Omniscience is of Varying Qualities
BY: TAMOHARADASA (ACBSP)
Mar 27, MONTREAL, CANADA (SUN) — Dear Asamordhva Prabhu, PAMHO. AGTSP! Your recent reply to the article posted on the Sampradaya Sun entitled, "Omniscient Dealings" is appreciated, however, it appears to me that you do not recall it well, especially as you did not know the name of the author, and you may have missed my thesis.
Nonetheless, the point was that omniscience is of varying qualities, not whether it exists or not, as I am one who takes it as a given. There are incidents of this described in our literature. Your quote further backs this up, that omniscience among jivas is there, although there are those who argue that it does NOT exist. However, there is no mention in your quote of any further detail. My point is that there are varying qualities or degrees of this omniscience. If you can find definitive sastric quotes, or the words of Srila Prabhupada to back this up, that would be nice.
My argument is based on similarities to other descriptions of the Godhead, as well as practical logic. Just as to say that one is self-realized, well, there are varying degrees of this, like Brahman, Paramatma, or Bhagavan self-realization. These are all categories of self realization, but some are more equal than others! Similarly, there are varying degrees of energies of living entities, just like jiva, Siva, Visnu tattvas. Thus, in Sri Nityananda Prabhu's dealings, from Isvara's translation of Nityananda Caritamrta of Vrndavana Dasa Thakura, omniscience is possibly a quantified state, just exactly as needed for the time and place of service.
The degree of omniscience experienced by the empowered devotees is as according to the Lord's will at any given time, in exact measure as required for the lila-specific needs, and of course as according to the capacities of the (surrendered) jiva soul category, period. Thus, referring to Lord Nityananda's preaching lila and needs, the empowered devotees were aware of the hearts of individual devotees for the sake of delivering them, but were not aware of millions of molecules bumping in exact measure in literally millions and millions of other universes, which is what is normally thought of as the fact, when we speak of non-qualified omniscience. Omniscience meaning, total awareness of all things. This total awareness of all things would be quite useless, if you consider it, as it does not enhance the Lords purposes for the lila and might well be beyond the jiva's capacity for information storage, anyway.
After all, if a jiva knows everything then she is as good as God. In fact, even Krsna Himself is sometimes covered by Paurnmasi Devi, Yogamaya, for the sake of enjoyment. Even the Lord does not know Himself fully, as He is ever expanding. This enables ever-increasing bliss and love. For a jiva to have the same exact capacity begs the categorization as minute part and parcel. We are not like the Mayavadis, who imply this equalty with Godhead in their belief systems.
I hope this is helpful. I am aware of certain parties suggesting that our Srila Prabhupada was omniscient, and therefore must take responsibility for failing to stop child abuse within our ranks. But I say that his omniscience is dictated in particulars by the will of the Godhead, such that only if the Lord willed would he be necessarily aware of all this. Meanwhile, he clearly displayed specific or quantified omniscience, just like that experienced by Sri Nityananada Prabhu's associates in the specific lila pastime. To my best knowledge, he also displays a now-expanded omniscience in terms of more recent miraculous appearances within dreams, healings, etc., as well as within the siksa of his fixed disciples, as necessary, by grace of Krsna. Hare Krsna
