On Knowledge and Pure Devotion

The above stated verse has much significance in the study of Gaudiya Vaisnava philosophy. Historically this verse was quoted in the famous talk between Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Ramananda Raya (Ramananda Samvada) that has been documented in Sri Caitanya-caritamrta wherein, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu extracts gradations of spiritual truths from Sri Ramananda Raya that finally reveal the summum-bonum of spiritual attainment.
In this conversation, Ramananda Raya gives Mahaprabhu several propositions on what actually is the ultimate goal of life beginning from varnasrama-dharma, wherein he quotes a verse from Visnu Purana (3.8.9) that stresses the proper execution of prescribed duties, according to ones social position, to worship Lord Visnu. Then he proposes karma-misra-bhakti and quotes a verse from Bhagavad-gita (9.27) that advises offering all the results of ones activities to Lord Krsna. Then he proposes svadharma tyaga and quotes two verses, one from Srimad Bhagavatam (11.11.32) and one from Bhagavad-gita (18.66) that suggests giving up all occupational religious duties and hence transcending all the material activities. Ramananda Raya then subsequently proposes jnana-misra-bhakti as the ultimate goal of life by quoting a verse from Bhagavad-gita (18.54) that explains realization of the self and being self-satisfied in the knowledge of the impersonal feature of the Lord.
But, all of the above propositions are rejected by the Lord as being only external (eho bahya) and not actually representing the real substance. This is when Sri Ramananda Raya quotes the above stated verse from Srimad Bhagavatam that proposes jnana-sunya-bhakti, that the Lord immediately acknowledges by saying, eho haya (this is alright) and asks him to go deeper. This means that unless one arrives at this conclusion, hatefully discarding all speculative knowledge (jnane prayasam udapasya) that is tinged with ones limited intellect and faithfully surrenders (namanta eva) for the mercy of the Supreme Lord, no actual progress is made in suddha-bhakti.
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, in his essay on the six faults that destroy bhakti (in reference to the second verse of Sri Upadesamrta by Srila Rupa Gosvami), has explained the term prayasa as follows:
In the same essay he further explains jnana-prayasa as follows:
In jnana-prayasa the feeling of oneness, or kevaladvaita, arises. This is also known as sayujya, merging, or brahma-nirvana, absorption in the Supreme. Jnana-prayasa is hostile to spiritual life; this is explained in the Vedika literature, Mundaka Upanisad (3.2.3), in the following words:
The philosophy of monism does not originate in the Absolute Truth; it is only a demoniac provision. Glorification of the knowledge of one’s relationship with the Lord is often heard. That knowledge is pure and spontaneous—there is no need of prayasa. The knowledge given in the Catuh-sloki (the four main Bhagavatam verses) is acintya-bhedabheda, inconceivably, simultaneously one and different. This knowledge is naturally dormant in the heart of the living entity.
The Lord is like a spiritual sun, and the living entities are like molecular particles of the sun’s rays. The living entity cannot remain in his constitutional form without being subordinate to the Lord, therefore servitorship of the Lord is his constitutional duty. Cultivation of this constitutional duty is the nature of the living entity. This is the spontaneous—devoid of prayasa—dharma, or duty, of the living entity. Although in the conditioned state this dharma is almost dormant and is awakened by sadhana, or spiritual practice, still the prayasa found in devotional practices is not like that found in the paths of karma and jnana. If one takes shelter of the holy name with some respect, then within a short time the obstacles due to ignorance are removed and one’s constitutional happiness is reawakened. But if one gives a place to jnana-prayasa, then he has to suffer more. And if jnana-prayasa is renounced in the association of devotees, then that is a devotional endeavor.
Srila Sridhara Maharaja has given a much broader meaning to the term ‘jnana prayasa’ by connecting it to the conditioned soul’s defect of analyzing spiritual matters through the material intellect and the greed to know all. He says:
Elsewhere he says:
This verse represents the transcendental nature of Srimad Bhagavatam and gives out the only formula through which one can actually win the favor of the Supreme Lord – the asraya, who otherwise is unconquerable in the three worlds. It disqualifies the empiric scholars who try to analyze the Bhagavatam as just a literary compilation. On the other hand it upholds the conclusion that the Bhagavatam can only be understood if one submissively hears and studies it under the shelter and guidance of a pure devotee of the Lord.
