Shri Krishna Tattwa

Human mind according to the scriptura doctrine of transcendental psychology itself falls into the category of material objects. It is not luminous in itself but gets light from the soul and appears to us as something different in nature from material objects which it takes cognizance of. But how does this cognition take place? Just as the moon getting light from the sun which, let it be acknowledged, is self-luminous, transmits the same to other objects, so the mind which is a very fine material organ enlightens other with external objects and perceive them as separate entities.

ACCORDING to all authorities Sri Krishna Tattwa is absolute cognitive Principle unlimited by anything else. From His very nature, therefore, He is unattainable by our intellectual faculties as they are at present constituted. Human knowledge is based upon limiting relativity and cannot conceive of the Absolute who includes both and is unlimited by time and space; and this will be more apparent if we take into account the following considerations.

The above explanation will tend to remove the difficulty which at one time appeared to be almost insurmountable, viz., how the mind communicates with matter. Like only knows its like and there being categorically no similarity between mind and matter it seems to be paradoxical that the one should know the other and communication between them be at all possible. Mind is not really different in its nature from other physical objects but appears to be so in consequence of borrowed light which it gets from quite a different source. The mind cannot know anything by itself, Being armed with this power from the soul it may get into touch with physical objects by means of the grosser organs which are subservient to the mind, and being attached to those material objects in such a way that it is impossible for the soul to detach himself from them afterwards. Different religious communities of the world taking the misapplied human intellectual faculties for their guide have attempted to discuss, which they have no competence to do, about Shri Krishnaji in the way of uninformed polemics, reviews etc.

The above is intended to explain that the inward light of the soul aberrating through the medium of a material object, viz., the mind becomes entangled in the objects which are unlike him in nature and rationally enough becomes dissatisfied with them in whatever profusion and varieties they may be enjoyed because an object that is of the category of the self-conscious can alone fully commune with his fellow. All our external perception is conditioned by this unnatural dualism. The mind intercepting and distorting leads the soul to the light of the soul consider himself as something akin to the objects of which he takes cognizance and in this unnatural position thinks that he is the creator of such knowledge.

If, therefore, we persist in making use of this imperfect instrument it will be quite inefficient to take us to absolute knowledge. We shall always find ourselves surrounded by the wall of our own mental perceptions which originate from the above mesalliance and cannot even get a glimpse of absolute knowledge, Shri Krishna, the ultimate and final Cause of everything. There are various religious sects in India who having attempted to ascertain absolute knowledge with the help of their imperfect intellectual faculties, have inevitably gone astray, arriving at altogether erroneous conclusions.

Srimad Bhagabata which gives the unambiguous exposition of the Vedanta, the highest authority in transcendental Philosophy, describes this ultimate Principle as One to Whom even the greatest misguided intellectual giants have no access.

The same authority teaches us that Shri Krishna Tattwa is beyond our sensuous experience and is not an object of three dimensions. We are capable of conceiving with our present intellectual faculties things up to the third dimension only. But Vishnu Tattwa is a thing that contains everything from the fourth to infinite dimensions and Shri Krishna Tattwa appears as the crowning point of Vishnu Tattwa. It follows, therefore, that it is utterly impossible for us to conceive of Shri Krishna Tattwa like Whom or greater than Whom there is no other principle. Human intellect by its own unaided exertion cannot get even a glimpse of this ultimate Principle unless Shri Krishna Himself makes Him known to fractional beings like ourselves making the inconceivable possible.

This raises an important question. How is it possible for finite minds to commune with the infinite and absolute Principle? The procedure described in Hindu philosophy and scriptural literature may be thus stated:

The ultimate principle, as Integer, at first reveals Himself to some fortunate fractional animations and favours them with the power of transmitting the same to other fractional beings and in this way through the chain of spiritual mediums or preceptors and their disciples the knowledge has come down to the present age. The disciple hears the teaching from the preceptor who can make the disciple realise the same by the grace of Shri Krishna and in this way the knowledge of the ultimate Principle is obtained. It is evident, therefore, that the first act of revelation came through the grace of the ultimate Principle and the same grace has ever been flowing through the spiritual channel. If any-body, however powerful he may be in intellectual equipment, attempts to get at the absolute knowledge independently of this grace through his own exertion all his efforts will end in failure, because by the very constitution of the material human intellect the soul will see in its mirror nothing but a distorted reflection and any attempt to break through the bondage of this abortive knowledge by means of such process will prove utterly hopeless.

