Arca-vigraha: Bhanu maharaj expands further...

[Guest guest]

Haribol devotees,

 

Please see below my recent exchange with maharaj on this. A beautiful and new

perspective for me!

 

********************

 

Dear Maharaj,

 

PAMHO. AGTSP.

 

I have a question related to the answer provided by you

 

In Srimad-Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada says,

 

"Similarly, the material conception of a thing is at once changed as

soon as it is put into the service of the Lord. That is the secret of spiritual

success...Everything is an emanation from the Supreme Spirit, and by

His inconceivable power He can convert spirit into matter and matter into

spirit. Therefore a material thing (so-called) is at once turned into a

spiritual force by the great will of the Lord. The necessary condition

for such a change is to employ so-called matter in the service of the

spirit. That is the way to treat our material diseases and elevate ourselves to

the spiritual plane where there is no misery, no lamentation and no fear.

When everything is thus employed in the service of the Lord, we can

experience that there is nothing except the Supreme Brahman. The Vedic mantra

that

"everything is Brahman" is thus realized by us."

 

(S.B. 1.5.33 purport by Srila Prabhupada)

 

My question is, doesn't this contradict the notion that he does not

convert brass into spirit? if so, how to understand this purport?

 

 

---------- Answer ------- HH Bhanu Swami (Madras - IN)

 

In serving the Lord everything becomes spiritual, since bhakti comes

from the Lord's svarupa sakti. However, we also know that everything we use

such as flowers, incense, cloth, etc. end up withering and deteriorating.

The substance of the spiritual world does not wither. Everything is

eternal. We can say that things become spiritualized by devotion, and the Lord

accepts those things. What is he accepting? He is accepting the

devotion imbued in the offered object by the devotee. Bhakti can purify the

function of material objects, but does not transform acit into cit.

 

 

 

Aravind Mohanram

Ph.D. Candidate

Dept. of Mat Sci and Engg.,

Penn State University,

University Park, PA 16801

www.personal.psu.edu/aum105