When one begins trying to understand Srimad Bhagavatam there is an explanation right at the beginning about the position of the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna who is the basis of the treatise, the nature of His abode, and what has to be discarded at the outset. It says: Sri Krsna is the source of all creation, sustenance, and destruction of the manifested universes. He is the direct or indirect cause of all causes, fully cognizant and yet independent. He is the source of all Vedika knowledge, and He even bewilders great sages and demigods what to speak of conditioned jivas. His abode is forever free and transcendental from the modes of material nature. Hence, thoroughly discard all calculations of religiosity and irreligiosity (dharmah projjhita kaitavo) that is materially motivated or any impurity that is a product of a limited imperfect intellect (matsara) and submissively and joyfully enter into an understanding of the ultimate goal of life as beautifully expounded in the first two verses of Srimad Bhagavatam.
The slokas after this verse quoted by Ramananda Raya to Mahaprabhu are concerned purely with raga-bhakti and establish the different gradations therein, namely santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhurya. To set the qualification for entering the raga-marga, Ramananda Raya quotes a sloka that says, tatra laulyam api mulyam ekalam (it can be attained only by paying one price – that is, intense greed). Srila Sridhara Maharaja explains laulyam in simple terms as a sincere want from the core of the heart, without any mundane adulteration, for the spontaneous loving service of the Lord. But, the ill-motivated people ‘gate crash’ into the confidential pastimes of Krsna with mundane greed to know more, that only breeds their carnal appetite. This can be understood as being jnana-prayasa that destroys ones devotion.
Srila Sridhara Maharaja stresses the verse pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange very much. This verse says that one should show highest respects to the path of spontaneous devotion. Namanta eva – bow down. He also says, “The beginning of your interest is to bow down your head, and your heart will be captured automatically.” Adau sraddha – The progress begins from pure faith only that creates the need for sadhu-sanga – association of the true saints who have laulyam. The verse also says that this laulyam is very rare and if it is available somewhere one should purchase it by paying any price. The following verse establishes that it can be had only by the mercy of a great devotee:
By taking shelter at the lotus feet of a pure devotee, we receive the Holy Name that bestows upon us all the spiritual progress that we intrinsically inherit (iha haite sarva siddhi haibe ‘sabara’).
Although the quest to know everything has been condemned, one should not stop sincere questioning. In the Bhagavad-gita we find the verse – tad viddhi pranipatena pariprasnena sevaya. There is a gulf of difference between jnana prayasa and pariprasna. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura writes in his essay:
Hence, having surrendered at the lotus feet of Sri Gurudeva, one should make a sincere effort to know and follow the process of bhakti, classified into sambandha (relation with the supreme lord), abhidheya (the means to achieve the prayojana) and prayojana (the supreme goal) that has been described in detail in the prescribed books of our acaryas. As much as one should not fall prey to jnana prayasa, one should similarly avoid imitation and blind following. There is anusarana – sincere following, as opposed to anukarana – imitation. Anusarana presupposes pariprasna, i.e. sincere questioning, that helps the seeker to understand the subject in a wholesome manner. Our Guru Maharaja says, “We should have an immovable connection with reality, an absolute conception of reality. Such a stable position is necessary. Invulnerable! A sure position, what is what—sambandha-jnana. Then we shall be able to understand and harmonize the differences that we find in the writings of the acaryas; what applies where–under what circumstances a particular line has been advised to be taken up, and under what circumstances another has been advised. Practical knowledge”
As and when any controversy arises or there is any necessary requirement, our acaryas have thoroughly established the truth and upheld the right conclusions backed by scriptural evidence and revealed truth. In doing so obviously much time and effort is invested only for our own benefit. The acarya is the representative of Sri Krsna who has appeared just to establish the truth and to lead by example. Being followers, it is our responsibility to take all pains to understand the conclusions and thereby also know the internal workings of the acarya that will help us in our spiritual journey.
