Comparison of Jesus-Krishna Preachings

[Murali_Mohan_das]

You presume a lot, dear friend. You are correct that, if I truly have any love for my family, I will encourage them in their spiritual development.

 

However, I am so extremely fortunate to have family members who remind *me* of Krishna. They are the ones reminding *me* that everything belongs to Him and that anything which we may be using is on loan from Him.

 

Without my children, mother, father, siblings, etc., I'm certain that I would be an even *worse* follower of Sri Sri Guru-Gauranga and an even *more* degenerate sense-enjoyer!

 

To artificially abandon one's responsibilities is to simply incurr more karma, is it not? If we are karmically-bound to all of our relations, isn't it best to endeavor to carry out our duties/dharma to the best of our abilities so as to rid ourselves of those karmic ties?

 

Of course, if we are fully-surrendered to the Lord, then there are no such mundane considerations, but who of us can say we are fully-surrendered?

 

 

Dear Murali_Mohan_das;

 

You are working day and night for the welfare of your family. Then, is it not your duty to work for their eternal spiritual welfare? By this if your family members become devotees, they will not oppose you, instead, they will support you. Even if you leave the family and go out, you have to live in association of devotees only. Ignorant people leave the house and go to forest where even the normal behavior of human beings is not seen and instead they see the animals and birds, which are always trying and fighting for food.

Shankara left His mother and did not go to forest. He went to Shri Govinda Bhagavat Pada to have spiritual association. Through out His life, He was wandering in the world only with spiritual debates. I do not understand the significance of forests in the spiritual field. If you say that peaceful atmosphere exists in forests, it is zero. Plus which is the association with devotees and Satguru is far better than zero. Zero is only better than minus which is the disturbance in the world.

Therefore, the sages took the advantage of zero and plus by living in forests together. Hence, the association with devotees is main and not mere forest. If you can convert your family members in to devotees, you need not go out. Thus, the obstruction in your spiritual path is removed and simultaneously you have also done the work of God. It is best because it is double edged due to simultaneous work of your self and God. In spite of your best efforts, if the family does not change, then only you have to leave the family for the sake of God (Yadahareva virajet….Veda). But this step should be the last resort and should not be the first step it self. This problem becomes most serious if God is the contemporary human incarnation.

Hanuman did not get such problems because His mother and father were divine with full spiritual knowledge and encouraged Hanuman to leave the house to serve Rama. He was not married and therefore the problem from the side of wife and children did not arise. But in the case of Gopikas, the problem was very serious because their husbands and relatives were ignorant also. It was a fire test for them because that was the last worldly birth for those sages. The detachment from the world should be done carefully without haste. As a last resort only the extreme step of sanyasa should be taken up for the sake of God.

[dattaswami]

 

You presume a lot, dear friend. You are correct that, if I truly have any love for my family, I will encourage them in their spiritual development.

 

However, I am so extremely fortunate to have family members who remind *me* of Krishna. They are the ones reminding *me* that everything belongs to Him and that anything which we may be using is on loan from Him.

 

Without my children, mother, father, siblings, etc., I'm certain that I would be an even *worse* follower of Sri Sri Guru-Gauranga and an even *more* degenerate sense-enjoyer!

 

To artificially abandon one's responsibilities is to simply incurr more karma, is it not? If we are karmically-bound to all of our relations, isn't it best to endeavor to carry out our duties/dharma to the best of our abilities so as to rid ourselves of those karmic ties?

 

Of course, if we are fully-surrendered to the Lord, then there are no such mundane considerations, but who of us can say we are fully-surrendered?

Murali_Mohan_das;

 

You need not leave family, if the family members are aiding you in developing the devotion to God.

 

But let me give the essence of the meaning of leaving everything for Lord.

The inner meaning of ‘Sarva Dharmaan’ is simply total dedication of yourself to God from all sides. Anything or anybody opposing this is a sin. Anything or anybody encouraging this is the real Dharma or justice. The worldly bonds are born to use your self as the instrument of their happiness only as said in Veda. Jesus also asks you to leave all the family bonds including even the bond with your life to become His real disciple. The responsibility of the people left by you is well known to God about which you should not worry. When you feel the responsibility the detachment is not complete.

