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Choosing Human and Animal Lives
om ajñāna-timirāndasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā cakṣur unmīlitam yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
“I offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master, who has opened my eyes, blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the torchlight of knowledge.”
It is customary with this verse to offer obeisances to the spiritual master who enlightens his disciples in the matter of transcendental knowledge. The Vedic process does not involve research work. In mundane scholarship, we have to show our academic learning by some research, but the Vedic process is different. In the Vedic process the research work is already done; it is complete, and it is simply handed down by disciplinary succession from teacher to student. There is no question of research work because the instruments and the means with which one conducts such research work are blunt and imperfect.
At this stage of our material existence, we are conditioned by many laws of nature. All conditioned souls are subject to four defects due to the imperfection of their senses. One defect is that the conditioned soul is certain to commit mistakes. There is no man who does not commit mistakes. In India, for instance, Mahātmā Gandhi was supposed to be a very great personality, but he also committed mistakes. Five