Radhakrishna das: What is the thumb rule in regard to devotees reading spiritual literature other than books written by Srila Prabhupada? Radhanath Swami: The thumb rule is after you scrutinisingly study all Srila Prabhupada’s books, scrutinisingly hear all of their tapes, in such a way that you actually can cite them, can quote them, you understand them, you have realizations of them. Then at that point just to get further data, for the purpose of preaching, you can read other books. But until you come to that platform, then reading all these books will only bewilder and confuse our faith. What is the need? Our Guru has already given us painstakingly these books for so many years. He has written exactly what we need to hear. Why should we waste our time just hearing from everybody else? We don’t even know who they are, what they are really giving. This is the thumb rule. Prabhupada said, 99% of the advancement you make by reading his books is not by the translations of the scriptures but by his purports because purport is exactly how he wants his disciples to understand. Otherwise, even the translation of scripture, you cannot approach them directly without the purport of the acaryas. Therefore even authorized books like the Chaitanya Bhagwat is completely one of the most authorized important books in our line. But if we want to know Chaitanya Bhagwat, we should hear. It is not really going to do us much good, reading it directly. But if someone who understands Prabhupada’s and Bhaktipada’s purports, if he explains to us the stories of Chaitanya Bhagwat with the purport of Gurudev, then that will have great benefit. But by just reading it directly and hearing the stories, we will not be able to understand. So this is the thumb rule. We should let those advanced senior devotees read these books, give us their understanding through their purports of the parampara. And other than that we should be very humble and just accept that we do not know so much. We should just try to understand what Guru is telling me. And then you will never have problems or dangers in spiritual life.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:12:55 +0000
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