Supreme Personality?

[Tirisilex 0]

What does The Supreme personality of Godhead mean? Is he the combination of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva?

[Beggar 0]

 

What does The Supreme personality of Godhead mean? Is he the combination of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva?

 

Class by A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Bhagavad-gita 2.27-38

Los Angeles, December 11, 1968

Q & A

Madhudvisa: Prabhupada? What is the position of Lord Siva?

Prabhupada: Lord Siva is a demigod, but he is higher than all other demigods. He's higher than Lord Brahma also. But he's not the Supreme Lord. Just like there are different gradations. That is not difficult to understand. In society also, there are different gradations. Similarly, the living entities, there are different gradations. So all the living entities, they are, some of them are situated in higher planets, some of them are situated in lower planets, some of them are situated in high-grade life, in low-grade life. So the demigods are also, they are living entities, but they are enjoying better standard of life due to their acts of piety. But Lord Siva is not amongst the living entities. He's above the living entities but he is counted as one of the demigods. But his position is better than Lord Brahma even. Brahma is to be the highest iving entity within the universe, and Lord Siva's position is higher than Lord Brahma.

Madhudvisa: Does Lord Siva have a wife, like, a consort?

Prabhupada: Yes. Parvati. Sati. Everyone has got wife. Yes. Sakti.

Devotee: Is Lord Siva a devotee of Lord Krishna?

Prabhupada: Yes. Everyone is devotee. Only the madmen, they are not devotees. Any sane man is devotee of... Sanity means become devotee. That is sanity. And one who is not devotee is insane, insanity. So how you can expect that Lord Siva is not devotee? He's not insane. We are, the material, the ordinary living entities, in the lower grades of life, they are all insane.

[Guruvani 0]

 

What does The Supreme personality of Godhead mean? Is he the combination of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva?

 

I don't remember anywhere in shastra that such a description has been given.

 

The Supreme Personality is the origin of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and all the other demigods and all other living entities.

 

All the gods and all the living entities come originally from the energy of the Supreme Personality if Godhead.

[Tirisilex 0]

Woe..After reading Beggars post I just got an amazing sense of peace.. It was like Krishna is within me. I felt a peace and love it was great. The more I learn the more I believe this religion is soooooo right. Oops.. Not Beggars post.. Guruvanis Post.. saying "All the gods and all the living entities come originally from the energy of the Supreme Personality if Godhead."

 

<!-- / message -->

[Gaea 0]

 

I don't remember anywhere in shastra that such a description has been given.

 

The Supreme Personality is the origin of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and all the other demigods and all other living entities.

 

All the gods and all the living entities come originally from the energy of the Supreme Personality if Godhead.

 

i'm not learned in these things so much, but can you explain - if Krsna is the source of Visnu and Visnu tattva is eternal woudn;t that mean that Visnu is bornless? Therefore how can Krsna be the origin of the Visnu-tattva forms?

 

...having typed that i just thought to myself, what the hell does it matter anyway???? LOVE LOVE LOVE.

[Guruvani 0]

 

i'm not learned in these things so much, but can you explain - if Krsna is the source of Visnu and Visnu tattva is eternal woudn;t that mean that Visnu is bornless? Therefore how can Krsna be the origin of the Visnu-tattva forms?

 

...having typed that i just thought to myself, what the hell does it matter anyway???? LOVE LOVE LOVE.

 

 

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 2.6.39

 

sa eṣa ādyaḥ puruṣaḥ

kalpe kalpe sṛjaty ajaḥ

ātmātmany ātmanātmānaḿ

sa saḿyacchati pāti ca

 

SYNONYMS

saḥ — He; eṣaḥ — the very; ādyaḥ — the original Personality of Godhead; puruṣaḥ — the Mahā-Viṣṇu incarnation, a plenary portion of Govinda, Lord Kṛṣṇa; kalpe kalpe — in each and every millennium; sṛjati — creates; ajaḥ — the unborn; ātmā — self; ātmani — upon the self; ātmanā — by His own self; ātmānam — own self; saḥ — He; saḿyacchati — absorbs; pāti — maintains; ca — also.

