"Appearance of the Absolute in Time & Space" (SB 10.3.6-8)

TRANSCRIPT:  Srimad Bhagavatam, Canto 10, Chapter 3, Text 6–8. “Appearance of the Absolute in Time & Space​.” San Diego - March  2, 1986-03-06 / (113)

[Text 6] 

The Kinnaras and Gandharvas began to sing auspicious songs, the Siddhas and Cāraṇas offered auspicious prayers, and the Vidyādharīs, along with the Apsarās, began to dance in jubilation.

Please repeat:  The Kinnaras and Gandharvas began to sing auspicious songs…

Audience:  The Kinnaras and Gandharvas began to sing auspicious songs…

…the Siddhas and Cāraṇas offered auspicious prayers…

Audience:  the Siddhas and Cāraṇas offered auspicious prayers…

…and the Vidyādharīs…

Audience:  and the Vidyādharīs…

…along with the Apsarās…

Audience:  along with the Apsarās...

…began to dance in jubilation.

Audience:  began to dance in jubilation.

So, I’ll read the next few texts:

 

mumucur munayo devāḥ

sumanāṁsi mudānvitāḥ

mandaṁ mandaṁ jaladharā

jagarjur anusāgaram

 

niśīthe tama-udbhūte

jāyamāne janārdane

devakyāṁ deva-rūpiṇyāṁ

viṣṇuḥ sarva-guhā-śayaḥ

āvirāsīd yathā prācyāṁ

diśīndur iva puṣkalaḥ

Translation: 

The demigods and great saintly persons showered flowers in a joyous mood, and clouds gathered in the sky and very mildly thundered, making sounds like those of the ocean’s waves. Then the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu, who is situated in the core of everyone’s heart, appeared from the heart of Devakī in the dense darkness of night, like the full moon rising on the eastern horizon, because Devakī was of the same category as Śrī Kṛṣṇa. 

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: 

As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37):

ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhis

tābhir ya eva nija-rūpatayā kalābhiḥ

goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūto

govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

This verse indicates that Kṛṣṇa and His entourage are of the same spiritual potency (ānanda-cinmaya-rasa). Kṛṣṇa’s father, His mother, His friends the cowherd boys, and the cows are all expansions of Kṛṣṇa, as will be explained in the brahma-vimohana-līlā. When Brahmā took away Kṛṣṇa’s associates to test the supremacy of Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Lord expanded Himself again in the forms of the many cowherd boys and calves, all of whom, as Brahmā saw, were viṣṇu-mūrtis. Devakī is also an expansion of Kṛṣṇa, and therefore this verse says, devakyāṁ deva-rūpiṇyāṁ viṣṇuḥ sarva-guhā-śayaḥ.

At the time for the Lord’s appearance, the great sages and the demigods, being pleased, began to shower flowers. At the seashore, there was the sound of mild waves, and above the sea there were clouds in the sky which began to thunder very pleasingly.

When things were adjusted like this, Lord Viṣṇu, who is residing within the heart of every living entity, appeared in the darkness of night as the Supreme Personality of Godhead before Devakī, who appeared as one of the demigoddesses. The appearance of Lord Viṣṇu at that time could be compared to the rising of the full moon in the sky on the eastern horizon. The objection may be raised that since Lord Kṛṣṇa appeared on the eighth day of the waning moon, there could be no rising of the full moon. In answer to this it may be said that Lord Kṛṣṇa appeared in the dynasty which is in the hierarchy of the moon; therefore, although the moon was incomplete on that night, because of the Lord’s appearance in the dynasty wherein the moon is himself the original person, the moon was in an overjoyous condition, so by the grace of Kṛṣṇa he could appear as a full moon. To welcome the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the waning moon became a full moon in jubilation.

[5:05]

Instead of deva-rūpiṇyām, some texts of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam clearly say viṣṇu-rūpiṇyām. In either case, the meaning is that Devakī has the same spiritual form as the Lord. The Lord is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, and Devakī is also sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. Therefore no one can find any fault in the way the Supreme Personality of Godhead, sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha, appeared from the womb of Devakī.

