It is not possible to imagine how far this material manifestation extends. In the material world everything is calculated by imagination or by some imperfect method, but the Vedic literatures give real information of what lies beyond the material universe. Since it is not possible to obtain information of anything beyond this material nature by experimental means, those who believe only in experimental knowledge may doubt the Vedic conclusions, for such people cannot even calculate how far this universe extends, nor can they reach far into the universe itself. That which is beyond our power of conception is called acintya, inconceivable. It is useless to argue or speculate about the inconceivable. If something is truly inconceivable, it is not subject to speculation or experimentation. Our energy is limited, and our sense perception is limited; therefore we must rely on the Vedic conclusions regarding that subject matter which is inconceivable.
Conception (Other Books)
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Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Teachings of Lord Caitanya
When we speak of desires not connected with Kṛṣṇa, or "non-Kṛṣṇa," this does not mean that anything exists without Kṛṣṇa. Actually there cannot be anything non-Kṛṣṇa because everything is a product of the energy of Kṛṣṇa. Since Kṛṣṇa and His energies are identical, everything is Kṛṣṇa indirectly. For example, consciousness is common to every living entity, but when consciousness is centered solely on Kṛṣṇa (Kṛṣṇa consciousness) it is pure, and when consciousness is centered on something other than Kṛṣṇa, or when it is directed to sense gratification, it may be called non-Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Thus it is in the polluted state that the conception of non-Kṛṣṇa comes. In the pure state, however, there is nothing but Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Active interest in Kṛṣṇa—the understanding that Kṛṣṇa is mine and that I am Kṛṣṇa's and that my business is therefore to satisfy the senses of Kṛṣṇa—is typical of a higher stage than the neutrality of śānta-rasa. Simply by understanding the greatness of Kṛṣṇa, one achieves the status of śānta-rasa, in which the worshipable object may be the impersonal Brahman or Paramātmā. Worship of the impersonal Brahman and the Paramātmā is conducted by those engaged in empiric philosophical speculation and mystic yoga. But when one develops even further in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, or spiritual understanding, he can appreciate that the Paramātmā, the Supersoul, is his eternal worshipable object and master, and he surrenders unto Him. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19): “
Your position is that you are transcendental. The superior energy of Kṛṣṇa is spiritual in constitution, and the inferior, external energy is material. Since you are between the material energy and the spiritual energy, your position is marginal. Belonging to the marginal potency of Kṛṣṇa, you are simultaneously one with and different from Him. Because you are spirit, you are not different from Kṛṣṇa, but because you are only a minute particle of Kṛṣṇa, you are different from Him.”
This simultaneous oneness and difference always exists in the relationship between the living entities and the Supreme Lord. From the fact that the living entities are always in the marginal position, this conception of "simultaneously one and different" can be understood. The living entity is just like a molecular particle of sunshine, whereas Kṛṣṇa is like the blazing sun itself. Lord Caitanya also compared the living entities to sparks in a fire and the Supreme Lord to the blazing fire itself. In this connection the Lord cited a verse from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (1.22.53):
- eka-deśa-sthitasyāgner jyotsnā vistāriṇī yathā
- parasya brahmaṇaḥśaktis tathedam akhilaṁ jagat
"Everything manifested within this cosmic world is but the energy of the Supreme Lord. As fire situated in one place spreads its illumination and heat all around, so the Lord, although situated in one place in the spiritual world, manifests His different energies everywhere. Indeed, the whole cosmic creation is but various manifestations of His energy."
In this verse, which Nārada Muni quotes from the instructions that the Nine Yogendras imparted to Mahārāja Nimi, māyā is defined as "forgetfulness of one's relationship with Kṛṣṇa." Actually, māyā means "that which is not." Thus it is false to think that the living entity has no connection with the Supreme Lord. He may not believe in the existence of God, or he may think he has no relationship with God, but these ideas are all illusions, or māyā. Due to absorption in this false conception of life, a man is always fearful and full of anxieties. In other words, māyā is the godless concept of life. One who is actually learned in the Vedic literature surrenders unto the Supreme Lord with great devotion and accepts Him as the supreme goal. When a living entity forgets the constitutional nature of his relationship with God, he is at once overwhelmed by the external energy. This is the cause of his false ego, his false identification of the body with the self. Indeed, his whole conception of the material universe arises from this false identification with the body, for he becomes attached to the body and its by-products. To escape this entanglement, he has only to perform his duty, namely, to surrender unto the Supreme Lord with intelligence, with devotiona, and with sincere Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
A conditioned soul falsely thinks himself happy in the material world, but if he is favored by an unalloyed devotee—if he hears the unalloyed devotee's instructions—he gives up his desire for material enjoyment and becomes enlightened in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. As soon as one enters into Kṛṣṇa consciousness, his desire for material enjoyment is at once vanquished, and he gradually becomes free from material entanglement. There is no question of darkness where there is light, and Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the light that dispels the darkness of material sense enjoyment.
A Kṛṣṇa conscious person is never under the false conception that he is one with God. Knowing that he would not be happy working for himself, he engages all his energies in the service of the Supreme Lord and thereby gains release from the clutches of the illusory material energy. In this connection, Caitanya Mahāprabhu quoted a verse from the Bhagavad-gītā (7.14), where Krsna states:
The perfectional stage of spiritual life, which one can experience even while being in the material world, is described by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Twelfth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā. There it is said that one who is not envious of any living entity, who is friendly, merciful and detached from material possessions, who is situated in his pure identity, without any false conception of the body as the self, who is equipoised in both happiness and distress, who is forgiving, always satisfied, always engaged in devotional service, and always surrendered unto the Supreme Lord with his body and mind—such a devotee is very dear to Kṛṣṇa. A devotee who never gives trouble to any living entity, either by his body or his mind, who is never affected by material distress and happiness, and who is never angry or pleased with anything material is very dear to the Supreme Lord. He who is never dependent on anyone in this world, who is completely surrendered to the Supreme Lord, who is purified, expert, neutral, free of pain, and aloof from any material endeavor which requires too much attention—such a devotee is also very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa. A person who is never subjected to material happiness or hatred, lamentation or ambition, who is aloof from all materially auspicious and inauspicious activities, and who is fully devoted in Kṛṣṇa consciousness—such a devotee is very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa.
The supremely powerful Lord Kṛṣṇa becomes manifest in five different features. Although He is one without a second, in order to serve five specific spiritual purposes, He becomes manifest in five ways. Such diversity is eternal and blissful, in contrast to the conception of monotonous oneness. From the Vedic literature we can understand that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, eternally exists with His diverse energies. Lord Caitanya appeared with full diverse energies, and they are five in number; therefore Lord Caitanya is said to be Kṛṣṇa with diverse energies.
There is no difference between the energy and the energetic in regard to the Lord's appearance as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His four associates Nityānanda Prabhu, Advaita Prabhu, Gadādhara Paṇḍita and Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura. Among these five diverse manifestations of the Supreme Lord (as the Lord Himself and His expansion, incarnation, devotional energy and devotee) there is no spiritual difference. They are five in one Absolute Truth. For the sake of relishing transcendental flavors in the Absolute Truth, there are five diverse manifestations. These are called the form of a devotee, the identity of a devotee, the incarnation of a devotee, the devotional energy and the pure devotee.
People who are entangled in academic knowledge are conditioned souls who are confused about the facts of "I" and "mine" understanding. Consequently they are unable to detach their minds from the external energy. When a person actually attains transcendental knowledge, he becomes free from this duality and engages in the transcendental loving service of the Supreme Lord. The Lord's service is the only means by which one can become detached from material activities. A person properly initiated by a bona fide spiritual master and engaged in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare gradually becomes freed from the conception of "I" and "mine" and becomes attached to the Lord's transcendental loving service in one of the five transcendental relationships. Such transcendental service is not a subject matter for gross and subtle bodies. Only when one can understand that there is no difference between the Supreme and His name can one be situated in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. At such a time one no longer needs to make grammatical adjustments. Rather, one becomes more interested in petitioning the Lord: "Hare Kṛṣṇa—O my Lord, O energy of the Lord, please engage me in Your service!"
He enjoys transcendental pleasure from bhāva, and when bhāva is intensified it is called love of Godhead. Lord Caitanya told Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī that the holy name of Kṛṣṇa—the mahā-mantra, or "great chant"—enables anyone who chants it to attain the stage of love of Godhead, or intensified bhāva. Love of Godhead is the ultimate human necessity, for when one compares it with other necessities (namely religion, economic development, sense gratification and liberation), one can see that these others are most insignificant. When one is absorbed in temporary, conditioned existence, he hankers after sense gratification and liberation. But love of Godhead is the eternal nature of the soul; it is unchangeable, without beginning or end. Therefore neither temporary sense gratification nor liberation can compare with the transcendental nature of love of God. Love of God is the fifth and ultimate goal of human life. Compared with the ocean of transcendental pleasure that is love of God, the conception of impersonal Brahman is no more significant than a drop of water.
Lord Caitanya next informed Prakāśānanda that in the modern age people in general are more or less bereft of spiritual intellect. When such people come under the influence of Śaṅkarācārya's Māyāvāda (impersonalist) philosophy before beginning the most confidential Vedānta-sūtra, their natural tendency toward obedience to the Supreme is checked. The supreme source of everything is naturally respected by everyone, but this natural tendency is hampered when one takes to the impersonalist conceptions of Śaṅkara. Thus the spiritual master of Lord Caitanya suggested that it is better not to study the Śārīraka-bhāṣya of Śaṅkarācārya, for it is very harmful to people in general. Indeed, the common man does not even have the intelligence to penetrate into the jugglery of words. He is better advised to chant the mahā-mantra: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. In this quarrelsome Age of Kali there is no alternative for self-realization.
It is only by misunderstanding the inconceivable energies of the Supreme that one may conclude that the Supreme Absolute Truth is impersonal. Such a deluded conclusion is experienced by a living being when he is in an acute stage of disease. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (3.33.3) there is a clear statement that the supreme ātmā, the Lord, has inconceivable and innumerable potencies. It is also stated in Brahma-saṁhitā (5.5) that the Supreme Spirit has many variegated and inconceivable energies. Nor should one think that there is any possibility of ignorance existing in the Absolute Truth. Ignorance and knowledge are conceptions in this world of duality, but in the Absolute there cannot be any ignorance. It is simply foolishness to consider that the Absolute is covered by ignorance. If the Absolute Truth could be covered by ignorance, how could it be said to be Absolute?
Once again the example of the touchstone can be cited: in spite of producing unlimited quantities of gold, the touchstone remains the same. (We therefore hear some sages say that the Supreme is the "ingredient cause" of this cosmic manifestation.)
Also, the example of the rope and the snake is not irregular. When we accept a rope to be a snake, it is to be understood that we have experienced a snake previously. Otherwise, how can the rope be mistaken for a snake? Thus the conception of a snake is not untrue or unreal in itself. It is the false identification that is untrue or unreal. When, by mistake, we consider the rope to be a snake, that is our ignorance. But the very idea of a snake is not in itself ignorance. Similarly, when we accept a mirage in the desert to be water, there is no question of water being a false concept. Water is a fact, but it is a mistake to think that there is water in the desert.
Thus this cosmic manifestation is not false, as Śaṅkarācārya maintains. Actually, there is nothing false here. It is because of ignorance that the Māyāvādīs say this world is false. The conclusion of the Vaiṣṇava philosophy is that this cosmic manifestation is a by-product of the inconceivable energies of the Supreme Lord.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is transcendental to the material modes of nature, but He is fully qualified with transcendental attributes. To accept the Supreme as impersonal is to deny the full manifestation of His spiritual energies. Since the Supreme Brahman, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is full with all varieties of spiritual energy, one who simply accepts the impersonal exhibition of spiritual energy does not accept the Absolute Truth in full. To accept the Supreme in full is to accept spiritual variegatedness, which is transcendental to the material modes of nature. By failing to accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the impersonalists are left with an incomplete conception of Brahman.
The approved method for understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is the path of devotional service, and this is confirmed in every Vedic scripture. The devotional service of the Lord begins with hearing about Him. There are nine different methods of devotional service, of which hearing is the chief. Hearing, chanting, remembering, worshiping—all these are used in the process of attaining the highest perfection, understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This process by which the Supreme Personality of Godhead is understood is known as abhidheya, practice of devotional service within conditioned life.
