“All-Pervading Brahman” (SB 3.2.10)

TRANSCRIPT:  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 2, Text 10. “All-Pervading Brahman.” Alachua – December 5,1994 / (076)

[Text 10:

Under no circumstances can the words of persons bewildered by the illusory energy of the Lord deviate the intelligence of those who are completely surrendered souls.]

Supersoul is described as a person. In fact, in various places in the Bhāgavatam there are descriptions of meditation upon the Supersoul. Initially one meditates on the soles of the feet of the Supersoul; one observes his toenails, which are brilliantly radiating transcendental light. One would gradually work one's way up the bodily form of the Supersoul until finally reaching His smiling face. So this meditation is described. So, it is understood that the Supersoul is personal. 

Now of course, if it is understood that the Supersoul is the expansion of Kṣīrodaka-śāyī Viṣṇu, who is the expansion ultimately of Mahā-Viṣṇu and then ultimately of Kṛṣṇa, then that would lead to the conception... Well one could still say that they regard Kṛṣṇa as being a Viṣṇu expansion. That would be a possible interpretation here. Certainly the Supersoul is definitely understood to be personal.

It's interesting to consider the concept of the Supreme Being, all-pervading, all-pervading and dwelling everywhere. In the case of Brahman, in a naive way, it's fairly easy to imagine this because if you think of Brahman as some kind of impersonal light then you can think about light spreading everywhere, just as we can imagine sunlight spreading everywhere in space. Of course, that concept is not quite appropriate if you consider the idea that Brahmān is one. Because if light is spreading everywhere in space, then in different areas of space you have different rays of light. So that would seem to indicate duality. 

Certainly, the scientists think of sunlight, for example, as being made of little particles called photons; and in fact, the number of particles in sunlight coming out of the sun in one second would be a huge number. Let's see. I suppose that is calculated, but it would be a gigantic number. So then if you think of Brahman as being like sunlight, then you're ascribing a tremendous amount of duality to Brahman, because you're saying Brahman is made up of billions and billions and billions of particles that are in different places. And in that sense it's all-pervading because the different particles are going to different locations, but that doesn't seem to fit in with the idea of oneness.

Of course also, the point should be made that according to the Vaiṣṇava understanding, Brahman also has variegated features. For example, it's understood that spirits souls can enter into Brahman, at least temporarily, and undergo brahma-sāyujya stage of liberation. However, it is understood that those spirit souls retain their individuality. So this means that there are many individual jīva souls within the brahmajyoti, which means that there is variety then within the brahmajyoti.

In fact, Śrīla Prabhupāda has given the example of green parrots flying into a green tree. And this is an example you can see realized in Vṛindāvana because there are parrots there whose feathers – the coloration of those feathers – precisely matches the leaves of the trees. And you can actually see a parrot fly into a tree, and it seems to disappear because it's now camouflaged by the leaves that have the same colors as its feathers. But then the same parrot can come flying out again, which means that within the tree you didn't actually have oneness in the sense that there's only one unique entity there. So, if something goes into the tree, it merges into that oneness and loses its individuality. But actually the bird retained its individuality and came flying out again.

So Brahman, according to the Vaiṣṇava understanding, does have variegated form. The concept of Brahman as impersonal and pervading space nonetheless does fit in with the sort of intuitive conception that many people have of God. Certainly in the West this is also a very common conception. For example, I recall that when I used to go to church, I thought that God was something like the air, must be floating everywhere. Not a very inspiring concept ultimately. So, the all-pervading character of Paramātmā poses even a more difficult conceptual problem than that of Brahman, because you can ask: How can one individual person, who has arms and legs and a head and so forth, be all-pervading? 

[5:39]

One concept is that there are, so to speak, many Paramātmās. OIn other words, it is said that Paramātmās are in the heart of every living being. So you can imagine in the heart of each living being there is an individual form, Paramātmā. So that would mean that there are many of them. But the Bhagavad-gītā specifically says that that's not correct. It states that the Supersoul appears to be divided into many, but actually it's situated as one. 

So the actual situation is that there's one Supersoul who is simultaneously present at every location in space. And another way to look at it is to say that all locations of space are where Supersoul is. So that from the point of view of Supersoul, there's direct access to every position within space. So, this in turn leads to some interesting consequences.

