[Prev][Next][Index]
Re: Impersonalism is Unintelligent - Bhagavad-Gita 7.24
-
Subject: Re: Impersonalism is Unintelligent - Bhagavad-Gita 7.24
-
From: cbwillis@netcom.com (C. B. Willis)
-
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 1995 23:14:08 GMT
-
Apparently-To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
-
From cbwillis@netcom.com Sat Jan 21 18: 04:54 1995
-
Newsgroups: alt.hindu
-
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
-
References: <3fn64m$f3t@ucunix.san.uc.edu>
H. Krishna Susarla (susarla@rice.edu) wrote:
: Bhagavad-Gita 7.24
Thank you H. Krishna for bringing up the topic of the impersonal and
personal God. After I read the excerpt below, I later went to my
Radhakrishnan BG translation and commentary, and I got what seemed to be a
180 degree interpretation, to the effect that the impersonal, formless God
is to be seen as more fundamental or superior to the personal God. Could
anyone comment on this discrepancy on what would seem to be central ideas
to Hinduism and Vedanta?
Thanks,
-CBW
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| cbwillis@netcom.com | "Values are the infrastructure |
| | upon which civilization |
| | will be reinvented." - CBW |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
: TRANSLATION
: Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I, the
: Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, was impersonal before and have
: now assumed this personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not
: know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme.
:
: PURPORT
: Those who are worshipers of demigods have been described as less
: intelligent persons, and here the impersonalists are similarly
: described. Lord Krsna in His personal form is here speaking before
: Arjuna, and still, due to ignorance, impersonalists argue that the
: Supreme Lord ultimately has no form. Yamunacarya, a great devotee of
: the Lord in the disciplic succession of Ramanujacarya, has written two
: very appropriate verses in this connection. He says,
: tvam sila-rupa-caritaih parama-prakrstaih
: sattvena sattvikataya prabalais ca sastraih
: prakhyata-daiva-paramartha-vidam matais ca
: naivasura-prakrtayah prabhavanti boddhum
: ``My dear Lord, devotees like Vyasadeva and Narada know You to be
: the Personality of Godhead. By understanding different Vedic
: literatures, one can come to know Your characteristics, Your form and
: Your activities, and one can thus understand that You are the Supreme
: Personality of Godhead. But those who are in the modes of passion and
: ignorance, the demons, the nondevotees, cannot understand You. They are
: unable to understand You. However expert such nondevotees may be in
: discussing Vedanta and the Upanisads and other Vedic literatures, it is
: not possible for them to understand the Personality of Godhead.''
: (Stotra-ratna 12)
: understand from the Bhagavad-gita. We cannot understand how the Supreme
: Personality of Godhead can be impersonal; the imposition theory of the
: impersonalist monist is false as far as the statements of the Gita are
: concerned. It is clear herein that the Supreme Absolute Truth, Lord
: Krsna, has both form and personality.
: Books of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
--
