Some may
question Brahman’s capacity to be simultaneously the efficient and the material
cause of creation on the basis of the diversity of attributes required to
perform all the different creative functions and the display of all
metamorphosis that the elements go through, while the spiritual nature is said
to be immutable, constant, etc. Here lies one of the distinctive attributes of
God: His capacity to remain eternality unchanged although manifesting unlimited
spiritual and material creations, a feature that is absent in any material
element, in any jīva, and in prakṛti or pradhāna. In other words, Lord Kṛṣṇa is
not subject to any of the material, logical limitations that condition
everything in this world. The following quotations substantiate His supreme
inconceivable powers. In the śruti it is said:
bṛhac ca tad divyam
acintya-rūpaṁ sūkṣmāc ca tat sūkṣmataraṁ vibhāti
dūrāt sudūre tad
ihānti ke ca paśyatsv ihaiva nihitaṁ guhāyām
(Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad,
3.1.7; Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
"The great, divine Supreme Lord shines
forth, being smaller than the smallest and endowed with an inconceivable form
and. He is farther than the farthest but is also very near for those who can
see Him, for He is indeed situated within everyone’s heart.”
Lord Brahmā explains:
tam ekaṁ govindaṁ
sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaṁ paṣca-padaṁ vṛndāvana-sura-bhūruha-talāsīnaṁ satataṁ
sa-marud-gaṇo ‘ham paramayā stutyā toṣayāmi (Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad, 1.38;
Govinda-bhāṣya, 3.3.62)
"With excellent prayers, I and the Maruts
constantly propitiate Govinda, Whose form consists of eternity, knowledge and
bliss, Who is sitting under a desire tree in Vṛndāvana, and who is this
five-word mantra."
barhāpīḍābhirāmāya rāmāyākuṇṭha-medhase,
veṇu-vādana-śīlāya, lola-kuṇḍala-valgave, vallavī-nayanāmbhoja-māline nṛtya-śāline,
namaḥ praṇata-pālāya śrī-kṛṣṇāya namo namaḥ, niṣkalāya vimohāya
śuddhāyāśuddhi-vairiṇe, namaḥ kamala-netrāya namaḥ kamala-māline, namaḥ kamala-nābhāya
kamalā-pataye namaḥ, ramā-mānasa-haṁsāya govindāya namo namaḥ
(Ibid., 42, 44-45,
47, 41, 42; Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
“Obeisances unto the charming Lord Who is
beautifully decorated with a peacock feather on His head, is endowed with sharp
intellect, and is fond of playing the flute; Who looks attractive with His
swinging earrings, Who is encircled by the lotus eyes of the cowherd damsels,
and Who is expert in dancing. Obeisances unto Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the protector of those
Who bow to Him, Who wears a golden necklace, Who is beyond the illusory energy,
and Who is pure and hostile to impurity. Obeisances unto the lotus-eyed
Govinda, Who wears a garland of lotus flowers, Whose navel is like a lotus
flower, Who is the husband of the Goddess of Fortune, and Who is like a swan in
the lake of Her heart.”
This proves that the Lord’s body
is divine and transcendental, distinct from that of any other living entity,
and therefore beyond all the physical laws.
eko vaśī sarvagaḥ kṛṣṇa
īḍya eko ‘pi san bahudhā yo ‘vabhāti
(Ibid., 1.23;
Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.3.44)
“Kṛṣṇa is the only all-pervasive and
worshipable Supreme Lord. Although one, He appears as many.”
amātro’nanta-mātraś
ca dvaitasyopaśamaḥ śivaḥ
oṁkāro vidito yena sa
munir netaro janaḥ
(Māṇḍūkya-upaniṣad,
1.29; Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
“One who knows that this
auspicious syllable Oṁ, the Supreme, is the cessation of duality, has no parts
and yet has unlimited parts— such a person is wise, and no one else.”
This demonstrates that the Lord,
although one and the same, can manifest Himself in unlimited expansions and
still remain the same undivided Supreme Spirit.
