by purujit dasa
INTRODUCTION
Let's start simple. I don't think you will have any objection if I say that you perceive this right now. It might be a dream, it might be a hallucination, but you perceive it. you're not experiencing one million other things at the same time. Your mind is focused on reading these words. It is within your experience. Similarly, there are things, which you have never experienced. For example, the next sentence, you don't know what it's going to be. The next sentence is beyond your experience. So, there are two aspects of what we could call a reality: things which are within your experience and things which are beyond your experience. The Complete Whole is something that is both everything within our experience and everything beyond our experience. And because there cannot be anything beyond that, the Complete Whole is the Absolute Truth and the Absolute Truth is for everyone.
The fundamental question to ask in all this is how come we’re discussing this? Complete Whole is complete and therefore we must also be the Complete Whole. if we're the Complete Whole though how come we're missing the knowledge about the Complete Whole? are we to assume that the Complete Whole can become ignorant? how is it then complete if it can be subjected to forgetfulness?
the answer to this question can be found in the invocation of the ancient Vedic scripture called Sri Isopanisad:
oḿ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaḿ
pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
TRANSLATION
The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete. And because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped -as a complete whole. Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete by itself. And because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.
Although seemingly simple, this is actually a very elaborate definition of the Complete Whole. Besides the understanding that the Complete Whole is everything within our experience and everything beyond our experience, the Complete Whole is also constantly emanating unlimited energies. And yet, it remains complete and undivided. It is not void, neither monogamous as that would be a limitation. Srila Prabhupada, the current link of the ancient disciplic succession of spiritual masters on the science of Krsna for the modern day comments on the verse:
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha: impersonal Brahman realization is the realization of His sat, or eternity aspect, and Paramātman, Supersoul realization, is the realization of His sat and cit, eternity and knowledge aspects.
But realization of the Personality of Godhead is realization of all the transcendental features, sat, cit, and ānanda, bliss. In the Personal concept, this is realized in complete, form (vigraha). And so the Complete Whole is not formless. If He is formless, or if He is less than His creation in any other thing, He cannot be complete.
(Iso invocation purport)
In this material world, we see so many varieties of people, animals, plants, etc. If we can see so many varieties here, then the Complete Whole must contain varieties also. If the Complete Whole is variety less, the material world, which is a limited portion of the Complete Whole would be more than the Complete Whole Itself and that is impossible.
(...to be continued)
Write a comment
Kulasekhara das (Thursday, 19 July 2012 18:42)
The verse is great, but you lost me in the first paragraph...boring. Sorry, Nowdays you have to 'cut to the chase'. Verbosity has no home any more. People are programmed through the media to 2 second sound-bites. TWO SECONDS... If you do not grab them in two seconds you have lost them. Please do not take this personally Purujit prabhu, I have the highest admiration for what you are trying to achieve. I do advertising for Billion $ Corps. Very successfully, beating all other's and winning the highest awards.
No rambling. Note your goal to communicate and say it in as few words as possible and imagine you are talking to a 15 year old with no attention span. The public have been dumbed down that much by TV. (It may have been a while since you 'tuned in'...
Much love,
Kulasekhara das.
Kamran (Wednesday, 25 July 2012 14:50)
Hi,
Kulasekhara das said exactly what I was going to say in a nice way. As I know about Prabhupada, he used new technology of his time to make people attracted to Krsna, you should do that too my very good friend. people are very impatient these days, and you should talk them in their own language.
