Interrelation
BY: RAGHU MISHRA
Mar 11, CANADA (SUN) — Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the selfsame Lord Sri Krsna appearing as an irresistibly lovable bhakta-yogi speaking with Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya at one time, said that but for these three items — namely, eternal relation with God, exchange of dealings with Him and the attainment of love for Him — all that is instructed in the Vedas is superfluous and concocted. That declaration is of note most especially as it is found within the context of Srila Prabhupada's introduction to Srimad Bhagavatam.
Accordingly Srila Prabhupada says in his publication entitled Teachings of Lord Caitanya: "one should understand the constitutional position of the living entity, the position of the Lord, and the position of material energy in their interrelation. First of all, one should try to understand the constitutional position of the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead. That Supreme Lord has an eternal, cognizant, blissful body, and His spiritual energy is distributed as eternity, knowledge and bliss. In His blissful identity can be found His pleasure potency, and in His eternal identity He can be seen as the cause of everything. In His cognizant identity, He is the supreme knowledge. Indeed, the word krsna indicates that supreme knowledge.
In other words, the Supreme Personality, Krsna, is the reservoir of all knowledge, pleasure and eternity. The supreme knowledge of Krsna is exhibited in three different energies—internal, marginal and external. By virtue of His internal energy, He exists in Himself with His spiritual paraphernalia; by means of His marginal energy, He exhibits Himself as the living entities, and by means of His external energy He exhibits Himself as material energy. Behind each and every energetic exhibition there is the background of eternity, pleasure, potency and full cognizance."
"For the impersonalist and voidist philosophers, the next world is a world of senseless eternity and bliss. The voidist philosophers want to establish that ultimately everything is senseless, and the impersonalists want to establish that in the next world there is simply knowledge devoid of activity. Thus less intelligent salvationists try to carry imperfect knowledge into the sphere of perfect spiritual activity. Because the impersonalist experiences material activity as miserable, he wants to establish spiritual life without activity. He has no understanding of the activities of devotional service. Indeed, spiritual activity in devotional service is unintelligible to the voidist philosophers and impersonalists. The Vaisnava philosophers know perfectly well that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, can never be impersonal or void because He possesses innumerable potencies. Through His innumerable energies, He can present Himself in multiple forms and still remain the Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead. Thus despite expanding Himself in multiple forms and diffusing His innumerable energies, He can maintain His transcendental position."
"Lord Caitanya exposed many defects in the Mayavadi philosophy, and although Bhattacarya tried to establish himself by logic and word jugglery, Lord Caitanya was able to maintain Himself from his attacks. The Lord established that Vedic literature is meant for three things: understanding our relationship with the Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead, acting according to that understanding, and achieving the highest perfection of life, love of Godhead. Anyone who tries to prove that the Vedic literatures aim at anything else is of necessity a victim of his own imagination."
Jaya Srila Prabhupada!
