RE: Lord's form seen by nondevotees; matter & spirit; and the Moon

[Guest guest]

Please accept my humble obeisance. Hare Krishna.

 

I've been trying to follow these discussions for my own education, but

I'm finding a few points of confusion which I hope the assembled

Vaishnavas can help resolve.

 

 

In one message the point was made that there is a difference between the

Lord's avatar forms and His deity forms. When I look at the Deity of

Krishna, my eyes see what appears to be matter, but my intelligence

tells me that this is Krishna. I think of myself as somewhere between a

demon and a pure devotee, and I can't really say what either of the

other sees. However I tend to think that the pure devotees actually see

the Deity Krishna doing things or holding a pose. (Actually my sense of

it is that spiritual time intersects with mundane time in a way that

gives it a motionless, material appearance to us.) If a demon were to

see Krishna as avatar, I don't know why there would be any fault with

the idea that the demon could see Krishna's spiritual form but have the

demon's perverted intelligence interpret it as only matter.

 

Related to this is a question about the substance that makes up the

Deity form of Krishna. Is the substance we see Krishna Himself, or is

it matter that is spiritualized by Krishna's presence, like the iron in

a fire acting as fire? My belief has been that the substance of the

Deity is personally Krishna exactly as Krishna's own form, but this

discussion has made me wonder if that's correct.

 

 

Second, I've seen it argued here that matter and spirit are distinct

categories of Krishna's energy and that one does not ever become the

other. I had been with the understanding myself that all of Krishna's

energy is spiritual, but that Krishna makes some of His spiritual energy

behave with limiting qualities such as denseness, unconsciousness, etc.,

that we see as matter. I thought that these objects around me were

actually spiritual energy but only acting material because I'm too dumb

to engage them favorably in Krishna's service.

 

Also on this point, what happens to boga offered to Krishna when He

accepts it? Is the matter changed to spirit?

 

 

Third, if the dimensionality of the Moon is ultimately 3-D (whether it's

"the complete truth" about it or "3-D, period") they why are we unable

to see the complete Moon including demigod cities and such things? I've

never heard of any reasonable explanation of this, and could only assume

that the stuff we're missing is at a more subtle level of matter or at a

higher dimensionality.

 

 

Hare Krishna

 

Pandu das

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna Pandu Pr.,

 

You said:

 

I don't know why there would be any fault with

the idea that the demon could see Krishna's spiritual form but have the demon's

perverted intelligence interpret it as only matter.

 

>>> There wouldn't be any fault if the scripture says so. Srila Prabhupada is

clear in the purport I sent yesterday that Lord Krishna does not show His true

form to the demons. Now, which form he shows in not to clear to me either. By

logic, I assume it is a form made of matter, because that is the only thing we

can perceive. In a different place, Srila Prabhupada gives the example of the

sun being covered by the cloud to drive home the point how we are covered by

maya and thus cannot see Krishna until the covering is removed. The fact that

the cloud is covering our eyes from the sun does not mean the Lord comes under

maya (using the analogy) -it is because of our four material imperfections.

 

Regarding the moon example, while no one disagrees that it is a "3-D object",

still the perception of the 2-D surface is not unreal/false. Just like, while

the realization of Brahman feature of the Lord, while not complete is

nevertheless real. Similarly, a demon perceives the Lord as limited (or matter),

although, in actuality the Lord has a transcendental form, that He has chosen

not to reveal to the demon.

 

The arca-vigraha, while made of matter is spiritualized not just by the presence

of the Lord, but by the pure bhakti of the pure devotee - Srila Prabhupada says

bhakti means two - there is the Lord and the devotee. A self-realized soul sees

everything as spirit (panditah sama-darsinah) - when such a realized soul sees

matter, He sees it in connection with Krishna, and that is why it is

spiritualized -because of the connection with the Lord - not that it changes in

composition to spirit. Lord Krishna says in the Gita that He has two natures,

inferior and superior. Material energy is eternal and so is spiritual energy.

The difference between the Mayavadi and Vaishnava is the latter sees the perfect

connection between spirit, matter and Krishna, while the former rejects the last

two.

 

This is my understanding. Please correct if I'm wrong.

 

in your service,

 

Aravind.

 

 

Aravind Mohanram

Ph.D. Candidate

Dept. of Mat Sci and Engg.,

Penn State University,

University Park, PA 16801

www.personal.psu.edu/aum105