So, interestingly, like in the Bhāgavatam, when Sūta Goswami was promoted to the point of the leader of all the sages in Naimiṣāraṇya, he was called Ugraśravā. This word "Ugraśravā" means, you know, Ugranṛsiṁha, Ugrakarma—it's like fierce, incredibly heavy, "Ugra." "Ugraśravā" means somebody who's just totally leaned into hearing, Ugraśravā—they just made it their whole existence to hear the Vedic wisdom, as also mentioned in the Bhāgavatam later on (SB 11.3.21):

tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta

jijñāsuḥ śreya uttamam

śābde pare ca niṣṇātaṁ

brahmaṇy upaśamāśrayam

"One who is qualified to speak about the absolute truth is one who is śābday brahma niṣṇātam." They've taken a dip in the ocean of transcendental knowledge; they actually swam around in there, and then they come out like drenched. So, Ugraśravā is a very important point.

Śraddhādhānāḥ, seriously inquisitive, means somebody who actually leans into hearing and hears all the relevant topics in a faithful way—faithful to one's lineage and one's guru. The mood is important also, not that I just go here, there, and everywhere collecting information. In fact, there's an admonition given in the Kṛṣṇa-bhajanāmṛta by Śrī Narahari Sarakāra Ṭhākura, whose samādhi you definitely run into this when you go to the Rādhā-Dāmodara temple in Vṛndāvana because when you're doing the circumambulation, his samādhi is right there at the caddy-corner is a good word to use, I think to Rūpa and Sanātana's samādhi. Just going around the corner, it's right there at the end—you can offer obeisances. He wrote a book called Śrī Kṛṣṇa-bhajanāmṛta, and in it, he talks about the mood of the devotee and how we should appreciate all Vaiṣṇavas. One of the ways he talks about it is that the Ganga has ripples and little waves sometimes, and he says whether the ripple is big or small, it's still the Ganga. So, whether a devotee is big or small in the estimation of the society—say, "Well, that's just a little devotee," or, "There's a big devotee here,"—it's still Ganga water, still it is worshipable.

He goes on to say that when one accepts guidance in the paramparā system and accepts a Guru, even when one goes and takes information from others, he should bring that information back to the Guru and say, "This is what I collected," and offer it first to the Guru. Then the Guru also substantiates it, accepts it in the right mood. So, he said, in that way, one should carefully tune oneself to the mood of the sampradāya.

In this verse, "tac chraddadhānāḥ," seriously inquisitive also means the mood in which one collects. As is mentioned in the śāstra, if one is faithful to Guru and Kṛṣṇa, then all the imports of Vedic knowledge become available.

Does anybody know the verse? Take the mic, and you can say.

(excerpt from the talk)

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/8/18/

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/11/3/21/

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/2/12/

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