Lord Caitanya protested against being called the Supreme Lord: "My dear sir, I am an ordinary living entity. I cannot know the real meaning of the Vedānta-sūtra, but Vyāsadeva, who is an incarnation of Nārāyaṇa, knows its real meaning. No ordinary living entity can interpret the Vedānta-sūtra according to his mundane conceptions. In order to curb commentaries on the Vedānta-sūtra by unscrupulous persons, the author himself, Vyāsadeva, has already commented upon the Vedānta-sūtra by writing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam." In other words, the best explanation of a book is written by the author himself. No one can understand the author's mind unless the author himself discloses the meaning of his words. Therefore the Vedānta-sūtra should be understood through Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the commentary written by the author of the Vedānta-sūtra.
In other words, from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam we can know the substance as well as the relativities in their true sense and perspective. The substance is the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the relativities are the different forms of energy which emanate from Him. Since the living entities are also His energies, there is nothing really different from the substance. At the same time, the energies are different from the substance. This conception is not self-contradictory. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam explicitly deals with this simultaneously-one-and-different philosophy—a philosophy also found in the Vedānta-sūtra, which begins with the janmādy asya sūtra.
Knowledge of the simultaneously-one-and-different nature of the Absolute Truth has been imparted for the well-being of everyone. Mental speculators mislead people by trying to establish the energy of the Lord as absolute, but when the truth of simultaneous oneness and difference is understood, that truth is more pleasing than the imperfect concepts of monism and dualism. By understanding the Lord's simultaneous oneness with and difference from His creation, one can immediately attain freedom from the threefold miseries—miseries inflicted by the body and mind, by other living entities, and by acts of nature, over which we have no control.
Lord Caitanya then said that all the Vedic statements of the Upaniṣads aim at the ultimate truth, known as Brahman. The word Brahman means "the greatest," and "the greatest" should immediately be understood to refer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the source of all emanations. Unless the greatest possesses six opulences in full, he cannot be called the greatest. The greatest is therefore the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In other words, the Supreme Brahman is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the Bhagavad-gītā (10.12), the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is accepted by Arjuna as the Supreme Brahman. The conceptions of the impersonal Brahman and the localized Supersoul are contained within the understanding of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The Vedic instructions confirm that the transcendental form of the Supreme Lord is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge. The impersonalists' conception of the Lord's form, however, is just the opposite, for they say that it is a transformation of the material modes of nature. Actually, the form of the Supreme Lord is beyond the modes of material nature and thus is not like the forms of this material world. His form is fully spiritual and cannot be compared with any material form. Anyone who does not accept the spiritual form of the Supreme Lord is counted among the atheists. Because Lord Buddha did not accept these Vedic principles, the Vedic teachers consider him an atheist. Although Māyāvādī philosophers pretend to accept the Vedic principles, because they do not accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead they indirectly preach Buddhist philosophy, or atheistic philosophy. Māyāvādī philosophy is inferior to Buddhist philosophy, which directly denies Vedic authority. Because Māyāvāda philosophy is disguised as Vedānta philosophy, it is more dangerous than Buddhism or atheism.
Actually, in pure consciousness the living entity understands himself as the eternal servant of the Supreme Lord. Under the spell of illusion, a person accepts the gross and subtle bodies as his self; such a conception is the basis of the doctrine of transference from spirit to matter. But the part and parcel of the Supreme is not eternally subjected to gross and subtle bodily life. The gross and subtle coverings do not comprise the living entity's eternal form; they can be changed, or the living entity can be freed entirely from material existence. While the living entity is under the illusion that he is the body and mind, however, he has certainly transferred his position from spirit to matter. Māyāvādī philosophers, taking advantage of this doctrine of transference, say that the living entity is under the wrong impression when he thinks himself to be part and parcel of the Supreme. They maintain that the living entity is the Supreme Himself. This doctrine cannot be tenable.
Their conclusion is that if one works nicely God is bound to give good results. Thus from the statement of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa cited by Rāmānanda Rāya one might conclude that Viṣṇu, the Supreme Lord, has no independence but is bound to award a certain kind of result to the worker. Such a dependent God becomes subject to the worshiper, who accepts the Supreme Lord as both impersonal and personal, as he wishes. Actually, the Karma-mīmāṁsā philosophy stresses the impersonal feature of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Because Lord Caitanya did not like such impersonalism, He rejected it.
"Tell Me if you know something beyond this conception of the Supreme Absolute Truth," Lord Caitanya said.
Rāmānanda Rāya understood the purpose of Lord Caitanya, and, after stating that it is better to give Kṛṣṇa the results of fruitive activities, he quoted a verse from the Bhagavad-gītā (9.27):
- yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat
- yat tapasyasi kaunteya tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam
"O son of Kuntī, whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you sacrifice, whatever you give away, and whatever austerity you undergo to achieve some goal—everything should be dedicated to My service." There is a similar passage in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.2.36), which states that one should submit everything—all the results of the fruitive activities one performs with body, speech, mind, senses, intelligence, soul and modes of nature—to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa.
Lord Caitanya also rejected this third proposal from Rāmānanda Rāya, for He wanted to demonstrate that renunciation in itself is not sufficient. There must be positive engagement. Without positive engagement, the highest perfectional stage cannot be attained. Generally there are two kinds of philosophers in the renounced order of life. The goal of one is nirvāṇa, and the goal of the other is the impersonal Brahman effulgence. Such philosophers cannot imagine that they can reach beyond nirvāṇa and the Brahman effulgence to the Vaikuṇṭha planets of the spiritual sky. Because in simple renunciation there is no conception of spiritual planets and spiritual activities, Lord Caitanya rejected this third proposal.
Rāmānanda Rāya then cited more evidence from the Bhagavad-gītā (18.54):
- brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati
- samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām
"When by cultivation of knowledge a person realizes himself to be nondifferent from the Supreme Absolute Truth, he becomes joyful and is freed from all kinds of lamentation and material desires. At that time he perfects his Brahman realization by seeing everyone on the same spiritual level. Such Brahman realization can elevate one to the transcendental stage of devotional service." Rāmānanda Rāya first suggested devotional service with renunciation of the fruits of one's work, but here he suggests that devotional service with full knowledge and spiritual realization is superior.
Lord Caitanya then asked Rāmānanda Rāya to proceed further in order to come to the point of conjugal love. Understanding the mind of Lord Caitanya, Rāmānanda Rāya immediately answered that it was indeed conjugal love with Kṛṣṇa that constituted the highest relationship. In other words, one's intimate relationship with Kṛṣṇa develops from an ordinary conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, to the conception of master and servant, and, when this becomes confidential, it develops into a friendly relationship, and when this relationship further develops, it becomes parental, and when this develops to the highest point of complete love and affection, it is known as conjugal love with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Rāmānanda Rāya then quoted another verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.47.60), which states that the transcendental mode of ecstasy exhibited during the rāsa dance between the gopīs and Kṛṣṇa was never relished even by the goddess of fortune, who is always situated on the chest of the Lord in the spiritual kingdom. And what to speak of the experience of ordinary women?
Still, there are higher and lower relationships. A relationship with the Supreme Lord begins with the master-and-servant relationship and further develops into friendship, parental love and conjugal love. One who is situated in his particular relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead is in the best relationship for him. But when we study these different flavors of transcendental taste in relationship with the Supreme Lord, we can see that the neutral stage of realization (brahma-bhūta) is the first stage, that the stage of accepting the Lord as master and oneself as His servant is better, that the conception of oneself as the Lord's friend is even more developed, that a parental relationship with the Lord is of a still superior quality, and that conjugal love is the supreme relationship with the Lord.
In other words, self-realization with a sense of servitude for the Lord is certainly transcendental, but when a sense of fraternity is added the relationship develops, and as affection increases, this relationship develops into parenthood and conjugal love. Rāmānanda Rāya then quoted a verse from the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (2.5.38) stating that spiritual affection for the Supreme Lord is transcendental in all cases, but that the individual devotee has a specific aptitude for a particular relationship, and that relationship is more relishable for him than the others.
In this way the Lord has different names, and these names indicate different functions. The aspect of the Supreme Lord as the creator is different from His aspect as Nārāyaṇa. Some of the names of the Lord as the creator are conceived by materialistic men. One cannot fully realize the essence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead by understanding His name as the creator because this material creation is a function of the external energy of the Supreme Lord. Thus the conception of God as the creator includes only the external feature. Similarly, when we call the Supreme Lord Brahman, we cannot have any understanding of His six opulences. In Brahman realization, the six opulences are not realized in full, nor is there recognition of eternity, bliss and knowledge. Therefore Brahman realization is also not a complete understanding of the Supreme Lord. Nor is Paramātmā realization, realization of the Supersoul, full realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for the all-pervading nature of the Supreme Lord is but a partial representation of His opulence.
“"One who is highly elevated in devotional service sees the Supersoul, Kṛṣṇa, who is the Soul of all individual souls." A similar passage is found in the Tenth Canto (10.35.9), where it is stated that when Kṛṣṇa came before the creepers, plants and trees of Vṛndāvana, which were laden with flowers and fruits, because He was the Soul of their soul they all bent down in the ecstasy of love for Him and became thorny.
"Because You have the highest conception of the pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa," Lord Caitanya concluded, "you are seeing Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa everywhere."
Rāmānanda Rāya replied, "Sir, I request that You not try to hide Yourself. I understand that You have accepted the complexion and mode of thinking of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī and that You are trying to understand Yourself from Her viewpoint. You have advented Yourself to take this point of view. Although You have incarnated mainly to understand Your own Self, You are at the same time distributing love of Kṛṣṇa to the world. Now You have personally come here to deliver me. I request You not to try to deceive me. It is not good for You."
Nectar of Devotion
In the above statement by Kapiladeva from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the actual position of a pure devotee is described, and the primary characteristics of devotional service are also defined. Further characteristics of devotional service are described by Rūpa Gosvāmī with evidences from different scriptures. He states that there are six characteristics of pure devotional service, which are as follows:
(1) Pure devotional service brings immediate relief from all kinds of material distress.
(2) Pure devotional service is the beginning of all auspiciousness.
(3) Pure devotional service automatically puts one in transcendental pleasure.
(4) Pure devotional service is rarely achieved.
(5) Those in pure devotional service deride even the conception of liberation.
(6) Pure devotional service is the only means to attract Kṛṣṇa.
Kṛṣṇa is all-attractive, but pure devotional service attracts even Him. This means that pure devotional service is even transcendentally stronger than Kṛṣṇa Himself, because it is Kṛṣṇa's internal potency.
However, the perfect spiritual concept of life is complete knowledge of one's constitutional position, in which one knows enough to dovetail himself in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. One must know that he is finite and that the Lord is infinite. Thus it is not possible to actually become one with the Lord even if one aspires for this. It is simply not possible. Therefore, anyone who has any desire or aspiration for satisfying his senses by becoming more and more important, either in the material sense or in the spiritual sense, cannot actually relish the really sweet taste of devotional service. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has therefore compared possessing these bhukti (material) and mukti (liberation) desires with being influenced by the black art of a witch: in both cases one is in trouble. Bhukti means material enjoyment, and mukti means to become freed from material anxiety and to become one with the Lord. These desires are compared to being haunted by ghosts and witches, because while these aspirations for material enjoyment or spiritual oneness with the Supreme remain, no one can relish the actual transcendental taste of devotional service.
In the Hari-bhakti-sudhodaya there is a conversation between Prahlāda Mahārāja and his father, Hiraṇyakaśipu, in which Hiraṇyakaśipu addresses Prahlāda in this way: "My dear son, association is very important. It acts just like a crystal stone, which will reflect anything which is put before it." Similarly, if we associate with the flowerlike devotees of the Lord, and if our hearts are crystal clear, then certainly the same action will be there. Another example given in this connection is that if a man is potent and if a woman is not diseased, then by their conjugation there will be conception. In the same way, if the recipient of spiritual knowledge and the deliverer of spiritual knowledge are sincere and bona fide, there will be good results.
And actually the impersonalists are enemies of God, because they cannot tolerate the unparalleled opulence of the Lord. They try always to place themselves on the same level with the Lord. That is due to their envious attitude. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has proclaimed the impersonalists to be offenders of the Lord. The Lord is so kind, however, that even though they are His enemies, they are still allowed to enter into the spiritual kingdom and remain in the impersonal brahma-jyotir, the undifferentiated light of the Absolute.
Sometimes an impersonalist may gradually elevate himself to the personal conception of the Lord. Bhagavad-gītā confirms this: "After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me." By such surrender, an impersonalist can be elevated to the Vaikuṇṭhaloka (spiritual planet) where, as a surrendered soul, he attains bodily features like those of the Lord.