The sage Narada told in his Bhakti Sutras that the devotee attracted to God is like a person who is attracted by a beautiful girl and subsequently leaving his wife for her (Jaravatcha …….). The attraction was so powerful resulting in the state of madness, where the discussion of justice and injustice does not arise. The people who are left by the devotee in such attraction to God will have their own lines of samskara in which God may or may not take the responsibility of them based on His over all decision. He will enquire the merits and defects thoroughly and will take up the proper action. The mother of Shankara was granted salvation and the wife of Buddha was not granted salvation.

The mother of Shankara suffered in this world after leaving Shankara but reached the abode of God finally. The wife of Buddha enjoyed all the luxuries here after leaving Buddha and did not get salvation. The souls have their own merits and defects for which you are not responsible. You are worried about them because you have not analyzed the worldly love which has selfish motive only and in such case where is the point of your responsibility to them?

After crucification of Jesus, His mother Mary led her own line of life based on her own samskaras. When the love to God is in climax, this question does not find place in yourself. Actually this question is posed by others to you when you have reached such climax of divine love.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

Dattaswami seems to just be copy/pasting from somehwere. I can't believe someone can type so many lines, punctuation marks and all, in such a short time!

 

I think you're right. The stuff being copied and pasted is a lot cleaner and more grammatically-correct than the stuff being written by "dattaswami".

 

I also agree with your assessment that "dattaswami" is a wanna-be Christian.

 

While I claim to love Jesus and defend the Christian faith, and while I support mutual admiration between faiths, it is pretty clear to me that, while it's good to find common ground between Gaudiya and Christian theologies and traditions, there are certain concepts which simply do not blend welll.

 

The concepts of sin, atonement, redemption, tests, etc., are peculiar to Christianity, and aren't really applicable to the Vaishnava tradition.

 

For the Vaishnava, what need does God have of tests? If we are surrendered, we are surrendered--Paramatma can easily see if it is so or not.

 

Of course, as always, God may play as He wishes. His actions may even seem harsh (though he remains sweet and beautiful), but, to the sincere follower, any attention from the Lord is welcome. The devotee implores the Lord to use him/her as He wishes, even to abuse him/her, but never to leave him/her alone.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

You reveal here your utter lack of faith.

 

Is God God or not? What is God? Is God not the Divine Autocrat? Is God subject to some arbitrary limitations?

 

Explain why God cannot appear as a statue.

 

If God can hear music and taste food with His toe, why can He not accept our service in is murti form?

 

 

A statue cannot test your real essence in the sacrifice. When you offer food to a statue the sacrifice is only by words and by mind but when you sacrifice the food to the human incarnation the sacrifice is real because the human form of the Lord eats the food. Thus the reality of the worship comes out only when the Lord is in human form. Sakthuprastha was tested by the Lord in human form and not by the statue.

[dattaswami]

 

I think

For the Vaishnava, what need does God have of tests? If we are surrendered, we are surrendered--Paramatma can easily see if it is so or not.

 

.

 

God test you not for His sake, but to make you know that what is your level, how much divine knowledge preached by Lord in human form has got digested in you. The tests are for your upliftment only. You may theoretically argue that you have tremendous love on God, which any body can clain, unless it is proved and tested. For that Lord in human form has to be infront of you. He preaches you the divine knoweldge but test whether you have digested or not.

 

Let me explain you it little more clearly.

 

Generally we do some service to the Lord and expect something good in return from the Lord. This is the norm of the general worldly business. The specialty of Lord Datta is that He announces His policy in the beginning itself. His policy is one-way traffic. You have to do service to Him but He will not do anything good in return. Thus the business completely disappears. At this stage itself majority of the devotees drop out. Some devotees come to Him prepared for doing the service without any good fruit in return. After some time He opens His second policy. This policy is two-way traffic but it is different from our two-way traffic. He starts doing bad for our service. As the devotees press His feet He will be beating them with His stick. This is the true love.

