Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a revered sage and educator, has devoted his life to teaching about the Divine nature and personification of God. His insights offer a profound understanding of Divine manifestations. Reflecting his teachings, the speech elaborates on the personified form of Krishna as the epitome of Divine love and power, illustrating how Krishna transcends the constraints of time and space to embody the highest spiritual reality.
Namaste, the Blessed Souls!
In the last meeting, we heard about the personality of the Godhead. I explained, according to the experiences of Saints, their writings, and various scriptures, that the personality of the Godhead is Divine, and that Divine personality can in no way be compared with any of the material existence we see. One very important factor is that this world is conditioned to space and time. If you keep this in mind, it will be very easy to understand and accept the truth of Divine personification.
Everything on this Earth and every happening is related to a particular time and happening at a particular space. Suppose you are sitting here or sitting in that corner of the room. When? Now. Now is a time and place, space and time are conditions. You cannot go beyond this. So, all material personifications are spot-existent, and Divine personification is beyond the conditions of time and space, so it is not spot-existent, it is omnipresent.
Spot existence is the character of mayic (material) bodies, and omnipresence is the character of Divine bodies. Omnipresence can be any form of God because He is divine. If we keep this in mind, it’s very easy to believe and understand. How omnipresence happens or occurs is beyond our imagination. Even the significance of omnipresence is very difficult, almost impossible, to comprehend.
For instance, consider Bhagwan Krishnaor Bhagwan Ram. The Gopis are seeing Bhagwan Krishna. Tulsi Das is visualizing the whole world as Bhagwan Ram.
“Siya Ram men sab jag jani
karahu pranamjori jug pani.”
Hanuman Ji, the greatest devotee of Bhagwan Ram, said, “Oh, the whole world as Bhagwan Ram!”When you see Bhagwan Ram or Bhagwan Krishna, He is everywhere. Everywhere means what? Suppose you are seeing Krishna everywhere in this room. Krishna is standing very close, side by side, but there’s some a gap. If two people stand very close, there are curves of the body so there could be a little gap, but it cannot be omnipresent.
So, the significance of omnipresence is beyond understanding because there is nothing which is omnipresent on this Earth. No form is omnipresent. We have to accept it because that omnipresence is seen with the eyes of Gopis who have Divine eyes. Divine omnipresence is seen with Divine eyes. Material eyes see the material, and spot existent things.
God has a personality of His own: an absolute, Divine, glorious, all-blissful personality. That is good for us. You see, your soul is aching for companionship, to find a companion. You feel lonely. Why? Because there’s no companion, no friend, no one to love. You always want to be loved and to love. But how could you get or give? You must have a companion.
So, God has a personification, meaning He’s very good for us. We have a Divine companion, and a Divine companion will never leave us. He will always be with us.
The topic for today is the personification or the personified form of Krishna. God is a Divine personality, but we see in our scriptures that there are quite a few names referred to as God. For instance, we hear of Shiva a lot—Shankar Bhagwan. We hear of Durga or Vishnu a lot— Durga Mata, Bhagwan Vishnu. These are names of God personified.
If They are all absolutely the same, I’m saying if, then there remains no need for various forms. It shows there is some difference. Say, for instance, you are casually sitting in your house. You just want to go out to buy milk or get something done; you just put on some nice shirt and go out. Why did you do it? Just go like this, half-naked. “Oh no, it’s indecent!” It’s incident outside, but decent inside. Inside was decent; you can sit anywhere you like. But outside, it looks indecentJust putting on a shirt also has a reason. What I mean to say is a slight difference in your physical appearance also has a reason. If you are going to an evening party, you don’t go direct from your office.“Oh, it’s not good!” You come home, take a shower, shave, and put on a nice fancy suit or anything, then you go to the party. Why don’t you go from your office? It doesn’t look good. So, you are you, but according to the place and situation, you keep changing your appearance. Just take this kind of example.
All those Divine appearances of God must have a reason, and there is a reason. God is one, only one—not two or three. Just one God, one Supreme God, has all these appearances. He appears as Shiva; He appears as Vishnu; He appears as Kali; He appears as Durga. All these forms—what are these? Just for various requirements and various needs. According to our scriptures, the Godhead personality has many kinds of powers.
All of those powers have a form, and power means that power signifies something. There are three main types: Sad, chid, anand andsandhini, samvit, ahladini.
Sandhini power of Godhead personality, samvit power of Godhead personality, and ahladini power of Godhead personality. Sandhini you can say is almightiness in English, samvit is knowledge, and ahladini you can say is Divine love. So sandhini means almighty, and ahladini means Divine love. These two are main powers: almighty and Divine love. There are quite a few kinds of Divine love powers and quite a few kinds of almighty powers, but these two are main groups.
Let’s take the first: almighty power. When the same Godhead personality appears as an almighty power, He has many forms. All the names we hear—Shankar, Vishnu, and their Goddesses, Shiva’s Goddess, Gauri, Kali, Mahavishnu, Goddess, Lakshmi, Bhu Devi, also Saraswati who is Brahma’s power —are all forms of almighty power. They are Divine God and Godesses.
All of these Gods and Goddesses are almighty forms, and their abode is called Vaikunth. Vaikunth abode is the almightiness of God with all the almightiness. All of these – Shiv, Vishnu, Durga, Kali – have Their own abode. They’re all related to almightiness and related also to bliss. These are the forms we mostly know.
