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KRISHNA THE SUPREME PERSONALITY:
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In the Atharva Veda, the Gopala-tapani Upanisad 1.1,directly declares Krishna the Supreme Personality of Godhead, sac-cid-ananda-rupaya krsnaya, “I offer my obeisances unto Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is the eternal blissful form of knowledge” and the same Upanisad states, Tam ekam Govinda, “You are Govinda, the pleasure of the senses and the cows.” The statement of Gopala-tapani Upanisad declares Krishna to be Sac-cid-ananda-vigraham, “Possessing a transcendental form full of knowledge, bliss, and eternity” (1.35) is confirmed in the Brahma-samhita, isvarah paramah Krishna, sacidananada vigraha, anadir adir govinda, sarva karana karanam, “Krishna who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead.
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| He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes”. That Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is not an ordinary human, but is the Lord is said in the Narayana Upanisad, brahmano devaki-putrah, “The son of Devaki, Krishna, is the Supreme Personality of Godhead” (Narayana Upanisad 4). That Krishna possesses a spiritual body although His form is human-like is also expressed in the Kurma Purana which states, deha-dehi-vibhedo yam nesvare vidyate kvacit: This means that in Krishna, the Supreme Lord, there is no difference between Himself and His body.
Krishna, being the Supreme Absolute Truth and possessing a spiritual body, also possesses transcendental names that are no different from the Lord Himself, nama cintamanih krsnas, caitanya-rasa-vigrahah, purnah suddho nitya-mukto, ‘bhinnatvam nama-naminoh, “The holy name of Krishna is fully identical with Him.” Therefore Krishna cannot be considered an ordinary human being although He descends in a human-like form. Both the Katha Upanisad (2.2.13) and the Svetasvataro Upanisad (6.13) express this point, nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam, “Above the innumerable living beings some of whom are liberated and some of whom are conditioned, there is the Supreme Personality
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.” The Vedas also confirm that the Supreme is ananda-mayo bhyasat, or by nature full of bliss and pleasure, and that He is the reservoir of unlimited auspicious qualities. The Gopala- tapani Upanisad (1.1) states, sac-cid-ananda-rupaya, krsnayaklista-karine, namo vedanta-vedyaya, gurave buddhi-saksine, “I offer my respectful obeisances unto Krishna, who has a transcendental form of bliss, eternity, and knowledge. I offer my respects unto Him, because understanding Him means understanding the Vedas, and He is therefore the supreme spiritual master.” Then it is said, krishno vaiparamam daivatam, “Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
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And then Eko vasi sarva-gah krishna idyah: “That one Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He is worshipable.” Eko ‘pi san bahudha yo ‘vabhati, “Krishna is one, but He is manifested in unlimited forms and expanded incarnations” (Gopala-tapani Upanisad 1.21).
Regarding Krishna being the supreme source of all incarnations and demigods, the Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.3.28) states, ete camsa -kalah pumsah, krishnas tu bhagavan svayam, “All incarnations are either plenary portions, or portions of plenary portions of the Lord. But Lord Sri Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” In the Svetasvatara Upanisad (6.8) Krishna’s position as the Supreme is again described, na tasya karyam karanam ca vidyate, na tat-samas cabhyadhikas ca drsyate, “No one can excel Him.” The Maha Upanisad (1) says, eko vai narayana asin na brahma na isano napo nagni-samau neme dyav-aprthivi na naksatrani na suryah, “In the beginning of the creation there was only the Supreme Personality, Narayana.
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There was no Brahma, no Siva, no fire,no moon, no stars in the sky, no sun.” In the Moksa-dharma, Krishna states, prajapatim ca rudram capy, aham eva srjarai cai, tau hi mam na vijanito, mama maya-vimohitau, “The patriarchs, Siva, and others are created by Me, though they do not know that they are created by Me because they are deluded by My illusory energy.” The Narayana Upanisad (1) states, atha purusa ha vai narayano kamayata prajah srjyeti, “Then the Supreme Personality Narayana desired to create living entities,” and again it states, narayanad brahma jayate, narayanad prajapatih prajayate, narayanad indro jayate, narayanad astau vasavo jayante, narayanad ekadasa rudra jayante, marayand dvadasadityah, “From Narayana, Brahma is born, and from Narayana, the Patriarchs are born, from Narayana Indra is born, from Narayana the eight Vasus are born, from Narayana the eleven Rudras are born, from Narayana the twelve Adityas are born.” And Narayana, the source of the most powerful controllers within the material world, is an expansion of Krishna.
