Chapter 10. The Opulence of the Absolute
TEXT 1
The Supreme Lord said: My dear friend, mighty-armed Arjuna, listen again to My supreme word, which I shall impart to you for your benefit and which will give you great joy.
PURPORT
Communication about God is basically the preaching. It is also beneficial for everyone to listen to preaching of others. Devotees can regularly lecture to each other, even if the community is small. These are all forms of spiritual practice.
Śrīla Prabhupāda lived among His disciples, He shared His real thoughts, plans with them - there was real communication between Him and His disciples; He did not lead a double life when one think or do one thing but say other "right" thing, or when someone plays the role of "guru" a couple times a week and the rest of the time do his own business. Of course, when there are many disciples, it is difficult to pay attention to everyone, but Śrīla Prabhupāda taught the leaders; also at that time everyone was busy preaching, everyone was uplifted, so no one really fell for any domestic problems. The movement went forward, people preached, distributed books, built temples, everyone felt the presence of God because uttama led the movement.
At first the movement expanded, then because of the anarthas it began to fall and shrink. When money and property become scarce, sincere people will come forward again and the movement will start again, and afterwards it will shrink again. It is similar to the movement of the rasa: the rasa increases, then because of the anarthas a crisis begins, and after purification rasa grows again.
TEXT 2
Neither the hosts of demigods nor the great sages know My origin, for, in every respect, I am the source of the demigods and the sages.
PURPORT
When a person devotes himself to God, he has no problems, the whole world is open to him, open to preaching. By preaching the message of God, a person can become dear to God and learn so much about Him. The demigods know little about God because they are busy with themselves. Also, many sages do not know much about God because they do not preach, but only develop knowledge. There are a large number of sections of near-spiritual knowledge: Karma-kāṇḍa, Yajur Veda, Āyurveda and others. Such knowledge sometimes can be useful in preaching, but if absorbed only by this knowledge, he will have little knowledge of God.
It is also an important point that Kṛṣṇa says about the source of His origin. When we talk about God, then people ask, "But what is the origin of God?" God is eternal, just as the soul is eternal. God has no beginning, just as every soul has no beginning. Thus, the answer to the question about the origin of God can be found by realizing oneself, one's eternal blissful nature.
TEXT 3
He who knows Me as the unborn, as the beginningless, as the Supreme Lord of all the worlds-he, undeluded among men, is freed from all sins.
PURPORT of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda:
As stated in the Seventh Chapter, those who are trying to elevate themselves to the platform of spiritual realization are not ordinary men. They are superior to millions and millions of ordinary men who have no knowledge of spiritual realization, but out of those actually trying to understand their spiritual situation, one who can come to the understanding that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the proprietor of everything, the unborn, is the most successful spiritually realized person. In that stage only, when one has fully understood Kṛṣṇa's supreme position, can one be free completely from all sinful reactions.
Here the word ajam, meaning unborn, should not be confused with the living entities, who are described in the Second Chapter as ajam. The Lord is different from the living entities who are taking birth and dying due to material attachment. The conditional souls are changing their bodies, but His body is not changeable. Even when He comes to this material world, He comes as the same unborn; therefore in the Fourth Chapter it is said that the Lord, by His internal potency, is not under the inferior material energy, but is always in the superior energy.
He was existing before the creation, and He is different from His creation. All the demigods were created within this material world, but as far as Kṛṣṇa is concerned, it is said that He is not created; therefore Kṛṣṇa is different even from the great demigods like Brahmā and Śiva. And because He is the creator of Brahmā, Śiva and all the other demigods, He is the Supreme Person of all planets.
Śrī Kṛṣṇa is therefore different from everything that is created, and anyone who knows Him as such immediately becomes liberated from all sinful reaction. One must be liberated from all sinful activities to be in the knowledge of the Supreme Lord. Only by devotional service can He be known and not by any other means, as stated in Bhagavad-gītā.
One should not try to understand Kṛṣṇa as a human being. As stated previously, only a foolish person thinks Him to be a human being. This is again expressed here in a different way. A man who is not foolish, who is intelligent enough to understand the constitutional position of the Godhead, is always free from all sinful reactions.
