How do you get the right set of beliefs?
Not from blind faith.
You know my neighbor said there is ghost on that tree, that's called blind faith.
Belief should come from good knowledge.
Our scriptures say that look there is the ascending process of knowledge and there is
the descending process of Knowledge.
The ascending process of knowledge is I try and find out I explore I experiment.
That is how science advances it's frontiers.
Last year we knew this much this year know this much next year we shall know this much.
So science is going ahead by the ascending process.
Similarly the wisdom you need to lead a good life.
Either you can go by the ascending process, but then in the ascending process there is
always scope for doubt.
What I consider knowledge today after 300 years it may be proved as ignorance!
That is what happened in science.
Newton presented a model of the universe.
You know a mechanistic model where there is mass separated by space there a forces between
the masses, that act instantaneously through space and time is flowing by without affecting
this paradigm, independent of it.
And then along came Michael Faraday.
He changed the whole thing.
He should if through a wire, you pass a magnet then one kind of energy (mechanical energy
) is converted to electrical energy.
Then along came Maxwell he changed Faraday's paradigm, he said there is positive charge,
it's got a force field around it irrespective of a negative charge.
So he brought out the idea of a force field.
Then came Einstein, he said that matter is convertible into energy accordance with his
equation E=mc^2.
But 15 years after Maxwell in the 1920's the quantum physicists came.
And they said that matter at the sub atomic level is not how we conceptualize it to be
electrons, protons, neutrons.
It has got a dual particle wave nature.
When Einstein heard the quantum theory, he said it is as if the ground has been pulled
from under my feet with nothing to fall upon.
So what I'm saying is that this is all the ascending process.
Ascending process firstly takes a lot of time and number 2, there is no surety of the knowledge
you have got.
Our Vedas recommend another process for Knowledge.
They say, this is the descending process.
What is that?
You get knowledge from the perfect source.
Somebody who knows, you get knowledge from there and once you have got knowledge from
the perfect source, without endeavoring, you have got it all right now!
If your source is perfect, the knowledge you get is also perfect.
So the Vedas say, it's not that you experiment and try and figure out Who am I? and What
is the goal of life?
You just receive the knowledge from the scriptures.
And how do we know they are perfect?
Because the Vedas are not the creation of a human being.
They are called "Apaurusheya", apaurusheya means, not created by any human.
Then how did they come into existence?
They were manifest in the heart of the first born Brahma.
And from there they were passed down the oral tradition.
The Guru, he spoke to the disciple, the disciple heard it remembered it passed it on.
So since they were coming by the oral tradition, they are called Shruti, the Vedas.
Only 5000 years ago Veda Vyasa put them in writing, because he felt people of Kaliyug
are not Shruti dhari.
Once they hear they cannot remember, they forget so there is need for the written scriptures.
So Veda Vyasa is not called the creator of the Vedas.
He is called the divider of the Vedas.
Veda Vyasa!
The one body of the knowledge he divided it into 4 part, Rig Veda , Yajurveda, Samaveda,
Atharvaveda.
So scholars will say Oh the Rigveda is one of the oldest books in history.
5000 years old.
You see don't say oldest, it creates misconception.
The Rigveda is sanatan, eternal.
Just like God is eternal, similarly His Vedas His knowledge is eternal.
He manifests and he absorbs.
So that's a perfect source of Knowledge and then to explain that Vedas we have got the
other Vedic scriptures.
The 18 puranas, the 2 etihas the Ramayan and Mahabharat, the 100 smriti texts, the shad
darshan 1000s of nibhands the 6 Vedants 4 upavedas these are all called Vedic scriptures.
They explain the Vedas.
Like you have got the constitution of a country.
And many lawyers have written commentaries, now students of Law don't even read the constitution,
only ready the commentaries and they become scholars.
So similarly the Bhagawat Gita, Ramayan Mahabharat they help us understand the Vedas.
If you read this, you will get the Vedic knowledge.
But because all these scriptures are complex they are difficult to understand so we take
the help of the teacher.
The teacher is the Guru.
Even in material knowledge when you learned science, you did not reinvent the wheel.
You got the knowledge from the book and the teacher, who is explaining the book.
So similarly in the descending process, we get this perfect knowledge, from these 2 sources
the scriptures & the Guru.
So Guru does not give us some different kind of knowledge.
He explains the knowledge that is revealed in these Vedic scriptures.
Now we have faith!
Yes this knowledge can be relied upon.
Those people who do not have that faith, they are highly handicapped.
Again faith, so people come to me, so Swamiji what will you speak upon.
I'll speak upon Bhagawat Gita.
Bhagawat Gita?! but that is so old give us something new, there should be some development.
Why this old knowledge, it's not relevant to us.
I say look those principles of the Bhagawat Gita are eternal.
You try them out and see.
This faith grows, first it's a little bit, and then you try it out you get the proper
result.
Then you say , yea!
There is something to it, let me get a little more.
Let me try a little more and you keep getting the results, like you're going here from here
to Huston, you keep getting the milestones, you know you're on the right path.
And these God realized saints because they have experienced the bliss of God and the
purity they have got from him there faith has become firm!
So firm that the whole world tells them, you're wrong, you're crazy, you're mad.
That's what the world told these saints, the great saints, but they did not budge one inch.
In other words this faith is the strongest material in the world!
But it must not be blind faith.
Blind faith can be ruinous.
So it must be based on the proper body of knowledge.
And the proper body of knowledge can be received from the scriptures and the Guru who explains
these scriptures.