What is the difficulty?

Baker

Elsewhere, this was stated, and this same reasoning is often given by devotees:[br][br]

sitapati:
You have to accept Krishna's process by which he can be known. That's all. It is completely possible to directly experience the existence of God, just as you can directly experience your hunger and its satiation when you eat. You follow the process that Krishna gives, and you get direct perception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
[br][br]
What is the difficulty?

[br][br]

The difficulty is in knowing what exactly is the process that Krishna gives. How can one know that what some people claim to be "Krishna's instructions", indeed are Krishna's instructions?[br][br]
"Follow the process that Krishna gives, and you get direct perception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead" of course makes sense logically, but a person who is not sure what are Krishna's instructions are what are not Krishna's instructions cannot apply that reasoning, however logical it may be.[br]To be able to apply that reasoning one already needs to know what indeed are Krishna's instructions are what are not Krishna's instructions.[br]
This is the difficulty.[br][br]
How do devotees suggest to resolve it?[br][br]
To accept in blind faith that what the Bhagavad-gita says, indeed is from and about Krishna?[br][br]

Thank you for your replies.

VEDA

We must have discussed this before so just shortly:

BG is supported and expanded in SB's Uddhava gita, Vedanta sutra, Upanisads, etc.

Personal qualities and realizations of members of guru parampara are the warranty that the transferred siksa is genuine.

When siksa is applied the results can be directly verified in due course of time as per the 'honey and a honeypot' analogy.

Baker

Here is an excerpt from a book I am reading; it is a line of reasoning that can often be encountered by theists of different traditions:

"Are you like Naaman [from 2 Kings 5; Naaman was a powerful general who had leprosy and was seeking healing for it]? Are you unwilling to try what God has laid out for you as the path toward healing? Do you think you deserve a better plan? Do you have a plan of your own that you wish God would adopt? If Naaman had continued to demand his own way and refused to try God's way, he would have missed the healing God had for him. It was for him to choose or refuse."

What is "God's way"? How can a person in advance know what is God's way?
A person can be endlessly criticized for their failings, simply by claiming they didn't do things God's way. I suppose this makes the critic feel good, but it doesn't necessarily help the person who has failed, because they still cannot discern what is God's way and what is their own way.

How did Sitapati and so many others, long before they were Krishna conscious, know they are indeed applying instructions from Krishna?

>> BG is supported and expanded in SB's Uddhava gita, Vedanta sutra, Upanisads, etc.

But then those sources need to be accepted in blind faith.

>> Personal qualities and realizations of members of guru parampara are the warranty that the transferred siksa is genuine.

How does this help the person who has no realization?
If I don't have realization, I am unable to tell whether someone has realization or not. Someone could put an ass before me and claim the animal is enlightened, but I couldn't know, given that I do not have realization.

>> When siksa is applied the results can be directly verified in due course of time as per the 'honey and a honeypot' analogy.

If no results are visible after more than two years, what does that mean?
That the person hasn't applied themselves enough?
That the siksa was wrong?

VEDA

Many devotees have the experience that when they surrenderred in their heart to the Lord, things got moving and a new path opened, later understood to be the God's path. When one then surrenders to the physical guru, he tells him right away. (Krsna gives guru and guru gives Krsna.)

Not blind faith, lots of the siksa can be verified and positive results boost the faith.

At the beginning one needs at least this realization/desire: I want to get to know about my relationship with the Lord and how I can serve Him. Then the Lord arranges what is needed. This is a common experience of many.
Before that one usually does some research on one's own, learning various things from various persons, gradually getting more and more clear idea about higher reality. This is a jnana level and often takes lifetimes.

You can ask the ass (or anyone) about spiritual knowledge, apply it and see if it gets you anywhere.

As I already said, there can be various reasons, not just those two most obvious ones. Strong karmic conditioning from the past life, incomplete or misunderstood sambandha jnana, aparadhas, etc.
In the specific case of bhakti yoga we can rule out the inefficiency of the process since it worked and works for tons of devotees even before they accept physical diksa guru.

How many and which persons testified that someone has no realizations, that he didn't change in the least within those two years of trying to do something spiritual?

Baker

VEDA:
At the beginning one needs at least this realization/desire: I want to get to know about my relationship with the Lord and how I can serve Him.

I can't say I have that realization/desire, and just the thought of it makes me anxious.
I've grown up with the notion that being religious/spiritual is like building a pyramid: What matters is that the pyramid gets build, it doesn't matter if it costs many people their lives. Chanting, stuyding scriptures etc. are like shaping building blocks and carrying them to place, this is what matters, the person who does that is irrelevant.

[br][br]

How many and which persons testified that someone has no realizations, that he didn't change in the least within those two years of trying to do something spiritual?

You can see for yourself that in this past year I have made no progress.

VEDA

This is the beehive/disposable mentality found in totalitarian systems incompatible with neither Christianity nor Vaisnavism. The person's recovery of svarupa is the goal of his spiritual practices, not that he is to be sacrificed to some common supergoal.

I wouldn't be so skeptical. You must have learned lots of things.

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