BY: SUN STAFF
Apr 3, CANADA (SUN) —
Bhagavat Sandarbha
by Srila Jiva Goswami
SECTION FIFTY-SIX
Krishna's Form is the Supreme Object of attainment.
Exclusively with this intent Sri Suka said (10.14.55):
"You should know Krishna to be the original soul of all living entities. For the benefit of the whole universe, He has, out of His causeless mercy, appeared as an ordinary human being. He has done this by the strength of His internal potency."
'This' (enam) refers to the form explained in previous verses like 10.14.1, beginning with naumidya te:
"Lord Brahma said: My dear Lord, You are the only worshipable Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore I offer my humble obeisances and prayers just to please You. O son of the king of the cowherds, Your transcendental body is dark blue like a new cloud, Your garment is brilliant like lightning, and the beauty of Your face is enhanced by Your gunja earrings and the peacock feather on Your head. Wearing garlands of various forest flowers and leaves, and equipped with a herding stick, a buffalo horn and a flute, You stand beautifully with a morsel of food in Your hand."
The word avehi, (know, in 10.14.55) means: experience the form of the Lord only by the knowledge resulting from Sri Suka's mercy and do not deliberate by logic. Although Krishna is such, still by His mercy, mayaya, He acts like an embodied person just to attract everyone's heart towards Him for their benefit. The word "like" (iva) implies Lord Krishna has not entered into a separate body like an ordinary living entity. Therefore, Sri Dhruva Maharaja establishes the form of the Lord as the Supreme object of achievement (parama-purushartha 4.9.17):
"O Supreme Lord! Those who regularly worship Your form, considering it the supreme goal of attainment, Your lotus feet, and not the objects of material gratification, are the supreme blessing for them.
Sridhara Swami comments: O Lord ! the ultimate goal of achievement is supreme bliss. Your form is that supreme bliss. The ultimate fruit is the blessing of attaining Your lotus feet and is superior to blessings in the form of receiving a kingdom and so on. For whom? Those who regularly worship You without any tinge of material desires considering You as the Supreme goal. This is the end of his comment.
COMMENTARY
Lord Krishna's form is supremely transcendental and the topmost object of love. Everyone in this material world, knowingly or unknowingly, is searching for love. Because Krishna is the Supreme object of love He s the supreme object of achievement. This was wonderfully demonstrated in Brahma Mohana lila. When Brahma stole the calves and cowherd boys, Lord Krishna expanded Himself to perfectly replace each and every one of them (S.B. 10.13.19):
"By His Vasudeva feature, Krishna simultaneously expanded Himself into the exact number of missing cowherd boys and calves, with their exact bodily features, their particular types of hands, legs and other limbs, their sticks, bugles and flutes, their lunch bags, their particular types of dress and ornaments placed in various ways, their names, ages, and forms and their special activities and characteristics. By expanding Himself in this way, beautiful Krishna proved the statement samagra-jagad vishnumayam: Lord Vishnu is all-pervading."
The love the older gopis and the cows had for the expansions of Krishna posing as their offspring increased in intensity. The gopis now loved their sons exactly as they loved Krishna, though they were not aware that Lord Krishna had expanded Himself as their sons. Their love increased day by day (S.B. 10.13.26):
"Although the inhabitants of Vrajabhumi, the cowherd men and women, previously had more affection for Krishna than for their own children, now, for one year, their affection for their own sons continually increased, for Krishna had now become their sons. There was no limit to the increase of their affection for their sons, who were now Krishna. Every day they found new inspiration for loving their children as much as they loved Krishna."
Even Lord Balarama was astonished at this though he was not aware of the actual situation since he was absent on the day Brahma stole the calves and cowherd boys. Upon hearing this King Parikshita asked (S.B. 10.14.49):
"O brahmana how could the cowherd women have developed for Krishna, someone else's son, such unprecedented pure love--love they never felt even for their own children? Please explain this."
In response Sukadeva Gosvami recited seven verses. First he explained that everyone loves himself and loves other objects, because they are pleasing to one's self. Materialistic people love their own body because they mistake it for the self. They do not love anything else to the degree they love their own bodies. This is confirmed by Yajnvalkaya while instructing Maitreyi (Brihad aranyaka Upanishad 4.5.6):
"It is not for the sake of the husband, my dear, that he is loved, but for one's own sake that he is loved."
Because materialistic people superimpose the self onto the body they imagine it to be immortal. Even when the body gets old and withered they do not want to give it up. This shows that everyone in general loves their body more than anything else and they love other things in relation to the body. Vidura advised Dhritarashtra to disown Duryodhana to protect himself from such illusion of bodily attachment (M.B. Udyoga Parva 37.17):
"A family member can be sacrificed to save the family; one can abandon the family for the welfare of the village. The village can be given up for the sake of the district, and one can abandon the whole earth for the sake of the self."
