Virat-rupa and the impersonal conception of the Lord

Expressions researched:
"impersonal" |"impersonalist" |"virat-rupa"

Notes from the compiler: VedaBase query: "virat rupa" and impersonal*

SB Canto 1

SB 1.3.3, Translation and Purport:

It is believed that all the universal planetary systems are situated on the extensive body of the puruṣa, but He has nothing to do with the created material ingredients. His body is eternally in spiritual existence par excellence.

The conception of the virāṭ-rūpa or viśva-rūpa of the Supreme Absolute Truth is especially meant for the neophyte who can hardly think of the transcendental form of the Personality of Godhead. To him a form means something of this material world, and therefore an opposite conception of the Absolute is necessary in the beginning to concentrate the mind on the power extension of the Lord. As stated above, the Lord extends His potency in the form of the mahat-tattva, which includes all material ingredients. The extension of power by the Lord and the Lord Himself personally are one in one sense, but at the same time the mahat-tattva is different from the Lord. Therefore the potency of the Lord and the Lord are simultaneously different and nondifferent. The conception of the virāṭ-rūpa, especially for the impersonalist, is thus nondifferent from the eternal form of the Lord. This eternal form of the Lord exists prior to the creation of the mahat-tattva, and it is stressed here that the eternal form of the Lord is par excellence spiritual or transcendental to the modes of material nature. The very same transcendental form of the Lord is manifested by His internal potency, and the formation of His multifarious manifestations of incarnations is always of the same transcendental quality, without any touch of the mahat-tattva.

SB Canto 2

SB 2.1.22, Purport:

The dirty things in the heart of a conditioned soul are the root cause of all troubles for him. A conditioned soul is surrounded by the manifold miseries of material existence, but on account of his gross ignorance he is unable to remove the troubles due to dirty things in the heart, accumulated during the long prison life in the material world. He is actually meant to serve the will of the Supreme Lord, but on account of the dirty things in the heart, he likes to serve his concocted desires. These desires, instead of giving him any peace of mind, create new problems and thus bind him to the cycle of repeated birth and death. These dirty things of fruitive work and empiric philosophy can be removed only by association with the Supreme Lord. The Lord, being omnipotent, can offer His association by His inconceivable potencies. Thus persons who are unable to pin their faith on the personal feature of the Absolute are given a chance to associate with His virāṭ-rūpa, or the cosmic impersonal feature of the Lord. The cosmic impersonal feature of the Lord is a feature of His unlimited potencies. Since the potent and potencies are identical, even the conception of His impersonal cosmic feature helps the conditioned soul to associate with the Lord indirectly and thus gradually rise to the stage of personal contact.

SB 2.1.22, Purport:

Mahārāja Parīkṣit was already directly connected with the personal feature of the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and as such he had no need to inquire from Śukadeva Gosvāmī about where and how to apply the mind in the impersonal virāṭ-rūpa of the Lord. But he inquired after a detailed description of the matter for the benefit of others, who are unable to conceive of the transcendental personal feature of the Lord as the form of eternity, knowledge and bliss. The nondevotee class of men cannot think of the personal feature of the Lord. Because of their poor fund of knowledge, the personal form of the Lord, like Rāma or Kṛṣṇa, is completely revolting to them. They have a poor estimation of the potency of the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gītā (9.11) it is explained by the Lord Himself that people with a poor fund of knowledge deride the supreme personality of the Lord, taking Him to be a common man. Such men are ignorant of the inconceivable potency of the Lord. By the inconceivable potency of the Lord, He can move in human society or any other society of living beings and yet remain the same omnipotent Lord, without deviating in the slightest from His transcendental position. So, for the benefit of men who are unable to accept the Lord in His personal eternal form, Mahārāja Parīkṣit inquired from Śukadeva Gosvāmī how to fix the mind on Him in the beginning, and the Gosvāmī replied in detail as follows.

SB 2.1.32, Translation and Purport:

Modesty is the upper portion of His lips, hankering is His chin, religion is the breast of the Lord, and irreligion is His back. Brahmājī, who generates all living beings in the material world, is His genitals, and the Mitrā-varuṇas are His two testicles. The ocean is His waist, and the hills and mountains are the stacks of His bones.