Because Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, His words, the Bhagavad-gita, are also accepted as scripture non-different from the Vedas. Actually, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who could know the conclusion of the Vedas as well as He? As the Supreme Lord, He is also the origin of Vedic knowledge. Gopala-tapani Upanisad states, yo brahmanam vidadhati purvam yo vai vedams ca gapayati sma Krishna, “It was Krishna who in the beginning instructed. |
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WHO IS Krishna ?
The answer is that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. How is that? Because He conforms in exact detail to descriptions of the Su-preme Being, the Godhead. In other words, Krishna is the Godhead because He is all-attractive. Outside the principle of all-attraction, there is no meaning to the word Godhead. How is it one can be all-attractive? First of all, if one is very wealthy, if he has great riches, he becomes attractive to the people in general. Simi-larly, if someone is very powerful, he also becomes attractive, and if someone is very famous, he also becomes attractive, and if someone is very beautiful or wise or unattached to all kinds of possessions, he also becomes attractive. |
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So from practical experience we can observe that one is attractive due to
1) wealth
2) power
3) fame
4) beauty
5) wisdom and
6) re-nunciation.
One who is in possession of all six of these opulences at the same time, who possesses them to an unlimited degree, is understood to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead. These opulences of the Godhead are delineated by Parasara Muni, a great Vedic authority.
We have seen many rich persons, many powerful persons, many famous persons, many beautiful persons, many learned and scholarly persons, and persons in the renounced order of life unattached to material possessions. But we have never seen any one person who is unlimitedly and simultaneously wealthy, powerful, famous, beautiful, wise and unattached, like Krishna, in the history of humanity. Krishna, the Supreme Personality of God-head, is an historical person who appeared on this earth 5,000 years ago. He stayed on this earth for 125 years and played exactly like a human being, but His ac-tivities were unparalleled. From the very moment of His appearance to the moment of His disappearance, every one of His activities is unparalleled in the history of the world, and therefore anyone who knows what we mean by Godhead will accept Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. No one is equal to the God-head, and no one is greater than Him. That is the import of the familiar saying “God is great.”
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There are various classes of men in the world who speak of God in different ways, but the Vedic literatures and the great acaryas, the authorized persons versed in the know-ledge of God, like Sankara-Acarya, Ramanuja, Madhva, Visnu-swami, Lord Caitanya and all their followers by disciplie succession, unanimously agree that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As far as we, the followers of Vedic civilization, are concerned, we accept the Vedic history of the whole universe, which consists of different planetary systems called Svargalokas, or the higher planetary system, Martyalokas, or the intermediary planetary system, and Patalalokas, or the lower planetary sys-tem. The modern historians of this earth cannot supply historical evidences of events that occurred before 5,000 years ago, and the anthropologists say that 40,000 years ago Homo sapiens had not appeared on this planet because evolution had not reached that point. But the Vedic histories, the Puranas and Mahabharata, relate human histories which extend millions and billions of years into the past.
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For example, from these literatures we are given the histories of Krishna’s appear-ances anddisappearances millions and billions of years ago. In the fourth chapter of the Bhagavad-gita Krishna tells Arjuna that both He and Arjuna had had many births before and that He (Krishna) could remember all of them and that Arjuna could not. This illustrates the difference between the knowledge of Krishna and that of Arjuna. Arjuna might have been a very great warrior, a well-cultured member of the Kuru dynasty, but after all, he was an ordinary human being, whereas Krishna, the Supreme Per-sonality of Godhead, is the possessor of unlimited knowledge. Because He pos-sesses unlimited knowledge, Krishna has a memory that is boundless.
Krishna’s knowledge is so perfect that He remembers all the incidences of His appearances some millions and billions of years in the past, but Arjuna’s memory and knowledge are limited by time and space, for he is an ordinary human being. In the fourth chapter of Bhagavad-gita Krishna states that He can remember instructing the lessons of the Bhagavad-gita some millions of years ago to the sun-god, Vivasvan.
Nowadays it is the fashion of the atheistic class of men to try to become God by following some mystic process. Generally the atheists claim to be God by dint of their imagination or their meditational prowess. Krishna is not that kind of God. He does not become God by manufacturing some mystic process of meditation, nor does He become God by undergoing the severe austerities of the mystic yogic exercises. Properly speaking, He never becomes God because He is the Godhead in all circumstances.
Within the prison of His maternal uncle Kamsa, where His father and mother were confined, Krishna appeared outside His mother’s |
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