In the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa it is stated, "Those who have achieved liberation from material contamination and those who are demons and are killed by the Supreme Personality of Godhead become absorbed in the Brahman concept of life and reside in the spiritual sky of the brahma-jyotir." That spiritual sky is far beyond the material sky, and it is confirmed also in Bhagavad-gītā that beyond this material sky there is another, eternal sky. The enemies and the impersonalists may be allowed to enter into this Brahman effulgence, but the devotees of Kṛṣṇa are promoted all the way to the spiritual planets. Because the pure devotees have developed their spontaneous love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, they are allowed to enter into the spiritual planets to enjoy spiritual bliss in association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In the attitude of the denizens of Vṛndāvana, such as Nanda Mahārāja and mother Yaśodā, is to be found the ideal transcendental concept of being the father and mother of Kṛṣṇa, the original Personality of Godhead. Factually, no one can become the father or mother of Kṛṣṇa, but a devotee's possession of such transcendental feelings is called love of Kṛṣṇa in a parental relationship. The Vṛṣṇis (Kṛṣṇa's relatives at Dvārakā) also felt like that. So spontaneous love of Kṛṣṇa in the parental relationship is found both among those denizens of Dvārakā who belonged to the dynasty of Vṛṣṇi and among the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana.
Spontaneous love of Kṛṣṇa as exhibited by the Vṛṣṇis and the denizens of Vṛndāvana is eternally existing in them. In the stage of devotional service where regulative principles are followed, there is no necessity of discussing this love, for it must develop of itself at a more advanced stage.
Attachment for chanting the glories of the Lord is also expressed in the Kṛṣṇa-karṇāmṛta as follows: "What shall I do for Kṛṣṇa, who is pleasing beyond all pleasurable conceptions, and who is naughtier than all restless boys? The idea of Kṛṣṇa's beautiful activities is attracting my heart, and I do not know what I can do!"
This ahaṅgrahopāsanā describes a living entity when he begins spiritual realization by identifying himself with the Supreme Lord. This state of self-realization is technically known as monism. The monist thinks himself one with the Supreme Lord. Thus, because he does not differentiate between himself and the Supreme Lord, it is his view that by worshiping himself he is worshiping the supreme whole.
Sometimes it is found that a neophyte is taking part in chanting and dancing very enthusiastically, but within himself he is under the impression that he has become one with the supreme whole. This conception of monism is completely different from pure, transcendental devotional service. If, however, it is seen that a person has developed a high standard of devotion without having undergone even the regulative principles, it is to be understood that his status of devotional service was achieved in a former life. For some reason or another it had been temporarily stopped, most probably by an offense committed at the lotus feet of a devotee. Now, with a good second chance, it has again begun to develop. The conclusion is that steady progress in devotional service can be attained only in the association of pure devotees.
When one thereby becomes completely purified of all material contamination, there develops an attachment and taste for devotional service. This taste and attachment, when gradually intensified in the course of time, becomes love. The word love can be actually applied only in relationship with the Personality of Godhead. In the material world, love is not applicable at all. What goes on under the name of love in the material world is nothing but lust. There is a gulf of difference between love and lust, like the difference between gold and iron. In the Nārada Pañcarātra it is clearly stated that when lust is completely transferred to the Supreme Godhead and the concept of kinship is completely reposed in Him, such is accepted as pure love of God by great authorities like Bhīṣma, Prahlāda, Uddhava and Nārada.
Great authorities like Bhīṣma have explained that love of Godhead means completely giving up all so-called love for any other person. According to Bhīṣma, love means reposing one's affection completely upon one person, withdrawing all affinities for any other person. This pure love can be transferred to the Supreme Personality of Godhead under two conditions—out of ecstasy and out of the causeless mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself.
The constant dancing before the doors of Kṛṣṇa's palaces was not to be imagined even by the demigods in the heavenly kingdom. In the heavenly kingdom, Indra always sees the dancing of the society girls. But even Indra could not imagine how beautiful were the dances being performed at the gates of Kṛṣṇa's palaces. Gaurī means "white woman," and Lord Śiva's wife is called Gaurī. The beautiful women residing within the palaces of Kṛṣṇa were so much whiter than Gaurī that they were compared to the moonshine, and they were constantly visible to Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, no one can be enjoying more than Kṛṣṇa. The conception of enjoyment is beautiful women, ornaments and riches. And all of these were fabulously present in the palaces of Kṛṣṇa, defeating even the imagination of Kuvera, Lord Indra or Lord Śiva.
Not even a slight distress can touch Kṛṣṇa. Once some of the gopīs went to the place where the brāhmaṇas were performing sacrifices and said, "Dear wives of the brāhmaṇas, you must know that not even a slight smell of distress can touch Kṛṣṇa. He knows no loss, He knows no defamation, He has no fear, He has no anxiety, and He does not know calamity. He is simply encircled by the dancers of Vraja and is enjoying their company in the rāsa dance."
This means that the brāhmaṇa expressed his ecstatic loving symptoms in different ways at different times. But in each instance, because of ecstatic love, the brāhmaṇa merged himself in the ocean of happiness and became situated in pure love. Thus he was a transparent medium, like a jewel that shows reality in varying colors according to its own nature.
When the great sage Nārada was glorifying the pastimes of the Lord with his vīṇā, the four Kumāras, headed by Sanaka, although merged in the impersonal conception of Brahman, were trembling all over. Another devotee once exclaimed, "Although I can achieve liberation simply by serving the devotees, my mind is still very much anxious to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose bodily complexion is just like a dark cloud." When a devotee is so anxious to contact the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that can also be accepted as a symptom of neutral love.
The devotees who always think of Kṛṣṇa as a superior are in subordinate ecstatic love. To such a devotee the concept of inferiority to the Lord is very prominent, and he rarely takes interest in any other kind of transcendental loving humor with the Lord.
In the Mukunda-mālā-stotra, compiled by King Kulaśekhara, one of the prayers says, "My dear Lord, You are the deliverer of living entities from the hellish condition of materialistic life, but that does not matter to me. Whether I am elevated to the heavenly platform or remain on this earthly planet or am dispatched to some hellish planet, that does not matter at all to me. My only prayer is that at the time of my death I may simply remember Your two beautiful feet, which are just like lotus flowers fructifying during the autumn season."
Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura was first spiritually initiated for impersonal realization of the Absolute Truth, but later on, by his association with Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana, he became an experienced devotee. The same thing happened to Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who also reformed himself by the grace of the Lord and took to the path of devotional service, giving up the way of impersonal realization.
Śukadeva Gosvāmī and Bilvamaṅgala Ṭhākura, who gave up the impersonal conception of the Absolute Truth to take to devotional service, are the best examples of devotees situated in the neutral state. According to some authorities, this condition cannot be accepted as one of the transcendental humors, or rasas, but Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī says that even if one does not accept it as a transcendental humor, one must still accept it as the beginning position of devotional service. However, if one is not further raised to the platform of actual service to the Lord, he is not considered to be on the platform of transcendental mellow. In this connection, in the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Lord Kṛṣṇa personally instructs Uddhava like this: "The state of being established in My personal form is called śānta-rasa, and without being situated in this position, no one can advance to actual pure devotional service." In other words, no one can be situated in the personal feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead without being situated at least in śānta-rasa.
Nectar of Instruction
The first step in human civilization consists of occupational engagements performed according to the scriptural injunctions. The higher intelligence of a human being should be trained to understand basic dharma. In human society there are various religious conceptions characterized as Hindu, Christian, Hebrew, Mohammedan, Buddhist and so on, for without religion, human society is no better than animal society.
As stated above (dharmasya hy āpavargyasya nārtho 'rthāyopakalpate (SB 1.2.9)), religion is meant for attaining emancipation, not for getting bread. Sometimes human society manufactures a system of so-called religion aimed at material advancement, but that is far from the purpose of true dharma. Religion entails understanding the laws of God because the proper execution of these laws ultimately leads one out of material entanglement. That is the true purpose of religion. Unfortunately people accept religion for material prosperity because of atyāhāra, or an excessive desire for such prosperity. True religion, however, instructs people to be satisfied with the bare necessities of life while cultivating Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
One should therefore be eager to understand the science of the soul (ātma-tattva). Unless one comes to the platform of ātma-tattva, by which one understands that the soul and not the body is oneself, one remains on the platform of ignorance. Out of thousands and even millions of ignorant people who are wasting their time simply gratifying their senses, one may come to the platform of knowledge and understand higher values of life. Such a person is called a jñānī. The jñānī knows that fruitive activities will bind him to material existence and cause him to transmigrate from one kind of body to another. As indicated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by the term śarīra-bandha (bound to bodily existence), as long as one maintains any conception of sense enjoyment, his mind will be absorbed in karma, fruitive activity, and this will oblige him to transmigrate from one body to another.
Thus a jñānī is considered superior to a karmī because he at least refrains from the blind activities of sense enjoyment. This is the verdict of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. However, although a jñānī may be liberated from the ignorance of the karmīs, unless he comes to the platform of devotional service he is still considered to be in ignorance (avidyā). Although one may be accepted as a jñānī, or one advanced in knowledge, his knowledge is considered impure because he has no information of devotional service and thus neglects the direct worship of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Easy Journey to Other Planets
Materialistic science may one day finally discover the eternal anti-material world which has for so long been unknown to the wranglers of gross materialism. Regarding the scientists' present conception of antimatter, the Times of India (Oct. 27, 1959) published the following news release:
Stockholm, Oct. 26, 1959-Two American atomic scientists were awarded the 1959 Nobel Physics Prize today for the discovery of the antiproton, proving that matter exists in two forms—as particles and antiparticles. They are Italian—born Dr. Emillo Segre, 69, and Dr. Owen Chamberlain, born in San Francisco.... According to one of the fundamental assumptions of the new theory, there may exist another world, or an anti-world, built up of antimatter. This anti-material world would consist of atomic and subatomic particles spinning in reverse orbits to those of the world we know. If these two worlds should ever clash, they would both be annihilated in one blinding flash.
Out of these three items, we, the students of theistic science, can fully agree with items 1 and 2, but we can agree with item 3 only within the limited scientific definition of antimatter. The difficulty lies in the fact that the scientists' conception of antimatter extends only to another variety of material energy, whereas the real antimatter must be entirely anti-material. Matter as it is constituted is subjected to annihilation, but antimatter—if it is to be free from all material symptoms—must also be free from annihilation, by its very nature. If matter is destructible or separable, antimatter must be indestructible and inseparable. We shall try to discuss these propositions from the angle of authentic scriptural vision.
The most widely recognized scriptures in the world are the Vedas. The Vedas have been divided into four parts: Sāma, Yajur, Ṛg and Atharva. The subject matter of the Vedas is very difficult for a man of ordinary understanding. For elucidation, the four Vedas are explained in the historical epic called the Mahābhārata and in eighteen Purāṇas. The Rāmāyaṇa is also a historical epic which contains all the necessary information from the Vedas.
The superior form of energy of the Personality of Godhead is described in the Bhagavad-gītā as parā prakṛti. The scientists have recently discovered that there are two forms of perishable matter, but the Bhagavad-gītā describes most perfectly the concept of matter and antimatter in terms of two forms of energy. Matter is an energy which creates the material world, and the same energy, in its superior form, also creates the anti-material (transcendental) world. The living entities belong to the category of superior energy. The inferior energy, or material energy, is called aparā prakṛti. In the Bhagavad-gītā the creative energy is thus presented in two forms, namely aparā and parā prakṛti.
Matter itself has no creative power. When it is manipulated by the living energy, material things are produced. Matter in its crude form is therefore the latent energy of the Supreme Being. Whenever we think of energy, it is natural that we think of the source of energy. For example, when we think of electrical energy, we simultaneously think of the powerhouse where it is generated. Energy is not self-sufficient. It is under the control of a superior living being. For example, fire is the source of two other energies, namely light and heat.
A Russian fiction writer is now contributing suggestions to the rest of the world that scientific progress can help man to live forever. Of course, he does not believe in a Supreme Being who is the creator. Yet we welcome his suggestion because we know that actual progress in scientific knowledge will certainly take men to the spiritual sky and inform the scientist that there is a supreme creator who has full potencies beyond all materialistic scientific conceptions.
As mentioned, every living being is eternal in form, but he has to change his outer coverings, gross and subtle, and this changing process is technically known as life and death. As long as a living being has to put on the shackles of material bondage, there is no relief from this changing process, which continues even in the highest stage of material life. The Russian fiction writer may speculate, as fiction writers are apt to do, but saner people with some knowledge of natural law will not agree that man can life forever within this material world.