Regards,
harekrishnamontreal (Tuesday, 31 July 2012 09:55)
krsna consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the mind, but the natural original consciousness of every living entity. in our original state we are all individual spirit souls, therefore everyone of us is a unique personality with his unique taste, desires, way how we do things. as soon as the pure soul decides to use these for his sense gratification he becomes subjected to the stringent laws of the material nature and looses his eternal individuality in so many hallucinations of bodily designations: man, woman, ugly, beautiful, black, white, christian, jew, muslim and so on. in this way his eternal propensity to serve krsna is misused in serving his particular sectarian division based on these bodily designations. thus we can see that people identify themselves with a particular sect either religiously or nationally, in terms of race, sexual orientation etc. and fighting with one another for supremacy. in other words our pure individuality pervertedly manifests in so many artifical divisions based on bodily misidentification. for this reason it is not possible for everyone to come to the pure krsna consciousness right away. because we all have free will, similarly our level of advancement differs according to our desire to achieve such perfection. it is not that everyone has the same level of desire to achieve purification. thus we have people of different levels of advancement. an intelligent doctor does not prescribes the same medicine to every single patient. quite the opposite, his expertness is in finding out the cause and apply medicine which corresponds to the disease the patient suffers from. similarly, the vedic knowledge is not dogmatic. It does not prescribe the same instruction to all sections of people. it contains instructions for those who are in mode of goodness, those who are in the modes of passion and those who are in modes of ignorance. in the 12th chapter of the bhagavadgita for example krsna gives different instruction to different sections of people on how to come to pure devotional service. for those who cannot engage in the practice of bhakti yoga he instructs to work and give the result for preaching purposes. for those who are not able to even symphatize he instructs to give up the result of their work for some good cause (hospitals, etc). similarly, the krsna consciousness movement as started by sri krsna caitanya mahaprabhu himself gives the medicine of spiritual realization according to the level of advancement of an individual. lord caitanya would never speak of philosophy to the masses. he reserved this for highly learned scholars like saurvabhauma bhatacarya or prabhodananada saraswati. however, he would chant ecstatic kirtans and distribute profuse prasadam to the general public. so in the line of lord caitanya we here in the hare krsna center engage both sections of people. those who are philosophically inclined will find these articles interesting, and similarly those who are more on the sensual platform will find cherish in our love feasts and chanting sessions. everyone can be engaged in this krsna consciousness movement, but on the material plane you can never please anyone. we have to water the root, then automatically branches will be nourished. but if we simply water the branches, the water will never go inside and the tree will dry out. similarly if we serve the people on bodily plane, such service can never make them happy, because the body is simply a covering. the soul can be served only through bhakti and that has to be done under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master.
Brahmānanda: How do we give knowledge to the common masses of people?
Prabhupāda: Yes, by saṅkīrtana. By hearing, hearing, hearing—this is a medicinal process—the heart will be cleansed and they will take up the knowledge. Now the heart is unclean, so he cannot take up. So this is the medicine. Kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā. Harer nāma harer... [Cc. Ādi 17.21]. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra wherever possible, and whoever will hear, he will gradually become cleansed. Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam [Cc. Antya 20.12]. And then bhava-mahā-dāvāgni... Then his material pangs will be over. This is the only medicine. Therefore chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Some way or other, let them have the chance of hearing, and then it will act as medicine. Even he does not will, you chant, you let him hear by force, and he will be cured.
Morning Walk -- April 7, 1975, Māyāpur
North Face Outlet (Friday, 17 August 2012 20:52)
Read your article, the heart have said that not a feeling, and benefited a lot, very artistic conception of an article!
north face outlet (Saturday, 08 September 2012 00:03)
Thank you, I have recently been searching for information about this topic for ages and yours is the best I have discovered so far.
Tory Burch Outlet (Thursday, 20 September 2012 01:21)
Interesting things, read about various topics, but because you are interested, I managed, including the day I read your blog
dissertation writing help (Sunday, 07 October 2012 23:34)
I have discovered so far.
abstract dissertation examples (Monday, 05 November 2012 06:25)
And yet, it remains complete and undivided.
kuwait web designing services (Tuesday, 08 October 2013 07:21)
Why try to get web design that does not work if you can get one that attracts your website visitors by knowledgeable Web Designers in Kuwait at affordable prices? Are you looking for a Kuwait web designing services? Which can create a sole, globally look and pertinent web design structure with?