100 THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION
The culture of vidyd, or transcendental knowledge, is essential for the
human being, otherwise the culture of avidyd, or nescience, binds him to
conditional existence on the material platform. Materialistic existence
means the pursuit or culture of sense gratification, and this kind of
knowledge of sense gratification (avidya) means advancement of re-
peated birth and death. Those who are absorbed in such knowledge can-
not learn any lesson from the laws of nature, and they do the same things
over repeatedly, being enamored of the beauty of illusory things. Vidya,
or factual knowledge, on the other hand, means to know thoroughly the
process of nescient activities while at the same time culturing transcen-
dental science and thereby undeviatingly following the path of liberation.
Liberation is the enjoyment of the full blessings of immortality. This
immortality is enjoyed in the eternal kingdom of God (sambhiity-amrtam
asnute), the region of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and is the
result obtained by worshiping the Supreme Lord, the cause of all causes,
-  sambhavat. So in this way real knowledge, vidya, means to worship the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna; that is jfidna-yajfena, the wor-
ship of knowledge.

This jfidna-yajnena ...yajanto mam is the perfection of knowledge, as

stated in the Bhagavaa-gita [7.19]:
bahtinam janmanam ante
jnanavan mam prapadyate
vasudevah sarvam iti
sa mahatma sudurlabhah
‘*After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surren-
ders unto Me [Krsna], knowing Me to be the cause of all causes, and all
that is. Such a great soul is very rare.”’

If one has not yet come to this conclusion of knowledge and simply in-
dulges in dry speculation without Krsna, then his hard speculative labor
is something like beating empty husks of grain. The unhulled rice and the
empty husks of rice look very much the same. One who knows how to get
the grain out of the unhulled rice is wise, but one who beats on the empty
husk, thinking to get some result, is simply wasting his labor uselessly.
Similarly, if one studies the Vedas without finding the goal of the Vedas,
Krsna, he simply wastes his valuable time.

So to cultivate knowledge for worshiping Krsna culminates after many,
many births and deaths when one actually becomes wise. When one
becomes wise in this way, he surrenders to Krsna, recognizing Him at