We believe that no nation on earth can describe socialism as well as the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Living beings other than humans can be treated as brothers and children only when one has a full conception of the creator and the actual constitution of the living being.
Man's desire to be deathless is realized only in the spiritual world. As stated at the beginning of this essay, a desire for eternal life is a sign of dormant spiritual life. The aim of human civilization should be targeted to that end. It is possible for every human being to transfer himself to that spiritual realm by the process of bhakti-yoga, as described herein. It is a great science, and India has produced many scientific literatures by which the perfection of life may be realized.
Bhakti-yoga is the eternal religion of man. At a time when material science predominates all subjects—including the tenets of religion—it would be enlivening to see the principles of the eternal religion of man from the viewpoint of the modern scientist.
Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead
“My conclusion is, therefore, that You are the Supreme Soul, the Absolute Truth, and the supreme original person; and although by Your inconceivable transcendental potencies You have expanded Yourself in so many Viṣṇu forms, and also in the living entities and other energies, You are the supreme one without a second, the supreme Supersoul. The innumerable living entities are simply like sparks of the original fire, Your Lordship. The conception of the Supersoul as impersonal is wrong, because I see that You are the original person. Persons with a poor fund of knowledge may think that because You are the son of Mahārāja Nanda You are not the original person, that You are born just like a human being. They are mistaken. You are the actual original person; that is my conclusion. In spite of Your being the son of Nanda, You are the original person, and there is no doubt about it. You are the Absolute Truth, and You are not of this material darkness. You are the source of the original brahma-jyotir as well as the material luminaries—the sun, moon and stars. Your transcendental effulgence is identical with the brahma-jyotir. As it is described in the Brahma-saṁhitā, the brahma-jyotir is nothing but Your personal bodily effulgence. There are many Viṣṇu incarnations and incarnations of Your different qualities, but all those incarnations are not on the same level. You are the original lamp. Other incarnations may possess the same candlepower as the original lamp, but the original lamp is the beginning of all light. And because You are not one of the creations of this material world, even after the annihilation of this world, Your existence as You are will continue.
That means he loves his own self more than anything else. The next important object of affection, after his own self, is his material body. A person who has no information of the spirit soul is very much attached to his material body, so much so that even in old age he wants to preserve the body in so many artificial ways, thinking that his old and broken body can be saved. Everyone is working hard day and night just to give pleasure to his own self, under either the bodily or spiritual concept of life. We are attached to material possessions because they give pleasure to the senses or to the body. The attachment to the body is there only because the "I," the spirit soul, is within the body. Similarly, when one is further advanced, he knows that the spirit soul is pleasing because it is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Ultimately, it is Kṛṣṇa who is pleasing and all-attractive. He is the Supersoul of everything. And in order to give us this information, Kṛṣṇa descends and tells us that the all-attractive center is He Himself. Without being an expansion of Kṛṣṇa, nothing can be attractive.
There are various details to be observed in the performance of sacrifices. They are known as deśa, place; kāla, time; pṛthag-dravya, the different detailed paraphernalia; mantra, hymns; tantra, scriptural evidences; agni, fire; ṛtvik, learned performers of sacrifices; devatā, the demigods; yajamāna, the performer of the sacrifices; kratu, the sacrifice itself; and dharma, the procedures. All these are for satisfying Kṛṣṇa. It is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā that He is the actual enjoyer of all sacrifices because He is directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the Supreme Absolute Truth, beyond the conception or speculation of the material senses. He is present just like an ordinary human boy, but for persons who identify themselves with the body, it is very difficult to understand Him. The brāhmaṇas were very much interested in the comforts of the material body and in elevation to the higher planetary residences called svarga-vāsa. They were therefore completely unable to understand the position of Kṛṣṇa.
Then the gopīs told lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, “Please do not discourage our long-cherished desires to have You as our husband. Any intelligent man who cares for his own self-interest reposes all his loving spirit in You. Persons who are simply misled by the external energy, who want to be satisfied by false concepts, try to enjoy themselves apart from You. The so-called husband, friend, son, daughter, father and mother are all simply sources of material misery. No one is made happy in this material world by having a so-called father, mother, husband, son, daughter and friend. Although the father and mother are expected to protect the children, there are many children who are suffering for want of food and shelter. There are many good physicians, but when a patient dies, no physician can revive him. There are many means of protection, but when one is doomed, none of the protective measures can help, and without Your protection the so-called sources of protection simply become sources of continued distress. We therefore appeal to You, dear Lord of all lords: please do not kill our long-cherished desires to have You as our supreme husband.
When Lord Kṛṣṇa finally reappeared among the assembled gopīs, He looked very beautiful, just befitting a person with all kinds of opulences. In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is stated, ānanda-cin-maya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ: Kṛṣṇa alone is not particularly beautiful, but when His energy—especially His pleasure energy, represented by Rādhārāṇī—expands, He looks very magnificent. The Māyāvāda conception of perfection—an Absolute Truth without potency—is due to insufficient knowledge. Actually, outside the exhibition of His different potencies, the Absolute Truth is not complete. Ānanda-cin-maya-rasa means that His body is a transcendental form of eternal bliss and knowledge. Kṛṣṇa is always surrounded by different potencies, and therefore He is perfect and beautiful. We understand from the Brahma-saṁhitā and Skanda Purāṇa that Kṛṣṇa is always surrounded by many thousands of goddesses of fortune. The gopīs are all goddesses of fortune, and Kṛṣṇa took them hand in hand on the bank of the Yamunā.
My dear Lord, I am no exception among these conditioned souls. I am falsely thinking myself happy in possessing my home, wife, children, estate, property and friends. In this way I am acting as if in a dreamland, because none of these are permanent. I am a fool to be always absorbed in thoughts of such things, accepting them as permanent truths. My dear Lord, due to my false identification, I have accepted as permanent everything which is nonpermanent, such as this material body, which is not spiritual and is the source of all kinds of miserable conditions. Being bewildered by such concepts of life, I am always absorbed in thoughts of duality, and I have forgotten You, who are the reservoir of all transcendental pleasure. I am bereft of Your transcendental association, being just like a foolish creature who leaves a water hole covered by water-nourished vegetation and goes in search of water in the desert. The conditioned souls want to quench their thirst, but they do not know where to find water. They give up the spot where there is actually a reservoir of water and run into the desert, where there is no water. My dear Lord, I am completely incapable of controlling my mind, which is now driven by the unbridled senses and is attracted by fruitive activities and their results. Therefore, my intelligence is very miserly. My dear Lord, Your lotus feet cannot be appreciated by any person in the conditioned stage of material existence, but somehow or other I have come near Your lotus feet, and I consider this to be Your causeless mercy upon me. You can act in any way because You are the supreme controller.
Therefore Kṛṣṇa is called Acyuta, meaning "He who never falls down." Kṛṣṇa's knowledge of His spiritual identity is never overcome by material action, whereas the minute part-and-parcel living entities are prone to forget their spiritual identity due to material action. The individual living entities are eternally part and parcel of God, minute sparks of the original fire, Kṛṣṇa. As sparks are prone to be extinguished, but not the blazing fire, so the living entities can be overcome by material activities, whereas Kṛṣṇa never can.
Akrūra continued: “Less intelligent men misunderstand Your transcendental form to be made of material energy. But that concept is not at all applicable to You. Actually, You are all-spiritual, and there is no difference between You and Your body. Therefore, there is no question of Your being conditioned or liberated. You are ever liberated in any condition of life. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, only fools and rascals consider You an ordinary man. To consider Your Lordship one of us, conditioned by the material nature, is a mistake due to our imperfect knowledge. When people deviate from the original knowledge of the Vedas, they try to identify the ordinary living entities with Your Lordship, who have appeared on this earth in Your original form to reestablish the real knowledge that the living entities are neither one with nor equal to the Supreme God. My dear Lord, You are always situated in uncontaminated goodness (śuddha-sattva).
Kṛṣṇa possesses inconceivable opulence and energy, whereas Rukmiṇī’s brother had only limited military potency. Kṛṣṇa is immeasurable, whereas her brother was measured in every step of his life. Therefore, Rukmī was not comparable even to an insignificant insect before the unlimited power of Kṛṣṇa. She also addressed Kṛṣṇa as the God of the gods. There are many powerful demigods, such as Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva, Indra, Candra and Varuṇa, but Kṛṣṇa is the Lord of all these gods, whereas Rukmiṇī’s brother was not only an ordinary human being but in fact the lowest of all because he had no understanding of Kṛṣṇa. In other words, a human being who has no conception of the actual position of Kṛṣṇa is the lowest in human society. Then Rukmiṇī addressed Kṛṣṇa as Mahābhuja, which means "one with unlimited strength." She also addressed Kṛṣṇa as Jagatpati, the master of the whole cosmic manifestation. In comparison, her brother was only an ordinary prince.
"One's consciousness in material existence can be compared to sleeping and dreaming. When a man sleeps, he dreams of many nonfactual happenings, and as a result of dreaming he becomes subject to different kinds of distress and happiness. Similarly, when a person is in the dream of material consciousness, he suffers the effects of accepting a body and giving it up again in material existence. Opposite to this material consciousness is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In other words, when a man is elevated to the platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he becomes free from this false conception of life."
In this way, Śrī Balarāma instructed Rukmiṇī in spiritual knowledge. He further addressed His sister-in-law thus: "Sweet, smiling Rukmiṇī, do not be aggrieved by false notions caused by ignorance. Only because of false notions does one become unhappy, but one can immediately remove this unhappiness by discussing the philosophy of actual life. Be happy on that platform only."
Once upon a time, Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the bestower of all knowledge upon all living entities, from Brahmā to the insignificant ant, was sitting in the bedroom of Rukmiṇī, who was engaged in the service of the Lord along with her assistant maidservants. Kṛṣṇa was sitting on the bedstead of Rukmiṇī, and the maidservants were fanning Him with cāmaras (yak-tail fly-whisks).
Lord Kṛṣṇa's dealings with Rukmiṇī as a perfect husband are a perfect manifestation of the supreme perfection of the Personality of Godhead. There are many philosophers who propound a concept of the Absolute Truth in which God cannot do this or that. They deny the incarnation of God, or the Supreme Absolute Truth in human form. But actually the fact is different: God cannot be subject to our imperfect sensual activities. He is the all-powerful, omnipresent Personality of Godhead, and by His supreme will He can not only create, maintain and annihilate the whole cosmic manifestation but also descend as an ordinary human being to execute the highest mission. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, whenever there are discrepancies in the discharge of human occupational duties, He descends. He is not forced to appear by any external agency, but He descends by His own internal potency in order to reestablish the standard functions of human activities and simultaneously annihilate the disturbing elements in the progressive march of human civilization. In accordance with this principle of the transcendental pastimes of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He descended in His eternal form as Śrī Kṛṣṇa in the dynasty of the Yadus.
Lord Śiva said, "My dear Lord, You are the worshipable object of the Vedic hymns. One who does not know You considers the impersonal brahma-jyotir to be the ultimate Supreme Absolute Truth, without knowledge that You exist behind Your spiritual effulgence in Your eternal abode. My dear Lord, You are therefore called Para-brahman. Indeed, the words paraṁ brahman have been used in the Bhagavad-gītā to identify You. Saintly persons who have completely cleansed their hearts of all material contamination can realize Your transcendental form, although You are all-pervading like the sky, unaffected by any material thing. Only the devotees can realize You, and no one else. In the impersonalists' conception of Your supreme existence, the sky is just like Your navel, fire is Your mouth, and water is Your semen. The heavenly planets are Your head, all the directions are Your ears, the earth (Urvī) is Your lotus feet, the moon is Your mind, and the sun is Your eye. As far as I am concerned, I act as Your ego. The ocean is Your abdomen, and the King of heaven, Indra, is Your arm. Trees and plants are the hairs on Your body, the clouds are the hair on Your head, and Lord Brahmā is Your intelligence. All the great progenitors, known as Prajāpatis, are Your symbolic representatives. And religion is Your heart. The impersonal feature of Your supreme body is conceived of in this way, but You are ultimately the Supreme Person. The impersonal feature of Your supreme body is only a small expansion of Your energy. You are likened to the original fire, and Your expansions are its light and heat."
