Experience of Response from God

[Guest guest]

From Dialectic Spiritualism.

 

Hayagriva dasa: At times, Alexander takes the Aristotelian view in maintaining that “there is no reciprocal action from God. For though we speak, as we inevitably must, in human terms of God’s response to us, there is no direct experience of that response except through our own feeling that devotion to God or worship, carries with it its own satisfaction.”

Srila Prabhupada: This means that he does not understand God's omnipotence. God is omnipotent, and He comes before Arjuna to speak Bhagavad-gita. Being all powerful, god can come and speak to His devotee. If He cannot, what is the meaning of His omnipotence? Krsna reciprocates with the advanced devotees.

 

“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” (Bg. 10.10) God talks to His devotee who is fully in love with Him, but He does not talk with ordinary men.

 

“I worship the primeval Lord, Govinda, who is always seen by the devotee whose eyes are annointed with the pulp of love. He is seen in His eternal form of Syamasundara situated within the heart of the devotee.” (Brahma-samhita 5.38) Just as a king talks with his immeditate officers and ministers and not with the ordinary man in the street, God personally talks to His devotees but not to the nondevotees or atheists. We understand that Krsna talked to the gopÆs and gopas in Vrndavana and reciprocated with His parents, Mother Yasoda and Maharaja Nanda. The cowherd boys who played with Krsna amassed many pious activities in their previous lives to arrive at a position where they could play with God. This is not an ordinary position. People generally think that such play is inconceivable, but when we come to that platform of devotion, we can play with God, ride on God's shoulders, and talk with Him just as with an ordinary friend. Of course, one comes to that position of perfection after many millions of pious births.

 

Hayagriva dasa: Within the same book, Space, Time and Deity, Alexander contradicts himself on this issue of reciprocation. “God reciprocates the worship man pays Him and the confidence he reposes in Him,” he writes. “There is always the double relationship of need. If man wants God and depends upon Him, God wants man, and is so far dependent.”

Srila Prabhupada: God is not dependent on anyone. God is independent, but that statement is acceptable in the sense that sometimes God wants to become dependent. That is according to His pleasure. Sometimes He accepts some of His devotees in ways that He can depend on them. He became dependent on Mother Yasoda, just as an ordinary child becomes dependent on his mother. Although everything is dependent on God, and He is not dependent on anyone, He takes pleasure in this kind of relationship.

 

ethos