It is further stated:
āsīno dūraṁ vrajati
śayāno yāti sarvataḥ
(Kaṭhopaniṣad,
1.2.21; Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
“Although sitting, He goes very
far, and although lying down, He goes everywhere.”
That means, He can simultaneously
be situated in a single place as well as in many places, be lying down and at
the same time move. This evinces that He can be specifically within the
parameters of physical space and beyond it simultaneously, being measurable and
immeasurable according to His supreme will.
viśvataś-cakṣur uta
viśvato-mukho viśvato-bāhur uta viśvatas-pāt
saṁ bāhubhyāṁ dhamati
saṁ patatrair dyāv ābhūmī janayan deva ekaḥ
(Ibid., 4.17;
Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
“The Supreme Lord is only one.
Yet His eyes, faces, arms, and feet are everywhere. Upon creating heaven and
earth, He instigates all beings as if blowing fire with fans in His two hands.”
eṣa devo viśva-karmā
mahātmā sadā janānāṁ hṛdaye sanniviṣṭaḥ
hṛdā manīṣā
manasābhikḷpto ya etad vidur amṛtās te bhavanti
(Ibid., 4.17;
Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
“God is the creator of everything, the Supreme
Soul situated within the hearts of all beings. He becomes manifest through
absorption in one’s heart, intellect, and mind. Those who know this become
liberated.”
sa viśva-kṛd
viśva-vid ātma-yoniḥ jñaḥ kālākāro guṇī sarva-vid yaḥ
pradhāna-kṣetrajña-patir
guṇeśaḥ saṁsāra-mokṣa-sthiti-bandha-hetuḥ
(Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad,
6.16; Govinda-bhāṣya, Introduction)
“The Supreme Soul is the creator of the
universe. He is omniscient, the source of Himself, the supreme knower, the
controller of time, omniscient, and replete with all transcendental qualities.
He is the Lord of the material modes and the ruler of material nature and the
living entities. He is the cause of the jīvas’ bondage, permanence within the
cycle of birth and death, and liberation from it.”
He is the Supersoul, the master
of all transcendental qualities, and He is the master of this cosmic
manifestation in regard to bondage to the conditional state of material
existence and liberation from that bondage.”
niṣkalaṁ niṣkriyaṁ
śāntaṁ niravadyaṁ nirañjanam
amṛtasya paraṁ setuṁ
dagdhendhanam ivānalam
(Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad,
6.19; Govinda-bhāṣya, 2.1.27)
“The peaceful Supreme has no parts, no
actions, no defects, and no blemishes. He is like a bridge to immortality, a
fire that blazes even after the fuel is burnt.”
All these statements corroborate
Lord Govinda’s inconceivable potency with which He creates, maintains and
destroys all the material universes while His Own nature remains totally
unaffected. Therefore, the Kūrma Purāṇa establishes the principle below in
order to look through the Lord’s puzzling attributes :
asthūlaś cānaṇuś
caiva sthūlo ‘ṇuś caiva sarvataḥ
avarṇaḥ sarvataḥ
proktaḥ śyāmo raktākta-locanaḥ
aiśvarya-yogād
bhagavān viruddhārtho ‘bhidhīyate
tathāpi doṣāḥ parame
naivāhāryāḥ kathañcana
guṇā viruddhā apy ete
samāhāryāḥ samantataḥ
"By dint of His inconceivable potencies,
the Supreme Lord is said to possess contrary attributes, such as being
thoroughly solid and yet not solid, thoroughly immense and yet small,
thoroughly devoid of color and yet dark-complexioned and having reddish eyes.
Nevertheless, the defects cannot at all be present in the Supreme Lord, while
good qualities, despite opposite to one another, accrue within Him all
around."
