When the Upanishads say the Absolute Truth is unchanging how do bhakti teachers say that even Krishna’s abode is changing?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

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naturally we may get covered by illusion. So, the Upanishads say that the absolute truth is unchanging and even the Sri Vaishnavas talk about they say that this world is also real but it is changing and the absolute truth is Aparivartanshil Satya. But then our Gauri Vaishnava Acharyas say that even this Krishna’s world is changing.
So, if it is changing then how do we reconcile that with the unchanging nature of the absolute truth? See, the word change has a particular context or has a particular significance when it is used in philosophical sense and it is another sense when it is used in the context of Rasa. So, for example, Krishna defines the word Kala, concept Kala. He says, Kalosmi lokak shekrut pravuddho.
Time I am, I have come to destroy all the worlds. Now you could say time causes all kinds of, time is the agency through which various changes manifest. That actually creation happens, maintenance happens, destruction happens.
So, when, time can have many features but Krishna talks about the destructive feature of time. So, like that, that is in the virtual world, whatever exists it can get destroyed eventually. So, change, when you talk about it, that everything is changing in this world, there is deterioration and there is destruction.
So, in the philosophical sense of time as the agency of destruction, that does not exist in the spiritual world. But time as an agency that brings about transformation for intensifying reciprocation of love, that definitely exists in the spiritual world. And that is what is talked about.
So, in different contexts, the emphasis is different. So, the Upanishads, just the Upanishads may talk about how the absolute truth does not have any form, no qualities, no this thing, no that. But then the Bhagavatam and other scriptures talk about the absolute truth with form.
So, in a particular context, when material form is being talked about, at that time emphasis is there is no form. But then when spiritual form is talked about, there is form. So, when the analysis between basic, the basic analysis difference between matter and spirit is being made, and then the emphasis is matter changes, spirit doesn’t change.
The spirit in its self existence is unchanging. Spiritual forms are also unchanging. But within that there is dynamism in terms of the variety of reciprocations.
So, in the philosophical sense, change means that which causes deterioration, that which causes destruction. So, deterioration and destruction are absent in the spiritual world. There can be variation that happens for enhancing reciprocation.
And that is not considered as change in the philosophical context. And that’s why we can say that the absolute truth is unchanging, and yet we can have a reciprocation which involves variation, which involves changes. So, in the rasa sense, for the reciprocation, there is definitely variation and change that happens.
But it is not in the sense of deterioration and destruction, which is the sense in which philosophically the word change is used.