The process for finding perfect knowledge

In his Tattva-Sandarbha, Srila Jīva Goswami gives us a long analysis of the process to obtain perfect knowledge. Nowadays it's easy because the books from Srila Prabhupada but it used to be hard.

Jul 16, 2025

In his Tattva-Sandarbha, Srila Jīva Goswami gives us a long analysis of the process by which we can obtain perfect knowledge. Nowadays of course it's easy since we have the books from Srila Prabhupada, but it used to be harder.

The soul, as he explains, is originally not part of the material world. There is another reality, which is spiritual and transcendental, and the soul is originally part of this eternal spiritual reality. The original identity of the soul is an eternal servant of Krsna.

Somehow, due to free will, this pure soul at some point leaves this original position and comes to the material world, where it tries to enjoy the material nature and become an imitation ruler. The original ruler of everything is Krsna, but in this material world, we have some space to become smaller rulers, taking charge of a small family, a business, or even a city or country.

However, while in this material world, our original, perfect spiritual nature is covered, we assume a temporary, illusory material identity with is formed by the false ego, the intelligence, the mind, and finally the senses and the gross body. At this point, we become affected by four material defects.

The first defect is to commit mistakes. None of us can say that we never make mistakes; to err is human. This applies not just to us, but to all conditioned souls. Even great demigods such as Indra and Brahma commit mistakes.

The second defect is to be illusioned. Illusion means to accept something that is not. This is called māyā. We accept the body as our self and work so hard to maintain it. We become conditioned by the idea of belonging to a certain country or a certain group, being part of a certain family, and so on. This all happens under the influence of illusion since all these identifications are temporary and connected with the body.

The third defect is that we have the propensity to cheat others to get what we want. Many false gurus come from India to the West to teach adulterated philosophies. They attract the public and then use people to fulfill their interests. Politicians and others also do this all the time, and this can happen on a smaller scale, even inside families. Cheating and manipulation are, unfortunately, very common in this world. Therefore, even if a person is sincere in finding the truth, there is no guarantee that he will find it, due to all these cheaters on the way.

Finally, there is the fourth defect, the fact that our senses are imperfect. This also includes our material intelligence. In this way, not only are the tools we use to get knowledge (our eyes, ears, and so on) imperfect, but the tools we use to process this information (our intelligence) are also flawed. In this way, get get some limited information using our eyes and ears and use our limited intelligence to process it, and in this way, try to understand reality. However, our understanding of reality will always be incomplete and incorrect.

This affects not only regular people but also philosophers, scientists, and even great demigods such as Indra and Brahma. When Krsna appeared in Vṛndāvana, 5,000 years ago, Brahma mistook Him for a regular boy and decided to test Him by stealing his friends and calves. One year later, when he returned to see the result of his prank, he saw that Krsna had just expanded himself into many forms, assuming the forms of all his friends and calves, and was in this way still paying in the same way as before. To his surprise, each one of these expansions was shown to be a Viṣnu expansion, complete with His own universe, including His own Brahma, Shiva, and other demigods and living entities. Brahma thought he was the only Brahma and that there was only one Lord Vishnu, but he saw that not only were there many forms of Vishnu, but also multiple universes and multiple Lord Brahmas and that they were all subordinate to Krsna!

Considering that we have all these defects, what is the hope for us to get perfect knowledge?

Since all conditioned souls living inside this material universe have these four defects, it’s not possible for anyone here to produce perfect knowledge. Perfect knowledge needs to be imported from outside. Only Krsna Himself, or his pure devotees coming from the spiritual world, can transmit this pure, perfect knowledge.

This brings us to the Vedas. The Vedas are considered perfect knowledge, originally transmitted directly from Krsna to Lord Brahma. In the Bhagavad-Gita (15.15), Krsna says that "By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedānta, and I am the knower of the Vedas".

This is not an exaggeration. Krsna is the one who originally transmitted the Vedic knowledge, and he also came as Vyāsadeva to compile the Vedic knowledge when it was almost lost at the end of the past Dvāpara-Yuga. Krsna also spoke the Bhagavad-Gita to Arjuna, starting a new line of disciplic succession for this important book, since the previous one had been lost.

