Krishna: Guru Rating

There is very little wiggle room for anyone who plans to use the Bhagavad Gita to underwrite self rating of spiritual progress. There are two ratings. One may be issued by the person in question. The other may be issued by others who observe the person. The procedure used by the so called genuine or bonafide transcendentalists is to avoid rating themselves because that subjects them to criticism about egocentricity. It may cause them to become subjects of the statement that self-acclaim is no recommendation.

If I say that I am great, if I say that I am the best devotee or the greatest yogi, it is likely that people will pitch that I am egotistic and arrogant. Thus it is best to influence or induce others to proclaim my desired rating.

In either case the situation with Indian (India) qualifications for spirituality is tied in with what the Vedic literature describe. If I acclaim myself or if my admirers do the finger-pointing, there will still be the problem of getting the Vedic text to support the claim. If somehow I can get a book like Bhagavad Gita to single me out or to single the person I admire, then the deal is almost sealed.

There is one more factor which is needed which is that I need a recognized righteous trustworthy transcendentalist, a sadhu, to say that I am indeed the best devotee or most proficient yogi.

Two of the factors are human, myself and a trustworthy transcendentalist or my admirers and a trusty well-known guy. The other factor which is the Vedic literature is textual. It was written by someone long ago. What is the wiggle room in these texts? Is there a way where I can cherry-pick the features which I want to illustrate, while omitting those which the books mention but which I am not proficient in?

Let us look at one verse from Bhagavad Gita (my English translation):

कामक्रोधवियुक्तानां

यतीनां यतचेतसाम् ।

अभितो ब्रह्मनिर्वाणं

वर्तते विदितात्मनाम् ॥५.२६॥

kāmakrodhaviyuktānāṁ

yatīnāṁ yatacetasām

abhito brahmanirvāṇaṁ

vartate viditātmanām (5.26)

kāmakrodhaviyuktānāṁ = kāma — desire + krodha — anger + viyuktānāṁ — of the separation from; yatīnāṁ — of the ascetics; yatacetasām — of those whose thinking is restrained; abhito = abhitaḥ — very close; brahmanirvāṇaṁ — cessation of material existence, assumption of enlightened spirituality; vartate — it is; viditātmanām — of those who understand the spiritual self

The cessation of material existence and assumption of enlightened spirituality is soon to be attained by those ascetics whose thinking is restrained and who understand the spiritual self, and are separated from desire and anger. (5.26)

This sounds easy enough. Just focus on the restrained thinking and spiritual self-understanding. I can prove that I qualify for this. Forget the other part about being separated from desire and anger. A rating about that would require psychic perception of what happens in my mind. How will you do that?

Thus if I would never display desire and anger about anything, that would qualify me.

Or will it?

Indeed, here I found some wiggle room!