Choosing Human and
A\nimal Lives

om ajitana~timirandasya jiiananjana-salakaya

caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah
“TI offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual
master, who has opened my eyes, blinded by the
darkness of ignorance, with the torchlight of knowl-
edge.”

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 disciplic succession from teacher to student. There
is no question of research work because the instru-
ments and the means with which one conducts such
research work are blunt and imperfect.

At this stage of our material existence, we are con-
ditioned by many laws of nature. All conditioned
souls are subject to four defects due to the imperfec-
tion 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,
Mahatma Gandhi was supposed to be a very great
personality, but he also committed mistakes. Five
