Reason and Love

Wednesday, 30 September 2009 13:18 Written by TVD

By Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura

"We do not mean to say that Reason is a foolish principle. On the contrary we do not find better admirers of Reason than our humble selves. We hold that man's superiority amongst all created beings consists in man's possessing the noble gift of Reason. What we maintain is this, that independent of this noble principle there is another higher gift in man which goes by the name of Love.

Reason helps Love to maintain its proper bounds in the Spiritual world. Love often tends to degrade itself by exercising its function on objects other then God and converts itself into lust for women, wine, meat and gold. Here Reason advises her to rise higher till she reaches her proper sphere above. Thus we find that the object of Reason is to help Love and not to create it. Reason may be properly styled as the servant of Love and must always be subject to her in all her hopes, aspirations, and holy works.

The Rationalist on the contrary considers Reason as all and all! This is a degredation of humanity! The progressive Rationalist, on the other hand, believes in the principle of love, but attempts to make her the maid-servant of Reason! This is another error! He makes spiritual love sometimes a prisoner in the jails of Reason! Love wants to soar on her spiritual wings to a realm where the Jailor (Reason) cannot go and the latter is sure to tie up her wings for fear lest she goes to an unworthy place! Love utters sounds of a spiritual character peculiar to herself, but Reason, having no pervious experience of it, mistakes it for a disease and administers medicine for her cure!! Thus it is that the natural strength of the Queen of our Soul is crippled by artificial administration of the dry principle of Reason and she rests in us as if a bird taken in a cage! Oh! What a havoc doth Reason commit by abuse of his power. Oh! Shame to the Rationalist! God help the man!!

Theist take care of those amongst you who mix with you only by assuming the name of Theist but are in fact Rationalists of a very dry character. They are divisible into two classes vis. the designing and the dupes. The designing Theist is he who is in fact a Rationalist but by assuming the name of Theist wants to degrade the sincere by his bad influence. He that calls himself a Theist in order to get rid of the name of Rationalist but still holds Love in subjection to Reason is a dupe because he is unable to find out his own position. The sincere Theist should however take care of both of them and preserve the sovereignty of Love over Reason and his comrades."

About Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura:

By studying the character, life and literary works of a great Vaishnava acharya, one can derive deep understanding of how to lead one’s life in such a way that devotion to God becomes manifest in the heart. Although in the beginning of Thakura Bhaktivinoda’s life he seemed to display the activities of an ordinary mortal man, one should not wrongly think him to be so, for he is the dearly beloved associate of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krishna and it was by the Lord’s divine wish that he appeared on this mundane plane of existence, for the spiritual reformation of fallen humanity of the nineteenth century was in a miserable plight. There were so many off-shoots from the main stem of religion, each sect preaching its own philosophy, that people were thrown into utter confusion and did not know what the pure religion was. It then became a necessity for a leader to save the good souls who were hankering for their real welfare. To quench their thirst a bhakta-avatara was badly needed and that avatara appeared in the form of Thakura Bhaktivinoda. His religious disposition was observed from his very childhood and as he grew older he studied all the religious books of the world and appreciated the doctrines preached by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as the most sublime of all and the surest path to lead the fallen souls to the feet of God. The enlightened and cultured men of the present age have now learned to honor this most sublime philosophy which the Thakura brought to light and which would have lain buried in darkness, had he not opened their eyes.

Thakura Bhativinoda showed through his clear and lucid writings that the solution to all contending theories, isms, sectarian dogmas and doctrines could be found in the teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. With an open and liberal mind, he opened the door of comparative religion and philosophical study and thus showed the universal applicability and scientific, religious, and philosophical basis of the teachings of Sri Caitanya. In this way the Thakura lifted the spiritual cataract on the religious vision of the people of Bengal by his many writings, which were both revolutionary and endowed with the quality of sweet reasonableness. He preached that the universal religion and common function of all souls is devotional service to the Supreme Lord Krishna and ‘Back to Home, Back to Godhead’ ‘was the motto he taught and practiced throughout his life.