Text 27]
The Lord in the Heart
105
PURPORT
Foolish men of materialistic temperament do not take advantage of successive authorized knowledge. The Vedic knowledge is authorized and is acquired not by experiment but by authentic statements of the Vedic literatures explained by bona fide authorities. Simply by becoming an academic scholar one cannot understand the Vedic statements, but one has to approach the real authority who has received the Vedic knowledge by discipline succession, as it is clearly explained in the  Bhagavad-gītā  (Bg. 4.2). Lord Kṛṣṇa affirmed that the system of knowledge as explained in the  Bhagavad-gītā  was explained to the sun-god, and the knowledge descended by discipline succession from the sun-god to his son Manu, and from Manu to King Ikṣvāku (the forefather of Lord Rāmacandra), and thus the system of knowledge was explained down the line of great sages one after another. But in due course of time the authorized succession was broken, and therefore, just to reestablish the true spirit of the knowledge, the Lord again explained the same to Arjuna because he was a bona fide candidate for understanding due to his becoming a pure devotee of the Lord.  Bhagavad-gītā , as it was understood by Arjuna, is also explained (Bg. 10. 12-13), but there are many foolish men who do not follow the footsteps of Arjuna in understanding the spirit of  Bhagavad-gītā . They create instead their own interpretations, which are as foolish as themselves, and thereby only help to put a stumbling block on the path of real understanding, misdirecting the innocent followers who are less intelligent, or the  śūdras . It is said that one should become a  brāhmaṇa  before one can understand the Vedic statements, and this stricture is as important as the stricture that no one shall become a lawyer who has not qualified himself as a graduate. Such a stricture is not an impediment in the path of progress for anyone and everyone, but it is necessary for an unqualified understanding of a particular science. Vedic knowledge is misinterpreted by those who are not qualified  brāhmaṇas . A qualified  brāhmaṇa  is one who has undergone strict training under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master.
The Vedic wisdom guides us to understand our relation with the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa and to act accordingly in order to achieve the desired result of returning home, back to Godhead. But materialistic men do not understand this. They want to make a plan to become happy in a place where there is no happiness. For false happiness they try to reach other planets, either by Vedic rituals or by spacecraft, but they should know for certain that any amount of materialistic adjustment for becoming