 

The devotee must have the divine knowledge to understand Lord Datta. By giving such troubles He is clearing all the sins. In clearing the sins He pays ninety-nine percent and the doer must pay one percent according to the rule of minimum justice. He appears to be giving troubles but actually He is clearing the sins. Then why He is not opening this truth. If the truth is not opened then only the true love exists. In the true love, one loves in spite of troubles from the other side. If the truth is opened this true love disappears. We will realize that these troubles are for his benefit only. Then we will tolerate the troubles from that angle. In such case it cannot be true love. Therefore Lord Datta maintains the secrecy. After clearing the sins, He will give boons. Without curing the fever, strong food should not be given. If it is given the patient dies. The demons were destroyed by such boons. There are three types of devotees. The low-level devotee asks for a boon like a demon. He does not give any freedom to the Lord. He decides that something is good for him and asks the Lord to give it.

 

The devotee acts like a master and is indirectly treating the Lord as his servant. The Master asks the servant to do a particular thing without any comment. The middle class devotees ask the Lord to do whatever is good for them. They give some freedom to the Lord in deciding, which is good and which is bad for them. Upto this point they give freedom to the Lord. After this point the Lord has no freedom and He has to do good only. Thus these devotees give 50 percent freedom to the Lord. The best devotee gives 100 percent freedom to the Lord. He asks the Lord to do whatever the Lord likes. This devotee is prepared to receive the bad also if it can please the Lord. His only aim is that the Lord should be pleased by doing whatever He likes. This devotee feels that he is only an inert means for the play of the Lord by which the Lord is entertained. A player beats the ball by foot and is entertained. The devotee also likes to receive continuous sufferings, if such sufferings can entertain the Lord.

 

When Jesus was doing the last prayer, He tried to avoid the future agony of death. For a moment He was vibrated with the forthcoming agony of crucification. But immediately He regained His originality and ended the prayer by saying “Let Thy will will be done”. He said finally that He is prepared to suffer if that is the will of the Lord. This is the best devotion. Lord Datta starts giving small troubles, which means that He is clearing the small sins. If the devotee is firm in his faith, then Datta starts clearing big sins. That means the small troubles will be slowly magnified into big troubles. When He clears your pronote of Rs. 100/- (Rs = $), He pays ninety-nine rupees and you will have to pay Re. 1/-. Then He starts clearing your pronote of one thousand rupees and then you have to pay Rs.10/-.

 

You have to pay one percent of your sin according to the least expectation of the Justice. In the first stage Lord Datta keeps silent without doing any good for your service. This is the test of Brahma. This is a sort of initial training for the further tests. Then Datta starts troubling you for your service. The clearance of small sins is the test of Vishnu. In the third stage big sins are cleared and your troubles are intensified. This is the third test of Rudra. From one angle these are the tests to find out the strength of your faith and truthness in your love. In another angle these tests are secret clearance of your sins and your purification to make you eligible for His grace. Only the best devotee can stand before the special Lord Datta. Datta is true God and His preachings are true. The benefit you get also is true. The real Sun can remove the real darkness by his real light and imaginary Sun cannot remove the real darkness.

You are spending lot of your time and energy in analyzing these worldly affairs. You are egoistic and you think that you are intelligent to solve the worldly affairs. By your intelligence and intensified analysis through long discussions, you will find that the worldly affair about which, you have taken so much care utterly flops at the end. If you spend even one-tenth of that time and that energy in the service and devotion on Lord Datta, your worldly issue succeeds beyond your imagination. In fact the servants of Lord Datta attend your worldly affairs. These worldly matters are below His level. His level of work starts when you go to the hell after the death. He will speak to Lord of the hell not to enquire about you and close the file since you are in His service. Thus you are blessed in this world and also in the upper world. Your faith is not 100 percent. To practice this if you are in His constant devotion all your duties will be also discharged by the power of Lord Datta in a fraction of second and in an excellent manner. One can test this concept in the case of one worldly affair and see whether what I say is correct or not?

You can test this in one case and you will experience the truth of My preachings.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

From the formatting of the passage below, it's obviously a cut-and-paste job. If it were typed into the site, it would appear the way the text I am now typing does.

 

If you are copying and pasting from some other reference, common ettiquete dictates that you properly attribute the source whether via a traditional footnote a URL (hyperlink) to the source.

 

You seem like a sincere person, but I feel many of us are losing our patience with you. If you continue like this you will soon be ignored by most.

 

 

My main aim to propagate the divine knowledge

On this earth is Universal Spirituality

For World Peace, because there should not be difference

Based on the religion, two people should not fight

For the sake of Nivrutti, which is reaching the Lord.

Nivrutti is related to Lord and is very sacred.

Should one stab another for the sake of this?

In <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> have you not heard of a Muslim stabbing Hindu

And vice-versa just for the sake of religion?

There is meaning if two fight for wealth etc.,

Which is Pravrutti, Pandavas and Kauravas fought

With each other for wealth, it is justified

Both belong to the same Hindu religion

They did not fight for the religion

It is shameful for the Lord to see such fights!

The same Lord is in two different dresses.

And you both are fighting for the difference in the dress!

You are not recognizing that the same teacher came

And taught the same syllabus in two different languages.

To one class He came in red shirt and to another class

He came in white shirt, you are fighting for His shirts!

You are fighting for the two languages, which differ.

The teacher is the same and the syllabus is the same.

You sit and analyze the contents of His teaching.

You treat the teacher as your Master in your section.

Is He not the Master for the other section also?

Both the sections constitute the whole school.

You say that He is the Master of the whole school.

The school consists off two distinct sections vividly.

If you say that He is the Master of the whole school,

The school must contain only your section, then only

Your statement is right, but the school shows two sections.

Your statements are contradicting each other clearly.

Hindus say that Brahman is the creator, Muslims say

That Allah is creator, Christians say that the creator is

Jehovah, all say that the creation is this entire world.

If Hindus say that Brahman created <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and if

Muslims say that Allah created Arabian countries and

If Christians say that Jehovah created the western countries,

The problem is solved, there can be three Gods together,

Who have created the three parts of the earth separately.

But this is not so, each religion says that their God only

Created the entire world, unfortunately there is one world!

One world only! Come on, all of you sit together here

And give me the final conclusion after debate, otherwise,

The scientists are laughing on all of you! Shame to all!

They criticize that these religions do not have even

The basic logic, which is the fundamental common sense.

Because of you, the greatest God is also mocked by them

They say that the religions are rigid conservatisms!

Even a small boy is putting this question to all of you.

Stop all your discourses and first answer this question.

If you want to say that God created the entire world,

You have to accept that there is one God only always

And that His names are all the above three names.

We see in the world a single person having three names.

If there is one God, He only created this entire world.

All the human beings are invariably His children only.

No Father is partial to a single child and therefore

He must have preached the same knowledge to all

In different languages and in different methodologies

To different levels, this is Universal Spirituality.

I find Christians trying to convert Hindus in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>.

Similarly Hindus are trying to convert Christians in West.

Do you think that Hinduism and Christianity are two

Different political parties to rule the spiritual kingdom?

These conversions then become very much essential,

Because the ruling party must have a clear majority.

Jesus said that majority of people are traveling

On a very wide high way that leads to hell! He also told

That the way to Him is very narrow with few people only!

<st1:place w:st="on">Krishna</st1:place> told that one in millions can only reach Him!

Both Jesus and <st1:place w:st="on">Krishna</st1:place> speak about qualitative minority

And not about useless quantitative majority, realize this.

If you analyze, both philosophies are one and the same.

Buddhism is an offspring of Hinduism, both are same.

Buddha is the incarnation of Vishnu, God of Hinduism.

Islam and Christianity are separated just on one point only.

Islam treats the prophet as messenger of God, Christianity

Treats the prophet as son of God or God Himself also.

Hinduism contains all these three views of the same point.

Whether the prophet is the messenger or the son of God

Or God Himself, think, how does it matter as far as

The message of God is concerned? Since God is same

And His message is also the same. Whether God says

Or His son says or His messenger says, no difference,

In all the three cases it is the message of God only.

Unable to practice the message of God, all of you are

Quarreling seriously on unnecessary immaterial point!

Let all the human beings on this earth recognise one God,

Let them recognise the only one path that is sacrifice,

Let them recognise themselves created by the same God

And therefore they are brothers and sisters in this world.

Let there not be stabbings of brothers for the sake of God.

Let there not be wars based on religious differences.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

But let me give the essence of the meaning of leaving everything for Lord.

The inner meaning of ‘Sarva Dharmaan’ is simply total dedication of yourself to God from all sides. Anything or anybody opposing this is a sin. Anything or anybody encouraging this is the real Dharma or justice.

 

Surrender to the Lord does not require a large external show, does it? Surrender is a state of consciousness, isn't it?

 

One can surrender in one's heart and, on the surface nothing may change.

 

Abandoning one's responsibilities is not surrender, it is part of the material cycle of bhog/tiyag--enjoyment and artificial renunciation.

 

The surrendered soul *may* continue to live just as he/she lived before surrending. The difference is, after surrending, everything is done as an offering to the Lord, and, if something cannot be done as an offering, it will no longer be done.

 

In the beginning stages, we are told to distinguish between things favorable for our devotion and things unfavorable.

 

At the same time, we are told that, at the highest stage, we will see that "every wave is favorable"--any seeming disturbance is really serving to push us closer to the Lord.

[gHari]

Talk of Jesus and Shankara in the same breath - how frightening. How will they spin Christ's words to kill Jehovah, The Almighty Father; kill Him and then worship His energies, become His energies, and be gods unto themselves? They accept only half the Vedas and they will accept only half of Jesus. And they will be worshipped as gods - but only by the ignorant and themselves - as they steal God's glory for their own.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

Generally we do some service to the Lord and expect something good in return from the Lord. This is the norm of the general worldly business. The specialty of Lord Datta is that He announces His policy in the beginning itself. His policy is one-way traffic. You have to do service to Him but He will not do anything good in return. Thus the business completely disappears. At this stage itself majority of the devotees drop out. Some devotees come to Him prepared for doing the service without any good fruit in return. After some time He opens His second policy. This policy is two-way traffic but it is different from our two-way traffic. He starts doing bad for our service. As the devotees press His feet He will be beating them with His stick. This is the true love.

 

Of course the Lord can do as He pleases, but the passage above describes a very twisted conception of the Guru-Disciple relationship. It sounds more like "S&M" (sado-masochism).

 

You are correct, that, in true devotion, there is no calculation. Service is not performed with the expectation of reward. Yet, the reward is immeasurable!!!

 

Sudama Vipra was a poor Brahmana who was convinced by his wife to visit his old school friend Sri Krishna and petition Him for help. Not wanting him to arrive empty-handed, the Brahmana's wife begged a handful of chipped rice from the neighbors and sent it with her husband.

 

Sudama made it to Dwaraka and was greeted with all love and honor by Sri Krishna. They spent an evening recalling their childhood. Sudama could not bring himself to petition the Lord for anything. Happily, he went home the next day with nothing to show for his journey.

 

Upon returning to his home, however, he saw that his meager hut had been replaced by expansive palaces and gardens.

 

I feel like Sudama Vipra sometimes. I have done nothing to earn the great fortune that is coming to me from Sri Guru! Yet I am so very blessed.

 

To get correction from Sri Guru--even if it is seemingly harsh correction, is seen by the faithful disciple as a great blessing. However, to have such seeming "abuse" be a formal part of the spiritual discipline strikes me as just plain sick!!

[Murali_Mohan_das]

This is so close to being correct. That is why it is so very dangerous.

 

The Lord can do what the Lord wills. Yet, don't you think the Lord has better things to do than devise tests for us?

 

It is said that there are three sources of material misery.

 

 

http://vedabase.net/noi/2/

 

 

Indeed, all living entities within this material world are under the control of mahāmāyā, whose business is to subject them to the influence of threefold miseries: adhidaivika-kleśa (sufferings caused by the demigods, such as droughts, earthquakes and storms), adhibhautika-kleśa (sufferings caused by other living entities like insects or enemies), and adhyātmika-kleśa (sufferings caused by one's own body and mind, such as mental and physical infirmities). Daiva-bhūtātma-hetavaḥ: the conditioned souls, subjected to these three miseries by the control of the external energy, suffer various difficulties.

 

So, the three sources of misery are: the demigods, other living entities, and ourselves.

 

Everything is coming from the Lord, ultimately, but He is largely disinterested, it is said, with the goings on in the material realm. He is not devising new ways for us to suffer.

 

To quote the Grateful Dead ("Althea"): Nobody's messing with you but you!!

 

 

Generally we do some service to the Lord and expect something good in return from the Lord. This is the norm of the general worldly business. The specialty of Lord Datta is that He announces His policy in the beginning itself. His policy is one-way traffic. You have to do service to Him but He will not do anything good in return. Thus the business completely disappears. At this stage itself majority of the devotees drop out. Some devotees come to Him prepared for doing the service without any good fruit in return. After some time He opens His second policy. This policy is two-way traffic but it is different from our two-way traffic. He starts doing bad for our service. As the devotees press His feet He will be beating them with His stick. This is the true love.

 

The devotee must have the divine knowledge to understand Lord Datta. By giving such troubles He is clearing all the sins. In clearing the sins He pays ninety-nine percent and the doer must pay one percent according to the rule of minimum justice. He appears to be giving troubles but actually He is clearing the sins. Then why He is not opening this truth. If the truth is not opened then only the true love exists. In the true love, one loves in spite of troubles from the other side. If the truth is opened this true love disappears. We will realize that these troubles are for his benefit only. Then we will tolerate the troubles from that angle. In such case it cannot be true love. Therefore Lord Datta maintains the secrecy. After clearing the sins, He will give boons. Without curing the fever, strong food should not be given. If it is given the patient dies. The demons were destroyed by such boons. There are three types of devotees. The low-level devotee asks for a boon like a demon. He does not give any freedom to the Lord. He decides that something is good for him and asks the Lord to give it.

 

The devotee acts like a master and is indirectly treating the Lord as his servant. The Master asks the servant to do a particular thing without any comment. The middle class devotees ask the Lord to do whatever is good for them. They give some freedom to the Lord in deciding, which is good and which is bad for them. Upto this point they give freedom to the Lord. After this point the Lord has no freedom and He has to do good only. Thus these devotees give 50 percent freedom to the Lord. The best devotee gives 100 percent freedom to the Lord. He asks the Lord to do whatever the Lord likes. This devotee is prepared to receive the bad also if it can please the Lord. His only aim is that the Lord should be pleased by doing whatever He likes. This devotee feels that he is only an inert means for the play of the Lord by which the Lord is entertained. A player beats the ball by foot and is entertained. The devotee also likes to receive continuous sufferings, if such sufferings can entertain the Lord.

 

When Jesus was doing the last prayer, He tried to avoid the future agony of death. For a moment He was vibrated with the forthcoming agony of crucification. But immediately He regained His originality and ended the prayer by saying “Let Thy will will be done”. He said finally that He is prepared to suffer if that is the will of the Lord. This is the best devotion. Lord Datta starts giving small troubles, which means that He is clearing the small sins. If the devotee is firm in his faith, then Datta starts clearing big sins. That means the small troubles will be slowly magnified into big troubles. When He clears your pronote of Rs. 100/- (Rs = $), He pays ninety-nine rupees and you will have to pay Re. 1/-. Then He starts clearing your pronote of one thousand rupees and then you have to pay Rs.10/-.

[theist]

 

Talk of Jesus and Shankara in the same breath - how frightening. How will they spin Christ's words to kill Jehovah, The Almighty Father; kill Him and then worship His energies, become His energies, and be gods unto themselves? They accept only half the Vedas and they will accept only half of Jesus. And they will be worshipped as gods - but only by the ignorant and themselves - as they steal God's glory for their own.

 

Exactly. Mahak and I were just talking about this. Impersonalism in Christian jargon. This is more unique in that he is referrencing more directly vedanta in his own way.

 

Someone, I think Paul, wrote warning of the anti-christ. Then he said "even now there are many anti-christs among us....he is an anti-christ who denies the Father and the Son." IOW's the eternal relationship between Jiva and Vishnu.

[gHari]

I don't know, but this God job has to be pretty lucrative. Datta says we can love him only through works and money. I'll start another franchise: he says God is always incarnated here in one form or another and now it is him. I will say that many incarnations are always here (yada yada ..... Gita hah hah). I will spout some sanskrit and SPAM the net for suckers, use paypal and amass a fortune.

 

All bow to the Most Holy Goswami gHari, you dogs! Do you love yo' mamma, heathen? Shame on you! There have to be a lot of rubes out there who'll fall for this load of dung from the ego sty. Hmmmm, I could learn that trick where they pull a quarter out of a guy's ear.

 

You have my blessings, little people.

[gHari]

Lord Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita 4.6 and Bhagavad-gita 4.7:

 

<center>

ajo 'pi sann avyayAtmA

bhUtAnAm Izvaro 'pi san

prakRtiM svAm adhiSThAya

sambhavAmy Atma-mAyayA

</center>

ajaH--unborn; api--although; san--being so; avyaya--without deterioration; AtmA--body; bhUtAnAm--of all those who are born; IzvaraH--the Supreme Lord; api--although; san--being so; prakRtim--in the transcendental form; svAm--of Myself; adhiSThAya--being so situated; sambhavAmi--I do incarnate; Atma-mAyayA--by My internal energy.

Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all living entities, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.

PURPORT

 

The Lord has spoken about the peculiarity of His birth: although He may appear like an ordinary person, He remembers everything of His many, many past "births," whereas a common man cannot remember what he has done even a few hours before. If someone is asked what he did exactly at the same time one day earlier, it would be very difficult for a common man to answer immediately. He would surely have to dredge his memory to recall what he was doing exactly at the same time one day before.

And yet, men often dare claim to be God, or KRSNa. One should not be misled by such meaningless claims.

Then again, the Lord explains His prakRti, or His form. PrakRti means "nature," as well as svarUpa, or "one's own form."

 

 

The Lord says that He appears in His own body. He does not change His body, as the common living entity changes from one body to another. The conditioned soul may have one kind of body in the present birth, but he has a different body in the next birth. In the material world, the living entity has no fixed body but transmigrates from one body to another. The Lord, however, does not do so. Whenever He appears, He does so in the same original body, by His internal potency. In other words, KRSNa appears in this material world in His original eternal form, with two hands, holding a flute. He appears exactly in His eternal body, uncontaminated by this material world. Although He appears in the same transcendental body and is Lord of the universe, it still appears that He takes His birth like an ordinary living entity. And although His body does not deteriorate like a material body, it still appears that Lord KRSNa grows from childhood to boyhood and from boyhood to youth. But astonishingly enough He never ages beyond youth. At the time of the Battle of KurukSetra, He had many grandchildren at home; or, in other words, He had sufficiently aged by material calculations. Still He looked just like a young man twenty or twenty-five years old. We never see a picture of KRSNa in old age because He never grows old like us, although He is the oldest person in the whole creation--past, present, and future. Neither His body nor His intelligence ever deteriorates or changes. Therefore, it is clear that in spite of His being in the material world, He is the same unborn, eternal form of bliss and knowledge, changeless in His transcendental body and intelligence. Factually, His appearance and disappearance is like the sun's rising, moving before us, and then disappearing from our eyesight. When the sun is out of sight, we think that the sun is set, and when the sun is before our eyes, we think that the sun is on the horizon. Actually, the sun is always in its fixed position, but owing to our defective, insufficient senses, we calculate the appearance and disappearance of the sun in the sky. And because Lord KRSNa's appearance and disappearance are completely different from that of any ordinary, common living entity, it is evident that He is eternal, blissful knowledge by His internal potency--and He is never contaminated by material nature. The Vedas also confirm that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is unborn yet He still appears to take His birth in multimanifestations. The Vedic supplementary literatures also confirm that even though the Lord appears to be taking His birth, He is still without change of body. In the BhAgavatam, He appears before His mother as NArAyaNa, with four hands and the decorations of the six kinds of full opulences. His appearance in His original eternal form is His causeless mercy, bestowed upon the living entities so that they can concentrate on the Supreme Lord as He is, and not on mental concoctions or imaginations, which the impersonalist wrongly thinks the Lord's forms to be. The word mAyA, or Atma-mAyA, refers to the Lord's causeless mercy, according to the Vizva-koza dictionary. The Lord is conscious of all of His previous appearances and disappearances, but a common living entity forgets everything about his past body as soon as he gets another body. He is the Lord of all living entities because He performs wonderful and superhuman activities while He is on this earth. Therefore, the Lord is always the same Absolute Truth and is without differentiation between His form and self, or between His quality and body. A question may now be raised as to why the Lord appears and disappears in this world. This is explained in the next verse.

 

 

 

<center>

yadA yadA

hi dharmasya

 

glAnir bhavati bhArata

 

abhyutthAnam adharmasya

 

tadAtmAnaM sRjAmy aham

 

</center>

yadA yadA--whenever and wherever; hi--certainly; dharmasya--of religion; glAniH--discrepancies; bhavati--become manifested; bhArata--O descendant of Bharata; abhyutthAnam--predominance; adharmasya--of irreligion; tadA--at that time; AtmAnam--self; sRjAmi--manifest; aham--I.

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion--at that time I descend Myself.

PURPORT

The word sRjAmi is significant herein. SRjAmi cannot be used in the sense of creation, because, according to the previous verse, there is no creation of the Lord's form or body, since all of the forms are eternally existent. Therefore, sRjAmi means that the Lord manifests Himself as He is. Although the Lord appears on schedule, namely at the end of the DvApara-yuga of the twenty-eighth millennium of the seventh Manu in one day of BrahmA, He has no obligation to adhere to such rules and regulations, because He is completely free to act in many ways at His will. He therefore appears by His own will whenever there is a predominance of irreligiosity and a disappearance of true religion. Principles of religion are laid down in the Vedas, and any discrepancy in the matter of properly executing the rules of the Vedas makes one irreligious. In the BhAgavatam it is stated that such principles are the laws of the Lord. Only the Lord can manufacture a system of religion. The Vedas are also accepted as originally spoken by the Lord Himself to BrahmA, from within his heart. Therefore, the principles of dharma, or religion, are the direct orders of the Supreme Personality of Godhead (dharmaM tu sAkSAd bhagavat-praNItam [sB 6.3.19]). These principles are clearly indicated throughout the Bhagavad-gItA. The purpose of the Vedas is to establish such principles under the order of the Supreme Lord, and the Lord directly orders, at the end of the GItA, that the highest principle of religion is to surrender unto Him only, and nothing more. The Vedic principles push one towards complete surrender unto Him; and whenever such principles are disturbed by the demoniac, the Lord appears. From the BhAgavatam we understand that Lord Buddha is the incarnation of KRSNa who appeared when materialism was rampant and materialists were using the pretext of the authority of the Vedas. Although there are certain restrictive rules and regulations regarding animal sacrifice for particular purposes in the Vedas, people of demonic tendency still took to animal sacrifice without reference to the Vedic principles. Lord Buddha appeared to stop this nonsense and to establish the Vedic principles of nonviolence. Therefore each and every avatAra, or incarnation of the Lord, has a particular mission, and they are all described in the revealed scriptures. No one should be accepted as an avatAra unless he is referred to by scriptures. It is not a fact that the Lord appears only on Indian soil. He can manifest Himself anywhere and everywhere, and whenever He desires to appear. In each and every incarnation, He speaks as much about religion as can be understood by the particular people under their particular circumstances. But the mission is the same--to lead people to God consciousness and obedience to the principles of religion. Sometimes He descends personally, and sometimes He sends His bona fide representative in the form of His son, or servant, or Himself in some disguised form.

 

 

The principles of the Bhagavad-gItA were spoken to Arjuna, and, for that matter, to other highly elevated persons, because he was highly advanced compared to ordinary persons in other parts of the world. Two plus two equals four is a mathematical principle that is true in the beginner's arithmetic class and in the advanced class as well. Still, there are higher and lower mathematics. In all incarnations of the Lord, therefore, the same principles are taught, but they appear to be higher and lower in varied circumstances. The higher principles of religion begin with the acceptance of the four orders and the four statuses of social life, as will be explained later. The whole purpose of the mission of incarnations is to arouse KRSNa consciousness everywhere. Such consciousness is manifest and nonmanifest only under different circumstances.

 

 

[gHari]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_have_been_considered_deities