The Supreme Lord is not impersonal, as misconceived by less intelligent thinkers. Rather, He is the Supreme person, as confirmed in all authentic Vedic literatures. But His personality is different from what we can conceive. It is stated here that Brahmājī acts as His genitals and that the Mitrā-varuṇas are His two testicles. This means that as a person He is complete with all bodily organs, but they are of different types with different potencies. When the Lord is described as impersonal, therefore, it should be understood that His personality is not exactly the type of personality found within our imperfect speculation. One can, however, worship the Lord even by seeing the hills and mountains or the ocean and the sky as different parts and parcels of the gigantic body of the Lord, the virāṭ-puruṣa. The virāṭ-rūpa, as exhibited by Lord Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna, is a challenge to the unbelievers.

SB 2.2.7, Translation and Purport:

Who else but the gross materialists will neglect such transcendental thought and take to the nonpermanent names only, seeing the mass of people fallen in the river of suffering as the consequence of accruing the result of their own work?

In the Vedas it is said that persons who are attached to demigods to the exclusion of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are like the animals who follow the herdsman even though they are taken to the slaughterhouse. The materialists, like animals, also do not know how they are being misdirected by neglecting the transcendental thought of the Supreme person. No one can remain vacant of thought. It is said that an idle brain is a devil's workshop because a person who cannot think in the right way must think of something which may bring about disaster. The materialists are always worshiping some minor demigods, although this is condemned in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.20). As long as a person is illusioned by material gains, he petitions the respective demigods to draw some particular benefit which is, after all, illusory and nonpermanent. The enlightened transcendentalist is not captivated by such illusory things; therefore he is always absorbed in the transcendental thought of the Supreme in different stages of realization, namely Brahman, Paramātmā and Bhagavān. In the previous verse it is suggested that one should think of the Supersoul, which is one step higher than the impersonal thought of Brahman, as it was suggested in the case of contemplating the virāṭ-rūpa of the Personality of Godhead.

SB 2.2.13, Translation and Purport:

The process of meditation should begin from the lotus feet of the Lord and progress to His smiling face. The meditation should be concentrated upon the lotus feet, then the calves, then the thighs, and in this way higher and higher. The more the mind becomes fixed upon the different parts of the limbs, one after another, the more the intelligence becomes purified.

The process of meditation recommended in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is not to fix one's attention on something impersonal or void. The meditation should concentrate on the person of the Supreme Godhead, either in His virāṭ-rūpa, the gigantic universal form, or in His sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1), as described in the scriptures. There are authorized descriptions of Viṣṇu forms, and there are authorized representations of Deities in the temples. Thus one can practice meditating upon the Deity, concentrating his mind on the lotus feet of the Lord and gradually rising higher and higher, up to His smiling face.

SB 2.2.13, Purport:

The more one concentrates on the transcendental form of the Lord, either on the lotus feet, the calves, the thighs or the chest, the more one becomes purified. In this verse it is clearly stated, "the more the intelligence becomes purified," which means the more one becomes detached from sense gratification. Our intelligence in the present conditioned state of life is impure due to being engaged in sense gratification. The result of meditation on the transcendental form of the Lord will be manifested by one's detachment from sense gratification. Therefore, the ultimate purpose of meditation is purification of one's intelligence.

Those who are too engrossed in sense gratification cannot be allowed to participate in arcanā or to touch the transcendental form of the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu Deities. For them it is better to meditate upon the gigantic virāṭ-rūpa of the Lord, as recommended in the next verse. The impersonalists and the voidists are therefore recommended to meditate upon the universal form of the Lord, whereas the devotees are recommended to meditate on the Deity worship in the temple. Because the impersonalists and the voidists are not sufficiently purified in their spiritual activities, arcanā is not meant for them.

SB 2.2.14, Purport:

The real purpose of life is to make contact with the Lord and be engaged in His service. That is the natural position of living entities. But those who are impersonalists and are unable to render any loving service to the Lord have been advised to meditate upon His impersonal feature, the virāṭ-rūpa, or universal form. Some way or other, one must try to reestablish one's forgotten relation with the Lord if one at all desires to gain real happiness in life, and to reclaim his natural unfettered condition. For the less intelligent beginners, meditation on the impersonal feature, the virāṭ-rūpa, or universal form of the Lord, will gradually qualify one to rise to personal contact. One is advised herewith to meditate upon the virāṭ-rūpa specified in the previous chapters in order to understand how the different planets, seas, mountains, rivers, birds, beasts, human beings, demigods and all that we can conceive are but different parts and limbs of the Lord's virāṭ form. This sort of thinking is also a type of meditation on the Absolute Truth, and as soon as such meditation begins, one develops one's godly qualities, and the whole world appears to be a happy and peaceful residence for all the people of the world. Without such meditation on God, either personal or impersonal, all good qualities of the human being become covered with misconceptions regarding his constitutional position, and without such advanced knowledge, the whole world becomes a hell for the human being.

