The process to acquire knowledge can further be analyzed as – ascending or descending.
Ascending process of acquiring Knowledge
In the ascending process, one relies on one’s own strength and efforts. This includes making observations and generalizing them with the help of philosophical speculation or meditation. Consider, for example, the attempts to understand natural systems. One can build electron & atomic force microscopes to see objects on the atomic scale. Similarly, one can build very powerful telescopes to observe the structure of the Universe. Based on the observed data, one can propose mathematical laws. But eventually someone may observe a piece of evidence contradicting that law, and then one has to give up the earlier understanding and come up with a better one.
Hence, the ascending process can only take us to a restricted understanding of a narrow domain, limited by the observations that are within one’s reach.
Thus, ascending process entails great uncertainty and hence cannot lead to the perfect knowledge. This is because it relies only on one’s senses and mind, which are defective, as we have discussed in the previous section.
Because of its inherent limitations and uncertainty, the ascending process cannot be applied to perfectly understand even physical nature, what to speak of soul and Supersoul, who are beyond our sensual observations. The sensory experiences are mundane, while the spirit is supra-mundane and hence cannot be described in terms of mundane experiences.
However, there are philosophers who rely on mental speculation, rooted in sensory observations to comprehend the nature of soul and Supersoul. They are eventually baffled in their attempts and the spiritual subject matter remains ever elusive to them [Brahma Saṁhitā 5.34].
In the descending process, on the other hand, one’s end goals are guided by a perfect authority and one understands one’s absolute dependence on the higher authority. One learns the knowledge from authoritative sources, and experiences it by applying it to specific domains.
Hearing from authoritative sources is the perfect way to receive knowledge about the soul and Supersoul. These authorities include the Vedic scriptures and the spiritual masters coming in the bonafide disciplic succession. Both the Vedic scriptures (śāstra) and the bonafide disciplic successions can impart us perfect knowledge because they both come from Kṛṣṇa, Who is all-perfect.
These two sources are explained in detail in the next section.
In order to get perfect knowledge, be it about spirit or matter, one has to purify the defective senses and mind, and get situated at the level of pure transcendental experience.
Such a transition occurs when the Lord directly lifts the soul from the material space to the conscious (pure & transcendental) space. This happens through the mercy of the Lord only.
It is the spiritual grace that embodies the process of dissemination of spiritual knowledge from one generation to another. It is the grace of the Lord that awakens our spiritual consciousness and spiritual identity.
No amount of material ability can help one to
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draw this divine grace of the Lord. A person with great material ability can become very wealthy, famous or powerful. But such extraordinary abilities count for nothing for gaining spiritual knowledge. Real knowledge can be gained only by the grace of the Lord. In general, a spiritualist completely depends on the mercy of the Lord. Thus the path one follows is known as the descending process.
Even if one has some extra-ordinary ability to prosper materially, he/she acknowledges that the source of these abilities is the Lord Himself.
He/she uses such abilities to attain spiritual perfection.
This method of obtaining transcendental knowledge is a descending process where a seeker of Truth surrenders to the tradition of guruśiṣya paramparā. The spiritual enlightenment occurs due to bestowal of the Lord’s grace (mercy) upon a conditioned soul who is situated in the bottom-most layer of spiritual existence, that of complete ignorance.
Even for acquiring material knowledge, sincere seekers depend upon the grace of the Lord. Then, their pursuits aid to the understanding of the spiritual (transcendental) knowledge. Such spiritual scientists engage in the study of physical nature with a goal to get closer to the Absolute Truth while disentangling themselves from the material bondages. Due to their complete dependance on the grace of the Lord, they are distinctly different from the mundane scientists, who study physical nature to lord over it with an enjoying mentality. Such mundane scientists take humans away from their natural self.
Hence the modern materialistic civilization, along with its so called ‘advancement’ of science and technology, has generated great
2 According to Vedic calendar, we are in Vaivasvata Manvantara and the present kalpa is 28th divya kalpa.
Duration of one divya kalpa is about 4.3 million years.
physical and mental stress, thereby leading to colossal personality disorders.
Sources of Perfect Knowledge
We studied in the previous section that descending process is the way to gain perfect knowledge. The perfect knowledge can only come from the perfect source, that is the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa. He gives us the perfect knowledge from outside through scriptures and spiritual teachers, and from within as Paramātmā
