A Consensus on Knowledge

(written on May 8, 2020)

Knowledge cannot be pure and correct unless it is coming from a pure and correct source. The philosophers of this material world are conditioned by the modes of material nature and are therefore having the four defects of human life: to commit mistakes, to be illusioned, to have a cheating propensity, and to have imperfect senses. These four defects give people a limited perception of the world, and therefore their ideas and concepts are also limited or wrong.

A conditioned soul can become free from the modes of material nature and find the pure and correct knowledge by accepting knowledge from a source that is completely pure. Who is that? Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Krsna possesses all the yoga siddhis, the six qualities, and is untainted by the modes of material nature. He is the origin of everything and the cause of all causes. Krsna has explained to us this knowledge by giving us the scriptures such as Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita. Srimad Bhagavatam, especially, is known as amala-purana or the flawless scripture. Srila Prabhupada says in the introduction to the Isopanishad that “The Vedas are not compilations of human knowledge. Vedic knowledge comes from the spiritual world, from Lord Kṛṣṇa.”In the Vedas:

• the different levels of knowledge are explained,

• the process to attain knowledge is also explained,

• and finally the essence of all knowledge is explained.

Therefore, the Vedas are the complete source of knowledge. No other scriptures or modern philosophies explain in whole the three points listed above. If one accepts this pure knowledge coming from the best source of knowledge, then there will be no confusion, and many lifetimes of empirical research and hard work will be saved. Prabhupada explains this in the lecture, “If you want to research to find out whether man is mortal, you have to study each and every man, and you may come to think that there may be some man who is not dying but you have not seen him yet. So in this way your research will never be finished. In Sanskrit this process is called āroha, the ascending process. If you want to attain knowledge by any personal endeavor, by exercising your imperfect senses, you will never come to the right conclusions. That is not possible.” The process that the modern philosophers use is the aroha process, or the grassroots-up process in which they begin with a guess and use their own senses to prove whether their guess is correct. The avaroha process is different: it begins with the appriori truths from the Vedas and uses the deductive process of attaining knowledge.

The aroha process can never be complete because all the information gathered is all relative information. The modern scientists have no anchor to their knowledge. If one, however, begins with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the cause of all causes, then one will be able to understand all knowledge in relation to God, and their knowledge will be firmly situated.

However, the material philosophers and scientists are comfortable in their own ignorance and do not wish to seek knowledge without their well-cherished process of empiricism. Because their knowledge itself has no absolute basis, is relative, and is gathered through the senses, they will never be able to come to a consensus.