The person in illusion, he's speaking, it makes sense to him, but it's actually nonsense and you can interrogate him and demonstrate. But the enlightened person hearing the same words, because he hears according to Vidvat Rudivritti, he hears that it is actually a glorification of the Lord.
40:48And this is why you can see in Srimad Bhagavatam, when the demons attack Krishna and they start to blaspheme him, all his Aracharyas give two explanations. One is the meaning according to the demon, and one is the meaning according to Sarasvati, the goddess of learning, and that is Vidvat Rudivritti. So the same words that the demons use to criticize Krishna in Bhagavatam, you will see the commentaries of the chariots, and it's explained how actually they're glorifying Him.
41:19So this is actually the teaching of the Danta. Keho mani, keho namani, sabhatara das. Ye namani tarahoy seipapinash. It means that everyone is God's servants, but some know it and some don't know it. If you don't know it, then you're sinful, and then you ruin your life like this. So, because everyone is a devotee, that means that every word that everyone is saying at all times is kirtan.
41:55Only you know it or you don't know it. It depends on your frame of consciousness. This is the teaching of Vedanta.
42:03It's amazing. So, Madhavacharya said, What to speak of articulate sound, even inarticulate sound, even the rolling of thunder, the crackling of a fire, the sound of the waves breaking on the beach, the sound of a tree falling in the forest, You know, the Buddhists and also some persons who have a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, they say, if a tree falls in the forest but no one saw it, did it really happen?
42:39You know, it's like Schrodinger's tree, Schrodinger's cat, you know. You know Schrodinger's cat?
42:54I will not explain it today. Anyway, it's not the duty of everyone, but it's duty of Acharya to know as far as possible. all the traditional sadarshan, six Vedic philosophies. And if a person knows six Vedic philosophies, then if they will come across any other type of philosophy, it will be some variation of one of these six, more or less, like this.
43:27So if someone knows Vedanta, then they can answer all questions. So it said, Anacharya, that means who sits on the seat of Vyasadeva, He must know all philosophies, so that if there is a public assembly and someone challenges the conclusion of Bhagavatam, that the dignity of Bhagavatam can be upheld, and that the public will not lose faith in Vedanta and Srimad Bhagavatam.
43:56So that is responsibility of Acharya, but it's not the responsibility of everyone. The responsibility of everyone is they should try to become a pure devotee, to get out of Maya, out of Mahamaya, and into the shelter of Yogamaya, and realize Krishna. So don't worry, you don't all have to know about Schrodinger's cat or anything else.
44:29Or the Chinese room, you know, the Chinese room argument, and Leibniz Mill, and all of these things. There are so many, it's like an endless ocean. But those who are Acharya, then they should know at least the sad darshans and all the refutations, and then how that can be applied in modern times to the philosophies which are popular today, Acharya should know, so that they can uphold the dignity of Vedanta and Bhagavatam in the public sphere.