"My dear kings," He said, “I bestow upon you My blessings. From this day forth you will be attached to My devotional service without fail. I give you this benediction, as you have desired. You may know from Me that I am always sitting within your hearts as the Supersoul, and because you have now turned your faces toward Me, I, as master of everyone, shall always give you good counsel so that you may never forget Me and so that gradually you will come back home, back to Godhead. My dear kings, your decision to give up all conceptions of material enjoyment and turn instead toward My devotional service is factually the symptom of your good fortune. Henceforward you will always be blessed with blissful life. I confirm that all you have spoken about Me in your prayers is factual. It is a fact that the materially opulent position of one who is not fully Kṛṣṇa conscious is the cause of his downfall and his becoming a victim of the illusory energy. In the past there were many rebellious kings, such as Haihaya, Nahuṣa, Vena, Rāvaṇa and Narakāsura. Some of them were demigods and some of them demons, but because of their false perception of their positions, they fell from their exalted posts, and thus they no longer remained kings of their respective kingdoms and were lost in the violence of abominable conditioned life.
And because the energy is not separate from Me, it is to be concluded that I am existing in everything.
"In the same way, the body of a living being is nothing but a composition of the five elements, and the living entity embodied in the material condition is also part and parcel of Me. The living entity is imprisoned in the material condition on account of his false conception of himself as the supreme enjoyer. This false ego of the living entity is the cause of his imprisonment in material existence. As the Supreme Absolute Truth, I am transcendental to the living entity, as well as to his material embodiment. The two energies, material and spiritual, both act under My supreme control. My dear gopīs, I request that instead of being afflicted, you try to accept everything with a philosophical attitude. Then you will understand that you are always with Me and that there is no cause of lamentation in our being separated from one another."
This important instruction by Lord Kṛṣṇa to the gopīs can be utilized by all devotees engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The whole philosophy is considered on the basis of inconceivable, simultaneous oneness and difference. In the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that He is present everywhere in His impersonal feature. Everything exists in Him, but still He is not personally present everywhere.
When the supreme authority, Lord Kṛṣṇa, was thus speaking with great gravity, all the sages and ascetics remained in dead silence. They were amazed upon hearing Him speak the absolute philosophy of life in such a concise way. Unless one is very much advanced in knowledge, one thinks his body to be his self, his family members to be his own, and the land of his birth to be worshipable. From this concept of life, the modern ideology of nationalism has sprung up. Lord Kṛṣṇa condemned such ideas, and He also condemned persons who take the trouble to go to holy places of pilgrimage just to take a bath and come back without taking the opportunity to associate with the great devotees and mahātmās living there. Such persons are compared to the most foolish animal, the ass. All those who heard considered the speech of Lord Kṛṣṇa for some time, and they concluded that Lord Kṛṣṇa was actually the Supreme Personality of Godhead playing the role of an ordinary human being, who is forced to take a certain type of body as a result of the reactions of his past deeds. He was assuming this pastime as an ordinary human simply to teach the people in general how they should live for perfection of the human mission.
Lord Kṛṣṇa intended for Vasudeva to see everything with the vision of a mahā-bhāgavata, a first-class devotee, who sees that all living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord and that the Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart. In fact, every living entity has a spiritual identity, but in contact with material existence he becomes influenced by the material modes of nature. He becomes covered by the concept of bodily life, forgetting that his spirit soul is of the same quality as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One mistakenly considers one individual to be different from another simply because of their material bodily coverings. Because of differences between bodies, the spirit soul appears before us differently.
My feature of four-handed Nārāyaṇa is not so pleasing or dear to Me as is a brāhmaṇa Vaiṣṇava. Brāhmaṇa means "one well conversant with Vedic knowledge." A brāhmaṇa is the insignia of perfect knowledge, and I am the full-fledged manifestation of all gods. Less intelligent men do not understand Me, nor do they understand the influence of the brāhmaṇa Vaiṣṇava. They are influenced by the three modes of material nature and thus dare to criticize Me and My pure devotees. A brāhmaṇa Vaiṣṇava, or a devotee already on the brahminical platform, can realize Me within his heart, and therefore he definitely concludes that the whole cosmic manifestation and its different features are effects of different energies of the Lord. Thus he has a clear conception of the whole material nature and the total material energy, and in every action such a devotee sees Me only, and nothing else.
As far as meditation is concerned, great personalities meditate on the transcendental form of Kṛṣṇa within the heart. In this way the minds of great personalities are always engaged in Kṛṣṇa. With their minds engaged in Kṛṣṇa, naturally the captivated devotees simply talk of Kṛṣṇa.
Talking of Kṛṣṇa or singing of Kṛṣṇa is called kīrtana. Lord Caitanya recommends, kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ (CC Adi 17.31), which means always thinking and talking of Kṛṣṇa and nothing else. That is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so sublime that anyone who takes to this process is elevated to the highest perfection of life—far, far beyond the concept of liberation. In the Bhagavad-gītā, therefore, Kṛṣṇa advises everyone always to think of Him, render devotional service to Him, worship Him and offer obeisances to Him. In this way a devotee becomes fully Kṛṣṇa-ized and, being always situated in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, ultimately goes back to Kṛṣṇa.
Although the Vedas have recommended worship of different demigods as different parts and parcels of Kṛṣṇa, it is to be understood that such instructions are meant for less intelligent men who are still attracted by material sense enjoyment. But the person who actually wants perfect fulfillment of the mission of human life should simply worship Lord Kṛṣṇa, and that will simplify the matter and completely guarantee the success of his human life. Although the sky, the water and the land are all part of the material world, when one stands on the solid land his position is more secure than when he stands in the sky or the water. An intelligent person, therefore, does not stand under the protection of different demigods, although they are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Rather, he stands on the solid ground of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That makes his position sound and secure.
The different stages described above are all in relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Although in all circumstances there exist both the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities, the difference is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead always exists in the ānanda-maya stage, whereas the subordinate living entities, because of their minute position as fragmental portions of the Supreme Lord, are prone to fall to the other stages of life. Although in all the stages both the Supreme Lord and the living entities exist, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is always transcendental to our concept of life, whether we are in bondage or in liberation. The whole cosmic manifestation becomes possible by the grace of the Supreme Lord, it exists by the grace of the Supreme Lord, and when annihilated it merges into the existence of the Supreme Lord. As such, the Supreme Lord is the supreme existence, the cause of all causes. Therefore the conclusion is that without development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness one's life is simply a waste of time.
For those who are very materialistic and cannot understand the situation of the spiritual world, the abode of Kṛṣṇa, great sages have recommended the yogic process whereby one gradually rises from meditation on the abdomen, which is called mūlādhāra or maṇipūraka meditation. Mūlādhāra and maṇipūraka are technical terms which refer to the intestines within the abdomen. Grossly materialistic persons think that economic development is of foremost importance because they are under the impression that a living entity exists only by eating.
This Māyāvāda theory has been condemned by Lord Caitanya as most offensive. He has said that anyone who accepts the transcendental body of the Personality of Godhead to be made of material nature commits the greatest offense at the lotus feet of Viṣṇu. Similarly, the Bhagavad-gītā also states that when the Personality of Godhead descends in a human form, only fools and rascals deride Him. This actually occurred when Lord Kṛṣṇa, Lord Rāma and Lord Caitanya moved within human society as human beings.
The personified Vedas condemn the impersonal conception as a gross misrepresentation. In the Brahma-saṁhitā, the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is described as ānanda-cinmaya-rasa. The Supreme Personality of Godhead possesses a spiritual body, not a material body. He can enjoy anything through any part of His body, and therefore He is omnipotent. The limbs of a material body can perform only a particular function; for example, the hands can hold but cannot see or hear. But because the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is made of ānanda-cinmaya-rasa and is thus sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1), He can enjoy anything and do everything with any of His limbs. Acceptance of the spiritual body of the Lord as material is dictated by the tendency to equate the Supreme Personality of Godhead with the conditioned soul. The conditioned soul has a material body. Therefore, if God also has a material body, then the impersonalistic theory that the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities are one and the same can be very easily propagated.
From the Vedas also we can understand that this asat, or temporary cosmic manifestation, is an emanation from the supreme sat, or fact. From the Vedānta-sūtra also it is understood that everything has emanated from the Supreme Brahman. Therefore the Vaiṣṇavas do not take this cosmic manifestation to be false. Because the Supreme Personality of Godhead has entered this cosmic manifestation in the form of His plenary expansion and caused the creation, the Vaiṣṇava philosophers see everything in this material world in relationship with the Supreme Lord.
This conception of the material world is very nicely explained by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, who says that when persons renounce the material world as illusory or false without knowing that the material world is a manifestation of the Supreme Lord, their renunciation is of no value. The Vaiṣṇavas, however, are free of attachment to this world because although the material world is generally accepted as an object of sense gratification, the Vaiṣṇavas are not in favor of sense gratification and are therefore not attached to material activities. The Vaiṣṇava accepts this material world according to the regulative principles of the Vedic injunctions and works without attachment. Since the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the original cause of everything, the Vaiṣṇava sees everything in relationship with Kṛṣṇa, even in this material world. By such advanced knowledge, everything becomes spiritualized. In other words, everything in the material world is already spiritual, but due to our lack of knowledge we see things as material.
From Lord Brahmā down to the ant, all living entities are jīvas, whereas the Lord is the supreme four-handed Viṣṇu, or Janārdana. Strictly speaking, the word ātmā can be applied only to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but because the living entities are His parts and parcels, sometimes the word ātmā is applied to them also. The living entities are therefore called jīvātmā, and the Supreme Lord is called Paramātmā. Both the Paramātmā and the jīvātmā are within this material world, and therefore this material world has a purpose other than sense gratification. The conception of a life of sense gratification is illusion, but the conception of service by the jīvātmā to the Paramātmā, even in this material world, is not at all illusory. A Kṛṣṇa conscious person is fully aware of this fact, and thus he does not take this material world to be false but acts in the reality of transcendental service. The devotee therefore sees everything in this material world as an opportunity to serve the Lord. He does not reject anything as material but dovetails everything in the service of the Lord. Thus a devotee is always in the transcendental position, and everything he uses becomes spiritually purified by being used in the Lord's service.
Śrīdhara Svāmī has composed a nice verse in this regard: "I worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is always manifested as reality, even within this material world, which is considered by some to be false." The conception of the falsity of this material world is due to a lack of knowledge, but a person advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness sees the Supreme Personality of Godhead in everything. This is actual realization of the Vedic aphorism sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma: "Everything is Brahman."
The personified Vedas continued: “Dear Lord, less intelligent men take to other ways of self-realization, but actually there is no chance of becoming purified from material contamination or of stopping the repeated cycle of birth and death unless one is a thoroughly pure devotee. Dear Lord, everything rests on Your different potencies, and everyone is supported by You, as stated in the Vedas: eko bahūnāṁ yo vidadhāti kāmān. Therefore Your Lordship is the supporter and maintainer of all living entities—demigods, human beings and animals. Everyone is supported by You, and You are also situated in everyone's heart. In other words, You are the root of the whole creation. Therefore those who engage in Your devotional service without deviation, who always worship You, actually pour water on the root of the universal tree. By devotional service, therefore, one satisfies not only the Personality of Godhead but also all others, because everyone is maintained and supported by Him.
From the subject matter under discussion, we can gain a clear understanding of the difference between the impersonalists and the personalists. The impersonal conception recommends merging into the existence of the Supreme, and the voidist philosophy recommends making all material varieties void. Both these philosophies are known as Māyāvāda. Certainly the cosmic manifestation comes to a close and becomes void when the living entities merge into the body of Nārāyaṇa to rest until another creation, and this may be called an impersonal condition, but these conditions are never eternal. The cessation of the variegatedness of the material world and the merging of the living entities into the body of the Supreme are not permanent, because the creation will take place again and the living entities who merged into the body of the Supreme without having developed their Kṛṣṇa consciousness will again appear in this material world when there is another creation. The Bhagavad-gītā confirms the fact that this material world is created and annihilated perpetually and that conditioned souls without Kṛṣṇa consciousness come back again and again, whenever the material creation is manifest.
The personified Vedas continued: "Dear Lord, it is therefore our conclusion that all conditioned living entities are attracted by Your material energy and that it is only due to their mistakenly identifying themselves as products of the material nature that they are transmigrating from one kind of body to another in forgetfulness of their eternal relationship with You. Because of ignorance, these living entities misidentify themselves in different species of life, and especially when elevated to the human form of life, they identify with a particular class of men, or a particular nation or race or so-called religion, forgetting their real identity as eternal servants of Your Lordship. Due to this faulty conception of life, they are undergoing repeated birth and death. Out of many millions of them, if one becomes intelligent enough by associating with pure devotees, he comes to the understanding of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and comes out of the jurisdiction of the material misconception."
