What does the unborn nature of the Lord mean?

From: Aravind

Please tell us how to understand the “unborn” nature of the Lord and how He possesses full bodily features with clothes, jewellery and other decorations on Him since time immemorial?

Transcript

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Question from Aravind. Please tell us how to understand the unborn nature of the Lord and how he possesses full bodily features with clothes, jewellery and other decorations on him since time immemorial. Answer, the word unborn essentially means that, that which does not have a beginning, it does not start off with birth as do our bodily existences in a specific body.
So, in some religions like Christianity, the concept of eternity is modified to mean that everlasting from the moment of creation. So, they have the idea that the soul is not eternal because many Christians do not accept reincarnation and therefore they do not accept pre-existence, that means existence before the present birth. So, their idea is, now this is not exactly based on the Bible.
The Bible does hint at reincarnation, nowhere does it directly refute reincarnation. But that is the mainstream notion of many Christians today that whenever a male and a female unite, man and a woman unite at that time, a new soul is created and thereafter, after the moment of creation, the soul is eternal and if that soul surrenders to Jesus, then that person will go to heaven, otherwise the person will suffer eternal damnation. So, this idea of eternity is like half infinity.
Eternity is infinity, but this idea of eternity is infinity from the moment of creation onwards. So, it is like semi-infinity or half infinity and that is not very logical. The idea that we who are finite in material can, by the unity of bodily products, create an eternal spirit is not very tenable and the idea of semi-infinity also does not seem to be very logical.
So, this sort of ideas were there even within the Vedic, in the times of Vedic literature, although they were not there directly in the Vedic literature, they are the ideas which are refuted therein. And the way to point out this idea’s fallacy is by using ajam. Often the word ajam is used in combination with nityam.
For example, the word ajam is an avyayatma that Krishna uses for describing himself that he is unborn and avyaya, he is imperishable. So, this indicates that actually he is no beginning and no end. That is the meaning of the word ajah.
As far as the lord’s bodily features with clothes, with jewellery etc. being there is concerned, that essentially implies that there is a achintya-bheda-bheda relationship between the lord and his energies. Now, the lord’s own bodily form is not his energy, that is his own bodily form.
The Brahma Samhita describes that each of his limbs has the potency of all his other limbs. This indicates that Krishna can see with his legs and can eat with his eyes. So, this is the form which is non-different from Krishna.
And in that sense, he has full bodily features always. So, each bodily feature of Krishna has all the potencies of God. And in Krishna’s clothes, jewellery, decoration etc.
there might be some specific leela by which he may get certain things. But they are his eternal paraphernalia and it is only within the course of the past time that that particular thing is given to him. But in the eternal spiritual world, that is always with him.
So, for example, there may be some leela by which Krishna gets the conch shell that he uses. That is described in the Tenth Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. The great Vaishnavacharya describes that actually this particular Panchajanya is an eternal conch shell of Krishna.
But within the course of that past time, Krishna arranges the past time in such a way that past time as it is manifested in this world in such a way that his own eternal paraphernalia comes to him at a particular point in that past time. That is just for the sake of enhancing the leela by which Panchajanya, which is also a Parshad of Krishna, which is also in the spiritual world, everything is actually conscious. It is not a thing.
It is a being. So, Panchajanya also gets the rasa of initially being separated from Krishna and then eventually getting reunited with Krishna at a particular point during the leela. So, in that way, this is how we can understand that all his paraphernalia is always with him and his form, of course, is eternal.
So, that is how he has full bodily features always, as he describes in the quoted verse in the Bhagavad Gita 4.6, he is always Ajah, he is always Avyay, he is always the lord of all living beings. So, by his own internal potency, he appears in this world. Atma mayaya, by his internal potency, by his inner potency.
Thank you.