Why Srila Prabhupad is using “the Lord’s not forgetting” as proof for his having transcendental body?

Question from Kiran Prabhu. Shri Prabhupada says in Bhagavad Gita 4.5 Purport that not changing of the body is proof of the Lord having transcendental body and that is how the Lord remembers His past lives. But we forget even in this body also.

It is not required to change the body to forget something. So how do we understand this? Answer Yes we do forget even in this life but there is a gradual erasal of memory in this body and there is a radical discontinuity of memory almost that differentiates between our this life experiences and previous life experiences. We may have forgotten many things of this life but if we meet a friend about whom we have forgotten, we can recollect it.

But even if we somehow came to know where we were in our previous life, if we were taken there, whether we would be able to remember that or not is a questionable issue. In general the memories are stored not just in the brain but also in the subtle body. So generally the idea is that the memories are stored in the mind.

The mind has a conscious and a subconscious part and the less and less the memories are withdrawn, are drawn out from the reservoir, the deeper they go into the subconscious and then they go very deep, then they are often almost not traceable. They go very very deep inside. So especially when the traumas of old, of death and birth happen, those two traumas represent a radical discontinuity between the modalities of our external material bodily life.

So we had a particular body in a particular set of circumstances and after the experience of death and then birth, when we get a new body, it is an entirely different set of circumstances. So because the set of circumstances is different, because the physical body is different and because there is quite often very little connection between where we lived earlier and where we live now. So most people do forget their past lives.

Although even those memories are there in the subtle body but there is a radical discontinuity. Whereas there is a gradual decline with respect to the memories of this life. If we have been somewhere in childhood, if we don't go back to that place for 10 years, we forget most of it.

If we go back, we remember a few things but not much. It depends on how deep are the memories and how much we try to recollect them. The important point here is that the body also represents to some extent the circumstances in which the soul is living.

And in the Bhagavad Gita 4.6, the main issue is that Krishna is able to remember his past lives whereas Arjuna is not able to remember. And this indicates Krishna's divinity and Arjuna's humanity. Arjuna is also a spiritual being who can be called the spark of the divine.

But he is not the Supreme Lord. Whereas Krishna is the Supreme Lord. So now omniscience is a characteristic of the Supreme Lord whereas the forgetfulness is a characteristic of the conditioned soul.

Now this main difference is what is established in the verse. And now Srila Prabhupada is bringing about a logical connection between Krishna's omniscience and the fact that Krishna has the same body continuously by saying that Yes, So, means I am unborn, I am imperishable. So, because Krishna's body does not deteriorate, Krishna and his body are not different, therefore Krishna's circumstances don't change in the sense that it's not that the soul is in a different body, the circumstances are in a different situation.

So that is one way of establishing the point that ultimately there is a radical difference between the soul and the Supreme. And the one way of understanding the difference is the cognitive capacities of the two. The soul is prone to be forgetful, the Lord is omniscient.

And Srila Prabhupada gives this as one example, because the Lord doesn't change his body, that's one way we can understand that his memory continues on. So the example over there is not the main thing, that's the principle. The principle is there is a difference between the soul and the Supreme and that difference is indicating the difference in their positions.

One is subordinate, the other is supreme. And one further way we can understand this difference between subordinate and supreme is that for the subordinate the body keeps changing and for the supreme the body doesn't change. So we need to understand clearly what is the focus of that verse and what Srila Prabhupada is using a particular point to illustrate.

So if we understand what is the principle and what is the example, then we will see that there is not much confusion or contradiction, there is overall coherence, with the focus being the difference between the position of the living entity and the Lord as illustrated by the difference between their memory. The point that the Lord does not have a changing body and we have a changing body is an additional piece of reasoning used to embellish that point of difference, but that is not the central point of that verse.