There's a mathematical subject called topology, which is the study of space. What happened is that the mathematicians were making an effort to understand what space is, in essence. So, they had certain ideas of space that were traditional. For example, the idea is you find Euclidean geometry, which was coming down from the Greeks, and for many years people thought that euclidean geometry was the last word in understanding what space is. But then they invented non-Euclidean geometry and they began to create all kinds of different geometries with different properties. And so they began to ask: Well, what is the essence of space?

So, they developed ideas of higher-dimensional spaces, and spaces to which the concept of dimensions doesn't even apply, and so on. So, this idea that all points in space are right next to each other is something that does appear in some studies of topology. You could have a space like that in which every point is in the direct neighborhood of every other point. So it would seem that at the ultimate level of reality, space is like that in the sense that Kṛṣṇa is present at every location of space simultaneously, which in turn means that every location is present where Kṛṣṇa is. Now, this has some direct consequences. 

For example, there's a story given by Lord Caitanya of how Brahmā visited Kṛṣṇa in Dvārakā. This directly illustrates this idea. The story goes that Brahmā wanted to visit Kṛṣṇa, so he went to Dvārakā, and he was waiting in a sort of antechamber to see Kṛṣṇa. And a lot of people were going in to see Kṛṣṇa. So finally the secretary came out and asked Brahmā who he was, and he said, “I'm Brahmā. Please tell Kṛṣṇa that Brahmā has come to see him?” So, the secretary came out a few moments later and said, “Kṛṣṇa would like to know which Brahmā has come to see him.” So, Brahmā said that, well, my goodness, is there any Brahmā in this university apart from me? So he said, “Tell Kṛṣṇa that the Brahmā who has four heads and is the father of the four Kumarās would like to see him.”

In due course he was ushered in to see Kṛṣṇa, and he asked Kṛṣṇa what he meant by asking which Brahmā came to see him. And so, Kṛṣṇa responded by summoning millions of Brahmās, unlimited billions of Brahmās. So all of these Brahmās came into the room where Kṛṣṇa was. And they were all offering their obeisances at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, touching their golden helmets to the floor in front of Kṛṣṇa's feet. So our Brahmā was able to see all of that. And it is said that each helmet as it touched the floor made a little clink. So you can imagine billions of clinks sounding simultaneously. So, it made a tremendous sound. 

[10:18]

It's described, though, that our Brahmā was able to see all of these other Brahmās coming to visit Kṛṣṇa, but each of the other Brahmās saw only himself and Kṛṣṇa in the room. Also, Kṛṣṇa asked each of the Brahmās, how are things going in your universe? And each Brahmā said to Kṛṣṇa, “Well, now that You've incarnated within my universe, there's no problem from the demons. Everything is happening very nicely.” So the indication is that each Brahmā was still within his own universe, and he was visiting Kṛṣṇa in Dvārakā within his universe.

This would indicate then that Kṛṣṇa was in one room, which was simultaneously in all of these different universes, and so He could just summon Brahmā within each universe. And normally, it seems, Kṛṣṇa is of course completely in control of the connectivity of space – that is how different parts of space connect to other parts of space. So, He arranged it so that each of the Brahmās except ours was in his own individual space when he came to meet Kṛṣṇa. But our Brahmā had access to all of them.

It's similar to the situation where Arjuna was shown the universal form and Kṛṣṇa enabled Arjuna, even though he was standing in one place, to simultaneously see manifestations all over the universe, including many things which have never been seen before, at least in that part of the universe.

This indicates the higher-dimensional nature of Kṛṣṇa. Of course, also, it's described that these other Brahmās have various numbers of heads, which seemed to go in powers of two. Like 4, 16, 32, and so forth. And there's a painting by Jadurāṇī in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya in which she tried to portray Brahmās with these various numbers of heads. And they came out looking somewhat like Christmas trees with the heads as ornaments. It struck me that probably these were higher-dimensional Brahmās. In other words, our Brahmā has four heads because he's accustomed to operating in three-dimensional space. So you know, he has four heads for looking North, South, East, and West. So that's appropriate in this continuum. But if a Brahmā  has, let us say 32 heads, how were they situated? But if you have higher-dimensional space, there could be extra dimensions for each of those heads to be looking in. And so then you can say: Well, what happens if Brahmā has billions of heads? 

In addition to this... So this story of the many Brahmās meeting Kṛṣṇa is consistent with this idea that Kṛṣṇa is present everywhere. And in fact, the one Kṛṣṇa who is responding to Brahmā was present in all these different universes at one time. So it would appear that there are additional practical consequences of this. One has to do with transportation. 

In the 11th canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, it is described that the different siddhis, especially including the eight primary siddhis, are natural potencies of Kṛṣṇa and that jīvas are able to obtain these siddhis in a minor degree by Kṛṣṇa's grace. So, the all-pervading nature of Kṛṣṇa corresponds to the siddhi by which it is possible to go to another place without crossing the space in between. And that would seem to make sense because if Kṛṣṇa gives a small part of his potency of being present at every point in space simultaneously, then that would mean that the individual should be able to go into another point in space in a direct way. So, it's stated in the verse for today that the completely surrendered souls cannot be deviated by the words of persons bewildered by the illusory energy. 

[15:12]

Śrīla Prabhupāda refers here in the purport to people of modern day mundane education who are infected by the mentality of atheism. So it is interesting to see how the inner psychology of an individual influences what they will perceive to be true. So a person who is by nature surrendered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead is able to actually understand Kṛṣṇa as He is from the words in the śāstras and such persons, such as Uddhava, were able to directly understand who Kṛṣṇa was when He appeared before them. But other individuals who are also seeing Kṛṣṇa right in front of their very eyes were not able to understand what He was. And depending on their inner psychology, they were able to arrive at different conclusions about Kṛṣṇa. And all of these conclusions could be supported by different kinds of evidence.

So, the Yadus were seeing Kṛṣṇa as a manifestation of the one Supreme that is all-pervading. Many of the demigods who saw Kṛṣṇa regarded Him as the top most creation of Brahmā. So they thought that his body was a material creation. Other individuals thought that Kṛṣṇa was a being who could be defeated in battle or slain. So they thought that He was a person of limited power. So there were many different understandings of Kṛṣṇa. So Śrīla Prabhupāda refers to the understanding of the mundane personalities: One feature is that the mundane personalities take advantage of Kṛṣṇa's pastimes, which He performed when leaving the world, that… mauṣala-līlā is the term for that. Kṛṣṇa of course, arranges for persons in different stages of consciousness to be able to maintain different points of view. It's not that the individual persons have to do this entirely on their own power.

So, in particular, when Kṛṣṇa left the material world, He conveniently left the dead body behind, thus making it appear that He was a mortal man. In fact, His body died because of being shot by a hunter. Of course, the circumstances here are a little bit suspicious because what happened was the hunter shot Kṛṣṇa in the foot with an arrow and Kṛṣṇa died.

This is curious because Kṛṣṇa had engaged in quite a few battles and He'd had the pastime of being shot by many arrows, in fact. For example, with Bhīṣma he engaged in this pastime. This was a loving exchange in a unique rasa Kṛṣṇa had with Bhīṣmadeva, a chivalrous rasa. So Bhīṣmadeva was shooting Kṛṣṇa with arrows, and He was actually bleeding and so forth. However, the arrows didn't affect Him because if Kṛṣṇa wants to bleed, even being shot with arrows, then He could do that. But His transcendental form is still perfectly unaffected by all material conditions. It's merely a pastime. So the evidence was there that Kṛṣṇa was doing things like that. 

Of course then if you wanted to fight, He could also do that. There are the occasions in which Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma wiped out the armies of Jarāsandha single handedly. They just let loose a rather dense cloud of arrows and totally wiped out vast armies, and They were not affected in the slightest degree by the weapons of the enemy soldiers. So then after all that, Kṛṣṇa is shot in the foot with an arrow and He dies. 

Śrīla Prabhupāda has explained that this is a pastime which was designed, basically, to give an excuse to the atheists, so that they could be atheists. Kṛṣṇa provides for that. Kṛṣṇa also provides the different theories of the atheists. Scientists are very proud of creating many different theories. But one thing that they don't realize is that actually the Supersoul within their hearts is providing them with the intelligence by which these theories are created. So Kṛṣṇa actually dictates atheistic theories to those who want to think in that way. 

[20:26]

Let's see… Śrīla Prabhupāda makes some additional points here about the statement in Bhagavad-gītā that Kṛṣṇa is not affected by karma, or by work in the material world. So the argument was that Kṛṣṇa had engaged in sinful activity by engaging in all kinds of machiavellian political maneuvers intended to wipe out, for example, the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. So this was considered to be greatly sinful activity by the person with atheistic inclinations. And so they said, as a result of this, Kṛṣṇa was killed because of His sins. 

However, the Bhagavad-gītā says that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not affected by actions performed within the material world. So the Supreme Lord, in fact, is in a completely different situation from that of the conditioned living beings. The conditioned living beings are placed in a situation of being able to try to exploit the material energy, and as a result of their activities in exploiting that energy, they're held responsible. So then there are karmic reactions to those activities. 

