{"id":9295,"date":"2011-02-18T10:45:16","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T09:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=9295"},"modified":"2011-02-18T10:45:16","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T09:45:16","slug":"srila-prabhupadas-purports-are-perfect-and-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=9295","title":{"rendered":"Srila Prabhupada’s Purports Are Perfect And Complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sita Rama das<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have to have intelligence to understand and discuss Krishna Consciousness in both a non-dogmatic and uncompromising way. Intelligence implies abstract thinking. As children we begin to think abstractly but this is limited to concrete operations. If a child has two blocks of equal size it can conclude that a pile of two will be twice as high as one, every time. As we grow we develop the ability to think abstractly about intangible things such as truth and justice. But at first this thinking is limited by the logic applied to concrete items. Things are true or false, right or wrong. The complexities of moral decisions in the real world are not fully recognized. Many people never go beyond this basic level of logic<\/p>\n

Someone with greater intelligence can see how this overly logical thinking is insufficient to explain human cognition and social interactions. People\u2019s perspectives are often multifaceted. People\u2019s emotions are often ambivalent. A single action by a person often serves more than one purpose. By locating the limit of restrictive logic we can overcome it by developing a more flexible logic that opens up new ways of thinking. We can see things from other people\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

This level of IQ is needed if we are going to read, \u201cAs They Surrender Unto Me\u201d, (SUM), which is a supplement to \u201cBhagavada Gita As It Is\u201d, found in Bhaktivedanta Vedabase. In SUM we find commentaries of previous Acharya\u2019s in which a word from the text is translated in the exact opposite way Srila Prabhupada translates it. We have to have enough intelligence to see that in spite of this there is no disagreement among the Acharya\u2019s. <\/p>\n

SUM contains descriptions, in greater detail than Bhagavada Gita As It Is, on the multifaceted diplomacy used by Duryodhana as he addressed his army- in the first chapter. In verse 10 Srila Prabhupada, translates Duryodhana speech as saying his army\u2019s strength is \u201cimmeasurable\u201d being protected by Grandfather Bhisma. We learn Vishvanatha Cakravati Thakura translates verse 10 as Duryodhana saying their amy\u2019s strength is \u201cinsufficient\u201d being protected by Bhisma. So apparently the word used for immeasurable can also be translated as insufficient. Both of these translations are right. Bhisma understood the word to mean immeasurable. Drona understood the word to mean insufficient. Bhisma was directly encouraged. And Drona was indirectly encouraged to be vigilant because he was reminded that their most powerful warrior, Bhisma, is insufficient for assuring victory because he has a soft spot for the Pandava\u2019s who they were fighting against.<\/p>\n

Another example is Chapter 2 text 54-72. In text 54 Arjuna asks how a transcendentalist speaks, sits, and walks. In SUM we read that Srila Visvanataha Chakravati Thakura comments that these questions seem to deal only with external behavior but they each have an internal meaning. Srila Prabhupada\u2019s comments is a little different; \u201c\u2026one who is Krishna conscious has his particular nature- talking, walking, thinking, feeling, etc.\u201d He says the most important quality is the way transcendentalist\u2019s talks and the all these qualities are described by Krishna. In SUM we find the comment on text 63 saying that the purport to the question of walking means how one engages his senses.<\/p>\n

We should be aware of the principal method of understanding Vedic text. In the purport to \u201cLord Caitanya in Five Features\u201d chapter 7, texts 110, Srila Prabhupada quoted Srila Bhaktishidhanta Sarasvati Thakura\u2019s description of direct and indirect meanings. The direct meaning is \u201c\u2026the meaning that one can understand immediately from statements of dictionaries, whereas the indirect meaning\u2026.is a meaning one imagines without consulting the dictionary.\u201d The Viasnava\u2019s except the direct meaning. This is in the context of defeating Mayavadi philosophy, and is not exactly comparable to comments of various Acharya\u2019s. But still, the point is, the direct meaning is accepted unless we are told otherwise. <\/p>\n

We are not told by Srila Prabhupada that by \u201chow does he walk\u201d Arjuna meant something entirely different than what is denoted by the dictionary definition of the world- that he was asking how a transcendentalist engages his senses. Nor are we told in SUM that the previous Acharya\u2019s said this is Arjuna\u2019s question, we are told it is the \u201cpurport to Arjuna\u2019s question\u201d Therefore the conclusion is that Arjuna, playing the role of one with misconceptions about the nature of a transcendentalist, was implying that a self realized soul can be identified by an external quality such as ones walk or gait. And Krishna does not directly answer this question. <\/p>\n

If we say that based on what we read in SUM the only proper way to see this is that Arjuna was speaking in a figurative way and Krishna answered his question directly we are not accepting the conclusion given in \u201cBhagavada Gita As It Is\u201d. If we are not accepting Srila Prabhupada\u2019s conclusion we can be sure our understanding of the previous Acharya\u2019s conclusion is also wrong. So we should not say that Arjuna meant something figurative when nothing in Srila Prabupada\u2019s translation warrants that conclusion and nothing in previous Acharya\u2019s statements necessitates that conclusion. <\/p>\n

Actually devotees need intelligence beyond what is needed to consider various points of view expressed by ordinary people. In ordinary people different points of view usually contain elements of truth and falsehood and an open minded person tries to blend such views together. This is not the proper approach when reading commentaries from other Acharya\u2019s, all their points of view are perfect, in themselves, and if we are going to consider seeming differences we have to do so without modifying one over the other. However if this is not possible, for us, we must simply see Srila Prabhupada\u2019s commentaries as most perfect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sita Rama das<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have to have intelligence to understand and discuss Krishna Consciousness in both a non-dogmatic and uncompromising way. Intelligence implies abstract thinking. As children we begin to think abstractly but this is limited to concrete operations. If a child has two blocks of equal size it can conclude that a pile of two will be twice as high as one, every time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}