32 / Prayers by the Personified Vedas
King Parīkṣit inquired from Śukadeva Gosvāmī about a very important topic in understanding transcendental subject matter. His question was, “Since Vedic knowledge generally deals with the subject matter of the three qualities of the material world, how then can it approach the subject matter of transcendence, which is beyond the approach of the three material modes? Since the mind is material and the vibration of words is a material sound, how can the Vedic knowledge, expressing by material sound the thoughts of the mind, approach transcendence? Description of a subject matter necessitates describing its source of emanation, its qualities and its activities. Such description can be possible only by thinking with the material mind and by vibrating material words. Although Brahman, or the Absolute Truth, has no material qualities, our power of speaking does not go beyond the material qualities. How then can Brahman, the Absolute Truth, be described by your words? I do not see how it is possible to understand transcendence from such expressions of material sound.”
The purpose of King Parīkṣit’s inquiring was to ascertain from Śukadeva Gosvāmī whether the  Vedas  ultimately describe the Absolute Truth as impersonal or as personal. Understanding of the Absolute Truth progresses in three features—impersonal Brahman, Paramātmā localized in everyone’s heart and, at last, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Kṛṣṇa.
The  Vedas  deal with three departments of activities. One is called  karma-kāṇḍa , or activities under Vedic injunction which gradually purify one to understand his real position; the next is  jñāna-kāṇḍa , the process of understanding the Absolute Truth by speculative methods; and the third is  upāsanā-kāṇḍa , or worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and sometimes of the demigods also. The worship of the demigods recommended in the  Vedas  is ordered with the understanding of the demigods’
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