SB Canto 3

SB 3.6.4, Translation and Purport:

When the twenty-three principal elements were set in action by the will of the Supreme, the gigantic universal form, or the viśvarūpa body of the Lord, came into existence.

The virāṭ-rūpa or viśva-rūpa, the gigantic universal form of the Lord, which is very much appreciated by the impersonalist, is not an eternal form of the Lord. It is manifested by the supreme will of the Lord after the ingredients of material creation. Lord Kṛṣṇa exhibited this virāṭ or viśva-rūpa to Arjuna just to convince the impersonalists that He is the original Personality of Godhead. Kṛṣṇa exhibited the virāṭ-rūpa; it is not that Kṛṣṇa was exhibited by the virāṭ-rūpa. The virāṭ-rūpa is not, therefore, an eternal form of the Lord exhibited in the spiritual sky; it is a material manifestation of the Lord. The arcā-vigraha, or the worshipable Deity in the temple, is a similar manifestation of the Lord for the neophytes. But in spite of their material touch, such forms of the Lord as the virāṭ and arcā are all nondifferent from His eternal form as Lord Kṛṣṇa.

SB Canto 9

SB 9.23.20-21, Purport:

The majority of transcendentalists understand only the impersonal Brahman or localized Paramātmā, for the Personality of Godhead is very difficult to understand. As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā (7.3):

manuṣyāṇāṁ sahasreṣu

kaścid yatati siddhaye

yatatām api siddhānāṁ

kaścin māṁ vetti tattvataḥ

"Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth." The yogīs and jñānīs—that is, the mystic yogīs and the impersonalists—can understand the Absolute Truth as impersonal or localized, but although such realized souls are above ordinary human beings, they cannot understand how the Supreme Absolute Truth can be a person. Therefore it is said that out of many siddhas, the souls who have already realized the Absolute Truth, one may understand Kṛṣṇa, who exactly resembles a human being (narākṛti). This human form was explained by Kṛṣṇa Himself after He manifested the virāṭ-rūpa. The virāṭ-rūpa is not the original form of the Lord; the Lord's original form is Dvibhuja-śyāmasundara, Muralīdhara, the Lord with two hands, playing a flute (yaṁ śyāmasundaram acintya-guṇa-svarūpam). The Lord's forms are proof of His inconceivable qualities. Although the Lord maintains innumerable universes within the period of His breath, He is dressed with a form exactly like that of a human being. That does not mean, however, that He is a human being. This is His original form, but because He looks like a human being, those with a poor fund of knowledge consider Him an ordinary man.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- April 4, 1974, Bombay:

Girirāja: (continues synonyms to end) "Translation: Arjuna saw in that universal form unlimited mouths and unlimited eyes."

Prabhupāda: Unlimited mouths. The unlimited person. As soon as you say, "unlimited mouths," means unlimited person. That is not imperson. Even in His aneka-mūrti He is person. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā in the Second Chapter, that all we remained person in the past, we are persons at present, and we shall continue to become persons in the future. So this impersonal description of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is for the persons who do not understand what is God.

Girirāja: "It was all wondrous. The form was decorated with divine, dazzling ornaments and arrayed..."

Prabhupāda: Again personality. And where do they get the idea of impersonal, even in the virāṭ-rūpa? How do they get? What is the authority?

Chandobhai: Gopīs are personal.

Prabhupāda: No, no, everything is being described as person. So where is the question of imperson? Even in His aneka mūrti, in the virāṭ form, universal form, there are persons. At least from Bhagavad-gītā, nobody can prove that the Absolute Truth, God, is imperson. That is not possible. But still, they are doing that. That means they do not understand what is Bhagavad-gītā, although they are very much proud of regular scholar of Bhagavad-gītā. So am I right or wrong? Let us discuss.

Chandobhai: He is both personal and impersonal.

Prabhupāda: No, no, why?

Dr. Patel: You are right.

Prabhupāda: No, here it is described person. Although the virāṭ-rūpa is there... Virāṭ-rūpa is considered...

Chandobhai: Virāṭ-rūpa is personal.

Prabhupāda: Personal. So but...

Indian man: Kṛṣṇa has also declared...

Dr. Patel: For personal communication...

Indian man: Kṛṣṇa says that I am both personal, impersonal, and I am above that.

Prabhupāda: No, no. That imperson does not mean that He is not spiritually person. Impersonal means He does not become... That... This description of person, they are not these material persons.