In this way, considering the self as the topmost object of attachment, Sukadeva Gosvami spoke the verse under discussion (S.B. 10.14.55). He says that Lord Krishna is the soul of the soul. The meaning is that Lord Krishna is the source of the soul which is the object of love and thus he is the topmost object of love. The living entity is part and parcel of Krishna as He declares in Bhagavad-gita (15.7):
"The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind."
Krishna is like the sun and the atomic living entity is compared to a sun-ray. As one loves everything in relation to the self, the self-realized devotees love Krishna more than the self. Lord Vishnu instructed Lord Brahma in this regard at the beginning of creation (S.B. 3.9.42):
"O Brahma I am the soul of every ones soul and I am the dearest object among all objects of love such as wife and children. The body and its expansions are dear only due to Me. Therefore only I should be loved."
The residents of Vraja have natural love for Krishna. They loved Him more than their very selves as instructed in the above verse. And thus when Lord Krishna came in the form of their sons they naturally loved them just as they loved Krishna. Their love for Krishna was certainly superior to their love for their offspring. Indeed such was the case even with the cows. The Gopis and cows did not know that Krishna has come as their child, yet their love increased. This is because their love for Krishna is causeless, unobstructed. This is the epitome of uttama bhakti. The great soul Uddhava was struck with wonder when he saw the love the gopis have for Krishna. He glorified them in the following manner (S.B. 10.47.58):
(Uddhava sang:) "Among all persons on earth, these cowherd women alone have actually perfected their embodied lives, for they have achieved the perfection of unalloyed love for Lord Govinda. Their pure love is hankered after by those who fear material existence, by great sages, and by ourselves as well. For one who has tasted the narrations of the infinite Lord, what is the use of taking birth as a high-class brahmana, or even as Lord Brahma himself?"
The word enam (this) in verse (S.B. 10.14.55) refers to Lord Krishna, the son of Nanda Maharaja, one who was seen by Brahma. Krishna manifests His supreme beauty and sweetness in Vraja. Sukadeva Gosvami is blessing Parikshit Maharaja to realize the Krishna seen by Brahma. While in the womb Parikshit Maharaja saw the four-handed form of Krishna. Now, by the mercy of his spiritual master, he is able to see the most beautiful form of Krishna. Indirectly he is blessing any serious student of the Bhagavatam to have this vision of Krishna.
While commenting on this verse, Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says that one loves his son because of bodily attachment and he loves the body because of the Supersoul, who is Krishna. Krishna is the complete whole and He expands Himself as the Supersoul (B.g. 10.42) vishtbhyahamidam kritsnamekamsena sthitojagat--"I exist pervading this entire universe by a portion of Myself."
Therefore Krishna is the highest limit of Love. He further writes that the residents of Vraja are completely free from Maya and are full of devotion, therefore they naturally have this realization of Krishna. By their very nature they love Krishna more then their own offspring. According to Srila Vishvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, naturally means they do not have to be aware of Krishna as the Supreme Lord or even as Krishna.
Although Lord Krishna is such, he appears like an embodied being. His purpose is to attract the minds of the conditioned souls by performing beautiful pastimes. One should not think however, that He has a material body because He sometimes appears hungry and eats like an ordinary boy with His friends. The word iva "like" is important in this verse. It means He is like an embodied being but is not actually one. According to Vedic logicians "similarity" is defined as--tad bhinnatve sati tadgata-bhuyo dharmavattvam sadrisyattvam--an object which is different form the other, but depicts many of its qualities is called similar. The similarity between the Lord and an ordinary boy is that He acts like one. The word dehi (lit. one who possesses a body) does not mean that He is different form His body as is the case of a normal embodied soul or dehi. It is a figurative usage by the ahikundal nyaya--or assuming a difference when it does not exist. Just as there is no difference between a snake and its coiled shape but one may say 'the coil of a snake" which simply means a coiled snake.
Thus the Lord Krishna's body is non-different from Him and is the Supreme parama-purusartha. Sri Dhruva Maharaja recognized it that way as he called the Lord purusartha-murti, or the personification of the goal of life.
Although to begin with he had some material goal to achieve but after seeing the Lord face to face he realized that service to the Lord is the best goal. When Lord blessed him to rule the whole world he was not pleased because he did regard the kingdom as worth attaining.
In the following Text Srila Jiva Gosvami says that Brahman described in the Vedic literature is also the body of the Lord.
Go to Section Fifty-seven
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