Page 66 - THE FOURTH DIMENSION

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada brilliantly explains the difference between Lord Krishna and all living entities
making very clear that no one can emulate or surpass the Lord.

As the sun exists diffusing its unlimited rays, so does the Supersoul, or Supreme Personality of Godhead. He exists
in His all-pervading form, and in Him exist all the individual living entities, beginning from the first great teacher,
Brahmā, down to the small ants. There are unlimited heads, legs, hands and eyes, and unlimited living entities.
All are existing in and on the Supersoul. Therefore the Supersoul is all-pervading. The individual soul, however,
cannot say that he has his hands, legs and eyes everywhere. That is not possible. If he thinks that under ignorance
he is not conscious that his hands and legs are diffused all over but when he attains to proper knowledge he will
come to that stage, his thinking is contradictory. This means that the individual soul, having become conditioned
by material nature, is not supreme. The Supreme is different from the individual soul. The Supreme Lord can
extend His hand without limit; the individual soul cannot. In Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that if anyone offers
Him a flower, or a fruit, or a little water, He accepts it. If the Lord is a far distance away, how can He accept
things? This is the omnipotence of the Lord: even though He is situated in His own abode, far, far away from
earth, He can extend His hand to accept what anyone offers. That is His potency. In the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37)
it is stated, goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ: although He is always engaged in pastimes in His
transcendental planet, He is all-pervading. The individual soul cannot claim that he is all-pervading. Therefore
this verse describes the Supreme Soul, the Personality of Godhead, not the individual soul. (Bg. 13-14)

Lord Krishna is not impersonal or void. One cannot continually mediate on something impersonal or
imperceptible. It is very difficult and in the long run impossible.

Thinking of Lord Krishna is relishable and easy because He is eternally the most charming person with unlimited
opulences. Bhaktivedanta Swami explains the how and why the Lord is an eternal and inimitable person”

The Lord is kavi; that is, He knows past, present and future and therefore knows everything. He is the oldest
personality because He is the origin of everything; everything is born out of Him. He is also the supreme controller
of the universe, and He is the maintainer and instructor of humanity. He is smaller than the smallest. The living
entity is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of a hair, but the Lord is so inconceivably small that He enters into
the heart of this particle. Therefore He is called smaller than the smallest. As the Supreme, He can enter into the
atom and into the heart of the smallest and control him as the Supersoul. Although so small, He is still all-
pervading and is maintaining everything. By Him all these planetary systems are sustained. We often wonder
how these big planets are floating in the air. It is stated here that the Supreme Lord, by His inconceivable energy,
is sustaining all these big planets and systems of galaxies. The word acintya (“inconceivable”) is very significant
in this connection. God’s energy is beyond our conception, beyond our thinking jurisdiction, and is therefore
called inconceivable (acintya). Who can argue this point? He pervades this material world and yet is beyond it.
We cannot comprehend even this material world, which is insignificant compared to the spiritual world – so how
can we comprehend what is beyond? Acintya means that which is beyond this material world, that which our
argument, logic and philosophical speculation cannot touch, that which is inconceivable. Therefore intelligent
persons, avoiding useless argument and speculation, should accept what is stated in scriptures like the Vedas,
Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and follow the principles they set down. This will lead one to
understanding. (Bg 8.9 – purport)

It is evident from the preceding that everything is personal in the spiritual and material worlds by virtue of
Krishna’s and the living entities’ omnipresence. When we accept the axiomatic statements of the Vedic
scriptures as infallible truth, we can begin to have the correct vision of material and spiritual reality. The
materialistic atheistic view of reality wrongly excludes the existence God out of their world view. Therefore,
they have a very limited understanding of the material world and no comprehension at all of the spiritual world.

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