God Is Not Impersonal - The Supreme Transcendental Person
Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that the Absolute Truth is ultimately realized not as an empty void or formless energy, but as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. While empiric philosophers struggle to comprehend how God can possess a form, the Vedic science clearly establishes that the Supreme Lord is the original, eternal person, full of spiritual variegatedness and bliss.
The Origin of Personality
It is entirely illogical to conclude that the source of all conscious beings is unconscious or impersonal. Śrīla Prabhupāda points out that just as we are individual persons with desires and intelligence, our supreme father, the origin of everything, must also be a person.
- You are a person, your father is a person, his father is also a person. Go on, even you do not know your the topmost forefather, you know that he was a person. Similarly, the supreme father, how He can be imperson? Logically you cannot conclude.
- Whatever you see in yourself, that is there in God. So God cannot be impersonal, because we are all persons.
- God is accepted as the supreme father. In Christianity also it is accepted, the supreme father. In every religion He's accepted the supreme person, supreme father, supreme master. So how He can be accepted as imperson?
- If God is not a person, then how His sons become persons?
The Meaning of Impersonal Descriptions
Sometimes the Vedic literature describes the Supreme Lord in negative terms, stating that He has no hands or legs. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that these impersonal descriptions simply mean that the Lord has no material limbs; His form and senses are entirely transcendental.
- The impersonal descriptions in the Vedas intend to deny mundane characteristics in the Supreme Lord. They do not intend to establish the Supreme Lord as impersonal.
- His identity being fully spiritual, His form, name, quality, and paraphernalia, etc., have been elaborately distinguished from matter, and therefore He is sometimes misunderstood by less intelligent persons as impersonal.
- According to Svetasvatara Upanisad, although Brahman has no material hands and legs, He nonetheless walks in a very stately way and accepts everything that is offered to Him. This suggests that He has transcendental limbs and is therefore not impersonal.
- The Lord is not impersonal; He has His eyes, legs, hands and everything else, and because we are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord we also have these things. But His hands, legs, eyes and senses are not contaminated by material nature.
The Source of the Brahman Effulgence
The all-pervading Brahman energy is often mistaken as the ultimate reality by less intelligent philosophers. Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies that this impersonal effulgence is actually the spiritual light radiating from the transcendental body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
- The Brahman effulgence is impersonal, but the cause of that energy is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. From Him, in His abode, the Vaikunthas, this brahma-jyotir emanates. He is never impersonal.
- Mayavadi philosophers cannot understand these transcendental forms of the Lord, and being disappointed, they say that the Supreme Lord is impersonal. But that is not a fact; whenever there is form there is a person.
- The Vaisnava philosophers know perfectly well that the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, can never be impersonal or void, because He possesses innumerable potencies.
- Since His body is the complete whole of everything that be, one cannot assert that He is impersonal only. On the contrary, the perfect description of the Lord holds that He is both impersonal and personal simultaneously.
The Supreme Enjoyer
God is not a stagnant, inactive force. Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that because the Absolute Truth is the supreme puruṣa (enjoyer), He engages in eternal, blissful pastimes and perfectly reciprocates with the loving devotion of His pure devotees.
- The Supreme Absolute Truth Personality of Godhead is never impersonal. All the Vedic scriptures glorify the transcendental performance of His various personal activities and pastimes.
- The Supreme Lord's pastimes are more attractive to liberated souls than to mundane people. He is of necessity not impersonal because it is only possible to carry on transcendental rasa with a person.
- How then can He (God) be impersonal? His musical taste, artistic sense and standard intelligence, which is never fallible, are different signs of His supreme personality.
- In the beginning Kuntidevi gave us the understanding that God is the supreme purusa, the Supreme Person. He is not impersonal.
Conclusion
To achieve the highest spiritual realization, one must surpass the preliminary understanding of an impersonal God. Śrīla Prabhupāda concludes that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the original, eternal person, possessing a transcendental form full of bliss, knowledge, and unlimited potencies. While Māyāvādī philosophers mistakenly interpret the Vedic texts to support a voidist philosophy, the true Vaiṣṇava understands that the Lord is the ultimate enjoyer, eternally exchanging loving relationships with His devotees. By accepting the personal nature of the Absolute Truth, a sincere soul can successfully engage in unalloyed devotional service and directly associate with the Supreme Lord.
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