In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta it is confirmed by Lord Caitanya that the living entities are wandering within this universe in different species of life, but that if one of them becomes intelligent enough by the mercy of the spiritual master and the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, then he begins his devotional life in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is said, hariṁ vinā na mṛtiṁ taranti: without the help of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one cannot get out of the clutches of repeated birth and death. In other words, only the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, can relieve the conditioned souls from the cycle of repeated birth and death.
Sometimes the Māyāvādī philosophers push forward the argument that if this material world is truth, then why are householders advised to give up their connection with this material world and take sannyāsa? But the Vaiṣṇava philosophers' view of sannyāsa is not that because the world is false one must therefore give up material activities. The purpose of Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa is to utilize things as they are intended to be utilized. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has given transcendentalists two formulas for dealing with this material world. When a Vaiṣṇava renounces the materialistic way of life and takes to sannyāsa, it is not on the conception of the falsity of the material world but to devote himself fully to engaging everything in the service of the Lord. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī therefore gives this formula: "One should be unattached to the material world because material attachment is meaningless. The entire material world, the entire cosmic manifestation, belongs to God, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, everything should be utilized for Kṛṣṇa, and the devotee should remain unattached to material things." This is the purpose of Vaiṣṇava sannyāsa. A materialist sticks to the world for sense gratification, but a Vaiṣṇava sannyāsī, although not accepting anything for his personal sense gratification, knows the art of utilizing everything for the service of the Lord. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī has therefore criticized the Māyāvādī sannyāsīs with his second formula: "Because the Māyāvādīs do not know that everything has a utilization for the service of the Lord, they take the world to be false and falsely think they are liberated from the contamination of the material world." Since everything is an expansion of the energy of the Supreme Lord, the expansions are as real as the Supreme Lord is.
After enjoying fully amongst themselves, the queens and Lord Kṛṣṇa would come out of the water, and they would give up their wet garments, which were very valuable, to be taken away by the professional singers and dancers. These singers and dancers had no means of subsistence other than the rewards of valuable garments and ornaments left by the queens and kings on such occasions. The whole system of society was so well planned that all the members of society in their different positions as brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras had no difficulty in earning their livelihood. There was no competition among the divisions of society. The original conception of the caste system was so planned that one group of men engaged in a particular type of occupation would not compete with another group of men engaged in a different occupation.
Renunciation Through Wisdom
The Communists and Socialists are spending money, intelligence, and even lives propagating their "isms"; the Bolsheviks revolted, disrupting the entire land of Russia and promising to fulfill the people's dream of a prosperous household life on a mass scale; the workers' unions are constantly at odds with the employers. All these complicated problems have one simple solution: everyone should perform karma-yoga, or work meant to please the Supreme Lord.
The endeavors human beings have made to establish a close and harmonious relationship with one another have culminated in the United Nations. This organization is based on the concept of the family unit. The gradual expansion of the family unit to a large community, to a village, to a state, to a country, and finally to a continent has given the clue for the formation of the United Nations. The thing to be noted, however, is its center. What is the central attraction? If the process of expansion were reversed, we would end up with the human body as the basic unit. The senses are of prime importance in the body; more important than the senses is the mind, then intelligence, and finally the false ego. And more important than the false ego is the real self, a pure spiritual being that is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu. Therefore the conclusion is that the fountainhead of everything is Lord Viṣṇu. For this reason Prahlāda Mahārāja said,
Persons who are strongly entrapped by the consciousness of enjoying material life, and who have therefore accepted as their leader or guru a similar blind man attached to external sense objects, cannot understand that the goal of life is to return home, back to Godhead, and engage in the service of Lord Viṣṇu.
The impersonalists are obsessed with the idea that the Supreme Being is impersonal and that the final goal is to merge into that Brahman existence. Naturally the Lord does not object. If a patient wants to end his disease by ending his life, then who will suffer but him? The more intelligent person will surely want to cure his disease without ending his life, and to that end he will strive to regain his original health. Similarly, the soul infected with the material disease should want to return to his pure, original state without annihilating his individual identity. Lord Kṛṣṇa saves such persons from the jaws of the demoniac conception of trying to become one with God. It is suicidal for the spirit soul to attempt to lose his inherent individuality. The happiness the impersonalist experiences by disentangling himself from the knots of material existence is automatically available to the Lord's devotee as a by-product of devotional service. As the Nāradīya Purāṇa says,
One should not engage in fruitive activity or cultivate knowledge by mental speculation. One who is devoted to the Supreme Lord, Nārāyaṇa, can attain all the benefits derived from other processes, such as yoga, mental speculation, rituals, sacrifices, and charity. That is the specific benediction of devotional service.
If an impersonalist philosopher, due to some piety, engages in devotional service to the Supreme Lord, then only does he become dear to the Lord. But as long as the impersonalists try to rob the Supreme Lord of His divine potencies, they can never be dear to Him, nor can they be called mahātmās. They will continue to be counted among the demoniac atheists deluded by the Lord's illusory potency. These atheists are not wise men: they are simply ordinary mortals who are offenders against the Lord.
Wherever the word jñāna appears in the Vedic literature, it should be understood to mean sambandha-jñāna, knowledge of the relationship between the Lord and His energies. It does not refer to the impersonalist concept of the Supreme. After a person understands sambandha-jñāna, he comes to the stage of abhidheya-jñāna, knowledge of how to act in his relationship with the Supreme Lord. This is devotional service, practiced by liberated souls. The mature stage of abhidheya-jñāna leads one to love of Godhead, the ultimate goal of all living entities.
The conscious beings always control inert matter. A simple example proves this point: we see how a puny conscious being like a crow defecates fearlessly on the head of a stone statue of some hero, thus demonstrating the conquest of dynamic spirit over dead matter. Only those with stonelike intelligence will try to make the supreme conscious being into an unfeeling, formless object. Such an attempt is utter foolishness.
Śrī Aurobindo has accomplished something commendable by presenting today's learned circles with a "new" concept: instead of trying to deny the inherent qualities of consciousness, one should transform one's mundane consciousness into supramental consciousness by engaging in service of the Supreme Lord under the direction of His divine potency. Of course, those who prefer to emulate the modern philosophers rather than the realized souls of bygone ages will find Śrī Aurobindo's presentation novel. But those who follow in the footsteps of pure, loving devotees of the Lord linked to an authorized disciplic succession know that Śrī Aurobindo's words echo the annals of age—old wisdom. Indeed, they sound close to the essence of the Vedas.
Although there are disparities in conclusions in the above statements, still on his own Śrī Aurobindo has pointed in the right direction. It is impossible to comprehend the conjugal mellow, which is the most elevated and brilliant of spiritual mellows, without the mood of surrender. The Māyāvādīs are totally bereft of this attitude of surrender; hence when they try to understand the nondual concept on their own, they end up becoming impersonalists. Let us read what Śrī Aurobindo has to say about these Māyāvādīs:
To seek after the impersonal is the way of those who want to withdraw from life. Usually such impersonalists try by their own effort and not by opening themselves to the superior power, or by the way of surrender, for the impersonal is not something that guides or helps but something to be attained, and it leaves each man to attain it according to the way and capacity of his nature. On the other hand, by opening and surrendering to the Mother, one can realize the Impersonal and every other aspect of truth also.
Mundane philosophers who try to attain the Supreme through the ascending process of knowledge can never achieve their goal. The only result of such an attempt, which naturally confuses them, is that they become rooted to the misunderstanding that man is God and vice versa, thus clearing their way to hell. A few among them may have a moment's glimpse of transcendence, but end up concluding everything backwards. They fall prey to the erroneous impersonal principle.
To refute this impersonal conception of the Absolute, the previously quoted verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam unequivocally states that the Absolute Truth is a person. This transcendental personality is so powerful that He could impart the knowledge of the Vedas even to Lord Brahmā, who then went on to create the material universe. Lord Brahmā did not receive this extraordinary Vedic knowledge after creation but before he began the work of creation. The knowledge that existed before the mundane nature came into being is transcendental and is known as saṁvit. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa delves into the subjects of sandhinī, saṁvit, and hlādinī, the Lord's potencies of existence, knowledge, and pleasure. All together, these are known as the Lord's internal potency, or spiritual potency. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also discusses the subject of the Lord's internal potency.
When Dr. Radhakrishnan uses the words "faith in the Lord," he definitely refers to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By what logic does he say "Lord" but mean the impersonal Brahman? Arjuna certainly means the person Kṛṣṇa when he says (BG 2.7), śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ tvāṁ prapannam: "Now I am Your disciple, and a soul surrendered unto You. Please instruct me." With these words he addresses Kṛṣṇa at the beginning of the Bhagavad-gītā. At this stage of the Gītā the impersonal Brahman is still to be discussed. When the subject of the impersonal Brahman is finally raised, Lord Kṛṣṇa unequivocally declares that He is the source of the impersonal Brahman. Sound logic says that one cannot surrender to something impersonal and formless. Those who are overly attached to the impersonal Brahman will find surrendering to this formless concept very painful and, indeed, impossible, and if they persist along this path they will end up surrendering to their wife, family, and relatives.
In general, the monists cannot grasp the intricate philosophy of nondualism. So Dr. Radhakrishnan has spun out of his imagination a theory by which he tries to establish dualism in nondualism. When Dr. Radhakrishnan writes that we must surrender to "the Unborn, Beginningless, Eternal who speaks through Kṛṣṇa," he implies that it is the impersonal Brahman within Kṛṣṇa who is speaking about surrender. Once it is established that the impersonal Brahman can speak, then He must also possess the instrument of speech, namely the tongue. Thus we see that Dr. Radhakrishnan's whole concept of impersonalism is immediately undermined. There is sufficient evidence in the scriptures to conclude that one who talks can also walk. And a being capable of speaking and walking must indeed be endowed with all the senses. Then He must also be able to perform other activities, such as eating and sleeping. So how can Dr. Radhakrishnan claim that his beginningless, eternal object is impersonal?
In his "Introductory Essay," on page 62, Dr. Radhakrishnan writes,
When we are emptied of our self (?), God takes possession of us. The obstacles to this God-possession are our own virtues, pride, knowledge, our subtle demands, and our unconscious assumptions and prejudices.
Dr. Radhakrishnan has never directly perceived the supreme transcendental personality, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Although Lord Kṛṣṇa is right in front of him, he cannot see Him, and thus out of delusion he calls Him a historical person. Genuine Indian religious philosophy teaches that there are both oneness with God and difference from Him. This concept of simultaneous oneness and difference has been termed viśiṣṭādvaita, dvaitādvaita, śuddhādvaita, and acintya-bhedābheda-tattva. If this esoteric concept were false, then Kṛṣṇa would not be worshiped throughout India, practically in every home. He is worshiped not as a historical figure but as the Supreme Lord. Kṛṣṇa's position as the Supreme Godhead is firmly established by the authoritative text Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is the natural commentary on and essence of the Vedānta-sūtra and the Gāyatrī mantra. Many scholarly Māyāvādīs far more erudite than Dr. Radhakrishnan have tried to shake the faith of the general populace, but since time immemorial Kṛṣṇa temples have mushroomed by the millions—a slap in the face for the Māyāvādīs and atheists, who claim the Lord Kṛṣṇa is an ordinary mortal. In the future also, more Kṛṣṇa temples will be built to frustrate the agnostics and nonbelievers. All Viṣṇu temples are authorized by the scriptures and ācāryas. It hardly seems likely that, just for the sake of Dr. Radhakrishnan, the entire Indian population is going to strike a compromise with Māyāvāda philosophy.
Judging from all the symptoms, the time is now ripe. Indians should now take shelter of their saintly preceptors, the pure devotees, and unitedly propagate the glorification of Kṛṣṇa via the medium of the Bhagavad-gītā. In this way the world will become prosperous and perfect. The present age has seen interest in spiritual matters markedly increase. Yoga and meditation societies have mushroomed expressly to transmit the knowledge of the Bhagavad-gītā, but how this will be accomplished is still a question. We are confident that Lord Caitanya's teachings on the process of loving devotional service will easily harmonize all conflicting concepts.
The most effective method for directing humanity toward a positive and favorable consciousness is available in India. Any person, under any circumstances, can reach an elevated state of consciousness by properly hearing the Bhagavad-gītā, and then, by constantly chanting the name of God, he can win God over. The present state of world affairs is full of foreboding, strife, and struggle. These are the effects of Kali-yuga. But our faith in the eternal nature of jīva prompts us to believe that anyone can attain devotional service to Kṛṣṇa simply by hearing and chanting His name and thereby awakening his inherent dormant love for Him. We have full faith in the words of Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī quoted above from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—that simply by chanting the name of Kṛṣṇa one can reach His eternal kingdom.
