Are the words of the pure devotees about the Lord descriptive or indicative about the Lord?

You said in an earlier lecture that, as God is unlimited and words are limited, so the words that we use to talk about the Lord are only indicative not descriptive about the Lord. My question is: are the words of the pure devotees who have direct experience of Krishna also indicative of Krishna? Or are they descriptive of Krishna?

Thank you questions, descriptions are only indicative of God and not descriptive about God then when great saints have a devotional vision and then they express it in words is that actually a description of God’s form or is that also an indication of God’s form? answer yes because the words are material so no words can fully describe the Supreme Lord and that’s why say when it is said that Krishna is bluish black that is nothing like the bluish black that we think of with our mind or we conceive with a paint so that’s why it is said that bluish black is an indication of Krishna’s beauty it’s not a description of Krishna’s beauty at the same time when great saints have a devotional vision at that time they see Krishna with their spiritual senses in their full spiritual glory in Krishna’s full spiritual glory so what they experience is Krishna in His complete richness and beauty now what they experience in their heart as a devotional vision then they put it in words but when they put it in words the words belong to the material realm and the experience is from the spiritual realm so that is why even the words of those who are directly seeing Krishna these words always serve as inadequate tools they are not useless tools because they give us an indication but they are always inadequate tools so the words that describe Krishna are in one sense not different from Krishna because they are describing Krishna at the same time Vishwanath Chakra Thakur is clear that the experience of Krishna is something much deeper and richer so when we talk about Krishna not only are our words indicative only and not descriptive but further often when we speak it is without that experience so that is why when great souls speak about Krishna their words have a greater potency because they are speaking with the experience of Krishna so that means it is like a gradual process of filtration that happens filtration not because of because of any deficiency in a particular person but filtration because matter is always an inadequate vessel for the spirit so that means the connection between matter and spirit can be attempted in two ways it is from top to bottom and bottom to top top to bottom means that Krishna reveals himself in the heart of a pure devotee that devotee gets a devotional vision and that devotional vision then the devotee conceals of it in our mental terms in our mental concepts so this form is beautiful this form is breathtaking this form is intoxicating these are all concepts that are there in the mind and then those concepts are expressed as words so we have three levels of reality there is spiritual reality, there is subtle material reality and there is gross material reality so words or terms exist at the gross material level concepts exist at the subtle material level but the devotional experience exists at the purely spiritual level so for the pure devotees first they begin with the experience of Krishna and then they put it in mental concepts and then they phrase it in physical words, material words so in one sense the words describing Krishna are also spiritualized but in another sense they are a part of the vocabulary of this world so they are always inadequate descriptions of Krishna’s beauty on the other hand when we go from the bottom up approach that means we speak something about Krishna we may not have any deep realizations about Krishna at our stage but we speak something about Krishna and based on say we speak that Krishna is blueish black and then based on our description of Krishna as blueish black we try to conceive ok this is blue color, this is black color how does it look like? that is Krishna that is our mental conception but just our verbal description or our mental conception in and of itself does not produce a devotional vision in and of itself does not produce a spiritual experience so that’s why we have Bhaktivinod Thakur classifying the chanting of the holy names into three levels Namapra, Navabhas and Shuddhana this is basically indicating how much of the experience of Krishna the chanter is having certainly one who is chanting at Namabhas and one who is chanting at Shuddhana both of them are uttering the same Hare Krishna Mahamantra so the words we enunciate are the same and the thoughts that are being conceived at that time may be similar or may be different but the experience that is being relished at the level of the heart they are substantially different so in this when we speak about Krishna as sadhakas we are doing the bottom-up approach in one sense we have done a top-down approach in the sense that we have heard from scripture about Krishna’s description we have heard from the pure devotees and their representatives and when we speak about it we are speaking not so much from experience but from analysis so analysis is primarily at the level of the mind it is not at the level of subtle body, it is not at the level of the heart but still Vishwanath Chaturthi explains in the Veda Stuti chapter in the purport to that when we try to think of Krishna according to the descriptions about Krishna given in the scriptures and according to the guidance that we have got from our spiritual masters in the guru-shishya parampara then that endeavour to think of Krishna pleases me so our struggles to speak about Krishna in our material inadequate words or our struggles to think about Krishna with our material inadequate concepts in and of itself does not produce the experience of Krishna but our efforts to talk and think about Krishna in accordance with guru-shishya parampara please him and when he is pleased then he manifests in our heart that’s why we have the famous Padma Purana verse so with our gross senses we cannot contact Krishna but along with our tongue and other senses we become, we start serving Krishna not just start serving Krishna but that means we turn our face towards Krishna through the medium of service that means our service is not just external but it is actually an expression of our wanting to turn towards Krishna and this begins with jiva bhaad then what happens at that time Krishna manifests himself in our hearts and that is how we are able to experience Krishna and because our service attitude is not always steady that is why we don’t always experience Krishna when we chant the holy names so when our service attitude becomes steady because of spiritual advancement and dedication and commitment then our experience of Krishna will become steady that Rupa Goswami talks about it in the Bhaktira Samya Sandhu as sthayi bhaav sthayi bhaav means a steady emotion a steady sense of satisfaction and joyfulness that a devotee experiences in the relationship with Krishna so we all ultimately aspire for that at our stage we may or may not experience Krishna but we are surely becoming purified by talking about Krishna and thinking about Krishna and by that slowly we are moving towards the experience of Krishna Thank you