The devotee is always right

[Guest guest]

The following is an excerpt from an essay by Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati

Goswami Prabhupada discussing the Glories of Thakur BhaktiVinode which I found

interesting:

 

The devotee is always right and the non-devotee in the shape of the empiric

pedant is always and necessarily wrong.In the one case there is always present

the substantiative Truth and nothing but the Substantiative Truth. In the other

case there is present the apparent or misleading hypothesis and nothing but

untruth. The wording may have the same external appearance in both cases.The

identical verses of the Scriptures may be recited by the devotee and the

non-devotee, may be apparently misquoted by the devotee but the corresponding

values of the two processes remain always categorically different. The devotee

is right even when he apparently misquotes, the non-devotee is wrong even when

he quotes correctly the very words, chapter and verse of the Scriptures.

 

It is not empiric wisdom that is the object of the

devotee. Those who read the Scriptures for gathering empiric wisdom will be

pursuing the wild goose chase.There are not a few dupes of their empiric

Scriptural erudition. These dupes have their admiring under-dupes. But the

mutual admiration society of dupes does not escape, by the mere weight of their

number, the misfortune due to the deliberate pursuit of the wrong course in

accordance with the suggestions of our lower selves.

 

Dasa

Narasimhan

 

 

 

 

 

New and Improved Mail - Send 10MB messages!