Sri Isopanisad
Nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
Samas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine
Namo maha-vadanyaya krsna-pema-pradaya te krsnaya krsna-caitanya-namne gaura-tvise namah
Namo brahmanya-devaya go-brahmana-hitaya ca jagad-dhitaya krsnaya govindaya namo namah.
I offer my must humble obeisance unto Srila Prabhupada, Lord Caitanya, and Lord Sri Krishna.
As an instructor of Philosophy and Religious Studies to hundreds of students each year, I have found that the more I read Krishna Conscious books, the more I want to share them with the students. I have regularly given lectures on Bhagavad-Gita, Mahabharata, and Ramayana. Recently, I began working with Sri Isopanisad.in an on-line forum. What I would like to do (at least initially) in the blog is to share my comments on each section of Sri Isopanisad. In many cases, I am summarizing Srila Prabhupada’s comments for the students and trying to help them to understand the significance. As I post a different section every few days, I would be grateful for any comments that you may have. The students are very interested in the material, but their comments are limited to their experience. I would like to hear from other devotees who have a stronger knowledge of the material.
The Invocation:
This invocation discusses the completeness of the Godhead, and thereby the completeness of all things. The purport of Srila Prabhupada begins, "The Complete Whole, or Absolute Truth, is the Complete Personality of the Godhead." The Godhead is everything that is, and it may be known in 3 ways, as Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan. The Mayavadi know God only in an impersonal manner as Brahman, one of advanced understanding may know God as Paramatma, but to know God as a complete whole, one must recognize God as a person, Bhagavan. (A more complete discussion of this may be found in Bhagavad-Gita 2.2 and the first canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam).
Srila Prabhupada explains that the Supreme Personality of the Godhead (Krishna) is sac-sid-ananda-vigraha. Sat implies eternal, so the Brahman aspect of God is understood as the eternal nature of the Godhead. Realization of Paramatma is from both sat and sit, and includes understanding of the eternal and of knowledge. When sat and sit are joined with ananda, then one enjoys the genuine nature of the divine in a personal form. This is what is meant by completeness. To be complete, the Godhead must be both within and beyond our experience. This is why the Mayavadis will have an incomplete view of the Godhead since their understanding is only mental, and therefore only of what may be known, whereas the Vaisnavas will seek the Godhead as a complete whole which means moving beyond mental speculation to embrace the transcendental nature of the Absolute Truth.
Prabhupada writes that "the Complete Whole, the Personality of Godhead, has immense potencies, all of which are as complete as He is. This phenomenal world is also complete in itself." Lord Sri Krishna is that Complete Whole, the everything that is, which means that every aspect of the created world is part and parcel of that whole. The planets, stars, life forms, and so forth are part of the whole, and the actions of these material things are also part of the whole. Everything works in a particular way, which is the way designated by the Lord.
It is important to remember here that we have all lived many lives before our present one. Our function and purpose in life is to return to Godhead. The potency of the Complete Whole has brought the 8.400.000 species of life into existence. The development of ego and the allure of the material world; however, has caused many people to forget this fact. We come to believe that we are nothing more than these physical bodies, and we seek pleasure within this world through material things. As a result, we find ourselves frustrated in our inability to maintain that happiness, so we seek more and more temporary pleasure, which draws us further and further into the illusion of this material world.
But we are not these physical bodies. These physical bodies are like houses that we live in for a period of time, and then move on. The real self is Spirit; it is eternal, and part and parcel of Krishna. This should not be taken to believe that we are God, but rather that we are part of God, in the sense of an appendage. Just as my hand is part of me, but is not identical with me; I am part of Krishna, but not identical to Krishna. Still, each of us is complete as part of the Complete Whole. Our difficulty is in coming to this realization.
To aid in this realization, we must realize that our purpose in this world is not to seek pleasure in material, fleeting things, but rather to render service unto Krishna. Every action we perform should be dedicated to the service of God, and we should offer the fruits of that action also to the Lord. As Lord Sri Krishna is the supreme enjoyer, our transcendental bliss will come through the pleasing of Him
Replies
sat cit ananda vigraha, anadir adir Govinda, sarva karana karanam
The Lord's purpose and form are not different. Love and Beauty are among his qualities. We, being Him split into infinite infinitesimal complete wholes constitutionally His part-and parcels, are given our free choice options. Forced love is but slavery, so life in the spiritual world is not required, it is voluntary. The living entities, known as jivas, inherit a marginal capacity, to reside purely in the spiritual energy, or to artificially seperate to try ourselves to be the center of attention and service, like small Gods, and thus we slip into lower energies, manifest due to this artificial false ego. This is our choice, loving exchange with Godhead is voluntary, never forced.
By exercising our free wills wisely, we can occupy the spiritual worlds, where eternal bliss in full awareness is our constitutional original pure position, or we can naively choose the almost infinite material universes in which to play and enact our selfish fantasies, this being but a restricted and limiting manifestation of our own natures; rather like a dream... Trouble is, everything in the material universes is temporary, so lasting satisfaction and peace are not possible for long !
Eventually, all things must pass away here, and this is the source of suffering due to our attachment to these variegated false identities, to identifying with limited restricting bodies made of matter, that must end in due course. The material worlds are considered far inferior to the superior energies and forms of the eternal spiritual sky. The varieties of species is testament to the varied karma and desires of the many fallen jivas.
matra sparsas tu kaunteya, sitosna sukha duhka da, agama payino nityas, tams titiksasva Bharata!
"Happiness and distress in the material world, come and go like the winter and summer seasons, ..."
"But there is a superior Nature, beyond all this, oh Arjuna! ' -Sri Krsna, Bhagavada Gita As It Is. [paraphrase]
Spiritual bodies take part in the original cause of all causes, the sarva karana karanam, bodies which do not grow old or die. Thus, happiness and security and peace can actually be achieved, otherwise, not. The Originating Source includes personality, there is nothing lacking. And thus, we can perceive Govinda, the originating Person, Source of all things desirable, and appropriate originating object of our affections and loving exchanges.
With this knowledge, given to us by Godhead and His pure saints, we can conduct ourselves such as to minimize our entrapments and rise again to our lost positions, free from material birth, death, old age, and illness, reawakening our original eternal forms and identities.
This is easily done by chanting holy Names which are Absolute and non-different from the spiritual world and the Supreme Persons, Who actively assist our advancement.
Nice post, A.S. Prabhu, liberating! Please note, we do have a Sri Isopanisad class online here, and you may wish to consult it sometime to see what we have placed to date.
Jaya! Excellent article, carry on Prabhu ! pamho