Understanding the Supreme Nature of God's Personality

The ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth culminates in understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the supreme, original person, and that His transcendental form, name, and attributes are entirely spiritual. To comprehend God's personality, one must abandon the flawed path of mental speculation and embrace the pure process of devotional service.

The Supreme and Original Person

God is not an abstract energy, but the supreme individual from whom all other living beings emanate. Śrīla Prabhupāda establishes that the Lord is the primeval person, possessing supreme intelligence and absolute dominion over the entire cosmic manifestation.

• God is the chief living entity amongst all living entities. God is the most intelligent personality than all of us. He is supplying the necessities of life to everyone. - These are the Vedic injunction. That is the difference between God and ourself.
• The Lord, or the Supreme Godhead, who is one without a second, is a fully cognizant and eternally joyful personality with a full sense of His identity. No one is equal to Him or greater than Him. This is a concise description of the Supreme Lord.
• Brahma & other lords of the mundane worlds, appear from the pores of hair of Maha-Visnu, remain alive as long as the duration of His one exhalation. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, of whose subjective personality Maha-Visnu is the portion of a portion.
• The Personality of Godhead is the supreme truth, and He is the whole antimaterial principle. The material principle as well as the antimaterial principle is an emanation from His person. He is the root of the complete tree.

The Transcendental Nature of His Form

When the Vedic literatures state that God is formless, they mean He has no material form. Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies that the personality of the Lord is entirely transcendental, and that His name, form, and pastimes are identical with His spirit whole.

• This impersonality means that He (God) is not a person of this material condition. He is a transcendental personality without a material body.
• The Personality of Godhead and the personalities of devotees of the Lord are all transcendental; they do not have material bodies.
• The Lord is the complete spirit whole, and His name, form, quality, pastimes, entourage and personality are all identical with Him.
• The Christians pray in the church, "Oh, God, give us our daily bread." So God has got ear so that He will hear and supply. But His personality, His word, His hearing, they're all transcendental, nonmaterial.

Attributes and Symptoms of His Personality

Because the living entities are parts and parcels of God, our individual personalities are reflections of His supreme personality. Śrīla Prabhupāda points out the logical conclusion that the original creator and designer of the cosmos must possess the attributes of a person.

• Because we are part and parcel of God, we can study God's personality from our personality. Just like we can study the father by the symptoms of the son.
• As a performer, He (the Absolute Truth) is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for these are symptoms of personality.
• He (the Absolute Truth) is causative, for He is the original designer of the cosmos. And He is locative: that is, everything is resting in His energy. These attributes are all clearly attributes of personality.
• Aham means - I; therefore the speaker who is saying aham, - I, must have His own personality.

Expanding Yet Remaining the Same

The Supreme Lord expands Himself into innumerable plenary portions and energies, yet He never loses His original identity. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that regardless of how many expansions Kṛṣṇa manifests, His supreme personality remains fully intact and undiminished.

• The Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad confirms, purnam idam purnat purnam udacyate: Although He expands in many ways, He keeps His original personality. His original spiritual body remains as it is.
• The Absolute Truth is so perfect that although innumerable energies emanate from Him and manifest creations which appear to be different from Him, He nevertheless maintains His personality. He never deteriorates under any circumstances.
• Maharaja Prahlada informed his classmates about the all-pervasiveness of the Supreme Lord. But although the Supreme Lord is all-pervasive by means of His expansions and His energies, that does not mean He has lost His personality. That is significant.
• Unless we accept that there are some differences among the personalities, there is no meaning to the idea that Sankarsana is an expansion of Vasudeva, Pradyumna is an expansion of Sankarsana, and Aniruddha is an expansion of Pradyumna.

Aloof from the Material Creation

Though God is the source and resting place of the entire cosmic manifestation, He is completely distinct from it. Śrīla Prabhupāda highlights that the Supreme Personality of Godhead remains aloof from the modes of nature and is never affected by material activities.

