Secrets of the Soul 22

dehino ’smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.13]

This sloka of Bhagavad-gita is the beginning of real spiritual education. Now where is this knowledge of the soul being taught? We have traveled all over the world, but we have never seen any university or other department of education where this simple truth is presented: na hanyate hanyamane sarire: “The soul does not die when the body dies.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.20] There is no actual spiritual instruction, even in the churches or the so-called yoga centers. Just try to understand how people are being kept in ignorance in the name of education, religion and yoga. They are thinking that hanyamane sarire, hanyate: after the death of the body, when the body is finished, the person is also finished. This is ignorance of the real self.

Once I was talking with a university professor, who said: “After the destruction of this body, there is nothing more. Everything is finished.” So just see, a big professor, an educator responsible for the intellectual development of so many persons, has no knowledge about the soul, or the difference between the soul and the body. His understanding—that after this body is finished, everything is finished—is superficial, and it is not a fact, because the soul is fundamentally different from this body. So persons who do not know this basic, simple fact are becoming leaders and educators, are becoming so-called yoga teachers and spiritual masters, and their understanding is polluted by false materialism. So how will the people in general gain this pure spiritual knowledge, when their teachers and leaders are also in ignorance?

na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ
durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ
andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās
te ’pīśa-tantryām uru-dāmni baddhāḥ

“Persons who are strongly entrapped by the consciousness of enjoying material life, and who have therefore accepted as their leader or guru a similar blind man attached to external sense objects, cannot understand that the goal of life is to return home, back to Godhead, and engage in the service of Lord Visnu. As blind men guided by another blind man miss the right path and fall into the ditch, materially attached men led by another materially attached man are bound by the ropes of fruitive labor, which are made of very strong cords, and they take birth again and again, suffering the threefold miseries of materialistic life.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.5.31]

So where is the education on the real nature of the spirit soul? This Esoteric Teaching spoken by Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gita is the beginning of real education. Whatever Kṛṣṇa says must be accepted as real spiritual knowledge, and whatever contradicts that instruction is certainly ignorance.

Therefore in the mystery school of the Esoteric Teaching, our process of accepting knowledge is the parampara system. There are two ways of acquiring knowledge, aroha-pantha or the deductive process, and avaroha-pantha or the inductive speculative process. Knowledge coming down through the parampara from qualified authorities is perfect. And knowledge acquired by the empirical experimental process is not perfect, because we are imperfect. Big scientists and professors are trying to understand things by aroha-pantha, the inductive process, or going up by the speculative method. But our process of knowledge is the Vedic process of receiving knowledge from the guru through the parampara.

tad-vijnanartham sa gurum evabhigacchet
samit-panih srotriyam brahma-nistham

“To understand these things properly, one must humbly approach, with firewood in hand, a spiritual master who is learned in the Vedas and firmly devoted to the Absolute Truth.” [Mundaka Upanisad 1.2.12]

Therefore, spiritual knowledge should be taken only from a properly qualified, initiated and self-realized spiritual Master Teacher, who in his turn has received it from Vedic authorities through the parampara system. One should approach him offering service and relvant inquiries, and be willing to abide by his order without argument. This is the correct and practical method for attaining the perfection of yoga.

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