EXPERIENCES IN BHAKTI: THE SCIENCE CELESTIAL

 
This book is an expansion of my article on Bhakti the Perfect Science, which appeared in the ISKCON magazine Back to Godhead, No. 54 in 1973. The article was liked so much by Śrī A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada that he got it translated into several languages and distributed it all over the world. He also desired that wrote an independent book on the subject and discussed it more fully and convin- cingly to fulfil one of the greatest needs of our times. This book is written primarily in fulfilment of his wish. It is hoped that it also, to some extent, fulfils the need of the times. In the first chapter of the book the transcendental character of Bhakti has been explained and it has been emphasised that Bhakti is the essential part of every religious discipline that leads to God. In the second an attempt has been made to prove that Bhakti alone is a science in the real sense of the term, since it alone discovers the Truth and the laws that govern the Truth and its laws alone are necessary and univer- sal. Modern science has already ceased to lay claim to any knowledge of Truth or the Ultimate Reality as such. It disbe- lieves in the very existence of matter, which the nineteenth century scientists regarded as the ultimate reality. Its discove- ries necessarily point to the existence of a Conscious Being behind what is called matter, which, it is humble enough to confess, it cannot know. It also confesses that its laws are not certain, but only probable to the extent that they make life possible.