Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18

Surrendering is not rejection of the intelligence, but its perfection by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18

Some people perceive devotion as anti-intellectual, as an abandonment of the intelligence for an abject surrender to God.

However, that is not the kind of devotion that the Bhagavad-gita espouses. At the Gita’s start (02.07) Arjuna surrenders to Krishna, yet Krishna doesn’t treat this surrender as a license for neglecting Arjuna’s intellectual concerns. Far from it, Krishna throughout the Gita strives to educate and elevate Arjuna’s intelligence. He patiently and cogently answers Arjuna’s many questions, even when they border on the challenging (04.04-05). And towards the Gita’s end (18.72), he specifically asks Arjuna whether his illusion and ignorance have been dispelled. The Gita commentator Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakura explains the subtext of Krishna’s enquiry: being concerned that Arjuna understand things properly, Krishna is willing to repeat his message partially or even fully. Such vigilant concern clearly demonstrates that the supreme teacher considers his student’s intelligence important, not redundant.

Philosophically speaking, surrendering doesn’t mean rejecting the intelligence, but integrating it. Such integration is evident in Arjuna’s response (18.73), wherein he states that his doubts have been resolved and his composure restored – and being thus intellectually convinced he is ready to do Krishna’s will.

No doubt, when we surrender to Krishna, we accept that some aspects of his glories and his energies are inconceivable. However, we accept this not by rejecting the intelligence, but by intelligently recognizing that Krishna is greater than our intelligence, which, like us, is finite. So it is only intelligent for us to admit that Krishna will have features that our intelligence won’t be able to figure out. Such an admission is not anti-intellectual, but is trans-intellectual.

Ultimately, devotional surrender catapults us to beyond intelligence’s reach to the summit of transcendence: eternal spiritual love for Krishna. And harmonizing our intelligence with that ascent is the intelligence’s perfection.