It has been noticed above that the first revelation comes to some uncommonly fortunate person who in his turn favours those whom he is led by this light to consider as deserving. This is the case when the power of grace chooses to flow through the channel of spiritual preceptor. But it must be remembered that the same ultimate Principle is not bound by any law except His own will. He is quite independent and can act as He pleases. He can come down directly to this gross material world. Even then, while appearing and acting like misguided beings, He is not affected by the infirmities that are real in their case. The apostate beings cannot through their own exertion get themselves emancipated from this world of ignorance and the grace which flows through the preceptorial channel as described above refrains from bestowing general emancipation. It is under these circumstances that the ultimate Principle Himself descends to this world to bestow the general grace upon all misguided beings. The ordinary channel of grace overflows its banks and the whole world becomes deluged, as it were, with the flood of grace and the consideration of deserving or undeserving, rich or poor, versed in learning or illiterate, vanishes altogether and general emancipation follows as a matter of course.

The attentive method prescribed for attain¬ing absolute knowledge is by studying the Shastras. Now the conception of Shastras as is generally formed of the word by transcendental philosophers has some peculiarity about it. The Shastras deal with the matters which we cannot realise by our limited intellectual faculties, with knowledge which lies beyond our limited comprehension, It is said that the knowledge which we can hope to attain by our present reasoning power must necessarily be limited by the process of experience and even that of the process itself is also never free from doubts and difficulties.

The Shastras are the result of the intuitive spiritual knowledge of the enlightened sages and such knowledge is absolutely free from any delusion, mistakes and other drawbacks. The proper subject-matter of the Shastras is transcendental knowledge and if any Shastra deals with any matter which is attainable by our unaided reasoning power it cannot be properly called Shastra to that extent, this portion being merely wrong verbal performance (Arthabad).

It will be evident that this method is also dependent on the first method. We are not to question the authority of the Shastras. For once we admit that they are the outcome of the intuitive knowledge of inspired minds no room for any discussion is left about the correctness or otherwise of such knowledge. The real difficulty emerges in the shape of right interpretation of the Shastras. It will be generally acknowledged that to understand an author the reader must be inspired with categorically similar thought. If it were possible for the author to transfer in tact the ideas he conceives in his own mind to that of the reader there would be no difficulty at all. But such is not the case here. The author must take the help of an instrument called language to convey his thoughts to the reader, and the language mundane is unable to convey the spiritual thought of the author. In going through the writing of the spiritual thinkers of the world the reader is frequently impressed with the fact that they are trying hard to express themselves in words that are liable to be misunderstood but cannot find in the current vocabulary any words to convey their real meaning.

But the difficulty does not end here. When the author has by the grace of Krishna put down his thoughts in suitable words the reader must be prepared to receive them in his turn. But every man has got his own understanding power and every man's understanding has got its own peculiar fallacious characteristics. It is, so to speak, a kind of spectacles of his own and in assimilating the thoughts of an author he must necessarily use his own spectacles in the present circumstances. The result is that the same thing having been looked up through different distorting spectacles appears to be different to different minds. Every individual is standing on his own sphere of mental platform and even if a thing of higher sphere is divulged to him in ordinary language he will try to realise it according to the capacity and bent of his own mind and will find it necessary to receive the original idea accordingly, and if it be described, elaborately to make him realise the original idea as revealed to the author it will be found necessary to drag him up to the higher level.

The above short note should go some way to bring home to every thinking mind the fact that "Shri Krishna Tattwa" Who is identical with absolute knowledge, is unattainable even with the help of the Shastras. This can be realised only by those humble souls who surrender themselves unconditionally to the feet of those beloved servants of the Lord, whose errand here is to take up the fallen souls to their own spiritual level.