07.26: The logic-free logic of love

The Bhagavad-gita gives paradoxical statements about humanity’s capacity to know divinity. Initially, the Gita (7.26) states that no one can know Krishna, but eventually it (18.55) states that we can know Krishna by devotion.

Paradoxes are essential heuristic tools used by scriptures to impel, and even compel, us to break free from the shackles of logic. As long as we insist that only that which is found within the confines of logic deserves to be called true, we deprive ourselves access to truths that lie beyond the scope of logic, not because these truths are illogical, but because they are trans-logical. Illogical refers to notions that are so silly that they cannot stand before the scrutiny of logic, whereas trans-logical refers to truths that are so lofty that the scrutiny of logic cannot stand before them.

We as well as our powers of logic are finite, whereas Krishna is infinite. So it’s only logical to expect that the finite cannot know the infinite, as is stated in Gita (7.26). But Gita (18.55) takes us beyond logic to love, or shall we say, the logic-less logic of love. Attracted by our love, Krishna uses his infinite capacity to make the impossible possible, to make the unknowable knowable, to give a vision of the infinite to the finite.