Those who are not in full knowledge that the appearance and disappearance of the Lord are transcendental (janma karma ca me divyam) are sometimes surprised that the Supreme Personality of Godhead can take birth like an ordinary child. Actually, however, the Lord’s birth is never ordinary. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is already situated within the core of everyone’s heart as antaryāmī, the Supersoul. Thus because He was present in full potency in Devakī’s heart, He was also able to appear outside her body.

One of the twelve great personalities is Bhīṣmadeva (svayambhūr nāradaḥ śambhuḥ kumāraḥ kapilo manuḥ prahlāda, janako bhīṣmaḥ). In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.9.42), Bhīṣma, a great authority to be followed by devotees, says that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is situated in the core of everyone’s heart, just as the sun may be on everyone’s head. Yet although the sun may be on the heads of millions and millions of people, this does not mean that the sun is variously situated. Similarly, because the Supreme Personality of Godhead has inconceivable potencies, He can be within everyone’s heart and yet not be situated variously. Ekatvam anupaśyataḥ (Īśopaniṣad 7). The Lord is one, but He can appear in everyone’s heart by His inconceivable potency. Thus although the Lord was within the heart of Devakī, He appeared as her child. According to the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, therefore, as quoted in the Vaiṣṇava-toṣaṇī, the Lord appeared like the sun (anugrahāsaya). The Brahma-saṁhitā (5.35) confirms that the Lord is situated even within the atom (aṇḍāntara-stha-paramāṇu-cayāntara-stham). He is situated in Mathurā, in Vaikuṇṭha and in the core of the heart. Therefore one should clearly understand that He did not live like an ordinary child in the heart or the womb of Devakī. Nor did He appear like an ordinary human child, although He seemed to do so in order to bewilder asuras like Kaṁsa. The asuras wrongly think that Kṛṣṇa took birth like an ordinary child and passed away from this world like an ordinary man. Such asuric conceptions are rejected by persons in knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Ajo ’pi sann avyayātmā bhūtānām īśvaro ’pi san (Bg. 4.6). As stated in Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord is aja, unborn, and He is the supreme controller of everything. Nonetheless, He appeared as the child of Devakī. This verse describes the inconceivable potency of the Lord, who appeared like the full moon. Understanding the special significance of the appearance of the Supreme Godhead, one should never regard Him as having taken birth like an ordinary child.

Translation: 

The demigods and great saintly persons showered flowers in a joyous mood, and clouds gathered in the sky and very mildly thundered, making sounds like those of the ocean’s waves. Then the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Viṣṇu, who is situated in the core of everyone’s heart, appeared from the heart of Devakī in the dense darkness of night, like the full moon rising on the eastern horizon, because Devakī was of the same category as Śrī Kṛṣṇa. 

So, these verses are describing the actual appearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa as the son of Devakī, Devakī-nandana, and Śrīla Prabhupāda is explaining in great detail the transcendental nature of Kṛṣṇa and His appearance. It's very important to understand this. And so, to understand it, one has to understand the fundamental philosophy regarding the nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His relationship with the material existence, because if that is not understood then it will not be really possible to understand what is happening with the birth of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

[10:22]

Materially inclined people, or people who simply have a material conception of things, whatever the inclination may be, will not be able to properly understand the nature of Kṛṣṇa appearance. So, they would tend to think that Kṛṣṇa must have taken birth as an ordinary living being. And there are many different ways of conceiving this. One can imagine, for example, that Kṛṣṇa took birth as perhaps some kind of demigod. One can readily imagine, perhaps He wasn’t just an ordinary human being, but one would conceive that some kind of entity entered into the womb of Devakī and developed there and then was born and proceeded to perhaps exhibit various mystical powers or something of this kind.

So, this would not be a correct understanding of what was really happening. Actually, because of this material conception of Kṛṣṇa, there are whole schools of religionists who declare that the Supreme Personality of Godhead could not take birth, unless they reject this account. For example, this is true of the Sikhs in India. Now I don't know if Guru Nanak, who’s their original leader, preached anything like this, but at least the present-day Sikhs will say that the Supreme Personality of Godhead could not have taken birth – that is simply not possible. So this is due to a misconception concerning what is actually happening here. Now, Śrīla Prabhupāda points out here that Kṛṣṇa is one, this ekatvam is used, which refers to oneness – ekat is one.

