Knowledge for the sake of Knowledge?

(HH JAS 10/2007)

Lady Speaks: Burton Russel said that knowledge is this one possession we have which is never ending, it’s like a river you can take, take it as much as want, and everybody can and there’s so much of it and it won’t complete.... so this contradicts what you say ’knowledge should be proactive or should be...’ I think Burton Russel was thinking of terms of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

HH JAS Speaks: I’m not sure that we are in contradiction although I’m sure Burton Russel and I would differ on all sorts of things. But by knowledge I don’t mean that now you’ve got it and it’s in a box, you know, how many square metres it takes up and put a little package in it and send it to your own address and post and you’re done...that’s not at all what I have in mind. Knowledge should expand, knowledge should be ongoing, knowledge should be progeressive, knowledge should lead to more knowledge and that should still lead to further knowledge....but there is such a thing as knowledge for knowledge's sake with no purpose: where I know how big this is, I know how much it costs, I know so many things and ultimately I don’t know what in the world I am doing with that, with that information, I am just being processed, I’m been given information, I take the information...I spit it back and I have knowledge at the end I have certified I have knowledge. But do I have a clear understanding of deeper issues...No, do they matter...maybe No ...you know, at the end of my education, deeper issues don’t matter, what matters is getting hired by a good company, and that matters more than the issues I haven’t even addressed or brought up, I’ve not even thought about, even as a professor! That’s my point. Thank you very much

Knowledge Without Ultimate Purpose...illusion!

(HH JAS 10/2007)
My main work is in publishing. I do editorial work in spiritual publishing. I met my spiritual teacher in 1968 in New York city .... I was about your age, maybe some of you are little older, I was eighteen at that time , i’m a little older now! I spent some time after leaving high school (American system) at the university , pretty good university, and i saw that students were there for four reasons .
One reason at the time, it was 1960s, was to avoid the Vietnam draft, which was quite a good reason for being at university!
The other reason was that some were very career orientated and wanted to make their mark in the job market.
Third group had left high school and weren’t ready to go in the job market and mummy and daddy were going to pay for them for four years to be in this park with nice people, beautiful girls and boys...and they could have a bit of leisure for four years and just turn in a few test papers and have a good time!
And the fourth group was there because they were looking for knowledge and it seemed to me at the time that that was the group that was being the most cheated!
Because in my experience, if you asked a professor , you know, who are you and why are you here and what is the purpose of your life , why are we here in these universities , what is the ultimate point of it all ....their answers would be..dull! They wouldn’t have answers of that at depth. They could tell you what their scholarly enterprise was, they could tell you so many other things, but in terms of delivering meaning , ultimate meaning, it just wasn’t there and what is knowledge if it is disconnected from ultimate purpose......really it is illusion.
Knowledge without purpose, knowledge without deeper understanding of the most basic questions (who we are, what our life is for) is not knowledge. That thought I had at the time and that is why I left the university community and by good fortune, some time later I came across my spiritual teacher, His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, long name. I found on the contrary that if you asked him any questions he had very definite answers and he had a very definite train of thought ....... and that’s where my interest began and that’s where i still am.
Youth asks: How did you meet him?
I met him actually by joining his society, he had a small storefront in New York city. He had left New York and had gone to India for some time and it was in his absence that I met his student s in New York and then when he came back two months later ...I met him.

Can You Throw Away The Biscuit?!

Question by Youth: What do you mean by higher taste?

(HH JAS 10/2007) :
Well just like if you had a little biscuit in your hand and you were hungry and I said throw the biscuit away. You’ll say: "Wait a second that is my biscuit and I’m hungry, I’m not going to throw it away. Get lost!"
But if i come to you with a big plate of whatever your favourite food is, fancy delicious and everything and I say I’ll give you all of this but you have to throw away the biscuit...would you do that?
Yeah sure because there was a higher taste there. There is taste of the biscuit but there is more taste in the fifty other varieties of well prepared things. So there is a taste to material enjoyment, there’s a taste to a cigarette, I smoke it and there’s a taste. There is a taste to whatever, name something in the material world there is a taste to it. But the taste is not very satisfying. It’s advertised as satisfying! They advertise that you smoke this cigarette and it’s so smooth, it’s so satisfying, but it’s a lie! And more than that it is destructive, harmful, humm, so for the sake of satisfaction we are getting some little little taste..which is not satisfying: you smoke one , you throw it away, you then pick up the next one and we are harming ourselves at the same time.
So higher taste means beyond the taste of these temporary things which are no.1 temporary and no.2 unrewarding and no.3 even troublesome! When we come to the spiritual platform there’s a taste which is free from trouble, which is natural and which is permenent and which is constitutionally joyful.