During Mahaprabhu’s advent and early life as a student and a teacher, the area of Navadvipa was filled with scholars of modern logic (navya-nyaya) and had great recognition as a seat of learning throughout India. Students from far off would come to enhance their knowledge and great pundits used to visit the town to establish their superiority in logic and grammar. Due to their vast learning the pundits of Navadvipa were very puffed up and used to quarrel amongst themselves to show their own supremacy.
Mahaprabhu in his student life became an expert in logic and showed his prowess by defeating the Kashmiri pandita. Just to show that logic cannot lead us to understand the absolute truth (tarko pratisthah) Mahaprabhu used to play with the wits of His contenders just as a child plays with the clay, by establishing one theory, then showing its fault and establishing something else, and again reestablishing the old theory and showing the faults of the other. Knowledge in itself is innocent (jnanam alam niranjanam) and can be molded according to ones ability to do so, but it does not find its real place unless it is used as a stepping-stone to cultivate devotional service to the Supreme Lord. This was shown in the behavior and teachings of Mahaprabhu after he came back from Gaya, after meeting Sri Isvara Puri, when he started the sankirtana movement and concerned Himself only with Krsna, remaining aloof from all mundane debates not relating to Krsna.
What Mahaprabhu came to distribute was never offered before to the masses by any other direct or indirect incarnations of the Lord (anarpita). Mahaprabhu showed the actual position of karma and jnana as being subordinate to bhakti and by introducing and establishing prema, or the divine love of Godhead as the highest attainment that can fully satisfy the inner hankering of the jiva, Mahaprabhu harmonized all the different views of the scriptures.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati comments on this verse as follows:
Jnana is a vast ocean and without proper direction the end is misconception, but just as the pole star gives an idea about the correct direction, the Supreme Lord manifests Himself as Sri Guru to guide us in our spiritual journey. Thus, the acceptance of and adherence towards Sri Guru is indispensable if we wish to succeed – without him all our endeavors are futile.
Just as the road is a means to the destination and not an end in itself, jnana is also just the means to the end and not an end in itself and is properly applied only when the end is loving devotion towards the Supreme Lord without a tinge of jnana and karma (jnana karmadi anavrtam). Hence one should pursue jnana only to increase one’s attachment towards the Supreme Lord who, being the master of all knowledge, will certainly bless him with the fruit of jnana-sunya-bhakti.

The Gift

In his Viveka-cudamani, Sri Sankaracarya says,
The jivatma, having come to this material world accepts many different bodies in its journey – tree, bug, bird, animal, human, demigod, etc. Being bound by the body, limited life and karma, the jiva enjoys and suffers the fruits of his activities in every body. The jiva accepts four different types of bodies – svedaja (engendered by sweat and steam: microbes, germs etc), udbhijja (vegetable kingdom), andaja (born from eggs) and jarayuja (born from paramour: human beings and the animal kingdom), over and over and only because of some sukrti, human life is attained. Of the 8,400,000 species of life only in human life can one attempt to understand spiritual knowledge.  
Having attained this gift of human life if one does not utilize it to understand the self, the Supreme, the way to go back to Godhead and with determination practice it under the guidance of a real guru, this life is simply wasted. Wealth comes and goes like a dream. Youth withers like a flower. Old age waits like a tiger.  Diseases thrash like enemies. In an improperly burnt earthen pot, water is lost without our notice.
Similarly, human life is lost every moment without us realizing it. With yogic power the wind can be stopped, ether can be cut into pieces, waves in the ocean can be collected together and many more never-before occurring things can be done. But death cannot be checked. With the passage of time, earth will be burnt, Mount Meru will melt, and oceans will evaporate. It is no surprise then that this body will vanish. Having drunk the wine of worldly illusion the jiva remains ignorant to the truth of life. He sees others around him suffering and dying every day but still lives as though he is eternal. 
