Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 11.19.1
Mukti· LiberationSurrender Knowledge in Loving Service
“The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: A self-realized person who has cultivated scriptural knowledge up to the point of enlightenment and who is free from impersonal speculation, understanding the material universe to be simply illusion, should surrender unto Me both that knowledge and the means by which he achieved it.”
What the purport teaches
- The eternal spirit soul and the eternal Personality of Godhead are separate from the temporary qualities of the material world. Spiritual knowledge helps free us from false identification with the body and mind.
- Vedic knowledge should be cultivated for enlightenment, not to display intellectual ability or encourage impersonal speculation.
- Once knowledge has counteracted illusion, one should surrender that knowledge and its methods to the Lord. The goal is loving service to Kṛṣṇa, not continued absorption in the details of illusion.
Try this today
Before studying today, pause and offer your effort to Kṛṣṇa as preparation for loving service.
Ask yourself
Is my spiritual study drawing me toward loving service, or toward displaying what I know?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.