On the Lotus of the Heart
Q & A with Swami B. V. Tripurari
"Seeing Krishna within the heart requires eyes anointed with divine
love (prema), for wherever there is prema, God is present. The two are
one and different at the same time."
Q. How did Krishna come into existence?
A. Brahman (God) has no cause. Why must it have one? We know that the
universe has a cause, but this does not mandate that its cause must
have a cause. The scriptures say that the world comes from Brahman and
that Sri Krishna is Para Brahman--the Supreme Brahman. The scriptures
also say that Krishna is sarva karana karanam--the cause of all causes,
which makes Krishna the final word on causality.
From another perspective, existence is the result of movement. In
Vaisnavism movement is equated with shakti (divine energy). Without
Radha, the supreme shakti, there is no Krishna. Therefore it has been
said that Radha's love brought Krishna to life; her love made Brahman
dance. That love knows no reason, has no cause, is without beginning,
and has no law that governs it.
You ask how Krishna came into existence. Better to try to love him for
by doing so you will become fulfilled and thus relieved of the burden
of trying to find a reason for everything. Reason leaves off where love
begins.
Q. Could you tell me something about Sankhya philosophy; a philosophy
said by some to be atheistic and by others to be theistic?
A. The word sankhya means to count, to calculate, or discriminate. The
Sankhya darsana or philosophy/doctrine is perhaps the oldest of the six
principal darsanas of ancient India. The other schools of thought, of
which Vedanta darsana and Yoga darsana are prominent today, adopted
Sankhya's basic analysis of nature and her constituents. India's
Buddhism also embraced Sankhya's analysis of nature.
Sankhya as a stand-alone philosophy, unlike Vedanta and Yoga, does not
acknowledge isvara (God). Thus it is sometimes referred to as being
atheistic, but its atheism posits an ontological distinction between
purusa (consciousness) and prakriti (matter), and Sankhya teaches how
consciousness can be liberated from its identification with matter.
Furthermore, its doctrine is derived in part from revelation such as
the Upanisads, so it is not atheistic as we think of atheism today.
It is questionable how much essential Vedanta is dependent on the
detailed Sankhya explanation of nature. While Vedanta must embrace its
distinction between consciousness (the observer/subjective reality) and
matter (the observed/objective reality), other details of Sankhya's
analysis of nature's constituents are lacking in comparison to that of
modern science.
Q. In your commentary on Bhagavad-gita (8.26) you write that
jñana-yogis, who know Brahman, take the path of light and attain
Brahman and do not return. However, Srila Prabhupada has said that
impersonalists who attain Brahman by merging with the Supreme will
sooner or later long for love and again return to this material world.
How can we harmonize these positions?
A. This is the verse Srila Prabhupada often cites regarding falling
from Brahman:
ye 'nye 'ravindaksa vimukta-maninas
tvayy asta-bhavad
avisuddha-buddhayah
aruhya krcchrena param padam tatah
patanty adho
'nadrta-yusmad-anghrayah
"O lotus-eyed Lord! Those who proudly think that they are liberated but
do not render devotional service unto you certainly have impure
intelligence. Although they perform severe austerities and penance, and
rise up to a high spiritual position, they fall down again because they
have no respect for devotional service to your lotus feet. (SB
10.2.32-33, Srila Prabhupada's translation.)
This verse speaks of those who think they are liberated and do not
render devotional service. Their attainment--"a high spiritual
position"-- does not speak explicitly of sayujya-mukti, or impersonal
Brahman realization. But even if we take it to be speaking about
Brahman realization, its point is that without bhakti there is no
possibility of attaining complete liberation in any of its five
forms.
Krsnadasa Kaviraja explains this Bhagavatam verse to be
referring to jnanis who have no regard for bhakti but have attained
jivan mukti, liberation while still within the body. He says they fall
down. This means they never attain complete mukti, videha mukti. They
fall from an incomplete form of mukti in which their prarabdha karma is
still operative.
So the idea is that so-called liberation attained without bhakti is a
fallible position. There are, however, others who engage in bhakti
mixed with jnana. They attain their desired form of mukti--Brahman
realization--from which there is no return.
Q. Your Sanga "God Plays" contains a discussion about Paramatma, the
all-pervading Supersoul said to reside in the heart of every living
being. My question is how literally should we take the idea of
Paramatma in the heart? Is there actually an infinitesimal form of
Narayana sitting there within everyone's heart? Does this idea apply to
the jiva (individual soul) merged in Brahman after attaining
sayujiya-mukti?
A. The idea that the Paramatma (Ksirodaksayi Visnu) is actually sitting
in the small space of the heart of every jiva need not be taken
literally. Neither does the jivatma literally have a heart. Of course
Paramatma (God) is always with us as he is all-pervasive in knowledge
and thus present within everyone in terms of awareness of all their
thoughts and deeds. Baladeva Vidyabhusana comments in his Govinda
Bhasya that the contradictory statements about God being all
pervasive/infinite and localized/infinitesimal in the heart of the jiva
are to be harmonized by the idea that the localized/infinitesimal sense
of the all-pervading Paramatma is spoken of merely for the sake of
conceptualization in sadhana or meditation. When one meditates on God
being the soul of one's own soul or the knower of one's own heart and
witness of all one does, one is encouraged to conceive of him as
four-armed, the size of one's thumb, residing on the lotus of one's
heart, and so on.
Sri Balaveva Vidyabhusana also writes that aside from this figurative
sense in which the Godhead is within the heart of the jiva, out of
affection God may appear to his devotees in different forms as their
ista-deva, such as Rama or Krsna, within their hearts. Sri
Brahma-samhita mentions that God is literally experienced in his
devotees' hearts on the basis of their mutual love for one another and
by the power of God's inconceivable potency, premanjana churita bhakti
vilocanena santa sadiava hrdayesu vilokayanti yam saymasundaram
actintya gunua svarupam. As this verse says, seeing
Krishna-Syamasundara within the heart requires eyes anointed with
divine love (prema), for wherever there is prema, God is present. The
two are one and different at the same time.
With regard to jivas that have attained sayujya mukti, or Brahman
realization, God is present in their hearts in terms of his being fully
aware of their liberated status in Brahman, a status they cannot attain
without his grace. Note that according to Gaudiya siddhanta, the jiva
is eternally an individual atomic particle of consciousness even when
apparently merged in Brahman. Indeed, in rare cases owing to the mercy
of the Godhead, it is said that such souls can leave their Brahman
realized status and attain a place in God's lila. They can be blessed,
that is, with bhakti. Thus in sayujya mukti they are not off the radar
of the Supreme Soul, Paramatma, who knows their hearts. Indeed,
Sukadeva Goswami was absorbed in Brahman and yet by God's grace he was
drawn to the post-liberated status of bhakti. As Sri Krishna says in
Bhagavad-gita about those in brahma-bhuta (transcendence), mad bhaktim
labhate param--they attain pure devotional service to me.
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