The devotee is always right

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

Sarasvati Goswami Prabhupada discussing the Glories of Thakur Bhaktivinode:

 

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.