Does anyone here know which group Bhaktisiddhanta refers to when he speaks about the "lexicographic interpreters" in his essay on Organized Religion?
He is speaking about empiricists, but they read the scriptures... Academians?
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Organized Religion
by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur
Sri Krishna manifests His eternal birth, the pure cognitive essence of the serving soul who is located above all mundane limitations. King Kamsa [the demon king who wanted to kill Lord Krishna] is the typical empiricist, ever on the lookout for the appearance of the truth for the purpose of suppressing Him before He has time to develop. This is no exaggeration of the real connotation of the consistent empiric position. The materialist has a natural repugnance for the transcendent. He is disposed to link that faith in the incomprehensible is the parent of dogmatism and hypocrisy in the guise of religion. He is also equally under the delusion that there is no real dividing line between the material and the spiritual. He is strengthened in his delusion by the interpretation of scriptures by persons who are like-minded with himself. This includes all the lexicographic interpreters.
The lexicographical interpretation is upheld by Kamsa as the real scientific explanation of the scriptures, and is perfectly in keeping with his dread of and aversion for the transcendental. These lexicographical interpreters are employed by Kamsa in putting down the first suspected appearance of any genuine faith in the transcendental. King Kamsa knows very well that if the faith in the transcendental is once allowed to grow it is sure to upset all his empiric prospects.
There is historical ground for such misgivings. Accordingly if the empiric domination is to be preserved in tact it would be necessary not to lose a moment to put down the transcendental heresy the instant it threatens to make its appearance in earnest. King Kamsa, acting on this traditional fear, is never slow to take the scientific precaution of deputing empiric teachers of the scriptures, backed by the resources of dictionary and grammar and all empiric subtleties to put down, by the show of specious arguments based on hypothetical principles, the true interpretation of the eternal religion revealed by the scriptures.
Kamsa is strongly persuaded that faith in the transcendental can be effectively put down by empiricism if prompt and decisive measures are adopted at the very outset. He attributes the failure of atheism in the past to the neglect of the adoption of such measures before the theistic fallacy has had time to spread among the fanatical masses.
But Kamsa is found to count without his host. When Krishna is born, He is found to be able to upset all sinister designs against those who are apprized by Himself of His advent. The apparently causeless faith displayed by persons irrespective of age, sex and condition may confound all rabid empiricists who are on principle adverse to the Absolute Truth Whose appearance is utterly incompatible with the domination of empiricism.
But no adverse efforts of the empiricists whose rule seems till then to be perfectly well-established over the minds of the deluded souls of this world can dissuade any person from exclusively following the Truth when He actually manifests His birth in the pure cognitive essence of the soul.
Putana [the demoness who tried to kill Krishna] is the slayer of all infants. The baby, when he or she comes out of the mother's womb, falls at once into the hands of the pseudo-teachers of religion. These teachers are successful in forestalling the attempts of the good preceptor whose help is never sought by the atheists of this world at the baptism of their babies. This is ensured by the arrangements of all established churches of the world. They have been successful only in supplying watchful Putanas for effecting the spiritual destruction of persons from the moment of their birth with cooperation of their worldly parents. No human contrivance can prevent these Putanas from obtaining possession of their pulpits. This is due to the general prevalence of atheistic disposition in the people of this world.
The church that has the best chance of survival in this damned world is that of atheism under the convenient guise of theism. The churches have always proved the staunchest upholders of the grossest form of worldliness from which even the worst of non-ecclesiastical criminals are found to recoil.
It is not from any deliberate opposition to the ordained clergy that these observations are made. The original purpose of the established churches of the world may not always be objectionable. But no stable religious arrangement for instructing the masses has yet been successful. The Supreme Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in pursuance of the teachings of the scriptures enjoins all absence of conventionalism for the teachers of the eternal religion. It does not follow that the mechanical adoption of the unconventional life by any person will make him a fit teacher of religion. Regulation is necessary for controlling the inherent worldliness of conditioned souls.