God being one, it might be
expected that when He manifests Himself, He does so in the same way. The
Brahma-sutrās (3.2.35), however, explain that God is free to manifest Himself
in unlimited ways according to the situation and the devotee, just as the same
light appears distinct when reflected in walls carved with gems. Vidyābhūṣaṇa
also gives the example of sound, which
even being of the same pitch, has a different timber according to the
instrument played, and that too might vary in speed and intensity. Similarly,
Lord Kṛṣṇa and His avatāras display Their pastimes in a way just suitable to
all the circumstances involved. For example, it would be incompatible for Him
to appear in a form predominantly in the mood of the Vaikuṇṭha opulence
(aiśvarya) for a devotee in the mood of the Vrajavāsīs’ spontaneous conjugal
love (mādhurya), as when He showed His Nārāyaṇa form to the gopīs when they
were roaming through the forest looking for Govinda. It would also not be fair
for Him to display a huge form like Kūrma on this tiny earth planet or a form
like Nṛsiṁhadeva to devotees who feel parental loving devotion for Him.
The Brahma-sūtras (3.3.10)
explain:
vyāpteś ca samañjasam
“And because the Supreme Lord is
all-pervading, meditation on His different features in childhood, youth, and so
on, is appropriate.”
The purport is that the Supreme
Lord’s form can have infinite modalities, and each of them is unique. A devotee
may choose any of them to worship or meditate, and there will never be any
difference from the ontological point of view. Those forms vary according to
His own will, never due to any material factor, and for this reason, one should
not think that when the Lord plays as a human being He is also going through
the same influence of time and nature. For example, when Lord Kṛṣṇa displays
pastimes in different stages as childhood (kaumāra), boyhood (paugaṇḍa), and
youth (kaiśora), He shifts His external appearance by the power of His mystic
yoga, never by the regular process of aging to which all the living beings are
subject.
An objection might be raised: “If the Lord’s
manifestations in His pastimes are eternal, then we have to imply that every
one of those devotees that take part in each activity, and each activity as
well, must also be eternal. In this case, we have an inconsistent picture, for
we see a sequence of activities performed both by the Lord and His devotees,
and each of them has a particular beginning and end, otherwise there would be
no diversity of activities at all. However, this contradicts the definition of
eternal. Moreover, there is a constant change of devotees who take part in
every pastime. Therefore, how can the Lord’s activities be called eternal at
all?” This is another example of improper material reasoning applied to God.
Lord Kṛṣṇa, His activities and His associates have nothing to do with the
influence of kāla, time, for in the transcendental platform there is another
frame of time that is distinct from the one predominant in this world. The
śāstras also describe the Lord as comprising all frames of time within Himself:
yad bhūtaṁ bhavac ca
bhaviṣyac ca (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad, 3.8.3)
“Past, present, and future are
situated within the Supreme Lord.”
Although there may be a
continuous succession of events and interactions in the Lord’s pastimes, they
are essentially all of the same spiritual nature, and therefore not subject to the abovementioned arguments. Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself qualifies His own
activities in this way:
janma karma ca me
divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar
janma naiti mām eti so ‘rjuna
(Bhagavad-gītā, 4.9)
“One who knows the transcendental
nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take
his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.
This evinces how His pastimes are
of a divine (divyam) nature, and by definition must be eternal. The non-eternal
activities of the Lord are manifested through the agency of prakṛti and kāla,
which produce all movable and non-movable things within the material universe.
These are prone to be destroyed by those very agents, but the Lord’s pastimes
are totally beyond their influence. By the agency of the Lord’s internal
potency, His pastimes appear to be within a time frame and thus we can speak of
His appearance and disappearance.
In this way, even in the minor details, every
manifestation of God is a very detailed organized spiritual affair in which His
yogamāyā makes all the arrangements so that He can apparently fit in the
parameters of this relative world. Vidyābhūṣaṇa further points out that the motivator factor that impels the
Lord to act in a particular way is essentially the feelings of His devotees
towards Him, which surcharge the Lord with that same mood. Thus, the displays
of God are a dynamic emotional exchange between Him and His devotees.
