In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (Bs. 5.1). Īśvara means controller, or the powerful man who controls. Take, for example, the president or the king. So there are many īśvaras, or controller. You are also īśvara; I am also īśvara. Because you also control at least your family members or some animals. So this controlling capacity is there in everyone, because we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. But we are not supreme controller. We are controller of some entities, but we are controlled also by something superior. Therefore we are not absolute controller. We are relative controller. But about Kṛṣṇa it is said, īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ (Bs. 5.1). Paramaḥ means supreme. He controls everyone or everything, but He is not controlled by anyone. That is īśvaraḥ paramaḥ. We are īśvara. We control to . . . in our jurisdiction, but we are also controlled by somebody. Just try to understand. But in Kṛṣṇa's life you'll find that He controls everyone, but He is not controlled by anyone. Therefore He is called īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ.
Sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1). He has got His form. God has got His form. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they think the Absolute Truth is impersonal, śūnyavādi. No. Absolute cannot be zero or impersonal, because controller, controller must have brain. Without brain, how he can control? And as soon as you have got brain, you have got other limbs of the body to carry out the order of the brain. So as soon as you have got senses, as soon as you have got sense organs, as soon as you have got brain, as soon as you have got activities, you are a person. This is the conclusion of the śāstra. Therefore the absolute controller cannot be impersonal. By our practical life we see—government. "Government" is an impersonal word, but at the end of the government, there is a governor or president, a person. A person is required, who will apply his brain. So how is that, that without brain the whole cosmic manifestation, it is controlled? That is not very reasonable. And that is not according to śāstra.
According to śāstra, the Absolute Truth is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā as tattva. Tattva means truth. So Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says that tattva-vit, "One who knows the tattva, truth . . ."
- vadanti tat tattva-vidas
- tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
- brahmeti paramātmeti
- bhagavān iti śabdyate
- (SB 1.2.11)
"Those who are actually knower of the Absolute Truth, they know that the Absolute Truth is manifested in three features: impersonal Brahman and localized Paramātmā, antaryāmī, or the Supersoul . . ." As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that in each body there is a soul, kṣetra-jña. Idaṁ śarīraṁ kṣetram ity abhidhīyate (BG 13.2). The body . . . I am not this body, but I know it is my body. Therefore I am kṣetra-jña and the body is kṣetra. And Kṛṣṇa says that kṣetra-jñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarva-kṣetreṣu bhārata (BG 13.3). That sarva-kṣetreṣu bhārata, in every body, that manifestation of God, or Kṛṣṇa, is called Paramātmā, or Supersoul. So the Supersoul and the soul, both of them are sitting on this body. It is compared with a tree. Just like on the tree two birds sitting, friendly birds. One is eating the fruit and another is simply witnessing. Upadraṣṭā-anumantā.
So this is the science. So human life is meant for understanding this science. This is the ultimate science. Athāto brahma jijñāsā. Human life is not meant for wasting like cats and dogs, simply eating, sleeping, mating. That is not human life. At the present moment they are simply engaged in these four principles of bodily demands of life—how to eat, how to sleep, how to have sense gratification and how to defend. Unfortunately, we have become less than the animals, because the animals, they have no problem. Even the birds . . . out of all living entities, 8,400,000's of forms, the human forms are only 400,000. The majority of the living entities, they are in different forms.
- jalajā nava-lakṣāṇi
- sthāvarā lakṣa-viṁśati
- kṛmayo rudra-saṅkhyakāḥ
- pakṣiṇāṁ daśa-lakṣaṇam
- (Padma Purāṇa)
There are aquatics, there are insects, there are birds, beasts, trees, plants, then human being, by evolution process. So they have no problem. You can see in the early morning, these parrots, they are dancing, chirping, and they have no problem. Immediately they will go to some tree and they will find out some little fruit; they will eat. Their eating problem . . . there is no eating problem, there is no sleeping problem, and there is no sex life problem also. Along with them, there is opposite sex. And they defend in their own way.
So these are not actually problems. These are already settled up according to your body. That is the verdict of the śāstra. Tal labhyate duḥkhavad anyataḥ sukhaṁ kālena sarvatra gabhīra-raṁhasā (SB 1.5.18). According to your body, your eating problem, your sleeping problem, your sense gratification problem and defending problem are already settled. That is the verdict of the śāstra. Your real problem is, as our Pañca-draviḍa Mahārāja explained, how to solve the problem of repetition of birth, death, old age and disease. That is your problem.
Therefore, in the human society there is some system of religion, how to solve these problems. But people in this age, they have become so misled, misguided, that they are not taking care of the real problem, but they are very much engaged in the temporary problems, which are already solved. We are simply mismanaging them. So how to make solution of the problems of life, that means is called dharma. dharma means the regulative principle which is given to the human society by God. I have already explained many times. Just as the law is given by the state for regulative principles of life, similarly dharma is also regulative principle to the human society, and just to make his life successful.