So, this is an important point to consider: one aspect of the Supreme is non-duality – the Supreme cannot be made up of many different parts, which are all divided from one another. Because in that case, you would not have one ultimate Supreme Being; you just have various parts which are interacting in some way and which are possibly in conflict. So, one basic understanding regarding the Supreme Absolute Truth is that the Absolute Truth has perfect oneness. So, if that is true, then one can raise the question: How could something that has perfect oneness appear as an apparently human child, taking birth at a particular time and exhibiting variegated features, such as hands, arms, legs, and so forth? Because these are different parts and it would seem that this entity is appearing in a particular place and not some other place. It would seem that Kṛṣṇa was now within the walls of His particular prison of Kaṁsa, and that meant that He wasn't in another location. 

For example, later on we will read that Vasudeva, hearing that Kaṁsa will come to kill Kṛṣṇa, managed to escape from the palace of Kaṁsa. Actually, by Kṛṣṇa's arrangement, all the guards were asleep and so forth. And he then took Him to Vṛindāvana and hid Him there. So it would seem that: Well, first He was in Kaṁsa’s palace and not in Vṛindāvana, and then He was taken there by Vasudeva. So, how can you say that this is the Supreme Absolute Truth? How can the Supreme Absolute Truth be in a certain location on the earth? So, these questions will be raised.

[14:51]

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda is pointing out here that, actually, one point is that Kṛṣṇa is always everywhere and He was manifesting Himself first within the heart of Devakī and then as described here, He appeared before her. So, this actually leads to some fundamental considerations concerning the nature of space and the nature of matter, if you think about it. The basic understanding in the Vedic literature is that the Absolute Truth is the source of all different manifestations and that includes the manifestation of space and matter. So we tend to think of space as something which exists, sort of independently of everything else, is just there somehow. And we tend to think of matter as being sort of stuff that's distributed through space – this is our basic conception.

So, of course, it's a natural conception to have, given the kind of material senses that we were equipped with. We tend to see things in that way; we tend to see arrangements of matter in three dimensions. So what one is implicitly thinking here is that space is absolute and everything else appears within it and appears relative to the space in which it is situated. So this then leads to the conception that if we're going to talk about God, we should imagine God as somehow being like space. And in fact, this leads to the conception of the brahmajyoti of Brahman, as being the ultimate, absolute truth. Because what is the brahmajyoti as it is usually conceived by people and leaving aside the various fine philosophical points that are made about it?

Well, one tends to think of a vast open space with light radiating through it – that's more or less  the conception. It's just sort of like what you see when you go out on a day with bright sunlight and no clouds in the sky, and you sort of look up in the direction of the sun; you just see all this space with blazing light passing through it. So, that's the conception that people then have of the Absolute Truth. Well, I'll… I point out, by the way, that Isaac Newton, just to give one example, conceived of God as being sort of identical with absolute space. Newton, in fact, endowed space with the power to move objects. Of course, he came up with the theory of gravitation, in which you have action and a distance, so that one thing in one location exerts a pull on something in a different location, and yet there's nothing between them. And so, one can ask: How can that work physically? So, this has been a great dilemma in physics ever since Newton's time.

So, Newton proposed that, actually, God is absolute space, and thus God is at the location of, say, both planets. And so, if He wants, He can make them seem to move towards one another according to the force of gravity – that was Newton’s idea. So, he was also thinking of God in terms of space endowed with some kind of power to move and act upon things. However, according to the Vedic literature, the original cause of all causes is Kṛṣṇa, sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam. Kṛṣṇa’s called sat-cit-ānanda-vigraha and He's said to be the cause of all causes. So, Kṛṣṇa is the cause of space, and Kṛṣṇa comes before any manifestation of space, and the Brahma-saṁhitā describes in a very interesting way the relationship between Kṛṣṇa and locations in space.

It is stated there, that all of the universes are contained within the form of Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa in his fullness is situated within every atom within all of these universes. So, if you think about that for a moment, it seems initially to be somewhat paradoxical. How can it be that you have Kṛṣṇa, and within Kṛṣṇa there are universes, and within the universes there are atoms, and within each of the atoms there is Kṛṣṇa – and not just part of Kṛṣṇa, but Kṛṣṇa in his fullness? So it would seem then that within Kṛṣṇa, then again, there are universes and within those there are atoms and within those they are Kṛṣṇa and so on. So, you arrive at a conception which is practically inconceivable; it's very difficult to understand in ordinary terms.