Once one is fixed in transcendental realization, all distress, lamentation, illusion, fear, and so on, are immediately eradicated. The soul is assailed by these miseries as long as he harbors the delusion that something exists outside of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore when one is situated in transcendence, one feels happiness even in this world. The mundane conception of life is a product of the three modes of material nature, which affect the mind and senses. But when one's vision is transformed through buddhi-yoga, one sees everything as having a direct link with Kṛṣṇa. The material elements, such as fire, water, ether, and mind, along with the directions, the soul, and time—everything material and spiritual, personal and impersonal—all reflect Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Being. When one reaches this state of realization, the dualities and illusion of sin and piety, happiness and distress, are dissolved by the ecstatic harmony of transcendence. In one Upaniṣad there is a statement that once a person experiences the happiness derived from Brahman realization, he no longer has anything to fear. A verse from the Īśopaniṣad (Īśo. 7) conveys a similar mood:
- yasmin sarvāṇi bhūtāny
- ātmaivābhūd vijānataḥ
- tatra ko mohaḥ kaḥ śoka
- ekatvam anupaśyataḥ
One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things. What, then, can be illusion or anxiety for Him?
Real perfection in yoga comes when we forget our personal demands and determine what service the Lord wants from us. Personal interest must be sacrificed, along with our conceptions of good and bad, right and wrong, necessary and unnecessary, ans so on. We must emulate that great warrior Arjuna and try to find out what service the Supreme Lord wants from us. Such Kṛṣṇa conscious activities alone will lead us to the full consummation of all our duties, and the results will be all-auspicious. This degree of fixed faith is indispensable to progress. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (CC Madhya 22.62), Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja defines this faith:
- 'śraddhā'-śabde-viśvāsa kahe sudṛdha niścaya
- kṛṣṇe bhakti kaile sarva-karma kṛta haya
By rendering transcendental loving service to Kṛṣṇa, one automatically performs all subsidiary activities. This confident, firm faith, favorable to the discharge of devotional service, is called śraddhā.
The Vedic literature consists of the śruti (the Vedas and Upaniṣads) and the smṛti (the Vedānta-sūtra, the Puraṇas, Itihāsas like the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, the Pañcarātras, and finally the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam). The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the natural commentary on the Vedānta-sūtra and offers solid education on how to conduct life perfectly. In recent ages the smṛti texts have become prominent and influenced human thought and action. All these scriptures fully support the varṇāśrama system of four social and four religious orders. But what is today being labeled varṇāśrama is an atheistic concept totally unsupported by the scriptures. Real varṇāśrama is based not on birth but on people's qualities and activities. One cannot reach the goal of the scriptures by practicing today's demoniac caste system. Only the introduction of daivī-varṇāśrama, the transcendental varṇāśrama system, will serve the purpose of the scriptures. This will move humanity toward liberation.
It is not at all difficult to compromise the real purport of the magnificent scriptural edicts by selfish motivations and a cheating mentality. When this happens, people aspire for show-bottle religiosity, material gain, sense enjoyment, and impersonal liberation. On the other hand, sincere observance of the scriptural injunctions leads to all-round success in life.
Therefore, it is a hazardous path of elevation that depends on personal characteristics within the jurisdiction of the three modes of nature. Without transcending these three material modes, a person will find himself securely in their clutches, and thus deluded, he will think that all his activities are divinely inspired. He will then broadcast this false concept, considering himself an advanced devotee and everyone else inferior. Impressed with his own knowledge, he will try to see God by dint of this knowledge instead of acting in such a way that God will want to see him. Intoxicated by false ego, he will see his activities, which are motivated by passion, as divine. Those who are proud of their knowledge do not surrender to the Lord; instead, they try to attain the Supreme Lord's mercy by the inductive method and thus exhibit an obnoxious mentality. One should constantly remember the Lord and pray to Him for mercy. The Lord, situated in the devotee's heart, responds to such a prayer and illumines his heart with knowledge, which dissipates the darkness of ignorance.
In recent times we have heard two words being loudly voiced: Māyāvāda (impersonalist) and Advaita-vāda (monist). I deem it proper to write a few words about them. Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya was a brāhmaṇa who propagated the impersonalist philosophy. But if he were to hear the pathetic version of his theory being espoused today, complete with nonbrahminical Western logic and mundane concepts, he would surely be struck dumb. Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya taught and exhibited ideal brahminical behaviour. He propounded irrefutable arguments that destroyed materialistic views. Furthermore, his erudition, realization, and renunciation were of an extremely high caliber. Yet when his so-called followers dilute and mutilate his philosophy, we are moved simultaneously to tears and laughter.
All the Supreme Lord's pastimes are eternal. Those who doubt this are impersonalists. When one tries to gauge the omnipotent Supreme Godhead with a limited measuring principle, one is drawn to the impersonal concept. One must carefully avoid this all-devouring philosophy. When Śrī Nārada Muni saw how Lord Kṛṣṇa had expanded Himself in His original form and was dancing with many gopīs simultaneously, he realized that Lord Kṛṣṇa was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the source of everything. Lord Kṛṣṇa is always being served and worshiped by Śrīmatī Rādhārānī, yet He expands Himself unlimitedly. Just as a candle can light other candles yet remain unchanged, so the Supreme Lord, though "one without a second," can expand Himself in unlimited forms, and also as the omnipresent, all-pervading, universal soul. This is direct proof of the Supreme Lord's absolute divinity.
One has to hear this philosophy from a pure devotee of the Lord; otherwise it is impossible to understand whether the Absolute Truth is a Person or an impersonal substance. If the Supreme is omnipotent, He should be simultaneously personal and impersonal. One who rejects either of these aspects of the Lord tries to limit the absoluteness of the Supreme. Such logic is described as "the logic of half a hen," by which a fool wishes to profit from the egg-laying half of the hen without having to feed the front half. Those who have been blessed by the spiritual master and the Supreme Lord can easily see through this foolish concept and abstain from futile, time-wasting debates. The process of surrender gradually reveals the wonderful glories of the Supreme Lord. Puny human attempts to comprehend such topics will merely end in confusion. The Supreme Lord manifests Himself to the devotee in proportion to the devotee's service attitude and surrender. Arguments and debates are totally inadequate means for understanding the Supreme Absolute Truth.
Message of Godhead
It is therefore more necessary than ever to realize the all-important relationship of man with God if we want at all to rehabilitate the human race, which is already shattered more than ever.
The philosophers and the logicians have tried to understand the intrinsic relationship of living entities with God by various conceptions and methods, on the strength of their mundane education and scholastic research. But the Absolute Truth remains above the philosophers and their acquired knowledge. The conception of the Absolute is never perfectly attained by such an ascending process, because of its being born of imperfect, material senses. These empiric philosophers and logicians cannot realize their imperfection by the vanity of material knowledge, and the ultimate conclusion of such materialistic philosophers is atheism. They deny the existence of God, who is the Supreme Person, different from all other persons. Under such a vague assumption, we remain in the same darkness as before. We are content with a conception of Godhead according to our own individual idea, without knowing the real relationship of Godhead and ourselves.
By "false shadow" one should understand that the world is temporary, existing only for the time being. But one should not make the mistake of thinking the world has no existence at all. I really possess my temporary material body and mind, and I must not make myself a laughing stock by denying the existence of my body and mind. At the same time, I must always remember that the body and mind are temporary arrangements. However, the spirit encaged by this body and mind is eternal truth and indestructible. No one can destroy the eternal spirit—that is what we need to understand at the present moment. The indestructible spirit is thus above the conception of violence and nonviolence.
Today, the whole world is mad after the culture of knowledge in relation to temporary arrangements for the gross material body and the subtle material mind. But more important than the body and mind is the spirit, which has been set aside without any proper culture of knowledge. As a result, the darkness of nescience has overshadowed the world and has brought about great unrest, disturbance, and distress. How long can one enjoy external happiness? It is like soaping the outer garments without putting any nourishment into the stomach.
But this eternal truth, the indestructible spirit, does exist as the living entity in each and every body. He is very minute and is finer than the finest atom. Learned experts have attempted to make a measurement of this living spirit. They say that the living spirit, the soul proper, can be measured approximately as one ten-thousandth part of the tip of a hair.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is Śrī Kṛṣṇa; that is the verdict of the Bhāgavata school, or the transcendentalists. Also, the Brahma-saṁhitā—which is described to be compiled by Brahmā, the creator of this universe—confirms, "Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, with an eternal, all-blissful, transcendental form. He is the original person, known as Govinda. He is without any cause, and He is the cause of all other causes." Therefore, if and only if we can establish our relationships with one another upon the central attraction of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the prime cause of all causes, will we really turn the concepts of fraternity and equality into workable means of lasting peace.
To understand a little better the principles involved, we can look at the mundane relationships around us. For example, the husband of our sister, who may have been unknown to us before he married her, nonetheless becomes our brother-in-law—simply by virtue of the shared central relationship with her. And thanks to that shared central relationship, this previously unknown man's sons and daughters become our nephews and nieces. Again, all these loving relationships center upon our sister. In this case, our sister has become the center of attraction.
The foolish mundaners would have been left perpetually in the darkness of foolish activities if Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, or His eternal associates, such as Marshal Arjuna, had not kindly taken the trouble of initiating the process of karma-yoga by the direct method of personal example. The foolish mundaners are unable to come to an awareness of the immeasurable difficulties that confront them in pursuance of their foolish mundane activities. However much they may bewilder themselves by the conception of lordship over their various actions, they are always being driven under the direction of the modes of nature—that is the considered verdict of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, in the Bhagavad-gītā. He says that the foolish mundaner considers himself the author or doer of all his activities by a sense dictated by his false egoism, without knowing that it is the modes of nature that lead him to do everything in all his engagements. The foolish mundaner cannot understand that he is under the spell of Lord Kṛṣṇa's illusory energy, Maya-devi, who has made the mundaner bound to do as she desires. Consequently, the foolish mundaner enjoys only the temporary results of his activities—fleeting mundane happiness or distress—and undergoes a severe penalty of servitude dictated by the modes of nature.
Factually, the mystic path is uniform and one. It is something like a series of stepping-stones to the highest goal. By accepting this path of mysticism, one becomes a pilgrim toward spiritual perfection. Work with transcendental results is the first stepping-stone on this transcendental path. When empiric philosophical deductions and a desire for renunciation are added, progress is made to the second stepping-stone. When one adds a definite conception of the supreme ruling principle, the Supreme Lord, one progresses to the third stepping-stone. And finally, when a process of transcendental loving service to the Supreme Personality is added, progress is made perfectly to the ultimate goal. The mystic path is therefore a transcendental evolution in which all the above stages are part of the gradual process of spiritual development. It is necessary to mention all the above stages to understand the final stage. Therefore, one who desires to attain to the supreme goal may adopt the systematic mystic path.
Light of the Bhagavata
In Kali-yuga there is a dearth of proper guidance. One may take guidance in the evening from the stars and moon, but in the rainy season the light of guidance comes from insignificant glowworms. The real light in life is the Vedic knowledge. Bhagavad-gītā affirms that the purpose of the Veda is to know the all-powerful Personality of Godhead. But in this age of quarrel there are quarrels even over the point of the existence of Godhead. In the godless civilization of the age of quarrel there are countless religious societies, them trying to banish God from religion. Glowworms want to be prominent in the absence of the sun and the stars, and these small groups following various religious conceptions are like glowworms trying to be prominent before the eyes of the ignorant mass of people. There are now a number of self-made incarnations people follow without authority from the Vedic literatures, and there is regular competition between one incarnation's group and another's.
At night in the rainy season the moving clouds reflecting the moonlight make the moon appear to be moving. This is called illusion. The spirit soul, or the living being, is the root of all the activities of the material body, but because of illusion the spirit soul remains covered by the gross and subtle material bodies. Thus covered, the conditioned soul identifies with the material body and becomes subject to the sense of false ego.
This false ego obliges a living being to consider his material body to be his self, the offspring of the body to be his children, and the land of the birth of the body to be an object of worship. Thus the living being's conception of nationalism is another type of ignorance. Because of ignorance, a living being identifies himself with the land of his birth and moves with the misconceptions of national ideas. In fact, however, a living being does not belong to any nation or species of life. He has nothing to do with the body, as the moon has nothing to do with the moving clouds.
