Supreme Perfection of Describing God

Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that describing the Absolute Truth is not a matter of poetic imagination, but an exact spiritual science. By studying his instructions, we learn how hearing the descriptions of God acts as a cure for material existence, why we must rely on authorized scriptures, and how the impersonal philosophy was designed specifically to mislead the atheists.

The Ultimate Medicine for the Soul

The material world is a blazing forest fire of anxiety and suffering. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the only relief from this condition is to dive into the nectarean river of the descriptions of the Supreme Lord, which acts as the perfect medicine to stop the cycle of birth and death.

• Descriptions of the Lord are the right medicine for the conditioned soul undergoing repeated birth and death. Therefore, who will cease hearing such glorification of the Lord except a butcher or one who is killing his own self - SB 10.1.4.
• A devotee of the Supreme Lord who takes advantage of the beautiful and invigorating downpour of the transcendental descriptions of God found in Vedic literature finds his spiritual consciousness invigorated and refreshed.
• If persons who are suffering in the forest fire of this material existence will only enter into the nectarean river of the description of the pastimes of the Lord, they will forget all the troubles of the miserable material existence.

The Authentic Vedic Descriptions

We cannot invent our own ideas about the identity of the Supreme. Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that God and His incarnations can only be verified by the symptoms and descriptions explicitly laid out in the authentic śāstras (scriptures) and realized by pure devotees.

• All the descriptions of the transcendental nature of the Personality of Godhead are factual realizations by the devotee of the Lord, and by the causeless mercy of the Lord they are revealed to His pure devotee, and to no one else.
• An incarnation of God has to be accepted by experienced people and by the symptoms described in the sastras. An incarnation is not accepted simply by the adulation of foolish people.
• In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krsna says, vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyah: (BG 15.15) "By all the Vedas I am to be known." So the whole Vedanta-sutra is a description of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

The Supreme Transcendental Form

A common misconception is that the Absolute Truth is ultimately a formless void. Śrīla Prabhupāda refutes this by citing the Vedic conclusion that God is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha; He possesses an eternal, blissful, and spiritual form that is completely distinct from the temporary bodies of the material world.

• God is also described as nirakara, which means that God has no material form but is sac-cid-ananda-vigraha. The living entity is part and parcel of the supreme sac-cid-ananda-vigraha, but his material forms are temporary, or illusory.
• In the revealed scriptures the Supreme Lord is described as sac-cid-ananda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). Sat means eternal, cit means fully cognizant, ananda means joyful, and vigraha means that He is a person.
• He (God) is described there as sac-cid-ananda-vigraha, which means that He is the eternal form fully representing transcendental existence, knowledge and bliss. As such, He does not require a separate body or mind, as we do in material existence.

Defeating Impersonalist Speculation

The idea that God has no personal attributes is heavily promoted by the followers of Śaṅkarācārya. Śrīla Prabhupāda reveals the historical and scriptural context of this Māyāvādī philosophy, explaining that Lord Śiva purposely described God as impersonal to cheat the atheistic class of men.

• As a brahmana boy, I (Siva as Sankaracarya) manufacture this philosophy in the Age of Kali to mislead the atheists. Actually, the Supreme Personality of Godhead has His transcendental body, but I describe the Supreme as impersonal.
• My dear Parvati, in Kali-yuga I (Siva) assume the form of a brahmana and teach this imagined Mayavada philosophy. In order to cheat the atheists, I describe the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be without form and without qualities.
• Only those who follow Sankara's commentary have described the Vedanta-sutra in an impersonal way, without reference to visnu-bhakti, or devotional service to the Lord, Visnu.

Conclusion

Śrīla Prabhupāda establishes that describing God is not an exercise in creative imagination, but the meticulous recitation of the absolute reality as presented in the authentic Vedic śāstras. To escape the blazing fire of material existence, the conditioned soul must regularly hear and describe the transcendental pastimes, forms, and qualities of the Supreme Lord. This process acts as the ultimate, life-giving medicine. Against the false claims of mundane speculators and the Māyāvādī philosophers—who intentionally describe the Lord as formless merely to bewilder atheists—the Vedic literatures definitively declare that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. He possesses a form of complete eternity, knowledge, and bliss. By submissively hearing these authorized descriptions from the lips of pure devotees, one's spiritual consciousness is perfectly awakened, leading directly to the ultimate perfection of life: eternal loving service to Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

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