[20:26]

You can think of some mundane examples of this however, For example, on some occasions you may have seen a painting, in which in the painting there’s a painting hanging on the wall, which happens to be the same painting. So, within that there's another one hanging on the wall which is the same painting and so on. And of course, unfortunately, in the painting, because it's made of crude globs of paint, if you look closely at the little painting on the wall, you’ll see it's really not the same as the large painting, because it doesn't have as much detail. So you can only go so many levels with this idea of the painting within the painting, but in the case of Kṛṣṇa there unlimitedly many levels. So, this… the idea that actually Kṛṣṇa is simultaneously fully present at every location in space, and He contains the whole thing also.

So, we can… this is a kind of description of the nature of Kṛṣṇa's oneness, and since we are speaking in material terms and using material examples, it is very difficult to properly understand this. We can sort of try and understand this oneness by chasing from one thing to another and showing how they connect, but always we fail to catch up with ourselves, so to speak. That is to say, Kṛṣṇa is located at every point simultaneously and all the points are within Him, so you can see this sort of ties everything together. But in our descriptions, everything remains separate. But it's important at least to understand this idea, that the original reality, absolute reality, is Kṛṣṇa, and this is a reality with variegated form. One cannot conceive of Kṛṣṇa as some kind of void or something like that, but Kṛṣṇa has form and personality. But the entire manifestation of space and everything in it is within Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa is simultaneously within it.

So, this is the nature and position of Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa was always within the heart of Devakī, and He's always located everywhere, and He can manifest His form wherever and whenever He likes. So, it's a question of the particular way in which He chooses to manifest Himself. So it is described in this verse also, that Devakī is of the same category as Kṛṣṇa. So, another problem which people would have in understanding how the Supreme Personality of Godhead can appear from gross matter, is that they will think that matter and spirit are two different things and matter is much inferior to spirit. Its properties and characteristics are, in fact, the very opposite of the properties of spirit. So how can it be that God, who is the Supreme Spiritual Being can appear within matter?

This seems inappropriate, if not contradictory. So the point then is that Kṛṣṇa was not actually appearing within matter. Of course, one point to make here is that matter itself is spiritual by nature. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says that He has eight separated energies, but these energies are actually His own energies, so they're actually transcendental in nature. So, the thing that makes matter non-spiritual, is the way in which matter is directed by the will of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In other words, matter is a spiritual energy which is being made to move and operate in such a way as to create a veil of illusion which covers the Supreme Lord from the vision of the conditioned souls. The basic idea here is that the conditioned souls essentially want to enjoy themselves independently of Kṛṣṇa and so, Kṛṣṇa creates a situation in which they are able to do this.

[25:12]

So, He does this by so manipulating some of His energy as to create the illusion that this energy is operating independently of any divine control. So the idea then is created in the minds of the conditioned souls that this material energy is something that is just working in an automatic and impersonal way and is manifesting everything within the universe. So in this way Kṛṣṇa disappears from the sight of the conditioned living entities. So this energy, which is operating in this way, we call matter, because it seems to be separate from God and it seems to be non-spiritual; but actually it is Kṛṣṇa's energy which is being manipulated so as to create this impression.

Actually, the word māyā in Sanskrit also is used to refer to magic. For example, there are people called magicians who can perform various tricks. I've used the example of sawing a lady in half, which I actually saw once. The magician has this lady get into a sort of coffin in which her head  sticks out one end and her feet stick out the other end. And he closes it, and he takes a big saw and start sawing through the coffin. And he saws all the way through, and then the thing is mounted on wheels, so he then pulls the two parts of the coffin apart from one another, and you see the woman's feet still sticking out one end and her head sticking out the other. So, it would seem that you saw her in half, but they say that it's done with mirrors or something. I think there are trade secrets in this area.

But the idea here is that some kind of apparatus is there, which is used to create this illusion. So similarly, this material energy is an apparatus which is used by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to create the illusion of a material realm which is operating entirely in an automatic way, without any intervention by God. So, since this energy is actually spiritual however, it is perfectly possible for Kṛṣṇa to appear within it. It's actually His own energy, and as I was saying before, Kṛṣṇa is always within it everywhere and this energy is within Kṛṣṇa. So, another aspect here though is that this personality Devakī is a liberated spirit soul and she is not at all contaminated by this tendency to be in material illusion. So her situation is that she is not like the ordinary conditioned souls, who are separated from Kṛṣṇa. 

