Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis,
Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.
We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few ofthe glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad,
sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam
asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham
kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr
yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ
Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.
We shall continue to meditate on the following qualities - beyond reproach and the greatest philosopher.
Glorification 16 - The Lord is beyond reproach: In the above verse avranam means without reproach. The dictionary meaning of reproach is to find fault with (a person, a group etc) or blame or censure a person. Sometimes less intelligent persons criticise Krishna. "Why did Krishna engage in the raasa dance, enjoying with other men's wives in the middle of the night?" He favored the Pandavas and got them to defeat Kauravas with deceitful means. For e.g. Dronacharya was killed by telling a lie. But these less intelligent people don't understand that Krishna is Supreme God. He can do whatever He likes. Our laws cannot restrict Krishna. For us there are so many restrictive laws, but for Krishna there is no restrictive law. He can surpass all regulations. No sin can pollute Krishna. For example let us consider a car is waiting at the traffic signal for the signal to turn green and if the car driver sees an aeroplane passing through in the air at exactly the same spot. The car driver cannot say to the pilot, why is the pilot not following the traffic rules of the road. The aeroplane is on a higher plane altogether and the car is on the road, on the ground. You cannot expect the aeroplane to follow the rules and regulations of the road. Similarly Krishna is the source of everything, the Supreme Judge and is on the highest platform. All the moral codes and ethics of this material don't apply to Him. He is beyond all the material conceptions. So, we cannot use our tiny brain to judge the dealings of the Lord. Parikshit Maharaja asked this same question of Sukadeva Goswami, "Krishna came to establish the principles of morality and religion. Then why did He enjoy the company of so many young girls who were the wives of others? This seems to be very sinful." Sukadeva Goswami answered that Krishna cannot be contaminated by sin; rather, whoever comes in contact with Krishna, even with a contaminated mind, becomes purified. The sun is a good analogy. the sun cannot be contaminated, rather if something contaminated is placed in the sunshine, it becomes purified. Hence, Krishna is beyond reproach.
Glorification 17 - Krishna is the greatest philosopher: Krishna is termed here as maneeshi, which means a philosopher. The dictionary meaning of philosopher is multi-fold as below. Let's see these one by one in the context of the Lord.
Meaning 1: a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields. Scientists andphilosophers form views or theories based on speculation, imagination or some limited practical experience. But since Krishna is the source of everything(ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā) He doesn't need to theorize or speculate anything. He knows things exactly as they are and hence His views are cent-percent perfect.
Meaning 2: a person who is deeply versed in philosophy. A philosopher or scientist may have deep (deep as compared to other human beings) knowledgein one particular field. But it is hard to find anybody who has deep knowledge in all fields. But the Lord is omniscient i.e. He is all knowledgeable. Hence He knows everything that is there in the creation and hence He is deeply versed in all fields of philosophy.
Meaning 3: a person who regulates his or her life, actions, judgments, utterances, etc., by the light of philosophy or reason. Nowadays it is really hard to find anyone who has regulated life, forget about following the instructions in the scriptures. But the Lord even when He was present on earth exhibited truly regulated life. He would wake up early before sunrise, meditate on Himself, then He would donate wealth to Brahmins, respect elders. When He dealt with various people, He followed the norms of the society like bowing down to elders etc. All His dealings and actions were totally regulated as per the scriptures.
Meaning 4: a person who is rationally or sensibly calm, especially under trying circumstances. Under trying circumstances most of us buckle and give up to the modes of nature. As per Upadeshamrta (verse 1) one who can control the sense urges like anger, speech etc is qualified to be a Guru. We all know this is easier said than done. But Krishna displays these characteristics all the time. There have been hardly any instances where we can see that Krishna has lost his cool and has behaved irrationally. And one who has the mercy of Krishna also is able to display these characteristics. For e.g. Srila Prabhupada was always sensible and rational throughout his life, even when he was put in trying circumstances. Prabhupada said once that Krishna tested him big time twice in his life. Once when his business went haywire and he become bankrupt and the second time when Krishna gave lots of wealth, fame and prestige. In both circumstances a common man would buckle and give way to emotions and get diverted from true goal of life. But since Prabhupada had the mercy of the Lord, he was able to handle both the circumstances like a true Mahajan. When Krishna incarnated as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, he was named as Nimai Pandit, since he defeated so many big big scholars and philosophers easily. He was undefeated in philosophical debates and big philosophers were scared to come in front of him. He propogated the greatest philosophy of all times - Nama sankirtan movement. One should chant and glorify the Holy names of the Lord. All in all Krishna is the greatest of all philosophers and nobody can equal Him.
Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.
Thank you very much,
Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev,
Anand Patil
Wellington, New Zealand.
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