The moon is far away from the clouds and is fixed in its own orbit, but illusion presents a scene in which the moon appears to be moving. A living being should not float with the misconception of the temporary body; he must always know himself to be transcendental to the bodily identity. This is the path of knowledge, and complete knowledge fixes the living being in the orbit of spiritual activities.
Sri Isopanisad
An ordinary man works for his own sense enjoyment, and when this principle of sense enjoyment is extended to include his society, nation or humanity in general, it assumes various attractive names such as altruism, socialism, communism, nationalism and humanitarianism. These "isms" are certainly very attractive forms of karma-bandhana (karmic bondage), but the Vedic instruction of Śrī Īśopaniṣad is that if one actually wants to live for any of the above "isms," he should make them God-centered. There is no harm in becoming a family man, or an altruist, a socialist, a communist, a nationalist or a humanitarian, provided that one executes his activities in relation with īśāvāsya, the God-centered conception.
In the Bhagavad-gītā (2.40) Lord Kṛṣṇa states that God-centered activities are so valuable that just a few of them can save a person from the greatest danger. The greatest danger of life is the danger of gliding down again into the evolutionary cycle of birth and death among the 8,400,000 species. If somehow or other a man misses the spiritual opportunity afforded by his human form of life and falls down again into the evolutionary cycle, he must be considered most unfortunate. Due to his defective senses, a foolish man cannot see that this is happening. Consequently Śrī Īśopaniṣad advises us to exert our energy in the spirit of īśāvāsya. Being so engaged, we may wish to live for many, many years; otherwise a long life in itself has no value. A tree lives for hundreds and hundreds of years, but there is no point in living a long time like trees, or breathing like bellows, or begetting children like hogs and dogs, or eating like camels. A humble God-centered life is more valuable than a colossal hoax of a life dedicated to godless altruism or socialism.
The contradictions given here prove the inconceivable potencies of the Lord. "He walks, and He does not walk." Ordinarily, if someone can walk, it is illogical to say he cannot walk. But in reference to God, such a contradiction simply serves to indicate His inconceivable power. With our limited fund of knowledge we cannot accommodate such contradictions, and therefore we conceive of the Lord in terms of our limited powers of understanding. For example, the impersonalist philosophers of the Māyāvāda school accept only the Lord's impersonal activities and reject His personal feature. But the members of the Bhāgavata school, adopting the perfect conception of the Lord, accept His inconceivable potencies and thus understand that He is both personal and impersonal. The bhāgavatas know that without inconceivable potencies there can be no meaning to the words "Supreme Lord."
We should not take it for granted that because we cannot see God with our eyes the Lord has no personal existence. Śrī Īśopaniṣad refutes this argument by declaring that the Lord is far away but very near also. The abode of the Lord is beyond the material sky, and we have no means to measure even this material sky. If the material sky extends so far, then what to speak of the spiritual sky, which is altogether beyond it?
He sees that the brāhmaṇa particle of the Supreme Lord has not misused his little independence given him by the Lord and that the dog particle has misused his independence and is therefore being punished by the laws of nature by being encaged in the form of a dog. Not considering the respective actions of the brāhmaṇa and the dog, the uttama-adhikārī tries to do good to both. Such a learned devotee is not misled by material bodies but is attracted by the spiritual spark within them.
Those who imitate an uttama-adhikārī by flaunting a sense of oneness or fellowship but who behave on the bodily platform are actually false philanthropists. The conception of universal brotherhood must be learned from an uttama-adhikārī and not from a foolish person who does not properly understand the individual soul or the Supreme Lord's Supersoul expansion, who dwells everywhere.
It is clearly mentioned in this sixth mantra that one should "observe," or systematically see. This means that one must follow the previous ācāryas, the perfected teachers. Anupaśyati is the exact Sanskrit word used in this connection. Anu means "to follow," and paśyati means "to observe." Thus the word anupaśyati means that one should not see things as he does with the naked eye but should follow the previous ācāryas. Due to material defects, the naked eye cannot see anything properly. One cannot see properly unless one has heard from a superior source, and the highest source is the Vedic wisdom, which is spoken by the Lord Himself.
Hiraṇyakaśipu requested that he not be killed by any man, animal, god or any other living being within the 8,400,000 species. He also asked that he not die on land, in the air or water, or by any weapon. In this way Hiraṇyakaśipu foolishly thought these guarantees would save him from death. Ultimately, however, although Brahmā granted him all these benedictions, he was killed by the Personality of Godhead in the form of Nṛsiṁha, the Lord's half-lion, half-man incarnation, and no weapon was used to kill him, for he was killed by the Lord's nails. Nor was he killed on the land, in the air or in the water, for he was killed on the lap of that wonderful living being, Nṛsiṁha, who was beyond his conception.
The whole point here is that even Hiraṇyakaśipu, the most powerful of materialists, could not become deathless by his various plans. What, then, can be accomplished by the tiny Hiraṇyakaśipus of today, whose plans are thwarted from moment to moment?
"Neither the hosts of demigods nor the great sages know My origin or opulences, for in every respect I am the source of the demigods and sages." Thus Kṛṣṇa is the origin of the powers delegated to demigods, great sages and mystics. Although they are endowed with great powers, these powers are limited, and thus it is very difficult for them to know how Kṛṣṇa Himself appears by His own internal potency in the form of a man.
Many philosophers and great ṛṣis, or mystics, try to distinguish the Absolute from the relative by their tiny brain power. This can only help them reach the negative conception of the Absolute without realizing any positive trace of the Absolute. Definition of the Absolute by negation is not complete. Such negative definitions lead one to create a concept of one's own; thus one imagines that the Absolute must be formless and without qualities. Such negative qualities are simply the reversals of relative, material qualities and are therefore also relative. By conceiving of the Absolute in this way, one can at the utmost reach the impersonal effulgence of God, known as Brahman, but one cannot make further progress to Bhagavān, the Personality of Godhead.
They only want to maintain the status quo in the material world under the garb of worshiping the Lord. The atheists and impersonalists lead such foolish pseudo religionists into the darkest regions by preaching the cult of atheism. The atheist directly denies the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the impersonalists support the atheists by stressing the impersonal aspect of the Supreme Lord. Thus far we have not come across any mantra in Śrī Īśopaniṣad in which the Supreme Personality of Godhead is denied. It is said that He can run faster than anyone. Those who are running after other planets are certainly persons, and if the Lord can run faster than all of them, how can He be impersonal? The impersonal conception of the Supreme Lord is another form of ignorance, arising from an imperfect conception of the Absolute Truth.
The ignorant pseudo religionists and the manufacturers of so-called incarnations who directly violate the Vedic injunctions are liable to enter into the darkest region of the universe because they mislead those who follow them. These impersonalists generally pose themselves as incarnations of God to foolish persons who have no knowledge of Vedic wisdom. If such foolish men have any knowledge at all, it is more dangerous in their hands than ignorance itself. Such impersonalists do not even worship the demigods according to the scriptural recommendations. In the scriptures there are recommendations for worshiping demigods under certain circumstances, but at the same time these scriptures state that there is normally no need for this.
"I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness." Brahman, Paramātmā and Bhagavān are three aspects of the same Absolute Truth. Brahman is the aspect most easily perceived by the beginner; Paramātmā, the Supersoul, is realized by those who have further progressed; and Bhagavān realization is the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.7), where Lord Kṛṣṇa says that He is the ultimate concept of the Absolute Truth: mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is the source of the brahma-jyotir as well as the all-pervading Paramātmā. Later in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.42) Kṛṣṇa further explains:
- atha vā bahunaitena
- kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna
- viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam
- ekāṁśena sthito jagat
"But what need is there, Arjuna, for all this detailed knowledge? With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe." Thus by His one plenary expansion, the all-pervading Paramātmā, the Lord maintains the complete material cosmic creation. He also maintains all manifestations in the spiritual world. Therefore in this śruti-mantra of Śrī Īśopaniṣad, the Lord is addressed as pūṣan, the ultimate maintainer.
Since He is addressed as the primeval philosopher and maintainer and well-wisher of the universe, the Supreme Truth cannot be impersonal. This is the verdict of Śrī Īśopaniṣad. The word pūṣan ("maintainer") is especially significant, for although the Lord maintains all beings, He specifically maintains His devotees. After surpassing the impersonal brahma-jyotir and seeing the personal aspect of the Lord and His most auspicious eternal form, the devotee realizes the Absolute Truth in full.
In his Bhagavat-sandarbha, Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī states: "The complete conception of the Absolute Truth is realized in the Personality of Godhead because He is almighty and possesses full transcendental potencies. The full potency of the Absolute Truth is not realized in the brahma-jyotir; therefore Brahman realization is only partial realization of the Personality of Godhead. O learned sages, the first syllable of the word bhagavān (bha) has two meanings: the first is 'one who fully maintains,' and the second is 'guardian.' The second syllable (ga) means 'guide,' 'leader' or 'creator.' The syllable vān indicates that every being lives in Him and that He also lives in every being. In other words, the transcendental sound bhagavān represents infinite knowledge, potency, energy, opulence, strength and influence—all without a tinge of material inebriety."
Mukunda-mala-stotra (mantras 1 to 6 only)
Human beings advance toward God consciousness when they go beyond the gross materialistic life of eating, sleeping, fearing, and mating and begin to develop moral and ethical principles. These principles develop further into religious consciousness, leading to an imaginary conception of God without any practical realization of the truth. These stages of God consciousness are called religiosity, which promises material prosperity of various degrees.
People who develop this conception of religiosity perform sacrifices, give in charity, and undergo different types of austerity and penance, all with a view toward being rewarded with material prosperity. The ultimate goal of such so-called religious people is sense gratification of various kinds. For sense gratification, material prosperity is necessary, and therefore they perform religious rituals with a view toward the resultant material name, fame, and gain.
Therefore any relationship the Lord has with His many devotees—whether fatherhood, sonhood, or any other—is not at all material. The Lord is pure spirit, and only when the living being is in his pure spiritual state can he have all sorts of relationships with Him. Philosophers with a poor fund of knowledge cannot conceive of these positive spiritual relationships between the Lord and the all-spiritual living beings, and thus they simply think in terms of negating material relationships. In this way such philosophers naturally adopt the concept of impersonalism.
By contrast, a pure devotee like King Kulaśekhara has complete knowledge of both matter and spirit. He does not say that everything material is false, yet he has nothing to do with anything material, from heaven down to hell. He fully understands the statement in the Bhagavad-gītā that from the lowest planets up to Brahmaloka, the highest planet in the universe, there is no spiritual bliss, which the living beings hanker for. Therefore the pure devotee, being in full knowledge of spiritual life, simultaneously rejects material relationships and cultivates his spiritual relationship with the Lord. In other words, the spiritual knowledge a devotee possesses not only allows him to reject material existence, but it also provides him with an understanding of the reality of positive, eternal spiritual existence. This is the understanding King Kulaśekhara expresses in this prayer.
Narada-bhakti-sutra (sutras 1 to 8 only)
The Lord is the purest, and thus anyone who wants to serve the Supreme Lord must also be pure. Unless a person is pure, he can neither understand what the Personality of Godhead is nor engage in His service in love, for devotional service, as stated before, begins from the point of self-realization, when all misgivings of materialistic life are vanquished.
After following the regulative principles and purifying the material senses, one attains the stage of niṣṭhā, firm faith in the Lord. When a person has attained this stage, no one can deviate him from the conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. No one can persuade him that God is impersonal, without a form, or that any form created by imagination can be accepted as God. Those who espouse these more or less nonsensical conceptions of the Supreme Lord cannot dissuade him from firm faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa.
In the Bhagavad-gītā Lord Kṛṣṇa stresses in many verses that He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But despite Lord Kṛṣṇa's stressing this point, many so-called scholars and commentators still deny the personal conception of the Lord. One famous scholar wrote in his commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā that one does not have to surrender to Lord Kṛṣṇa or even accept Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but that one should rather surrender to "the Supreme within Kṛṣṇa." Such fools do not know what is within and what is without. They comment on the Bhagavad-gītā according to their own whims. Such persons cannot be elevated to the highest stage of love of Godhead. They may be scholarly, and they may be elevated in other departments of knowledge, but they are not even neophytes in the process of attaining the highest stage of perfection, love of Godhead. Niṣṭhā implies that one should accept the words of Bhagavad-gītā, the words of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as they are, without any deviation or nonsensical commentary.
| Page Title: | Conception (Other Books) |
| Compiler: | Mayapur, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 21 of Sep, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=105, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 105 |