Of the hundred years of human life, half is spent in sleep, twenty years in childhood and twenty years in old age. In the remaining time, when he is strong and capable, the unintelligent man spends his morning in cleaning his body, day time in working hard to maintain his family and social status and spends the night in sex and sleep. Like this his entire life is spent wastefully. The jiva thinks that wife, children, wealth and relatives are his. He thinks, “I have done so much and so much more has to be done”. As he is engrossed in thinking like this, death jumps like a wolf on the sheep-like jiva and drags him away to hell. Therefore self-realization has to be done now; pious activities have to be performed now. Because death does not wait for anyone thinking this person is planning to do all this. Old age shows the way towards death. When one gets old he should understand that soon he will die. The enemy called death marches towards us aided by soldiers called diseases. Only the Supreme Lord Sri Hari can protect a jiva from death. Sri Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita:
What is this mahato-bhaya (greatest danger) for every jiva? It is indeed death because death takes him away from his loved body and the loved ones to an unknown destination. He gets scared at this thought about death and feels totally insecure and lost. 
Like a lump of flesh, cut by the weapon of desire, mixed with the ghee of senses, cooked in the fire of attachment and aversion, death eats away the man. The young, the old, the children, the one in a womb — are all consumed by death. Eating, sleeping, mating and defending are equally available for all animals. Only a human being can know by his intelligence what is good for him and what is not. If he does not understand this he is considered equal to an animal.
We have this human life for a short time. This world is duhkhalayam (full of miseries) and asasvatam (temporary). Therefore when one has sound mind and sound senses, one should do the activities of self-realization. Prahlada Maharaja in his instructions to his young schoolmates says:
Right from age of eight one has to perform devotional activities in the footsteps of great devotes of Sri Krsna. An old adage in English goes – “What you learn at eight remains till eighty.”  
In the association of saintly persons, one can understand the purpose of human life. Association of saintly persons and intelligence are the two eyes of a man without which he is blind. Attracted by karma-kanda, people chant so many mantras, perform many rituals and fire sacrifices (homa and yajna) and punish their body with severe fasting and other austerities. Bewildered by mahamaya (worldly illusion) and bereft of proper knowledge of the absolute and the purpose of human life, these people are uselessly punishing their body and wasting their life. Having long matted hair and a big beard does not make one guru or yogi. One does not become a yogi just by living all his life on the banks of Ganga. If it was so, the fish and frogs living in her waters would become yogis. One does not become tapasvi by giving up food and living only on water. If it was so, the cataka bird and paravata bird who never drink water on the earth would become tapasvis. 
Trying to search for the Supreme Brahman, people fall in the blind well of sad-darsanas (the six philosophies of India). Of the sad-darsanas, the first is the Vaisheshika philosophy of Kanada Rsi. According to him, everything is made of atoms. So many atomic particles have combined and produced this world by chance, with no necessity of any reason, rhyme, consciousness, nothing of the kind. And the outcome of these combinations has produced what we find here. 
Kapila Rsi has come with the Sankhya philosophical system of analysis saying, “Analyze matter, and you will be free from all this pain.” 
Patanjali Rsi has come with Yoga, “Hey, jivatma! Come to meet Paramatma! Then all the problems of this world will go away from you. Come in connection with Paramatma, the Supersoul.” 
Gautama Rsi comes with logic, nyaya-sastra: “There is one Maker, one Creator, but He is indifferent. He has created the world, finished, and left it. And you must try to live with the help of your reason. Be a good logician, and then you will be able to control the environment with the power of reason and you will be happy.” 
Jaimini’s Karma-mimamsa says “There may be One who has connected us with this world and our karma, but karma is all in all. He has got no hold on us any longer. According to our karma we shall thrive or we shall go down. So, stick to karma, good karma; don’t go to bad karma. There is God. He is bound to serve you according to your karma. He has no independence.”  
Buddha says, “Only the combination of different things has created your mental system. So with the dissolution of the mental system, nothing remains. So, somehow we must dissolve the mental system. Practice ahimsa, nonviolence, satyam, truthfulness, and so on.” 
