Knowledge Sometimes Harms Spiritual Progress

This audio tells you about - 1. How complete faith made Parikshit the perfect listener of Bhagavata 2. How rudimentary knowledge impedes spiritual progress.

We have been seeing the three types of narrators and listeners of Bhagavata.

Why so much importance is being given to this is that if you start listening to Bhagavata with the right attitude, it will give you much faster results.

Listening to Bhagavata is always good, whether you know this or not, whether you follow this or not.

The ordinary narrator and listeners: Suta and Rishis of Naimisharanya;

Extraordinary; Narada and Vyasa.

Exceptional: Shukadeva and Parikshit.

Suta is ordinary because he is a professional storyteller.

This is not meant to look down upon him.

He is a crore times more elevated than any ordinary human being, than all of us, but still storytelling for him is a profession.

What is wrong with Shaunaka and other Rishis?

They had a very keen interest in listening, best audience for Suta, but Shaunaka and others, they were already very deep into karma-Marga; they were in the course of performing a thousand-year-long yaga.

They were already at the far end of it.

In fact, they may not even really need another method for their own sake.

They wanted a method to help others, the ordinary folks of Kaliyuga.

That is what they asked Suta for.

Bhagavata helped them also, bhakti added strength to what they were already doing.

So, from a bhakti perspective, purely from a bhakti perspective, they were just ordinary listeners.

Because they were not going to make full use of what they were listening to.

Why is Vyasa considered as extraordinary and not ordinary listener?

Knowledge of Vyasa was complete.

He was Bhagavan's knowledge embodied.

That’s why we consider him as an avatara of Sri Hari.

Only vairagya, dispassion was lacking in him.

This is evident because he was feeling dissatisfaction at whatever he had done until then.

Parikshit is considered to be a perfect listener because he had complete faith in what was being told to him by Shukadeva,not an iota of doubt.

Vyasa still did not completely believe Narada when he told him that the
Lord's story can be told in a different way.

Sage Vyasa went into samadhi to check whether what Narada said was right or not.

Even though Narada was a Devarshi, a Deva, Vyasa did not have full faith in him.

This made Vyasa an extraordinary listener but not the perfect listener.

See this clearly.

Shaunaka had great knowledge, he was a Maharshi, but he was not the perfect listener

Vyasa had all the knowledge,but he was not the perfect listener.

Parikshit did not have both these defects as far as Bhagavata was concerned.

He had complete faith in what was being narrated to him by Shukadeva, that it was the ultimate truth.

His knowledge did not interfere with his listening.

So he became the perfect listener.

This is what happens with most of us.

We have a lot of rudimentary knowledge-authentic or unauthentic-gathered from here and there.

This knowledge interferes with our listening.

Then it is not good listening.

We are more interested in finding fault with the narrator.

Even minor things, we spot and blow up.

Then there is no point right?

It is not bhakti that is at work.

It is the human defect of fault-finding which is at work.

When that is at work, then the result of that is what you will get; not listening to Bhagavata.

You will end up with a huge bundle of faults even after listening to Bhagavata.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi