Bhagavad-gita 4.9

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Sri Bhagavan uvaca:

> janma karma ca me divyam

> evam yo vetti tattvatah

> tyaktva deham punar janma

> naiti mam eti so 'rjuna

> One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and

> activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in

> this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.

 

Srila Prabhupada stresses realizing the oneness of the Lord's

multiforms--as well as the profundity of that realization--while he

comments on this verse, when he writes:

 

"Although there are many transcendental forms of the

Lord, they are still one and the same Supreme Personality of Godhead.

One has to understand this fact with conviction, although it is

incomprehensible to mundane scholars and empiric philosophers."

 

Elaborating further, he says:

 

"'The one Supreme Personality of Godhead is eternally engaged in

many, many transcendental forms in relationships with His unalloyed

devotees.' This Vedic version is confirmed in this verse of the Gita

personally by the Lord. He who accepts this truth on the strength of the

authority of the Vedas and of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and

who does not waste time in philosophical speculations attains the

highest perfectional stage of liberation. Simply by accepting this

truth on faith, one can, without a doubt, attain liberation. The Vedic

version tat tvam asi is actually applied in this case. Anyone who

understands Lord Krsna to be the Supreme, or who says unto the Lord

"You are the same Supreme Brahman, the Personality of Godhead," is

certainly liberated instantly, and consequently his entrance into the

transcendental association of the Lord is guaranteed."

 

To me it seems that Srila Prabhupada emphasizes this preliminary

and fundamental realization of the Lords' oneness, just as he generally

emphasizes the essential principles of our process more than the details

of how our individual advancement actually transpires. That approach is

analogous to brahma-bhuta realization, in that as realization of the oneness

of all the Lord's forms allows one to appreciate Krsna as He so often

advises (i.e., tattvatah--"in truth") throughout the Gita. Similarly, a

realization of our qualitative oneness with all living beings allows us to

appreciate that all others, including the Lord, are persons, qualitatively

just like us. Brahma-bhuta trealization is equally preliminary to our own

cultivation of rasa too, which is of course a two-way affair. Even though

it seems clear that Prabhupada's books generally stress the inherent

dualism of bhedabheda more than its inherent monism, I suspect the above

emphasis on "advaita" nonetheless had a lot to do with Srila Prabhupada's

incomparable and unprecedented success in awakening the dormant Krsna

consciousness in so many others.

Of course, at the end of his purport, Srila Prabhupada also only

mentions Krsna. :-)

 

Mukunda Datta dasa