Friday, March 2, 2007

To want to know eveything is a kind of disease

It is a defect to want to understand everything about Divinity. Knowledge may be a qualification here in this world, but in relation to the transcendental truth of the highest order, the tendency to want to know everything is a disqualification. We want to know the value of everything. We want to have the key to everything in our possession. But this is really a bar to progress. If we assert ourselves in this way, we rather lose what confidence we might have in divinity, and there will be some delay in extending the key to us. If a servant, upon getting employment in the master’s house, is very eager to be entrusted with the house keys, then the master will suspect him. So to want to know eveything is a kind of disease, it is an enemy to our progress.


This is, of course, difficult to accept. But still, it is true. Surrender is everything. What cultivation of knowledge do we find in the gopis, the most exalted devotees of Krsna? What was their acquaintance with scripture? Nothing. What we understand to be "standard purity," what we think to be knowledge - all these things are disqualifications in giving pleasure to the Absolute.


- Srila Bhakti Rakshaka Sridhara Deva Goswami Maharaja -