God's Leaving Leaves Behind the Ultimate Spiritual Guidance
When a great leader or loved one passes away, they leave behind a void that is often filled with grief and historical speculation. Because the conditioned souls are accustomed to the inevitable reality of material death, they erroneously assume that when the Supreme Personality of Godhead descends to earth and eventually departs, He must also "die." This is a grave misconception. The Vedic literatures provide a completely transcendental perspective on the departure, or the "leaving," of the Supreme Lord. Śrīla Prabhupāda meticulously explains that God never leaves behind a material body; He departs in the exact same spiritual form in which He arrived. Furthermore, His departure is not an act of abandonment. He leaves behind an eternal legacy of instructions, authorized representatives, and sweet pastimes that continue to guide and liberate the conditioned souls long after He has returned to His spiritual abode.
Leaving in His Original Spiritual Body
Atheists and impersonalists often propagate the false idea that the Lord accepts a material body when He incarnates and leaves it behind when He departs. Śrīla Prabhupāda heavily defeats this, explaining that because the Lord's body is purely spiritual (sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha), He leaves the material world exactly as He came—in His eternal, transcendental form.
- The Lord left in His own body; He did not leave His body as is generally misunderstood by the conditioned souls. This statement defeats the false propaganda of the faithless nondevotees that the Lord passed away like an ordinary conditioned soul.
- To act in accordance with the rules and customs of the material world, the Lord seems to take His birth or leave His body, but the pure devotees of the Lord know well the actual fact.
- While the sage (Kardama Muni) stood looking on, the Lord left by the pathway leading to Vaikuntha, a path extolled by all great liberated souls.
- O King, after the Supreme Personality of Godhead had brought to completion the affairs of churning the ocean and feeding the nectar to the demigods, who are His dear devotees, He left the presence of them all and was carried by Garuda to His own abode.
Leaving Behind Instructions and Guidance
The Supreme Lord descends out of His causeless mercy to reclaim the fallen souls. When His specific mission is finished, He returns to the spiritual sky, but He does not leave humanity empty-handed. Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that the Lord kindly leaves behind flawless scriptures, divine narratives, and bona fide spiritual masters to ensure our continued salvation.
- The Lord is very kind to the forgetful souls. He therefore comes Himself and leaves behind necessary instructions and also sends His good sons as representatives to call all the conditioned souls back to Godhead.
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead comes Himself (to the material existence) or sends His bona fide representative, and He leaves behind scriptures like Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam.
- He (God) leaves behind scriptures like Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, so that the living entities hovering in the darkness of nescience may take advantage of the instructions, the saintly persons and the spiritual masters and thus be freed.
- The Lord appears, acts and leaves behind Him a narrative history which is as transcendental as He Himself. Every one of us is fond of hearing some wonderful narration, but most stories are neither auspicious nor worth hearing.
Pastimes of Leaving to Teach Renunciation
Sometimes, the Lord's act of leaving is a direct, practical instruction for human society. When the Lord descends as an ideal human being, such as Lord Rāmacandra or Lord Kapila, Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that He leaves behind all opulence, family, and comfort simply to demonstrate the highest standards of duty and renunciation.
- Lord Ramacandra was ordered by His father, Maharaja Dasaratha, to leave home for the forest under awkward circumstances, and the Lord, as the ideal son of His father, carried out the order, even on the occasion of His being declared the King of Ayodhya.
- The Lord (Ramacandra), as an obedient son, accepted the order (of His father, to go to the forest) immediately. He left everything without hesitation, just as a liberated soul or great yogi gives up his life without material attraction.
- Sri Maitreya said: The Supreme Personality of Godhead Kapila, after instructing His beloved mother, took permission from her and left His home, His mission having been fulfilled.
- Having imparted that knowledge to His mother - and, through His mother, to the world - Kapiladeva had no more need to stay at home, so He took permission from His mother and left.
The Agony of Separation
For a pure devotee, the physical departure of the Lord is an agonizing event. However, this pain is not an ordinary material affliction. Śrīla Prabhupāda reveals that when the Lord leaves—whether departing from Vṛndāvana or returning to Vaikuṇṭha—the devotees' acute feelings of separation represent the highest, most intense stage of ecstatic love of Godhead.
- Gopis said, "Krsna, without caring a pinch for our renunciation, all of a sudden renounced us and went away. He broke off our intimate relationship without serious consideration and left for a foreign country."
- When Sri Krsna left the city of Dvaraka to seek out the Syamantaka jewel, He was late returning home. Uddhava became so afflicted that the symptoms of disease became manifest on his body.
- When the Lord left the surface of the earth to return to His spiritual abode, the earth's feelings of separation were therefore more acute.
- If a person's heart is always tied to the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord with the rope of love, the Lord does not leave him. Indeed, even if his remembrance is not perfect, he is to be considered a first class devotee.
Conclusion
A systematic study of the Vedic literatures completely corrects the foolish notion that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is bound by the laws of material nature. When the Lord descends, He does not take a material body, and therefore, when He concludes His pastimes, He never "dies" or leaves a material body behind. As Śrīla Prabhupāda so clearly explains, the Lord departs for His eternal abode in the exact same transcendental, spiritual form in which He arrived. The true beauty of the Lord's leaving, however, lies in what He leaves behind. Out of His boundless compassion for the suffering souls, He ensures that His presence remains accessible forever. He leaves behind flawless instructions, such as the Bhagavad-gītā; He leaves behind the recorded histories of His glorious pastimes in texts like the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam; and He leaves behind His authorized representatives, the spiritual masters, to guide us back to Godhead. Furthermore, during His time on earth, His physical acts of leaving often serve as powerful moral lessons. By leaving behind royal opulence and going to the forest, Lord Rāmacandra demonstrated the supreme standard of duty and obedience, while Lord Kapila left home to exemplify the perfection of spiritual renunciation. Finally, the Lord's departure perfectly facilitates the highest exchanges of spiritual emotion. When the Lord physically leaves His pure devotees, the resulting agony of separation is actually the zenith of ecstatic love. The ultimate secret of devotional service is that if a devotee completely binds their heart to the lotus feet of the Lord with the ropes of love, the Supreme Personality of Godhead never truly leaves them.
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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 Leaving. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.