Now, it's a fact that Kṛṣṇa as Supersoul is delivering the karmic reactions to the different living beings. So in that sense He's the ultimate doer, and the individual living beings, in fact, are not the doer. That's also stated in the Bhagavad-gītā. But Kṛṣṇa does not take responsibility for these actions because, in fact, the individual living being is desiring to perform these actions. And Kṛṣṇa is merely facilitating the living being by providing the material situation in which these actions can take place. So therefore the karma has to be accepted by the individual soul. So these are a number of points that were made in connection with this verse. Are there any questions or comments? Yeah.

Question:  Your analysis of time and space that each point is next to another point, and this is an understanding of how the Supersoul can be at one place and everywhere. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Prabhupāda gives an example that seems to uphold that, in which he says if you are walking, the sun is directly overhead at noon. You travel five thousand miles, the sun is still directly overhead at noon. So even though you've gone to different places you're still directly next to the sun in that sense. But sometimes we hear another analogy of the Supersoul like the reflection of the sun in many waterpots. 

Answer:  Yes. Well if you think that the Supersoul that is really there in your heart is analogous to a reflection, then that would seem to be different from the actual understanding that the Supersoul is literally present within your heart. So the water pot analogy... Of course if you look at it carefully, it's really the same as the analogy of seeing the sun beating down on you, because you could still argue that when you walk to a different place, after all, different rays of the sun are striking you. And the sun looks the same because it's so big and so far away, but it doesn't seem to change position much when you walk. Just like if you're walking along you'll see the trees nearby are moving past fairly quickly, but say a forest in the distance is moving very slowly, and that's because it's further away. So we move a given distance – the angle by which things move is smaller. So, if the sun is very far away, then the angle by which the sun moves when you walk a few miles is so tiny that you couldn't possibly detect that. 

[24:55] 

Nonetheless, looking at it logically, you'd have to say that different sun's rays are striking you, say, in one location than another. So in that sense it is a different sun or a different manifestation of the sun that you are perceiving. So what that amounts to is that the analogy is imperfect. And of course this is true generally of analogies. An analogy is something in which there are certain points which illustrate an underlying conception. But it's not true that all of the points of the analogy are going to apply. So, that would be true of both the example of the sun and the example of the sun reflected in the water pots. Anything else? Yeah?

Q:  You say that some of the demigods had the idea that Kṛṣṇa was the top most creation of Brahmā, meaning that He has material body or… and then He had nothing to do with the Supreme Brahman. He is just jīva in a material body or that Brahman had taken the body. [unclear]. 

A:  Well, of the statements I've seen, there's one that comes up just a few verses from here. For example, text 13 is coming up. Let's see. 

All the demigods from the upper, lower and middle universal planetary systems assembled at the altar of the Rājasūya sacrifice performed by Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. After seeing the beautiful bodily features of Lord Kṛṣṇa, they all contemplated that he was the ultimate dexterous creation of Brahmā, the creator of human beings. 

That would seem to indicate that Brahmā used his dexterity to perform that creation. And it refers to him as the creator of human beings. So, that would seem to indicate that these demigods were thinking that Kṛṣṇa had the ultimate creation made by Brahmā, as opposed to Kṛṣṇa having a body which corresponded to the kind of body that Brahmā would create. if he was doing his best.

Q:  …[unclear] There’s a branch of Māyāvāda philosophy that says… it takes a body made of avidyā, different from the bodies of all of us, who are covered with avidyā, but really it’s all illusion, but anyway… But here it seems like the demigods are all mūḍhās, or else they think it's just, you know, something created by Brahmā. It seems inconsistent with our picture of the demigods as being great devotees.

A:  Well, of course, I believe there's also a reference to the gopis. Weren't they criticizing Brahmā? No, that doesn't fit, sorry about that one. Let's see. Well, let's see what is said in the Sanskrit here. The word for dexterity is there. And then the word for mankind is there. In fact, arvāk, recent mankind…

Q:  Evolutionary theory... 

A:  Well, let's see. Hmm… yeah… gataṁ, surpassed, vidhātuḥ, of the creator (Brahmā), arvāk – recent mankind; sṛtau – in the material world; kauśalam – dexterity; thus they contemplated. So, it seems to be saying that they were really thinking Kṛṣṇa was… His body was created by Brahmā, that's even different from thinking that Brahmā manifested as Kṛṣṇa. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.