Re:about the five stages of knowledge

[Guest guest]

>In Suhotra Swami's book Substance and Shadow, chapter three, note 33,

>appears a paragraph that links these five stages of knowledge to

>Bhaktivinoda Thakura. (if you have the book, it's on page 178, last

>paragraph). According to Suhotra Swami, Bhaktivinoda defined paroksa in his

>book The Bhagavat. I have been unable to find this definition in The

>Bhagavat, but perhaps you or some other reader will be more successful.

 

At the page 93 of Rupavilasa's book "The Seventh Goswami" I found a

reference by the author from a speech of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakura called

the Bhagavat which later took form of a book called "The Bhagavat its

Philosophy, its Ethics and its Theology" in which Bhaktivinod Thakura is

describing this five stages of knowledge:

" The nature of transcendental Vraja-leela is liable to be misunderstood by

the empiric study of the Bhagavat. The limit of empiric reference is reached

by the speculations of the paroksa method. By the abandonment of empiricism,

represented by the aparoksa method, the Brahman and Paramatma conceptions

are realised. But these also are not objects of worship. We have already

seen that the activity of service is possible only on the plane of the

adhoksaja, which yields the realisations of the Majestic Personality of the

Absolute as Sree Narayana. Aprakrta Vraja-leela,the central topic of the

Bhagavat,is the highest form of adhoksaja realisation".

So I hope this may help in understanding of why Suhotra Swami is using in

his Substanse and shadow this reference from Srila Bhaktivinod Thakura's

Bhagavat.