530 Sri Caitanya-caritamrta

manifestation from His transcendental body and at the end winds it up within
Himself. All the great sages of the Vedic understanding have accepted that the
Supreme Personality of Godhead is the original creator.

“It is sometimes claimed that the impersonal speculations of great philosophers
are meant for the advancement of knowledge without religious ritualistic principles.
But the religious ritualistic principles are actually meant for the advancement of
spiritual knowledge. By performance of religious rituals one ultimately reaches the
supreme goal of knowledge by understanding that Vasudeva, the Supreme Person-
ality of Godhead, is the cause of everything. It is clearly stated in Bhagavad-gita
that even those who are advocates of knowledge only, without any religious
ritualistic processes, advance in knowledge after many, many lifetimes of specu-
lation and thus come to the conclusion that Vasudeva is the supreme cause of every-
thing that be. As a result of this achievement of the goal of life, such an advanced
learned scholar or philosopher surrenders unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Religious ritualistic performances are actually meant to cleanse the contaminated
mind in the material world, and the special feature of this age of Kali is that one
can easily execute the process of cleansing the mind of contamination by chanting
the holy names of God—Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare.

“A Vedic injunction states, sarve vedd yat padamananti: all Vedic knowledge is
searching after the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Similarly, another Vedic in-
junction states, ndradyana-parG vedadh: the Vedas are meant for understanding
Narayana, the Supreme Lord. Similarly, Bhagavad-gitad also confirms, veda/s ca
sarvair aham eva vedyah: by all the Vedas, Krsna is to be known. Therefore, the
main purpose of understanding the Vedas, performing Vedic sacrifices and specu-
lating on the Veddnta-sitras is to understand Krsna. Accepting the impersonalist
view of voidness or the nonexistence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead ne-
gates all study of the Vedas. Impersonal speculation aims at disproving the con-
clusion of the Vedas. Therefore any impersonal speculative presentation should be
understood to be against the principles of the Vedas or standard scriptures. Since
the speculation of the impersonalists does not follow the principles of the Vedas,
their conclusion must be considered to be against the Vedic principles. Anything
not supported by the Vedic principles must be considered imaginary and lacking
in standard proof. Therefore no impersonalist explanation of any Vedic literature
can be accepted.

“If one tries to nullify the conclusions of the Vedas by acceptingan unauthorized
scripture or so-called scripture, it will be very hard for him to come to the right
conclusion about the Absolute Truth. The system for adjusting two contradictory
scriptures is to refer to the Vedas, for references from the Vedas are accepted as
final judgments. When we refer to a particular scripture, it must be authorized, and
for this authority it must strictly follow the Vedic injunctions. If someone presents
an alternative doctrine he himself has manufactured, that doctrine will prove itself
useless, for any doctrine that tries to prove that Vedic evidence is meaningless
immediately proves itself meaningless. The followers of the Vedas unanimously
accept the authority of Manu and PardaSara in the disciplic succession. Their state-
