Prabhupada 1067 - We Must Accept the Bhagavad-gita Without Interpretation, Without any Cutting
660219-20 - Lecture BG Introduction - New York
There is complete facility for the small complete units, namely, the living entities, to realize the complete. And all sorts of incompleteness is experienced on account of incomplete knowledge of the complete. So the Bhagavad-gītā is the complete knowledge of the Vedic wisdom.
The whole Vedic knowledge is infallible. There are different examples how we take Vedic knowledge as infallible. Take for example, so far the Hindus are concerned, and how they accept the Vedic knowledge as complete, here is an insignificant example. Just like the cow dung. The cow dung is the stool of an animal. According to smṛti or Vedic wisdom, if one touches the stool of an animal he has to take his bath to purify himself. But in the Vedic scriptures the cow dung is as stated as pure. Rather, impure place or impure things are purified by touch of the cow dung. Now if one argues how it is that in one place it is said that the stool of the animal is impure and another place it is said that the cow dung which is also the stool of an animal, it is pure, so it is contradictory. But actually, it may appear to be contradictory, but because it is Vedic injunction, therefore for our practical purposes we accept it. And by that acceptance we are not committing mistake. It has been found by modern chemists, modern science, one Dr. Lal Mohan Gosal, he has very minutely analyzed the cow dung and he has found that cow dung is a composition of all antiseptic properties. So similarly, he has also analyzed the water of the Ganges out of curiosity. So my idea is that Vedic knowledge is complete because it is above all doubts and all mistakes. So, and Bhagavad-gītā is the essence of all Vedic knowledge. The Vedic knowledge is therefore infallible. It comes down through the perfect disciplic succession.
Therefore Vedic knowledge is not a thing of research. Our research work is imperfect because we are searching everything with imperfect senses. Therefore the result of our research work is also imperfect. It cannot be perfect. We have to accept the perfect knowledge. The perfect knowledge is coming down, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, just we have begun, evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ (BG 4.2). We have to receive the knowledge from the right source in disciplic succession of spiritual master beginning from the Lord Himself. So Bhagavad-gītā is spoken by the Lord Himself. And Arjuna, the, I mean to say, the student who took lessons of the Bhagavad-gītā, he accepted the whole story as it is, without any cutting. That is also not allowed, that we accept a certain portion of Bhagavad-gītā and reject another portion. That is also not accepted. We must accept the Bhagavad-gītā without interpretation, without any cutting, and without our own whimsical participation in the matter because it should be taken as the most perfect Vedic knowledge. The Vedic knowledge is received from the transcendental sources because the first word was spoken by the Lord Himself. The words spoken by the Lord is called apauruṣeya, or not delivered by any person of the mundane world, who is infected with four principles of imperfectness. A living being of the mundane world has four defective principles of his life, and they are 1) that he must commit mistake, 2) he must be sometimes illusioned, and 3) he must try to cheat others, and 4) he's endowed with imperfect senses. With all these four principles of imperfectness, one cannot deliver the perfect form of information in the matter of all-pervading knowledge. The Vedas are not like that. The Vedic knowledge was imparted in the heart of Brahmā, the first created living being. And Brahmā in his turn disseminated the knowledge to his sons and disciples as they were originally received from the Lord.