So, let's see, actually, when she… what time is it now? Six? Are there any questions or points anyone would like to raise?

Question:  [unclear]

Answer:  Yes, the point I was making, the material mind is doing it, but the soul isn't. Then it might be going on, but you wouldn't know about it. So to say that the material thoughts and feelings and so on are just occurring within the material mind, is not really correct. What's happening there is that the material mind is part of Kṛṣṇa's external energy, and it is essentially providing the program for material enjoyment. It's sort of like the automatic pilot of an airplane you might say, at least one can make an analogy like that. Say somebody's flying an airplane and he's doing this in order to experience some enjoyment, but as part of his enjoyment, he doesn't want to have to pay individual attention to every single move that the airplane makes. So, he has this automatic pilot which takes care of those things, and he just sets it so that he can sit there and enjoy the ride and so forth.

[30:15] 

So, similarly, the mind is a much more elaborate automatic pilot, which we program with all kinds of plans for enjoyment; so the mind is just full of these different plans. So these are the different potential thoughts, feelings, and desires that we want to manifest. So the whole thing is programmed within the mind, and as time goes on these programs execute just like in a computer, and we experience the whole show that's going on. So… but ultimately, it's the soul that does the experiencing – the mind itself is not actually, in and of itself, sentient. Of course, Kṛṣṇa is there, even within the mind and within everything else, and He knows everything. But His consciousness, of course, is Kṛṣṇa's consciousness, that is, He's conscious of everything. So the mind itself is not conscious that: I am Joe Smith and I want to do this. The mind is generating that program with all the details of what it takes to be Joe Smith, but ultimately, it's the soul within that body that is thinking, “I am Joe Smith.”

And of course, we say that the mind does the thinking, feeling, and the willing, but we have to realize that the soul also does that. For example, if the soul becomes liberated and completely  detached from the material elements and, say, goes to Vaikuṇṭha, you can't say: Well, now that soul doesn't have a mind anymore, so it's not doing anymore thinking, feeling, and willing. The soul is actually the conscious entity, so the mind is providing a program for our thinking, feeling, and willing. So actually, one philosophy that some people will put forward – I heard this  advocated recently – is that my soul is on an exceedingly advanced spiritual level, but my mind and body are still… Well, they're just material and they're doing  whatever it is – whatever it may be, engaging in this activity and that activity – but my soul is on a very exalted plane. So they will argue like this, but actually that doesn't work, because whatever the material… as long as the soul is connected with the material body, whatever the material mind is generating and doing, that's what the soul is experiencing. But ultimately, it's the soul that is experiencing that.

Question:  [unclear]

Answer:  The soul is the only thing that enjoys the material activities, nothing else does, because the matter doesn't enjoy the material activities, and Kṛṣṇa certainly doesn't enjoy them. The soul is the only thing that enjoys them or tries to enjoy them; and that, of course, is the problem, because the nature of material enjoyment is one is always trying to enjoy, thinking: Well, it's not quite right yet, but if only I could do this, if only that would happen, then I could enjoy. And it doesn't – it never happens. So, any other questions? So, this is actually a very…

Q:  [unclear]

A:  So, the nature of the soul – and Kṛṣṇa has set it up this way – is that the soul is capable of trying to act independently of Kṛṣṇa. Now, you might say: Well, why would Kṛṣṇa allow for that? Certainly, if He wanted, He could have spirit souls who always cooperated with Him fully, one would think. But in any case, the ontological situation is that the soul is a complete personality and in minute degree, has all the qualities of the personality Kṛṣṇa Himself, including the quality of being able to act independently. So Kṛṣṇa has endowed the soul with these qualities. 

