How can we understand that God is a person?

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So question, how do we understand that God is a person and that he has a form like Krishna or Varaha or Vamana, all these forms? See, when we, all of us, we come from different backgrounds, and the word God conjures up different images or different conceptions in our mind. So, if God is primarily seen as a object of greatness, person who must be, some reality which is very great, which is all-pervading, which is all-powerful, in general, there is something which is called as the God of religion and there is the God of philosophy. I’ll explain these two terms and then I’ll explain how they can be integrated, how they are integrated in Krishna.
So the God of religion is the God who is worshipped. And in temples there are images of that God. Or in different religions, there are prayers offered to that God.
So the Buddha is the God of religion. And the God of religion is usually treated as a person where he is prayed to. That’s the God of philosophy.
That means, if we reason using our philosophy, so God of religion means the God who is the object of religious worship. The God of philosophy means the God who is conceived through philosophical analysis. So if we think deeply, we can understand that everything must have a source.
And that source must be powerful to have produced all these things. So in the western tradition, there was Aristotle who came up with the conception of God as the unmoved mover. He is never moved by anything but he is the mover of everything.
He is the prime mover of everything. So his idea of God was like a first cause. So there is one absolute being.
He is the first cause and everything moves because of him. Because he caused it. So the God of philosophy is usually conceived in abstract philosophical terms.
He, Aristotle, did not really talk much about what that God is. He focused on what that God is not. So in one sense, at a rough level, we could say that the God of religion is usually treated as a person.
Whereas the God of philosophy is treated more as an impersonal presence. Now if you see the Bhagavad Gita, it acknowledges both these conceptions of God. So when Krishna is standing on the same chariot as Arjuna is, there we can see that Krishna is simply another person.
But then Krishna says in the Jyotishloki Bhagavad Gita in 10.8 that Everything comes from me. Now this, if you just simply consider Krishna to be a person on a chariot, how can everything come from him? It doesn’t make any sense. So, even when Krishna is within the universe, the universe is still within Krishna.
That’s what he says in the 10th chapter. He says everything comes from me. In the 11th chapter, he shows the Vishwaroopa.
So that means when we look at persons and we look at forms from this world and then we extrapolate that conception on God’s form, then naturally we say, how can he be God? How can this person with a particular form be God? But the point is that that form is not like our forms. Our form, what causes limit… One problem in conceiving of God with a form is that generally we think of a form as something that limits. So if you are sitting here, you are not sitting in the kitchen.
I am sitting here. I am not sitting in the drawing room. Our form limits us.
But, so some people think that therefore if God is unlimited, then God should not have a form. Because then he will be unlimited. But if we consider say, if this room has a form which we can perceive right now.
Suppose a bomb explodes over here and this room collapses. Now its form will disappear. And all we will have is a we could say a formless heap of rubble and debris.
So now, yes, the form is destroyed. But is that debris, is the rubble of this room, will that be limited or will it be unlimited? It will still be limited. That means removing form does not necessarily make something unlimited.
Similarly, adding form doesn’t necessarily have to make something limited. So removing form doesn’t make something unlimited. So what makes God unlimited is not that he does not have a form but that he is not material.
God is spiritual. By definition, he is transcendental. He is spiritual.
So, being spiritual, he can have a form. The nature of spirit is different from that of matter. And because of that, he can have a form and still be unlimited.
That is because his nature is different. So, in one sense, we give the example of sun and the sunlight. Sunlight like Bhagawan, like the Brahman, sunlight spreads the universe like the Brahmajyoti, impersonal effulgence of God spreads everywhere.
So similarly, here with respect to Krishna, if we find it a little difficult to understand how Krishna or Varaha, Vaman, how can these be God, then rather than focusing on the person with a particular form, we can try to understand the position of Krishna as it is explained in scripture. So, the God of religion can seem to be like a limited being. But the God of philosophy, when we study Bhagavad Gita, understand the philosophy.
This is what God means. God is the source of everything. If we think that God means just the form which we see in a temple, how can this be God? If we understand the philosophy of conception, see, we don’t see just with our eyes.
We see with the intelligence that enables us to make sense of what we see. You know, if some person just comes into this room, he may say that some visitor has come. But if we know this person who has come is the President of America, one by one command he can make the army, the navy, the air force move.
So, when we understand the position, then we actually get the right vision. So, otherwise that person just appears to be like an ordinary person. But when we understand the extraordinary powers he has, then we understand him.
He is a special person. So, like that if the focus on the being with the form is creating some obstacle, then what we need to know is focus on the philosophically understanding Krishna. And then, what Jiva Goswami in his commentary on the Bhagavatam, which is called as Andarvas, he explains that one of the qualities of God is that he is Achintya.
