A recent 'study' revealed the 'fact' that the higher you climb the academic ladder, the lesser your belief in God. The automatic conclusion was: As you become more and more intelligent you can see the truth for yourself. God simply does not exist for the highly intelligent people.
The above is a good sampling of the so-called research studies undertaken nowadays, which simply foster atheism under various guises . This study did not admit that after banning prayers in schools, not encouraging any sort of discussion on the topic of God how is it possible that someone can believe in God without proper training?
Another aspect of this 'study' was the finding that the younger you are the more willingly you may believe in God. Thus researchers admit that some belief in God is in -built or wired-in our system. It is in growing up in this material world that we become non-believers. One famous American humorist had observed that "I was born a genius but schooling spoiled me." At least in the context of our current discussion the above statement holds water. Srila Prabhupada warns us, "Modern civilization has advanced considerably in the field of mass ed ucation, but the result is that people are more unhappy than ever before because of the stress placed on mat erial advancement to the
exclusion of the most important part of life, the spiritual aspect." What then is the exact way of understanding God?
Srila Prabhupada states in his Bhagavad-gitacommentary: "In the Bhagavad gita (10.11) the Lord says that in order to show spec ial favor to His pure devotees, He personally eradicates the dense darkness of all misgivings by switching on the light of pure knowledge within the heart of a devotee. Therefore, because of the Personality of Godhead's taking charge of illuminating the heart of His devotee, certainly a devotee, engaged in His service in transcendental love, cannot remain in darkness. He comes to know everything of the absolute and the relative truths. The devotee cannot remain in darkness, and because a devotee is enlightened by the Personality of Godhead, his knowledge is certainly perfect."
This is not the case for those who speculate on the Absolute Truth by dint of their own limited power of approach. Perfect knowledge is called parampara, or deductive knowledge coming down from the authority to the submissive aural receiver who is bona fide by service and surrender. One cannot challenge the authority of the Supreme and know Him also at the same time. He reserves the right of not being exposed to such a challenging spirit of an insignificant spark of the whole, a spark subjected to the control of illusory energy. The devotees are submissive, and therefore the transcendental knowledge descends from the Personality of Godhead to Brahma and from Brahma, to his sons and disciples in succession. This process is helped by the Supersoul within such devotees. That is the perfect way of learning transcendental knowledge.
(Syamananda Dasa)