Don’t descriptions of Krishna’s form make us imagine as spiritual our material attraction to forms?

Hare Krishna. Question from Ganga Sheth Prabhu. Its context talks about the beauty of God and therein they say that God has a beautiful face with striking eyes and they compare the beauty of Krishna as exceeding the more than beauty of thousand cupids and further all this is material.

The Bhagavad Gita says in 3.35 that attraction for the sense objects is ingrained in the senses and that's why whenever there is a description of some beautiful form, we feel attracted. Now, some people may ascribe something spiritual to it but actually it is simply material and thoughtful people will actually find themselves repelled by some idea of spiritual beauty. When describing the form of God in this way in stark material terms, in terms of eyes and face and nose, it's simply material.

How can we ascribe such descriptions to God and call that transcendental beauty of God? Answer, the first question to ask whenever we talk about God's beauty is where does the conception of beauty come from at all? Yes, the Bhagavad Gita does say It does say that definitely that the attraction for the sense objects is suited in the senses and one should not come under the control of that but at this point the Bhagavad Gita doesn't answer where does this attraction come from? Now, later in 15.1 Krishna says There is upside down banyan tree with its roots upwards and its branches downwards. So now this, where do we see an upside down banyan tree? In a reflection. Reflection essentially means that there is an original of which it is a reflection.

So the attraction for the sense objects that we find in this world is because it is a reflection and there is a reality. That reality is the attraction between the soul and Krishna. Now, if we look at the Bhagavad Gita itself it may not contain explicit descriptions of Krishna's form because that is not the focus of the Gita.

Every book is written or spoken in a particular context with a particular intention. So, the Bhagavad Gita is in one sense an emergency book. It is spoken on a battlefield and its primary focus is to help Arjuna understand what is the right dharma for him to follow and that's why it affirms, it analyzes and then concludes which is the best sadhya.

That is the personal absolute truth Krishna as a 7.7, 10.8, 15.19 established and then the best sadhana is bhakti as for example 11.53, 54, 18.65, 66 and 6.47 established. So, with respect to the specifics of how sadhana is to be done, how bhakti is to practice or the specifics of the sadhya in terms of Krishna's personal aspect, the Bhagavad Gita doesn't go into that because Arjuna is in a cultural context where those things are known. Arjuna's confusion is about which path to practice not so much about how to practice that path because he is in a cultural context where he knows how to practice various paths but which path to practice is essential confusion.

But still, even within that, the Bhagavad Gita does talk about personal aspect quite clearly. For example, 10.8 is aham sarvasya prabhavo, I am the source of everything and Krishna says, one who knows this is buddha, is wise. The word buddha is related to the word enlightened and what does such an enlightened person do? Krishna says in the next verse machitta madgata prana bodhayanta parasparam tathayantasya ma nityam tushyanti caraman ticha so Krishna is using the word mad the person thinks about me machitta madgata prana offers his life to me talks about me and then raman ticha now the word raman is is quite frequently used in the Vedic context in the sense of male-female attraction or very personal attraction at the very least like there is Radha Raman, Sita Raman that the name which I used to refer to Krishna or Ram and the word raman basically talks about personal attraction to the personal absolute truth so the Bhagavad Gita does point towards this so when we say that the that his context talk about Krishna's form and it is not his contexts it is Bhagavad Gita hints towards it in the Bhagavatam the whole 10th canto talks about Krishna's form so many verses in so many places talk about Krishna's beauty and it is not just the 10th canto the 3rd canto talks about Krishna's beauty when Kapila is describing then all the devotees whenever they have darshan of Krishna for example Dhruva Maharaja's darshan of Krishna at that time there are vivid descriptions of Krishna's form and so on throughout their descriptions of Krishna's form and it is not just in the Bhagavat Purana there are Padma Purana, Vishnu Purana also talks about Krishna's beauty so the point is the Vedanta Sutra it may not talk about specific form of Krishna but it does talk about Narayana Kaivalyam it does talk about how the lord performs pastimes in human like form so that means now we have to understand that yes the attraction to the sense of objects is binding and misdirecting but where does that attraction for sense of objects come from because there is an original attraction of which this is a reflection of perversion and that original attraction is between the soul and Krishna so when we reject that as material it's one thing to mistake the reflection to be the reality that is bad but it's infinitely more bad it's worse to mistake the reality to be the reflection where Krishna's transcendental all attractive form is described and to think that that to be his material it's most unfortunate it's like somebody gets a false currency and gets cheated that person feels bad but that person gets so becomes so skeptical and cynical because of that experience with the false currency notes that even when a true currency note is offered to the person this is also false so if we feel repelled by description of Krishna's form then we are like that person who is rejecting the true currency note to be false that is unfortunate in fact among all the world's traditions this is the unique revelation of the Vedic tradition that all the world's traditions talk about how the male-female attraction how the sexual urge is a great obstacle on the spiritual path but none of them have a very satisfactory explanation about where this sexual urge originates from is it present in the absolute truth if it is not present then why is it present here how does it come out over here the Vedic revelation where it talks about personal absolute truth and not just a personal absolute truth but a personal absolute truth who manifests in two forms male and female that and then the further attraction towards the personal absolute truth among all the devotees that is the most complete explanation of the reason for the sexual urge and the rationale for redirecting it in the spiritual realm I have explained elsewhere in another answer about Krishna's Rastila how it is not immoral but trans-moral and I won't go into that over here but essentially the point is this is a unique revelation and it is to be cherished and understanding it will purify us of our attraction towards the forms of this world and enable us to become truly eternally ecstatically attracted to Krishna so once we get proper philosophical understanding then we won't be repelled by it because we won't mistake the true currency note to be the false currency note rather we will be able to give up whatever residual attraction is there to the false currency note to the temporary forms of this world and direct all our attraction to Krishna's eternal all-attractive form Thank you.

Hare Krishna.