Q121. Is a degree in medicine the king of education?

Many parents are crazy about getting their children into medicine or other high earning material professions. They will ensure the children work hard at school and will spend all their accumulated wealth on their children’s education. At the time of death, will the degree in Medicine help the parents or the children? A student of medicine will study hundreds of books. Will the Bhagavad-Gita be one of those books?

At death, all our degrees are completely useless. Those who have some intelligence will study medicine or get some other high-level education, and at the same time they will also gain some spiritual knowledge, by studying the Bhagavad-Gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam. The result of this is that they will earn good money by practicing medicine or other high-level professions and at death, because they gained some spiritual knowledge, they will get a chance to advance in spiritual life in their next life by being born in families who are engaged in devotional service. Then eventually they will be advanced enough in spiritual knowledge to go back to the spiritual manifestation called Vaikuntha, where everyone has a beautiful body that is eternal, full of bliss, and knowledge. Those who are less intelligent will not be interested in gaining spiritual knowledge from the Bhagavad-Gita and will focus only on the material education. At death, because they have no spiritual knowledge, they will take birth in families who are in darkness because they have no interest in spirituality. Those who are in darkness gradually sink into lower human species and eventually back into the animal and plant kingdoms. “This is the purest knowledge, the king of education, the king of the most confidential knowledge. It is the highest knowledge, most righteous, and everlasting.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita 9.2) Lord Krishna states that the Bhagavad-Gita is the king of education. This knowledge will eternally benefit you. Will your knowledge of medicine benefit you, life after life? I am not saying don’t study or don’t become a doctor. My point is that will it hurt to add one more book (The Bhagavad-Gita) to the list of hundreds of books that a student will study? Some people say that they will worry about God and religion later in life after they are settled with a degree, house, good job, and so on. Do you have a certificate saying you will live to retirement age or even the next moment? Death can come at any moment for anyone. Many people die young. Michael Jackson thought he would live to 150, but he made a thriller, he was out at 50. Most people are short sighted, because they think about how they can be happy and live well for the 40-60 years that most live, but what about the trillions of years after this life?