But no mechanical regulation has any value, even for such a purpose. The bona-fide teacher of religion is neither any product of, nor the favourer of, any mechanical system. In his hands no system has likewise the chance of denigrating into a lifeless arrangement. The mere pursuit of fixed doctrines and fixed liturgies cannot hold a person to the true spirit of doctrine or liturgy.
The idea of an organized church in an intelligible form, indeed, marks the close of the living spiritual movement. The great ecclesiastical establishments are the dikes and dams to retain the current that cannot be held by any such contrivances. They, indeed, indicate a desire on the part of the masses to exploit a spiritual movement for their own purpose. They also unmistakably indicate the end of the absolute and unconventional guidance of the bona-fide spiritual teacher. The people of this world understand preventive systems, they have no idea at all of the unprevented positive eternal life. Neither can there be any earthy contrivance for the permanent preservation of the life eternal on this mundane plane on the popular scale.
Those are, therefore, greatly mistaken who are disposed to look forward to the amelioration of the worldly state in any worldly sense from the worldly success of any really spiritual movement. It is these worldly expectants who become the patrons of the mischievous race of the pseudo-teachers of religion, the Putanas, whose congenial function is to stifle the theistic disposition at the very moment of its suspected appearance. But the theistic disposition can never be stifled by the efforts of those Putanas. The Putanas have power only over the atheist. It is a thankless but salutary task which they perform for the benefit of their unwilling victims.
But as soon as theistic disposition proper makes its appearance in the pure cognitive essence of the awakened soul, the Putanas are decisively silenced at the very earliest stage of their encounter with the new-born Krishna. The would-be slayer of herself slain. This is the reward of the negative services that the Putanas unwittingly render to the cause of theism by strangling all hypocritical demonstrations against their own hypocrisy.
But Putana does not at all like to receive her reward in only form which involves the total destruction of her wrong personality. King Kamsa also does not like to lose the services of the most trusted of his agents. The effective silencing of the whole race of pseudo-teachers of religion is the first clear indication of the appearance of the Absolute on the mundane plane. The bona-fide teacher of the Absolute, heralds the Advent of Krishna by his uncompromising campaign against the pseudo-teachers of religion.
Does anyone here know which group Bhaktisiddhanta refers to when he speaks about the "lexicographic interpreters" in his essay on Organized Religion?
He is speaking about empiricists, but they read the scriptures... Academians?
I think he means the same kind of people, who Jesus calls "the scribes" - those who know the letter of the Scripture, but miss it's spirit and essence (the siddhanta).
Matthew 23:23
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Matthew 23:25
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
Matthew 23:27
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Matthew 23:29
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
It was always the scribes and Pharisees who were trying to trap Jesus - putting Him tricky questions to prove that He contradicts the Scripture i.e. He can be neither a true prophet nor the Messiah. But every time Jesus responded to their accusations.
For example:
Mark 2:16-20
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
17 When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
18 And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?
19 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.
You can see here that the same way as Brijbasis don't fast because Krishna is always with them, the same deeply spiritual logic applied Jesus to vindicate His disciples from the accusation of the scribes that they don't fast. Same idea.
Or another example:
Mark 7:5-9
5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?
6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
Jesus had real shakti when preaching, because the Truth was on His side. Scribes thought that they have authority because they can cite the Scripture, but Jesus was speaking the true spirit and siddhanta of the Scripture and He had the real authority over them:
Mark 1:22
And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.
Same like Kamsa was trying to kill Krishna, the scribes and Pharisees were constantly trying to kill Jesus and finally it's them who crucified Him, even though outwardly it was the Romans, but the Romans did it as per the request of the scribes and Pharisees. The same way as they were killing the prophets in the past, they killed Jesus and thus had only proven that He was right and a true prophet, since He told them that they will do so, because they did not change with the time and did not learn anything from the past:
Mark 8:31
And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
It was again the lexicographic interpreters who killed Socrates - they were using the same kind of accusations against him as the scribes used against Jesus and as Kamsa used against Krishna. Same kind of demoniac mentality shown in different times and places - this is what I think Bhakti Siddhanta means here by "lexicographic interpreters".
