Is Krishna present in the book Bhagavatam – is he also present in a digital book?
Answer Podcast
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we are never disqualified is Krishna present in the book Bhagavatam or is he also present in the e-book Bhagavatam does it make a difference if we read the book or read the digital version of the book answer God’s presence or God’s non-difference from his various manifestations is an extremely complicated subject and we can see it as a matter of phalena parichayate that now when we say Krishna is present in the book Bhagavatam does it mean that Krishna is present literally in the pages and is he present in each page in each word and when we say Krishna is present in the deities or as the deities then we do a pranapatishtha for Krishna as the for Krishna to inviting him to manifest as the deities but do we do a pranapatishtha for the Bhagavatam we could say that when the verses are printed on the Bhagavatam that’s when the pranapatishtha is done we certainly do puja of the Bhagavatam but the worship is in some case in Bhagavat katha or somewhere the puja is done but the broad point is that it is Krishna who is our who is being who is accessible to us and we are worshipping him and manifesting the Bhagavatam but we could say that whether it is one volume of the Bhagavatam or all 18 volumes of the Bhagavatam that doesn’t make a difference sometimes we might do it with all 18 volumes of sometimes we might do it with just one was Krishna present less when Prabhupada went to America with just the first with 3 volumes of the first canto we cannot really equate Krishna’s divine presence in any simple way with his presence in a particular manifestation so of course some Vaishnavas do say that reading a physical copy of the book is much better than reading the digital copy and and that is definitely one school of thought I also know devotees who are very deeply devoted to the Bhagavatam and they travel and they don’t carry physical copies of the Bhagavatam with them so they just read and relish the Bhagavatam from the digital version so I would say that that that if we have a desire to serve Krishna Krishna can manifest from anywhere and if our desire to serve Krishna is not very strong then he may not manifest anywhere at all so it largely depends on what is our desire and to the extent we can agree with that extent if we have a strong desire to relish Krishna’s presence to appreciate to receive and absorb ourselves in the world of the Bhagavatam then we will we will feel Krishna’s presence sometimes somebody may go in front of devotees of Lord Jagannath in Jagannath Puri and still not feel much divine presence and somebody else may may actually just see a picture of Jagannath somewhere else not even installed deity and that person may become overwhelmed with tears of ecstasy and with respect to deities we clearly understand that yes we can have Jagannath temples everywhere but we still would like to go to worship Jagannath in Jagannath Puri so similarly we could say that the digital version of the Bhagavatam is an expansion of the physical book Bhagavatam and the physical book Bhagavatam is expansion of the sound of Bhagavatam sacred sound of Bhagavatam so if our desire is strong to connect with Krishna then Krishna can manifest from everywhere and connect with us even through the digital version and even through the physical version I don’t think we can really go into the physical, literal aspects of this when we say Krishna is present in the Bhagavatam, what does it mean? Krishna manifests himself in a way that transforms people’s hearts so is Krishna present in the letter, in the space between the letters is Krishna present on the page well those are difficult questions and I am not sure whether we have any straight answer so similarly we could say is Krishna present in the if I open a computer and read a book so is Krishna present in the pixels that appear on my computer screen but then if I read or see something else does Krishna become unmanifest and those pixels start displaying something else Krishna is independent of everything material Krishna can choose to manifest whichever way wherever he wants sometimes Bhagavatam may be printed on eco-friendly paper which might have been used for something else earlier sometimes the paper of the Bhagavatam somebody may throw it into a unfortunately somebody may throw the Bhagavatam into a trash can and that paper might be used for something else then would Krishna be present there there is the concept that with respect to deities Krishna becomes unmanifest when the deities are if somebody tries to do something to desecrate the deities or whatever Krishna just simply unmanifests himself at that time so we say that Krishna has an omnipotence so broadly speaking trying to pin down Krishna’s presence to something material is going to be very complicated but essentially if you consider in terms of potency then the potency of Krishna’s manifestation or potency of Krishna to manifest through any manifestation is not limited by the manifestation and I think that is what we should focus on when we are trying to connect with Krishna whether it is the physical or the digital version of the Bhagavatam thank you