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura in his song: Kesava! tuya jagata vicitra, talks about these six philosophies and then says, “But  I have come to realize that these fellows are all cheaters. And they all have this common stand: they have no touch of your devotion, your service. There, they are one. They cannot deliver any real good. They are common to oppose your devotional service and supremacy. And ultimately they leave us in chaos.” 
Concluding the song, Bhaktivinoda Thakura says, “I bid goodbye to them all. I feel in my heart that I shall show respect to all these so-called good agents from a distance, however my only real capital is the dust of the holy feet of your devotees. I rely on that dust as the source of all my prospects. I seek to put all my energy into taking the dust of their holy lotus feet upon my head. This is everything for me.”
Some people read the Vedas, Vedanta, Puranas and so many other scriptures and preach to people. They are called jnanis by the ignorant public. In spite of their vast reading they fall short of understanding the essence of all the Vedika knowledge like the serving spoon that does not know the taste of the dish that it serves. 
Sri Kaviraja Gosvami says: bahu sastre bahu vakye chitta bhrama haya – reading many scriptures and hearing too many people will simply confuse the mind. In this regard there is a verse in Garuda Purana.
There are many sastras but a short life span. Even in that short human life there are many troubles and difficulties. Therefore, like a hamsa (swan) bird that takes only milk from the mix of milk and water, only the essence of all scriptures has to be taken.
Pariksit Maharaja, being cursed by the brahmana that he would live only seven more days, approached Sri Suka Mahamuni and asked him how he must spend the remaining seven days of his life.  Sri Suka Muni, a self-realized soul, an avadhuta and a great devotee of Sri Hari spoke Srimad Bhagavatam to the king continuously for seven days. He could just as well have spoken from other Puranas, Vedas or Upanisads, but he chose to speak the Srimad Bhagavatam. This drives home the point that Srimad Bhagavatam is the sum and substance of all transcendental knowledge in this world. 
And what does Srimad Bhagavatam talk about? It talks only about the sweet pastimes of Lord Hari, His glories, His activities and His all-merciful devotees. Therefore Sri Caitanya Deva says that Srimad Bhagavatam is the natural commentary on Vedanta-sutra and He held this book close to His heart.
King Pariksit was fortunate enough to know when his death would come. We ordinary mortals only know that our death is certain. It may come right now, next moment, a month later or after. The message, however, from King Pariksit’s life is that human life is meant only for serving the Supreme Lord Sri Hari by any or all nine processes of bhakti, namely hearing the glories of Lord Hari (sravanam) and chanting those glories (kirtanam), constantly remembering Him (smaranam) and offering prayers to Him (vandanam), serving the Lord’s lotus feet (pada-sevanam), serving the supreme Lord as a servant (dasyam), worshipping Him with flowers and incense and so forth (arcanam), serving Him as a friend (sakhyam) and completely offering the Lord one’s very self (atma-nivedanam). This life is meant for nothing else, absolutely nothing. 
Understanding this, one has to approach a bona-fide guru who is well versed in the science of Krsna and lives outside the consideration of varnasrama (jaiva-dharma). Such a guru instructs his disciple about:
(a) Knowledge of one’s relationship with the Supreme Lord, the living entity, the material world and the relationships between them (sambandha-jnana)
(b) The process of achieving the goal of life (abhidheya) 
(c) The goal of life itself (prayojana). After receiving this knowledge, a living entity needs no other knowledge. All kinds of scientific and theoretical knowledge of this world are automatically known to Him. (Sajjana-tosani)
Based on the time (kala), place (desa) and circumstance (sthiti), the guru will appropriately engage his disciple in the service of Sri Hari and His devotees. When the disciple follows the instructions of such a guru with sincerity, determination and humility, his life will be successful. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu says:
Let us preserve this priceless gift and nourish it in our heart so that the seed sprouts and the creeper of bhakti grows, piercing through all the universes and finally touching the lotus feet of Sri Krsna in Goloka Vrndavana where it bears the fruit of krsna-prema, spontaneous and unconditional love for Sri Krsna, the ultimate goal of life.