I'm just not sure, because the people who call themselves empiricists today do not read any scriptures.
I'm just not sure, because the people who call themselves empiricists today do not read any scriptures.
Your question was "which group Bhaktisiddhanta refers to when he speaks about the "lexicographic interpreters"?".
I did not put an equation between the empiricists of today and the scribes or the lexicographic interpreters.
As Bhaktisiddhanta says in the article regarding Kamsa "He is strengthened in his delusion by the interpretation of scriptures by persons who are like-minded with himself. This includes all the lexicographic interpreters." It's not that Kamsa himself is reading the scriptures or interpreting them. It's that he likes and accepts the interpretations of the lexicographic interpreters (of the scriptures) because they fit his ideas and vindicate him.
Another example of lexicographic interpretation in the Bible is that given by the devil to Jesus in Matthew 4:5-7, which Jesus rejects by also quoting the Scripture in return - here we can see a lexicographic interpreter (the devil) versus one who knows the siddhanta and the true spirit of the Scripture:
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
When the different episodes of "Star Wars" were appearing one by one, I was eagerly expecting the one in which the transformation of the bright Anakin Skywalker into the dark Darth Vader will happen because I wanted to see why and how would that transition happen. And that transformation was inspired by a lexicographic interpreter in the face of The Emperor, who "preached" to Anakin to join the dark side of the Power and the key phrase with which he converted him was "things can be seen in a different way". The "different way" of seeing the Truth is the very core of any lexicographic interpretation.
Reading the last sanga post named "Dynamic Orthodoxy" I remembered this topic and decided to contribute to it with one more example of who are the "lexicographic interpreters" - the person/persons asking those questions to Maharaj and attacking him. When the essence gets lost into too many considerations about the form one takes the risk to become a lexicographic interpreter... and especially if listening only to his/her own mind as having the final word.
By the way I am really surprised that they are so much discussing the euthanasia issue if there is a much more obvious and bigger issue in Gita - for example the question about killing. If they give so simple answer to a complicated question as euthanasia - "NO!", what about the killing issue? Arjuna was killing people at Kurukshetra. So were the other Pandavas. And Krishna told them to do so. Does this mean that they were sinners because of this? And if the deepest motivation of a self for an action is what determines the value of that action and if this is one of the most important conclusion of Gita regarding karma and how to get free from it, then what's the problem to apply the same conclusion to euthanasia issue as well? Euthanasia is a very narrow case compared to killing... and if they don't accept Krishna's advice to Arjuna in Gita "raise and fight" which includes also "kill if you have to do it as part of your dharma", then why to argue with them about euthanasia? They didn't get one of the basic ideas of Gita... "kim karma kim akarmani"... Krishna is so right when saying that even the learned persons get confused about what is karma and what is not karma...
This kind of argumentation is so similar to the vision of ISKCON that those who left ISKCON are betrayers of Shrila Prabhupad, completely disregarding the fact that Shrila Prabhupad left the institution of his own Gurudeva and started a new one – ISKCON when the time, place and circumstances required it. Is he a betrayer of Bhaktisiddhanta and his mission then?
Lexicographic interpretation… this seems to be one of the serious traps of Maya on the path of those struggling to get free of her embrace. Our highest ideal is the rasa-dance, and it’s a dynamic equilibrium, not static… it’s the highest level of improvisation with divinity. A lexicographic interpreter cannot dance… and cannot improvise, because is so desperately stiff due to his attachment to the form and lack of vision and taste for the essence.
It's more essential to capitalize our feeling intensity for divinity than the pronouns referring to it.
When the Vedas were orally spoken from Guru to disciple the capitalization issue was not an issue. And when the Vedas were written still it was stressed that they have to be heard by a pure devotee and studied under his/her guidance, not alone. The problem of the lexicographic interpreters seems to be that they have missed to read and understand that point even though it’s so much emphasized in the Scriptures.