Shrimad Bhagavad Gita As It Is -Shri Shrimad A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
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The Most Confidential Knowledge
Chapter 9: Verse-11
He is not an ordinary man, although He appeared on this earth as an ordinary human. In the Srimad-Bhägavatam, First Canto, First Chapter, when the sages headed by Saunaka inquired about the activities of Krsna, they said: krtavän kilakarmani saha rämena kesavah “Lord Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, along with Balaräma, played like a human being, and so masked He performed many superhuman acts.”[1] The Lord’s appearance as a man bewilders the foolish. No human being could perform the wonderful acts that krsna performed while He was present on this earth. When krsna appeared before His father and mother, Vasudeva and Devaki, He appeared with four hands, but after the prayers of the parents He transformed Himself into an ordinary child. As stated in the [2], babhüva präkrtah sisuh: He became just like an ordinary child, an ordinary human being. Now, here again it is indicated that the Lord’s appearance as an ordinary human being is one of the features of His transcendental body. In the Eleventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gita also it is stated that Arjuna prayed to see Krsna’s form of four hands tenaiva rüpena catur-bhujena. After revealing this form, Krsna, when petitioned by Arjuna, again assumed His original humanlike form mänusam rüpam. These different features of the Supreme Lord are certainly not those of an ordinary human being. Some of those who deride krsna and who are infected with the Mäyävädi philosophy quote the following verse from the [3] to prove that krsna is just an ordinary man. Aham sarvesu bhütesu bhütätmävasthitah sadä: “The Supreme is present in every living entity.” We should better take note of this particular verse from the Vaisnava äcäryas like Jiva Gosvämi and Visvanätha Cakravarti Thäkura instead of following the interpretation of unauthorized persons who deride Krsna. Jiva Gosvämi, commenting on this verse, says that Krsna, in His plenary expansion as Paramätmä, is situated in the moving and the nonmoving entities as the Supersoul, so any neophyte devotee who simply gives his attention to the arcä-mürti, the form of the Supreme Lord in the temple, and does not respect other living entities is uselessly worshiping the form of the Lord in the temple. There are three kinds of devotees of the Lord, and the neophyte is in the lowest stage. The neophyte devotee gives more attention to the Deity in the temple than to other devotees, so Visvanätha Cakravarti Thäkura warns that this sort of mentality should be corrected. A devotee should see that because Krsna is present in everyone’s heart as Paramätmä, every body is the embodiment or the temple of the Supreme Lord; so as one offers respect to the temple of the Lord, he should similarly properly respect each and every body in which the Paramätmä dwells. Everyone should therefore be given proper respect and should not be neglected. There are also many impersonalists who deride temple worship. They say that since God is everywhere, why should one restrict himself to temple worship? But if God is everywhere, is He not in the temple or in the Deity? Although the personalist and the impersonalist will fight with one another perpetually, a perfect devotee in krsna con sciousness knows that although krsna is the Supreme Personality, He is all-pervading, as confirmed in the Brahma-samhitä. Although His personal abode is Goloka Vrndävana and He is always staying there, by His different manifestations of energy and by His plenary expansion He is present everywhere in all parts of the material and spiritual creation.
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