Now comes the form of Bhagwan Ram, Dwarakadish, Shree Krishna, Vrindaban Bihari Shree Krishna. These are the four main forms of Krishna. Again, Bhagwan Ram, Dwarakadish, when Krishna was in Dwarika, and when Krishna was in Braj, and when Krishna was in Vrindaban. So, these are all the four forms of Krishna. They are all forms of Divine love. Divine love form as Bhagavan Ram, Krishna as Dwarakadish, Krishna as Brajadish, when He was playing with all His playmates and Gopis and Gwalbals, and Krishna when He’s one with Radha and all the Gopis, loving Their Divine beloveds Radha Krishna in Divine Vrindaban: so, Krishna as Divine Vrindaban, Krishna of Golok, Krishna of Dwarika and another form of Krishna as Bhagwan Ram of Saket lok. These four forms are all forms of Divine love. So, there are many forms of almighty power and these four forms of Divine love power. Godhead personality represents Himself through these powers.
Take another example from this material world: you go to a sweet shop and you want some sweet. Everything in the shop is sweet. On the counter there are forty or fifty kinds of sweets: expensive, less expensive, ordinary, very expensive, but they are all sweet. So, with the word sweet you can understand any form. There are many kinds of Indian sweets: rasgulla, gulabjaman, jalebi, laddu, barfi, mohanthal!! By a particular name you signify that particular sweet.
Just the word sweet is abstract. Just like the word color. What is color? Could be blue or red or green, so just the word color is abstract. Just the word sweet is abstract or just the word perfume is abstract. It has to be the specific name of that perfume or specific name of that sweet or color of that color. So is the word God. God is like an abstract word like color or perfume or sweet. So, you don’t understand anything from the word God. You have to say ‘Ram God’ or ‘Krishna God’ or ‘Vishnu God’ or ‘Durga Goddess’ or ‘Shiva God’ or ‘Vrindaban Bihari’. When you take that name then your God then you know.
Come back to the same sweet shop; everything is sweet but why are they not same shape, design, and value? It is because their value differs – lower value or higher value. Why? Because they have different, nice flavor or different kind of sweetness – not very sweet or not very mild. Just right for you. All are sweet, but the quality of sweetness differs. Same with perfume; those things make them special.
Although it is not exactly the same in the Divine world, but we have to guess something from this example. Although everything in the Divine world is blissful but there are classes of blissfulness. So, there are two categories: the almighty blissfulness and the Divine love blissfulness. Almighty blissfulness is of only one kind. You see the vision of Durga or Vishnu or Shankar or Ganesh or Anyone but the blissfulness of Vaikunth is of only one kind. The forms are quite a few but the blissfulness is of one kind because it is the one almighty power.
In the other Divine love power it has higher and higher intensity of blissfulness starting from Saket lok(abode) and ending in Divine Vrindaban. This is a very subtle, Divine secret – the almighty power and the Divine love power, although Divine love power is dominating because all the powers cannot be fully independent. One has to be Supreme and others have to be subordinate, otherwise there wouldn’t be many Gods. So, God is one. The Supreme power is Divine love. Under Divine love power is sandhini power. So wherever there’s a little mixture of sandhini and Divine love power, the blissfulness of Divine love varies…these are the subtle differences.
So, the blissfulness of Dwarika abode is better than Saket abode of Bhagwan Ram. The blissfulness of Golok abode of Krishna is better than Dwarika abode of Bhagwan Krishna. The blissfulness of Divine Vrindaban abode is Supreme as compared to any of these three – Golok, Dwarika and Saket. Although all of these are the form of Divine love, but in Divine Vrindaban the almightiness of God is completely subsided. So, there’s a complete exposition of Divine love. In Saket there is some expression of almightiness and for that reason the Divine love power to that extent remains submerged. These are subtle differences. So, the Supreme power of Divine love is seen in full glory in Divine Vrindaban where the power of almightiness is fully subsided.
The scriptures say that although all the descensions of God are complete, Shree Krishna’s descension was more than complete. Krishna was the Supreme form of the Godhead personality who appeared on this Earth. So that Bhagwan when He is in Vrindaban abode, the power of love which is Supreme, is in its full magnificence, charm and beauty like a fully bloomed lotus flower. A half-bloom lotus flower does have charm but not that much and a closed lotus bud has some charm but no perfume. It is the same flower, but fully bloomed lotus flower has the full charm. The full glory of Divine love power is seen in Divine Vrindaban.
So, when Godhead personality represents this full bloom power of Divine love, He is Krishna. The word Krishna is not a given name. In Sanskrit Krishna word means the all-blissful, full-bloomed Divine power, the perfect glory of Divine power, the all-charm of Divine power, and the perfect beauty of Divine power. Wherever it is seen, that is Krishna. So, the word Krishna means all charming, all blissful, all glorious form of God. This is the meaning of the word Krishna!
So, Bhagwatam says that Krishna is the Supreme form of the personality of the Godhead because Krishna represents the Supreme power. Krishna is the Supreme power and because Divine love power governs all other powers, Krishna governs all other divine powers of Himself. Krishna’s personality is also expanded as Shiva and Vishnu, but Krishna is the Supreme Divine love power.
That Krishna of Divine Vrindaban governs all other Divine abodes and powers. He has many forms, such as in the Mahabharat teaching Arjun the Gita. He’s seen in Dwarika. He is seen in Mathura. He is seen in Braj, but it is the Krishna of Divine Vrindaban who rules all other forms and abodes of the Divine world.
How do some devotees, when they adore the Krishna of Divine Vrindaban, receive His grace? I will explain this tomorrow.