In2-MeC

Timisoara, Romania
12 August 2004

SB 1.2.12

tac chraddadhana munayo jnana-vairagya-yuktaya
pasyanty atmani catmana bhaktya sruta-grhitaya

The seriously inquisitive student or sage, well equipped with knowledge and detachment, realizes that Absolute Truth by rendering devotional service in terms of what he has heard from the Vedanta-sruti.

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Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura:

Translation: The sages, or the chanters of the holy name (kirtan-kari-gon), endowed with firm faith in the transcendental truth, who have, by hearing from the scriptures, accumulated auspicious activities (sukrti) and attained the knowledge of the relationships (sambandha), and who are free from enjoying or renouncing the sense objects can, as a result of their service, constantly see in their pure hearts this Absolute Truth in the form of Paramatma.

Explanation: When the sages become fixed in bhakti in the form of faith in the transcendental worship of the Lord, brought about by refraining from studies of what is Brahman as well as renouncing the instant enjoyment of the fruits of one's activities or, in other words, giving up everything which is not connected with Krsna - which are concomitant factors of devotion to the Lord -, and when they thus take to devotional service based on hearing and reject any reasoning that is not supported by hearing, then they can see both Paramatma and Brahman in the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Those who are without bhakti and follow the path of logic and reasoning, cannot see Paramatma and Brahman in the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Because of their lack of bhakti they are lacking in knowledge and renunciation and they have no faith. Therefore they are Mayavadis. Where there is a lack of knowledge and renunciation, there is unsteadiness and no faith in the service to the Supreme Person. The process of serving the worshipable object is a path based on hearing. Situated on this path of bhakti, the pure living entity knows himself to be a devotee of the Lord, and he is constantly serving the Lord in his heart. The heart of a nondevotee is just a ground downtrodden by the enjoyments of the external world. The devotee's heart is a site of the eternal variegated pastimes of Krsna in Vrndavana. The nondevotee's heart is full of thoughts about the perishable or ever-changing external world. Since it is bound by the enjoyment of sense objects or of perishable truths, there is no faith there in one's own eternal form (svarupa) dedicated to serving the Lord. Karmis and Mayavadis, being devoid of the knowledge of the Absolute Truth, are busy with enjoying or renouncing; one can see many kinds of nondevotees attached to sense enjoyment or giving it up. They are deprived of the eternal mellows of exchanges between the servant and the served. These can be understood by the disciple who has achieved the mercy of his spiritual master, a devotee on the path based on hearing, engaged in chanting the holy name, whereas the mundane nondevotees, bewildered by the false ego, will never understand them.

[Translated by Punya-palaka Prabhu of ISKCON Prague]

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