Bhagavatam-daily 222 – 11.11.28 – God is not just the best in a category – he is beyond all categories
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
11-11-28 Tom Brahma Parama Vyoma Purusha Prakriti Para Avati Rosi Bhagavan Svecho Pada Prathak Vapuhum so Uddhava is continuing to speak to Krishna and he says he is going to ask some further questions and as a part of asking questions he is appreciating Krishna’s supreme position Tom Brahma Parama Vyoma Tom Brahma Parama You oh lord are the absolute truth Vyoma Vyoma is sky just as the sky is detached from everything oh lord you are also detached from everything Purusha Prakriti Para Purusha Prakriti Para you are beyond, you are the supreme person who is beyond material nature Avati Rosi Bhagavan he is incarnate you have incarnated as the lord now Svecho Pada Prathak Vapuhum Svecho Pada you according to the desire Pada Prathak Vapuhum you accept different forms according to your devotees desires so here Uddhava is making some two important points first is that oh lord you are transcendental now understanding the transcendence of the supreme person is vital for recognizing how he is going to be our saviour how he will be our deliverer how he will be our liberator as long as our conception of Krishna is material then our faith in him will be vulnerable to material ups and downs that means a conception of Krishna as material means that Krishna is just another person like me yes he is god, he is extremely powerful far more powerful than what I am, but he is just another person like me so when we have a material conception of Krishna then just as the word god is sometimes used say for some players with extraordinary skills some say Sachin Tendulkar was called the god of cricket so that sort of usage indicates misunderstanding about god the notion that god is just another that anyone who is just the greatest among all beings or even temporarily if that may be that person can be called as god but god is not just the greatest of all beings god is in an entirely different category from all other beings that means just as we can have smaller potatoes and bigger potatoes and the biggest potato but gold is in an entirely different kind only so like that there can be smaller and bigger human beings but god is that’s why or at least the parambrahma the parampurusha the paramatma bhagawan whichever be the name that we use for referring to the absolute truth he is beyond material nature itself so that the greatest being is among a particular category is still under material nature that means that there may be a god of cricket there may be a god of football in the sense that some person may be given that kind of epithets but still that person remains conditioned to be under material nature whereas god is a supreme being who is above material nature who is transcendental to material nature and even if you win the rat race you still remain a rat because one might have become elevated to a position higher than others but still one is still within the same concept still governed by the same conception as the others so a rat even after winning the rat race means that the person who comes out comes up temporarily as the best in a particular competition that person is still in the same category as other players as others in that broad category so this idea that ok I am greater, you are greater I am greater, you are greater this is greatest and therefore this is god this is putting god on a simplistic hierarchy upwards from human beings misrepresents the position of god yes god is often referred to as supreme being and we are referred to as individual beings so based on that it may seem reasonable to correlate that ok god is a supreme being and we are the minor beings so we are on one spectrum where we are Anu and he is Vibhu now it is talked about in this spectrum lets say we are tiny, he is mighty but beyond all that it is he who is beyond material nature so he is not just the best in other categories he is beyond all material categories so understanding this means that we understand that because Krishna is beyond the spell of material nature he can never be illusioned he can never be bound and he is always free and potent to free me from illusion and bondage so ascribing godhood to a human being just because that human being is best in a particular category might be a fact today but such an ascription misunderstands the transcendental nature of god and god’s transcendence essentially implies that material categories don’t apply to him at all in fact when god is conceptualized like this as the best in a material category then there is nothing to stop different people from conceiving their god in different ways so for example say Japanese people may come together and say that the most powerful Japanese is god Korean African people may come together and say the most African person is god and going beyond human species among tigers the strongest tiger may be enthroned by the remaining tigers as god so this sort of categorization this is the kind of reasoning that often impersonalists use and based on such reasoning they claim that because god is because different people within their conceptual categories will conceive of the greatest to be god so therefore all conceptions of god are false and god is ultimately a formless light because they consider that even the form of Krishna is just one such conceptualized form but what the impersonalists miss is that the form of Krishna is not conceptualized by man, it is revealed by god and because it is revealed by god it is and while revealing this form by god also it is stated that he is beyond all material classification when we understand Krishna’s transcendence we do use the word transcend and transcendental and transcendence very commonly but while using it we need to understand what it implies so the various categories like say Japanese and Africans and even Tigers and Deer and Dogs and Monkeys whatever all such conceptual categories are products of material nature different living beings are influenced by the modes in different ways and accordingly they get particular kind of bodies, particular kind of forms and those who get this kind of forms they try to live in a way that enables them to rise towards god so god means rise towards godhood within their own conception within their own categorical classification categorized classification so to the extent we recognize that you are just beyond everything material to that extent we can surrender to god otherwise we will always have that residual suspicion that maybe god will not be able to protect us and further we may be vulnerable to the suspicion that is god also just a mental concoction ok we have conceptualized god in this way and they have conceptualized god in that way and they have conceptualized god in that way and that’s all that we have there are just conceptualizations of god and there is no god at all here in the conceptualizations we just have different people having different conceptions of god with no true understanding of god so when we study scripture and understand scripture then we can stay protected from such misleading misconceptions about god so Uddhava by categorically stating that purusha prakriti you are beyond material nature and when you manifest various forms that are not just conceptualizations or concoctions it is reciprocating with your desire, the desire of your devotee that you manifest particular forms