Page 27 - SBV (English)

Preface xxv

his pedantic effort to gauze [sic] the absolute by the standard
supplied to her victim by His deluding energy in the form
of the mundane categories that can only limit and define
them, whereas the function to be performed is to get rid of
the necessity to do either. The empiric consciousness is not
in the absolute consciousness at all. It can only bungle and
commit a deliberate blunder by attempting to limit and define
the immeasurable under the pleas of a necessity that need not
be supposed to exist at all. By the empiric attitude one is led to
launch out on the quest of the absolute truth with the resources
of admittedly utter ignorance. This foolhardiness must be
made to cease. The method of submissive inquiry enjoined by
the scriptures should be substituted after being properly learnt
by those who have themselves attained to the right knowledge
of the same by the right method of submission. 4
To exoteric vision, great äcäryas resemble common men, inasmuch as
they walk, talk, eat, travel, undergo sickness, and in many other ways seem like
anyone else. But a devotee’s existence is quite distinct from that of a conditioned
soul. Just as each thought, word, and deed of ordinary persons is impelled by the
deluding influence of the material energy, the movements of pure devotees are
conducted by the Supreme Lord’s lélä-çakti (internal potency). Thus like Kåñëa
Himself, pure devotees who come to this world are never really part of it:
etad éçanam éçasya prakåti-stho ’pi tad-guëaiù
na yujyate sadätma-sthair yathä buddhis tad-äçrayä
This is the divinity of the Personality of Godhead: He is not affected
by the qualities of material nature even though in contact with
them. Similarly, devotees who have taken shelter of the Lord are
never influenced by mundane qualities. (SB 1.11.38)
Unlike conditioned souls ever enmeshed in mäyä, pure devotees remain
perpetually immersed in intense love for Kåñëa, thus infusing each moment of
even their seemingly routine affairs with the ecstasy of their hearts’ craving for
Kåñëa. Kåñëa is the life of His devotees, and a devotee lives only to serve his
beloved Lord, Çré Kåñëa. A Vaiñëava is fully engaged in that service even before
his apparent birth, and upon leaving the plane of mortal vision he returns to
the realm of eternal service. Hence a Vaiñëava’s life and activities are clearly
distinct from those of ordinary people, which have a discernable beginning
and end and may be considered a product of their contemporary historical and