However, even when we study the Vedas, it’s not easy to find clear answers. The Rig, Yajur, and Sama Vedas deal mainly with auspicious rituals and fruitive activities that one can use to attain material prosperity and promotion to higher planets after death, while a great part of the Atharva deals with material sciences, like medicine and psychology. Only a small portion of the verses speak directly about self-realization.

In fact, there are many philosophies based on the Vedas that are atheistic, like the atheistic Sāṅkhya, by the impostor Kapila, the philosophy of Karma-mīmāṁsā, by Jaimini, and so on.

In His purport to SB 1.1.7, Srila Prabhupada explains that:

"Besides Vyāsadeva, there are other sages who are the authors of six different philosophical systems, namely Gautama, Kaṇāda, Kapila, Patañjali, Jaimini and Aṣṭāvakra. Theism is explained completely in the Vedānta-sūtra, whereas in other systems of philosophical speculations, practically no mention is given to the ultimate cause of all causes. One can sit on the vyāsāsana only after being conversant in all systems of philosophy so that one can present fully the theistic views of the Bhāgavatam in defiance of all other systems."

In this way, Vyāsadeva appears at the end of Dvāpara-yuga to restore the correct understanding of the Vedas, which at the time had been covered by these different atheistic philosophies.

From this, we can see that even when one has access to the knowledge of the Vedas, it's not so easy to find the truth, since the knowledge from the Vedas can be easily misinterpreted.

That's one of the reasons Vyāsadeva compiled the Upanisads and later the Vedanta Sutra, making this spiritual knowledge more evident. However, the Puranas offer spiritual knowledge in a format that is easier to understand, and thus they are recommended for the people of our age. In this way, the Puranas are the most direct path back to Godhead.

In the Tattva Sandarbha (13.1), Srila Jīva Goswami explains that the Puranas were originally spoken as a single scripture that contains one billion verses. This original Purana is still recited and studied on the celestial planets, where the demigods have access to many other Vedic texts that are not known on our planet:

"Therefore the Prabhasa-khanda of the Skanda Purana states, “Long ago, Lord Brahma, the grandfather of the demigods, performed severe penances, and as a result the Vedas appeared, along with their six supplements and their pada and krama texts. Then the entire Purana emanated from his mouth. Composed of eternal sound and consisting of one billion verses, it is the unchanging, sacred embodiment of all scriptures.” (TS 13.1)

Understanding that it would be impossible for the people of day and age to study such an extensive text, Srila Vyāsadeva compiled the 18 Puranas with selected passages from this original book. Together they contain about 400,000 verses, about 0.04% of the total.

Of the 18 Puranas, six of them contain instructions for people in the mode of ignorance, six for people in the mode of passion, and six for people in the mode of goodness. This explains why some of the Puranas prescribe fruitive activities or the worship of demigods such as Shiva and Surya. They just offer processes of worship that are appropriate according to the public they are destined to. Because they give instructions to different types of people, some passages may look contradictory (in one place it may be said not to worship demigods, and in another to worship Shiva or Surya, for example), but when one understands the purpose of these different Puranas, everything becomes clear.

Srila Prabhupada mentions that "In other Purāṇas there are different methods set forth by which one can worship the demigods. But in the Bhāgavatam only the Supreme Lord is mentioned. The Supreme Lord is the total body, and the demigods are the different parts of that body. Consequently, by worshiping the Supreme Lord, one does not need to worship the demigods. The Supreme Lord becomes fixed in the heart of the devotee immediately." (SB 1.1.2 purport)

In this way, if we are interested in learning about Krsna, even the 400,000 verses of the Puranas are not necessary. Just by studying the 18,000 verses of the Srimad Bhagavatam, we have access to the cream of the cream, focusing only on the most relevant passages. The conclusion of Srila Jīva Goswami is thus that we can get everything by just studying the Srimad Bhagavatam, and his Sat-Sandarbhas are dedicated to simply helping us to understand the proper conclusions of the text.

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