[35:08] 

And there's this whole question here of free will, which always is very confusing to the philosophers. They always have enormous difficulties with it, and you can bring up all kinds of different paradoxes and so forth. But it would seem that Kṛṣṇa has endowed the spirit souls with free will. So they're completely spiritual, and they're parts of Kṛṣṇa – they’re Kṛṣṇa's minute aspect. Śrīla Prabhupāda had also said that since Kṛṣṇa is complete, He has His infinite aspect in His infinitesimal aspect also. So these spirit souls have this quality of Independence and freedom, and they can actually use this quality, or this potentiality, to act independently of Kṛṣṇa. And then Kṛṣṇa goes along with that, but that is the actual contamination, if you like. Because that becomes then the root cause of all the different misconceptions that the soul develops and all the different complicated happenings that occur within the material world.

So, Kṛṣṇa has arranged it that way, and it's a very deep subject matter. Ultimately, you can ask: Well, why? But if it were not so, then how could there be love between Kṛṣṇa and the living entities? Of course, you can say then: Well, what is the nature of love anyway, and what do you really mean by that? But at least, one has the possibility of… well, you can bring up this parable from the Bible, just for the fun of it, of the prodigal son, who… it’s a story about how one son went away from home and another son stayed home. So then finally, the son who had gone away and was estranged from his father came back. So there's a great reunion, of… there was a great expression of affection by the father; and the son who'd stayed home all the time said: Well, you don't treat me like that and I've been home all the time, so what's going on? But it seems then that this separation involved ultimately a greater expression of love, so, it's a very deep subject as to why Kṛṣṇa sets it up like this, but that's what seems to be involved there. So… yeah?

Q:  [unclear]

A:  No, Kṛṣṇa doesn't enjoy that in the least, as I said [laughter], the only entity enjoying the material activities is the spirit soul. Kṛṣṇa does not enjoy the activities going on within the material realm.

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yes, Kṛṣṇa's the enjoyer but not of this. He is enjoying in the spiritual realm, and He enjoys spiritual relationships. The whole realm of Vaikuṇṭha and Goloka Vṛindāvanan is there, and Kṛṣṇa is enjoying His eternal pastimes. The events within the material world are arranged by Kṛṣṇa for the sake of the conditioned soul, but Kṛṣṇa is not enjoying that. He's doing it for them, for their sake, and He's in control of the whole show, but He doesn't enjoy it. There… in the ocean, so many fish are devouring other fish. Right now, some fish with a mouth with the teeth 3 inches long is stretching its mouth open to devour a fish two times as big as it is. This is going on in the ocean, and gradually it inches its mouth up and stretches it more and more and swallows this thing.

So that's probably going on thousands of times, right at this moment in the ocean, so what would God care about something like that, [laughter] it becomes… so what to speak of human activities. So Kṛṣṇa doesn't enjoy any of this, He doesn't care for it. He can control it because He's infinitely powerful, so it's not that it's difficult for Him to control the whole thing – He has infinite power. So just as we can do something like drive a car without really thinking about it, because that's why I can drive a car and hold a conversation with somebody in the car, and I'm really thinking about the conversation. Of course, if you get too involved in the conversation you're in trouble, because… but that shows that a human being has a certain power of attention that he can divide between two things. While Kṛṣṇa has infinite power of attention, so He can run the whole material world and at the same time hardly even be paying attention to it; and He doesn't care about it. 

[40:20]

And matter itself, in and of itself, is not conscious of anything. Matter has no awareness, it doesn't have the cit potency. So, then what does… what is conscious of the material world and is enjoying it? Well, the conditioned souls are. The murderer may be thinking: By murdering this person I will become happy. Somehow, he's angry and he wants to get this person and so, he's thinking: I would be happy by doing this. But he's the one… the soul, not the material mind even, but actually the soul there is in the illusion of enjoying this. And the basic illusion is to lord it over matter.

So, murdering somebody is one way of trying to lord it over.

So, that illusion manifests in many different ways in a kaleidoscopic fashion, and they're always changing from one thing to another. So it's that soul in illusion who's actually trying to enjoy this, but Kṛṣṇa knows what's going on; but He doesn't care for it.

Q:  [unclear]

A:  Yes, the actions of the spirit soul are independent. Kṛṣṇa is controlling them, but He says: I'm controlling this, so that you can have your so-called enjoyment, and you're responsible. Kṛṣṇa does not accept sinful reactions, because he's saying: Oh look, the spirit soul is responsible for this – he's the one who wants it, and he also has to pay for it. So, all glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.