• The Supreme Personality of Godhead has no direct connection with material activities. All His acts and deeds, which are exhibited even in this material world, are spiritual and without affection for the modes of material nature.
• The Lord is never affected by the activities which He apparently performs by His different incarnations and personalities, nor does He have any desire to achieve success by fruitive activities. The Lord is full by His different potencies.
• The Lord is the cause for everything, but there is no cause for Him. Sarvam khalv idam brahma. Mat-sthani sarva-bhutani na caham tesv avasthitah (BG 9.4). Although He is everything, His personality is different from the cosmic manifestation.
• One should not conclude that because He (the Lord) is spread all over He has lost His personal existence. To refute such arguments, the Lord says - I am everywhere, and everything is in Me, but still I am aloof.

The Folly of Impersonal Speculation

The Māyāvādīs and empiric philosophers commit a grave error by attempting to judge the Lord's form through material calculation. Śrīla Prabhupāda points out that these speculators mistakenly conclude that God's personality is a product of material nature, keeping them in total ignorance of the Absolute Truth.

• A liberated man and even a common man may realize impersonal Brahman or localized Paramatma, yet they may not understand God's personality from the verses of Bhagavad-gita, which are being spoken by this person, Krsna. BG 1972 purports.
• As soon as the Supreme Personality of Godhead is introduced, they (the Mayavadis) consider that His personality arises from maya, or the external material energy. Such persons consider all incarnations of the Supreme Lord to be contaminated.
• The activities of the Lord are pleasing to experimental vision also, but impersonalists will not believe in His identity because they study the personality of the Lord by comparing their personality to His.
• When the Lord is described as impersonal it should be understood that His personality is not exactly the type of personality found within our imperfect speculation.

Understood Only Through Pure Devotion

Mental speculation and intellectual endeavors are completely insufficient for realizing the personality of Kṛṣṇa. Śrīla Prabhupāda establishes that God reveals Himself only to those who engage in unalloyed devotional service and are favored by His causeless mercy.

• This personality (Krsna) and His plenary expansions can be known only by antimaterial activities commonly known as bhakti-yoga, or devotional service.
• Lord Brahma said: My dear Lord, Your personality and eternal form cannot be understood by any person who is trying to know You through the different processes of acquiring knowledge.
• Lord Brahma said to Lord Krsna the Supreme Personality of Godhead: My Lord, if one is favored by even a slight trace of the mercy of Your lotus feet, he can understand the greatness of Your personality.
• How do they know (The Lord's name, quality, pastimes, entourage, personality, etc.)? Certainly it is not by mental speculation, nor by any attempt by dint of limited instruments of knowledge.

The Devotees' Eternal Relationship

When a soul awakens to the transcendental personality of the Lord, they naturally engage in an eternal, loving relationship with Him. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that pure devotees dedicate their entire lives to the Lord, remaining fearless in the material world because of this supreme connection.

• The devotees accept the Supreme Lord as the most dear personality and reciprocate with Him in different relationships.
• O best of the great personalities, I am not at all afraid of material existence, for wherever I stay I am fully absorbed in thoughts of Your glories and activities.
• The king dedicated his own personal body to fulfill the measurement of the Lord's third step. For such a personality, even the kingdom of heaven, which he conquered by his strength, was of no value.
• The Lord lives in the spiritual world in His original personality, and a devotee who follows the instructions of the Lord approaches Him - mam eti.

Conclusion

The supreme realization of the Absolute Truth is the profound understanding that God is a person. He is not a formless void or an impersonal energy, but the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa, whose spiritual body is full of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. Although He expands His energies everywhere and is the source of the entire cosmic manifestation, He remains completely aloof and unaffected by material nature. The Māyāvādīs and mental speculators fail to grasp this reality because they try to understand the Lord through their own limited, material logic. However, the pure devotees, through the process of bhakti-yoga, effortlessly realize the greatness of God's personality by His causeless mercy. By abandoning impersonal speculation and dedicating oneself to loving devotional service, the soul revives its eternal relationship with the supreme, primeval person.

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Śrīla Prabhupāda lives within his instructions. This article is a summary of the profound truths found in the Vaniquotes category God's Personality. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.

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