 

 

TRANSLATION

That supreme original Personality of Godhead, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, expanding His plenary portion as Mahā-Viṣṇu, the first incarnation, creates this manifested cosmos, but He is unborn. The creation, however, takes place in Him, and the material substance and manifestations are all Himself. He maintains them for some time and absorbs them into Himself again.

 

 

PURPORT

The creation is nondifferent from the Lord, and still He is not in the creation. This is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.4) as follows:

mayā tatam idaḿ sarvaḿ

jagad avyakta-mūrtinā

mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni

na cāhaḿ teṣv avasthitaḥ

The impersonal conception of the Absolute Truth is also a form of the Lord called avyakta-mūrti. Mūrti means "form," but because His impersonal feature is inexplicable to our limited senses, He is the avyakta-mūrti form, and in that inexplicable form of the Lord the whole creation is resting; or, in other words, the whole creation is the Lord Himself, and the creation is also nondifferent from Him, but simultaneously He, as the original Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is aloof from the created manifestation. The impersonalist gives stress to the impersonal form or feature of the Lord and does not believe in the original personality of the Lord, but the Vaiṣṇavas accept the original form of the Lord, of whom the impersonal form is merely one of the features. The impersonal and personal conceptions of the Lord are existing simultaneously, and this fact is clearly described both in the Bhagavad-gītā and in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and also in other Vedic scriptures. Inconceivable to human intelligence, the idea must simply be accepted on the authority of the scriptures, and it can only be practically realized by the progress of devotional service unto the Lord, and never by mental speculation or inductive logic. The impersonalists depend more or less on inductive logic, and therefore they always remain in darkness about the original Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Their conception of Kṛṣṇa is not clear, although everything is clearly mentioned in all the Vedic scriptures. A poor fund of knowledge cannot comprehend the existence of an original personal form of the Lord when He is expanded in everything. This imperfectness is due, more or less, to the material conception that a substance distributed widely in parts can no longer exist in the original form.

The original personality of Godhead (ādyaḥ), Govinda, expands Himself as the Mahā-Viṣṇu incarnation and rests in the Causal Ocean, which He Himself creates. The Brahma-saḿhitā (5.47) confirms this as follows:

yaḥ kāraṇārṇava-jale bhajati sma yoga-

nidrām ananta-jagad-aṇḍa-saroma-kūpaḥ

ādhāra-śaktim avalambya parāḿ sva-mūrtiḿ

govindam ādi-puruṣaḿ tam ahaḿ bhajāmi

Lord Brahmājī says in his Brahma-saḿhitā, "I worship the primeval Lord Govinda, who lies down in the Causal Ocean in His plenary portion as Mahā-Viṣṇu, with all the universes generating from the pores of hair on His transcendental body, and who accepts the mystic slumber of eternity."

So this Mahā-Viṣṇu is the first incarnation in the creation, and from Him all the universes are generated and all material manifestations are produced, one after another. The Causal Ocean is created by the Lord as the mahat-tattva, as a cloud in the spiritual sky, and is only a part of His different manifestations. The spiritual sky is an expansion of His personal rays, and He is the mahat-tattva cloud also. He lies down and generates the universes by His breathing, and again, by entering into each universe as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, He creates Brahmā, Śiva and many other demigods for maintenance of the universe and again absorbs the whole thing into His person as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.7):

sarva-bhūtāni kaunteya

prakṛtiḿ yānti māmikām

kalpa-kṣaye punas tāni

kalpādau visṛjāmy aham

"O son of Kuntī, when the kalpa, or the duration of the life of Brahmā, is ended, then all the created manifestations enter into My prakṛti, or energy, and again, when I desire, the same creation takes place by My personal energy."

The conclusion is that these are all but displays of the Lord's inconceivable personal energies, of which no one can have any full information. This point we have already discussed.