Search

Experimental knowledge is always imperfect, because one experiments with imperfect senses. Therefore, scientific knowledge must be imperfect. Our source of knowledge is different. We do not depend on experimental knowledge.

Śrīla Prabhupāda: We don’t say that this scientific knowledge is useless. Mechanics, electronics – this is also knowledge. But different departments of knowledge differ in their comparative importance. There are many different departments of knowledge, but the central point is ātma-jñāna – self-knowledge , the knowledge of the soul.

Benford: Well, scientific knowledge is a different class of knowledge.

Benford: Why is knowledge of myself better than knowledge of a plant?

By eagerness, you’ll automatically be enriched with knowledge and detachment. Knowledge does not mean “Now we have discovered this atomic bomb.” That is not knowledge. What knowledge is that? But we are giving knowledge to stop death. That is Kṛṣṇa consciousness; that is knowledge. And as soon as you get this knowledge, automatically you become detached from all this nonsensical materialistic

That is the boundary of your knowledge. But that is not knowledge; there are many other evidences.

iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ: “When one understands that Vāsudeva, Kṛṣṇa, is everything, one is in knowledge Before that, there is no knowledge. It is simply misunderstanding. So if you do not understand Kṛṣṇa, where is your knowledge? Halfway knowledge is no knowledge. We want complete knowledge, and that complete knowledge is possible by the grace of Kṛṣṇa, through Bhagavad-gītā

“After many, many births, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me.” The impersonalists are passing themselves off as jñānīs, but they have no knowledge at all. Vedānta means “the ultimate knowledge.” So the subject matter of ultimate knowledge is Kṛṣṇa, God. If one does not know who God is, who Kṛṣṇa is, then where is one’s knowledge? But if a rascal claims, “I am a man of knowledge,” then what can be done?

scientific understanding of the soul, Śrīla Prabhupāda declares, “We don’t say that this scientific knowledge Mechanics, electronics – this is also knowledge … but the central point is ātma-jñāna – self-knowledge , knowledge of the soul.”

But my source of knowledge is different. You are an experimenter with imperfect senses. I have taken knowledge from the perfect person, who has seen everything, who knows everything. Therefore, my knowledge is perfect.

But those so-called scientists and philosophers who do not follow this system of descending knowledge , who do not accept knowledge thus received from higher authorities – they can’t have any perfect knowledge

As soon as one says “chance,” it means his knowledge is imperfect. So the conclusion is that he is without perfect knowledge and therefore unfit for giving any knowledge

Benford: I think that there is no category of knowledge that is useless.

Benford: There is knowledge about the structure of the physical world.

As Śrīla Prabhupāda tells physicist Gregory Benford, “We don’t say that scientific knowledge is useless Mechanics, electronics – this is also knowledge. … But the central point is ātma-jñāna – self-knowledge , knowledge of the soul.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda: This is not only pessimism, but evidence of his poor fund of knowledge. He did not have perfect knowledge, nor was he trained by a perfect man.

Benford: We have virtually no scientific knowledge about the soul.

Devotee: But how does bhakti tie in to the conclusion of Vedāntic knowledge or wisdom? and easiest path of God realization, but it also says that the Vedāntic teachings stress jñāna, or knowledge

Śrīla Prabhupāda: What is the current scientific knowledge about the spirit soul?

Śrīla Prabhupāda: Therefore you have actually made no advancement in scientific knowledge.