If Kṛṣṇa is known as the son of Devakī, then how can He be unborn? That is also explained in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: When He appeared before Devakī and Vasudeva, He was not born as an ordinary child; He appeared in His original form, and then He transformed Himself into an ordinary child.
Anything done under the direction of Kṛṣṇa is transcendental. It cannot be contaminated by the material reactions, which may be auspicious or inauspicious. The conception that there are things auspicious and inauspicious in the material world is more or less a mental concoction because there is nothing auspicious in the material world. Everything is inauspicious because the very material mask is inauspicious. We simply imagine it to be auspicious. Real auspiciousness depends on activities in Kṛṣṇa consciousness in full devotion and service. Therefore if we at all want our activities to he auspicious, then we should work under the directions of the Supreme Lord. Such directions are given in authoritative scriptures such as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Bhagavad-gītā, or from a bona fide spiritual master. Because the spiritual master is the representative of the Supreme Lord, his direction is directly the direction of the Supreme Lord. The spiritual master, saintly persons and scriptures direct in the same way. There is no contradiction in these three sources. All actions done under such direction are free from the reactions of pious or impious activities of this material world. The transcendental attitude of the devotee in the performance of activities is actually that of renunciation, and this is called sannyāsa. Anyone acting under the direction of the Supreme Lord is actually a sannyāsī and a yogī, and not the man who has simply taken the dress of the sannyāsī, or a pseudo-yogī.
TEXTS 4-5
Intelligence, knowledge, freedom from doubt and delusion, forgiveness, truthfulness, self-control and calmness, pleasure and pain, birth, death, fear, fearlessness, nonviolence, equanimity, satisfaction, austerity, charity, fame and infamy are created by Me alone.
PURPORT
When a person directly knows spiritual science, he has no doubts. Often, the term "spiritual knowledge" means theoretical knowledge of the basics of spiritual life. However, a knowledgeable person knows everything and not only at the level of abstract theoretical reasoning, he does not lack knowledge in any field. We see that Śrīla Prabhupāda commented on and understood all phenomena, He was not some formal saint who would talk exclusively "about God", avoiding other topics. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes and says very real things on any issues, for what He is sometimes criticized.
Such is the knowledgeable person. God knows everything, He is an expert in everything, He is a person, and a pure devotee is the same. Sometimes a pure devotee shocks the secular audience with his directness, but such truthfulness and frankness are liked by honest, intelligent people. For such openness, the hippies quite accepted Śrīla Prabhupāda as one of their own, it was their style - openness and truth. Prabhupada for them was both a teacher and a father and a friend, He was their own, close, open, knowledgeable. Whatever the conversation goes, Śrīla Prabhupāda always amazes with all His uncompromising truth and His understanding the essence.
Sometimes battles arose around His words. For example, here is a fragment of His purport:
«In this regard, the word vikhyātam is very significant. A man is always famous for his aggression toward a beautiful woman, and such aggression is sometimes considered rape. Although rape is not legally allowed, it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape».
Some unscrupulous people understand "it is a fact that a woman likes a man who is very expert at rape" as the fact that women like men who can rape them. But this is not really a description of a rapist, but a description of the highest type lover, one who is very experienced in how to possess a girl. Such possession is one of the maximum types of manifestation of sensual life. This is a form of love relationship when the girl is completely at the mercy of the man and when he is very skilled in how to took her - "a man who is very expert" is an expression of passion that becomes mutual. The quoted fragment is taken from the last paragraph of a purport about family life, so it concerns a close relationship, not a criminal rape.
Why write about variations of sex life? Why not write about butterflies, not about God? Because a pure devotee says some actual things - sex life concerns almost everyone, and in this topic, the described seduction is one of the highest points. Such kind of comments is occasionally encountered, confusing or annoying the pseudo-religious public. Their confusion is like the confusion of pseudo-priests who are sanctimoniously offended when they hear about the wives of God. If in the material world most people have a wife, why should God be deprived of wives, what is the logic here? Out of envy, they want to neutralise God to the level of impersonal Eternity.