God Is The Absolute Personality of Godhead - The Supreme Transcendental Person
Śrīla Prabhupāda continuously emphasizes that the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth is not the impersonal Brahman effulgence or the localized Paramātmā, but rather Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. To understand God as the Absolute Person means recognizing His transcendental form, His inconceivable energies, and His supreme identity as the master of all existence.
The Transcendental Person
A common misconception among less intelligent philosophers is that the Absolute Truth must be formless or void. Śrīla Prabhupāda heavily refutes this idea, clarifying that the Absolute Personality of Godhead is a complete person with perfect, spiritual senses and an eternal, blissful form.
- Here is a description of the transcendental and eternal form of the Absolute Personality of Godhead. The Supreme Lord is not formless. He has His own transcendental form, which is not at all similar to the forms of the mundane world.
- The Supreme Being, the Absolute Personality of Godhead, is the complete person, He has complete and perfect intelligence to adjust everything by means of His different potencies.
- The Lord has got senses. He is also a living being like us. But less intelligent class, they cannot understand. They think that something must be opposite. No. The Vedic information is nityo nityanam: "The Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead."
- This verse describes the Absolute Truth as having no legs or hands. Although this is an impersonal description, it does not mean that the Absolute Personality of Godhead has no form. He has a spiritual form that is distinct from the forms of matter.
The Quadruple Expansions
The Absolute Truth is one without a second, yet He expands Himself into innumerable forms to execute His cosmic purposes. Śrīla Prabhupāda describes the primary quadruple expansions—Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha—as direct, identical manifestations of the Absolute Personality of Godhead.
- We must accept the verdict of Srimad-Bhagavatam, which says, The absolute Personality of Godhead, who is known as Vasudeva and who is very affectionate toward His surrendered devotees, expands Himself in quadruple forms who are subordinate to Him and identical with Him.
- These members of the quadruple manifestation are never to be considered ordinary living beings. Each of Them is a plenary expansion of the Absolute Godhead.
- Sankarsana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha have all the potent features of the absolute Personality of Godhead, according to the revealed scriptures, which contain undeniable facts that no one can refute.
- Sankaracarya cannot accept devotees' idea that Sankarsana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha are equally as powerful as the Personality of Godhead, full in the six opulences of knowledge, wealth, strength, fame, beauty and renunciation, and free from the flaw of generation at a certain point.
Inconceivable Potencies and Energies
Because the Lord is the Absolute Truth, His capabilities are entirely beyond the limits of human calculation. Śrīla Prabhupāda notes that Bhagavān maintains His personal residence in the spiritual world while simultaneously diffusing His inconceivable energies everywhere throughout the cosmos.
- Lord Sri Krsna is the Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead (Para-brahman). He is omnipotent by His inconceivable energies, and therefore He is the Yogesvara, or the supreme master of all mystic powers.
- In the Svetasvatara Upanisad it is stated that the Supreme Absolute Personality of Godhead is full of inconceivable energies and that no one else possesses such energies.
- Since the Absolute Personality of Godhead is omnipotent, He has both unlimited and limited potencies. This is the meaning of omnipotent.
- The Absolute Personality of Godhead, although fixed in His transcendental abode, can diffuse His different energies everywhere.
Approaching the Absolute Through Bhakti
Mental speculation and empirical research are entirely insufficient for understanding the Absolute Truth. Śrīla Prabhupāda concludes that the Supreme Person can only be comprehended and approached through the pure process of bhakti-yoga.
- In the Vedas also it is said that a person cannot know the Absolute Truth Personality of Godhead simply by dint of mundane education or intellectual gymnastics.
- Bhakti-yoga severs the hard knot of material affection and enables one to come at once to the stage of asamsayam samagram, understanding of the Supreme Absolute Truth Personality of Godhead.
- The Lord established that Vedic literature is meant for three things: understanding our relationship with the Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead, acting according to that understanding, and achieving the highest perfection of life, love of Godhead.
- Vyasadeva fixed his mind, perfectly engaging it by linking it in devotional service (bhakti-yoga) without any tinge of materialism, and thus he saw the Absolute Personality of Godhead along with His external energy, which was under full control.
Conclusion
To accurately understand the highest echelon of spiritual realization, one must accept that the Absolute Truth is ultimately a person. Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies that while the impersonal Brahman and the localized Paramātmā are valid aspects of God, the supreme realization is Bhagavān, the Absolute Personality of Godhead. This supreme person possesses a transcendental, blissful form, unlimited opulences, and inconceivable energies. Because the Lord is absolute, His name, form, and quadruple expansions are identical to Him. By giving up mundane intellectual gymnastics and sincerely taking up the process of bhakti-yoga, the conditioned soul severs all material attachments, properly understands their relationship with the Supreme Lord, and achieves the ultimate perfection of rendering eternal, loving service to the Absolute Personality of Godhead.
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