Achintya means inconceivable. So, inconceivable he explains that by our very nature we are limited. And God is unlimited.
So, the limited cannot properly conceive the unlimited. We can try. And we should try.
Because just by trying to think of Krishna, we will become purified. But we can’t conceive him properly or fully, right now at least. So, what we do is scripture tells us both.
Now, if you see the Bhagavad Gita itself, when I talked about the God of religion and the God of philosophy, Bhagavata talks about both. Bhagavata refers to Krishna as both. For example, in the same aham sarvasya prabho mattah sarvam pravartate Here, Krishna is talking about philosophical understanding.
He is the source of everything. He is not just one object that we see in this world. Okay, one image, one picture.
No. The source of everything. This is talking about the God of philosophy.
And in the same words, he is talking about how this understanding. Iti matva bhajante ma buddha bhava samanvita. In 10.8 same words, second part is this.
Those who understand need us. Bhajante ma. They worship me.
But how do they worship me? Buddha bhava. Bhava is emotion. But buddha bhava means enlightened emotion.
Buddha is related with buddha, enlightened. So, buddha bhava is enlightened emotion or enlightened devotion. So, there can be many people who are sentimentally doing some religious worship, some religious puja.
That is possible. But when we understand philosophically how Krishna is the source of everything. That means that he is the source of everything that we are attracted to also.
We are attracted to something beautiful, somebody intelligent, somebody famous. Whatever we are attracted to, all the attractive qualities of that, of those things come from Krishna. Krishna only said later in the 10th chapter that In 10.41 he says that know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from but a spark of my splendor.
So, that means there is this conception of God as the source of everything, which is the God of philosophy. And the God of religion is usually thought of as lower. Oh, non-intelligent people, they worship some idea, they make some form and worship.
That’s possible. But what the Bhagavata is saying is that, yes, if we truly understand that God is the source of everything, then in this world we see there is there are personal, we are all personal, there are persons in this world. And there are impersonal objects also.
There is space, there is earth, there is all these things which are not personal. And if God is the source of both of them, then both of these must be present in God. So, if we can say that God, some people say that if God has a form, then that will limit him.
That’s possible. I explain that is not necessary because God’s form is spiritual. But now we can take the opposite argument and we can say that if God if God does not have a form, then that is also a limitation on him.
Because there are things with form in this world, there are persons in this world and God is impersonal, God is formless and that is also making him some way incomplete. So now God has a form, is a person with form and God is also an all-pervading presence. Now how both can happen simultaneously? That is achieved.
That is something which you can’t conceive. But because scripture tells that both of these are there, because we understand that God is greater than us, infinitely greater than us, so we accept this as achieved and gradually as we become purified, then that understanding that this same, like even Brahma, the 10th Canto described that he had this conception of Vishnu as the great Yajneshwar to whom big big sacrifices were offered and when he sees Krishna eating lunch with his friends, you know that story, how Krishna was playfully eating their food from their plates, how can this be God? So he had the idea of God as a great presence. Even he could not understand.
But then, eventually when Krishna revealed his greatness, then he said, oh Krishna, you are so great, so Krishna’s greatness, we may think is that, oh he can become, he can assume thousand forms or he can assume Shodha Vishwa Rupa. But what Brahma says is that actually your greatness is also that, you know, although you are infinite, you can manifest in a finite form. So God’s greatness is that also.
There is a great by Sri Vaishnavacharya, Pilailokacharya, he says, you know how merciful you are, oh Lord, that he used the example that suppose a small child is there, the child sees a, he sees a majestic elephant. He says, I want to touch the head of the elephant. The child cannot touch.
But if the elephant sits down and moves his head down, then the child can touch the elephant’s head. So similarly he says, oh God, oh Ishwara, you are Ananta, you are infinite. But how merciful you are that for the child’s soul who desires to know you, you who are infinite become finite and you manifest as a deity.
So the finite, look, finite form of Krishna, it may seem very limited and ordinary. But if you understand that that same all-pervading omnipotent absolute truth is manifested at this form, then you will see this form also as amazing. How amazing it is.
It is not limiting that God is in this form. But it is amazing that the unlimited can manifest in a limited single form. And that’s why Krishna says, Pashyame Yogam Ishwaram.
Understand this to be my my mystic potency. Yogam Ishwaram. 9.5 says Pashyame, just see.
This is how if we, so if we are finding it difficult to accept the God of religion, then we can focus more on the God of philosophy. And by that, understand how the person we are worshipping is not a limited person of this world, or like the people of this world, but is a transcendental person who while being in a limited form is still unlimited. Is that your question?