Question: Unless I try it how will I even know if something is really what I want or not? How can one know something without first trying it?
Answer by Romapada Swami :
Regarding how can one know something without first trying it, the Vedic process is based on hearing, more than experience and experiment. Simply by hearing from a fully realized teacher, we can understand everything as it is, without having to personally experience. “acaryavan purusho veda” — one who has a bona fide spiritual master becomes the knower of everything. Experience-based learning is considered a less effective and less efficient process, although experience may be reinforcing when it is guided by hearing.
There are different ways of acquiring knowledge (Srila Prabhupada explains this in introduction to Isopanishad), of which this process of “shabda” is the most reliable. Personal experience, which is based on sense perception can be on the one hand incomplete (there will always be yet another variety of situation which we have not tried out) and on the other hand it can be misleading or limiting (based on sense-perception, we may become attached and comfortable with a certain situation that is not necessarily our constitutional position of lasting happiness).
Hearing from a liberated self-realized soul is the Bhagavata Process — consider the series of exchanges in the Bhagavatam: all great personalities beginning from Maharaja Pariksit, the sages of Naimisaranya, Vidura, Devahuti etc — simply by systematic hearing, they understood the whole material situation beginning from all variety of earthly experiences, as well as heavenly and hellish experiences, all the way up to Brahmaloka, and up to the spiritual realm.
I can attest to this principle by personal experience also — the faithful disciples of Srila Prabhupada learned everything simply by hearing from him. Most of us were very young and had practically no experience of life or the world when we met Prabhupada. But we had complete confidence that Prabhupada had perfect knowledge of every situation, beyond what we could hope to gain by our faulty experience. Those who in this spirit accepted his directions in toto found nothing to regret later on, and we did not need to waste valuable time trying out different processes to see which suited us best.
The factual experience we gained over the years in the course of our service to Srila Prabhupada only reinforced rather than retracted from the initial conviction we had in his perfect guidance. acaryavan purusho veda — one who has accepted a bona fide spiritual master can realize everything factually. The important requirement for this process to work is unflinching and implicit faith in the spiritual master, and apply oneself to their direction in toto. If one is fortunate to find such a spiritual guide and is able to repose such trust, then their decisions in life become easy and clear, free from perplexities.
I hope this brings greater clarity to you on this subject.
