The Significance of Krishna's Humanlike Form

[Guest guest]

 

 

by Kundali dasa

 

 

 

 

The Holy Bible says that God made man in His image and likeness. This happens to be true, although devotees of the Bible have not a clue what this line means. More that our form being in God’s image and likeness, this point has special significance in Gaudiya Vaisnavism. To us it means that in His ultimate feature, the Lord is not majestic and opulent in His psychology, but humanlike. His pastimes in Vraja are the epitome of sweetness because of their humanlike simplicity steeped in affectionate dealings as opposed to stiff, alienating majesty and opulence.

 

The whole world is madly in pursuit of power and many on the path of spiritual life are subtly or grossly motivated by the pursuit of power, specifically power over others. This is all owing to attachment to the majestic conception of reality. It completely lacks sweetness and life. Even in this world, the home of a rich man looks and feels sterile and dry, as if no one lives there. One who is interested in sweetness has to relinquish the pursuit of power, except in the empowering "power to" conception.

 

The whole science of rasa has it’s parallel in the human realm, but it is adulterated, impure. It is perfected in relation to Krsna. Nevertheless, our present situation is an opportunity to grasp the intricacies of rasa as a form of preliminary training or preparation for the transcendental experience. However, this is only possible if we become introspective human beings. If we practice Krsna consciousness in the belief that the goal is to become superhuman as opposed to just fully human, we will miss these opportunities to gain insight into the nature of true relationships using the ones here as a frame of reference, a foundation. So our goal is to become fully human.

 

This is another argument in favor of the last "Katha"—that we must become fully human as the gateway to Krsna consciousness. That we must grow to understand what it means to be human in the context of Krsna’s pastimes. Some of that growth can and must go on here. It is a mistake to perform the spiritual exercises mechanically, without any penetration to the true meaning of things, yet think that when we die we will be whisked away to the nitya-lila. God is not so cheap.

 

We must keep in mind, however, that because we praise the simple village life of the Lord and aspire to join Him, it does not mean we should be simple, in the sense of being foolish, gullible, or naive. A devotee of the Lord is simple, but in the sense that there is a complete absence of desire to exploit or deceive others. With respect to others, the positive desire in the heart of a devotee is to bring out the best in others for the service of the Lord. That is simple.

 

Most followers of theistic religion automatically conceive of God as lordly, majestic, and opulent, as superhuman. And indeed He is: But the Lord is also humanlike and that is a more affectionate and approachable manifestation of Himself, hence more wonderful to the devotees who have the good fortune or native intelligence to understand this distinction. To come in the line of Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the rarest good fortune; it means we get this opportunity to literally perfect human life. This perfection is not attainable by any amount of logical reasoning, which can at best bring us to the opulent conception of the kingdom of God, which we see in practically all theistic cultures.

 

It is interesting to note that in the Krsna consciousness movement, despite the above philosophical truth, many of our gurus conception is majestic. One can tell this just by how they perform the role of guru. They prefer to be treated as royalty than as human beings. It shows their lack of realization. Even gurus who have made a reputation for themselves as aspirants for gopi-bhava have this misconception. They will say that Prabhupada had a majestic bearing. That will be their excuse, but it falls flat.

 

The reason it falls is that Prabhupada did not create distance between us and himself. Prabhupada was approachable, whereas several if not most of the current gurus have all sorts of ways to signal "Keep your distance." Some are simply not available, except for the public functions, which they often have no taste for anyway, but they believe they must maintain such appearances so they can avoid criticism.

 

And of course, many neophytes are looking for a majestic guru, because they have yet to understand this aspect of our philosophy, so when they see someone is not majestic in demeanor, they poor neophyte thinks, "Here is a devotee who is not very advanced." One has to be spiritually intelligent and extremely lucky to grasp this philosophy.

 

All this subtlety is one of the ways that the Lord keeps His promise in Bhagavad-gita, naham prakasa sarvasya yogo maya samavrtah mudho ‘yam na bhijanati, "I never reveal Myself to fools. . .." He hides behind His yogamaya. That means His exquisite and sweet humanlike pastimes are covered by yogamaya, thus fools cannot understand their true significance. Only the most sincere souls will get to the level of appreciating that simple village life, cow-protection, affectionate dealings, playing of pranks without malice, sportive pastimes and service to others constitutes the acme of spirituality in the eternal world.

 

So taking this and the previous discussion together, the conclusion is that our task is to become fully human, by being simple, yet developing our powers of reason to the best we are able, by radiating love, in the sense of extending ourselves on behalf of others, and by radiating truth and justice as well. Such saintly bearing is the springboard for the full unfolding of our potential for Krsna consciousness.

 

Your servant,

 

Kundali dasa

 

[bolly]

this post expresses my innermost thought and hope: I shed tears. It also explains why we want to remain human, even if we have weak attachment only for this material world. Who is Kundali dasa?