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ARTICLE : Thus spoke Lord Caitanya
Lord Caitanya, the Preacher of Srimad Bhagavatam, in His debate with the
great learned pandit named Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya about the Vedas said:
" The Vedic injunctions are self-authorized, and if some mundane creature
adjusts the interpretations of the Vedas, he defies their authority. It is
foolish to think of oneself as more intelligent than Srila Vyasadeva. He
has already expressed himself in his sutras, and there is no need of help
from personalities of lesser importance. His work, the Vedanta-sutra, is
dazzling as the midday sun, and when someone tries to give his own
interpretations on the self-effulgent sunlike Vedanta-sutra, he attempts
to cover this sun with the cloud of his imagination.
The Vedas and Puranas are one and the same in purpose. They acertain the
Absolute Truth, which is greater than everything else. The Absolute Truth
is ultimately realized as the Absolute Personality of Godhead with
absolute controlling power. As such, the Absolute Personality of Godhead
must be completely full of opulence, fame, beauty, knowledge and
renunciation. Yet the transendental Personality of Godhead is
astonishingly ascertained as impersonal.
The impersonal description of the Absolute Truth in the Vedas is given to
nullify the mundane conception of the absolute whole. Personal features of
the Lord are completely different from all kinds of mundane features. The
living entities are all individual persons, and they are all parts and
parcels of the supreme whole. If the parts and parcels are individual
persons, the source of their emanation must not be impersonal. He is the
Supreme Person amongst all the relative persons.
The Vedas inform us that from Him [Brahman] everything emanates, and on
Him everything rests. And after annihilation, everything merges in Him
only. Therefore, He is the ultimate dative, causative and accommodating
cause of all causes. And these causes cannot be attributed to an
impersonal object.
The Vedas inform us that He alone became many, and when He so desires He
glances over material nature. Before He glanced over material nature there
was no material cosmic creation. Therefore, His glance is not material.
Material mind or senses were unborn when the Lord glanced over material
nature. Thus evidence in the Vedas proves that beyond a doubt the Lord has
transendental eyes and a transendental mind. They are not material. His
impersonality therefore is a negation of His materiality, but not a denial
of His transendental personality.
Brahman ultimately refers to the Personality of Godhead. Impersonal
Brahman realization is just the negative conception of the mundane
creations. Paramatma is the localized aspect of Brahman within all kinds
of material bodies. Ultimately the Supreme Brahman realization is the
realization of the Personality of Godhead according to all evidence of the
revealed scriptures. He is the ultimate source of visnu-tattvas.
The Puranas are also supplementary to the Vedas. The Vedic mantras are too
difficult for an ordinary man. Women, sudras and the so-called twice-born
higher castes are unable to penetrate into the sense of the Vedas. And
thus the Mahabharata as well as the Puranas are made easy to explain the
truths of the Vedas. In his prayers before the boy Sri Krsna, Brahma said
that there is no limit to the fortune of the residents of Vrajabhumi
headed by Sri Nanda Maharaj and Yasodamayi because the eternal Absolute
Truth has become their intimate relative.
The Vedic mantra maintains that the Absolute Truth has no legs and no
hands and yet goes faster than all and accepts everything that is offered
to Him in devotion. The latter statements definitely suggest the personal
features of the Lord, although His hands aand legs are distinguished from
mundane hands and legs or other senses.
Brahman, therefore, is never impersonal, but when such mantras are
indirectly interpreted, it is wrongly thought that the Absolute Truth
Personality of Godhead is full of all opulences, and therefore He has
a transendental form of full existance, knowledge and bliss. How then can
one establish that Absolute Truth is impersonal?
Brahman , being full of opulence, is understood to have manifold energies,
and all these energies are classified under three headings under the
authority of Visnu Purana [6.7.60], which says that the transendental
energies of Lord Visnu are primarily three. His spiritual energy and the
energy of the living entities are classified as superior energy, whereas
the material energy is an inferior one which is sprouted out of ignorance.
The energy of the living entities is technically called ksetrajna energy.
This ksetrajna-sakti, although equal in quality with the Lord, becomes
overpowered by material energy out of ignorance and thus suffers all sorts
of material miseries. In other words, the living entities are located in
the marginal energy between the superior(spiritual) and inferior
(material) energy , and in propo to the living being's contact with either
the material or spiritual energies, the living entity is situated in
proportionatly higher or lower levels oof existance.
