[Chandra-AdityaAstroRemedies] FW: [QueenKunti] Renunciation through wisdom: Lord Krsna Alone Is the Supreme Godhead

March 24, 2010

--- On Wed, 3/24/10, Haresh(Harry)Nathani <haresh1405 wrote:

Haresh(Harry)Nathani <haresh1405[Chandra-AdityaAstroRemedies] FW: [QueenKunti] Renunciation through wisdom: Lord Krsna Alone Is the Supreme GodheadChandra-AdityaAstroRemediesDate: Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 12:41 PM

Lord Krsna Alone Is the Supreme Godhead (continued)

Whatever desire a person may have, to fulfill it he must serve Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, with intense and unfaltering devotion. (This point was discussed earlier by Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura.) If this injunction is followed, then even those who have an aversion to Lord Krsna will eventually decide to surrender to Him.

Lord Krsna is the Supreme Controller and the Supreme Absolute Being, yet He never forces His will upon the infinitesimal living entities. Rather, it is to the living entity's own benefit to recognize that Lord Krsna alone is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and that everyone else is His servitor. The sun-god and other demigods perform their duties according to Lord Krsna's wishes; indeed, this is why they are called demigods. And since a devotee of the Supreme Lord also follows His wishes, he is also known as a sura, or demigod. Conversely, those who are oppose the Lord's wishes are known as asuras, demons.

The demigods do not possess any independent powers. In fact, they do not wield enough power even to invoke respect for themselves. That is done by the Supreme Lord. Lord Krsna's partial expansion, the Supersoul, resides in everyone's heart, and it is He who instills within one's heart faith and respect for the various demigods. The extraordinary powers seen in the sun-god and other demigods are in fact the Supreme Lord's powers. Once attracted to these extraordinary powers, an intelligent person will gradually be drawn to the source of that power, the Supreme Energetic, Lord Krsna. Worship of demigods is indirect, inferior, and unsystematic worship of the Supreme Lord. Those who are too attached to fulfilling their material desires are naturally more attracted to the energy than to the Energetic, the source of that energy. Hence in the Bhagavad-gita (7.21-22) Lord Krsna says,

yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah

sraddhayarcitum icchatitasya tasyacalam sraddhamtam eva vidadhamy aham

sa taya sraddhaya yuktastasyaradhanam ihatelabhate ca tatah kamanmayaiva vihitan hi tan

I am in everyone's heart as the Supersoul. As soon as one desires to worship some demigod, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity. Endowed with such a faith, he endeavors to worship a particular demigod and obtain his desires. But in actuality these benefits are bestowed by Me alone.

The demigods' powers are like those of a king's officers. The demigods have no independent powers because they are jivas, minute living entities. An officer of the king can bestow some favors because of the powers invested in him by the king. Similarly, a demigod can shower benefits upon his worshipper because the Supreme Lord has given the demigod some power. If the desire-filled demigod-worshipper becomes a little enlightened about the fact that the demigod he worships is fulfilling his desires by the grace of Lord Krsna, then with clear intelligence he will begin worshiping Lord Krsna directly.

Different demigods have different powers. The sun-god has the power to cure diseases; the moon-god imbues plants with taste and nutritional or medicinal potency; Goddess Durga gives strength and courage; Goddess Sarasvati bestows learning; Goddess Laksmi grants wealth; Goddess Candi offers one the opportunity to consume meat and intoxicants, and Ganesa gives success in one's endeavors. But all these powers are invested in the demigods by the Supreme Lord, and thus only He, the complete whole, can bestow every kind of benediction. There is an immeasurable difference between a well and the ocean.

We have already touched on the point that everything in the world has been produced by the interaction of the Lord's ksetra-sakti (His inferior energy, comprising the "field of action") and His ksetrajna-sakti (His superior energy, which is "the knower of the field"). Therefore everything in this world is merely a transformation of Lord Krsna's energies. In one sense the energy principle and the energetic principle are nondifferent, just as fire and its burning potency are inseparable and non-different. Unfortunately, the impersonalists, the monistic philosophers, have wreaked havoc in the world with their misguided opinions concerning transformation of the Lord's energy.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => RTW 2.5: Lord Krsna Alone Is the Supreme Godhead; Everyone Else Is His Servant.