Īśo 5: Śrī Īśopaniṣad

Here is an explanation of the Supreme Lord's transcendental activities by His inconceivable potencies. There are two sets of contradictory words mentioned herein to prove the inconceivable potency of the Lord. He walks, and He does not walk. These two phrases are contradictory. If someone can walk then it is improper to say that he cannot walk. These contradictions show the inconceivable power of God. With our limited fund of knowledge we cannot accommodate such things, and therefore the Lord is conceived in terms of our limited powers of understanding. The impersonalist philosophers of the māyā-vāda school accept only the impersonalist part of the Lord's activities, and refute His Personal feature. The Bhāgavata school, however, accepts the Lord in both ways, i.e., as Personal and impersonal. And the Bhāgavatas also accept His inconceivable potencies. Without inconceivable potency there is no meaning to the words Supreme Lord.

We should not take it for granted that because we cannot see God before our eyes there is therefore no personal existence of the Lord. To refute this sort of argument, Śrī Īśopaniṣad warns us that the Lord is far away from us, but He is very near to us also. The Abode of the Lord is beyond the material sky. We have no means to measure even the material sky. If just the material sky is so far, far away from us, then what of the spiritual sky, which is beyond the material sky altogether? That the spiritual sky is situated far, far away from the material world is further confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā [15.6]. But, in spite of the Lord's being so far away, He can at once, within less than a second, descend before us with a speed more powerful than the mind or the air. He can walk so quickly that no one can surpass Him, This fact has already been described in the previous verse.

When the Personality of Godhead thus comes before us, however, we neglect Him. This negligence on the part of the foolish people, is condemned by the Lord in the Bhagavad-gītā [9.11]. The Lord says that the foolish deride Him, taking Him to be one of the mortal beings. But He is not a mortal being, nor does He come before us with a body produced of material Nature. There are many so-called scholars who say that when the Lord descends, He does so in a body of matter, just like an ordinary living being. Such foolish men place the Lord on a level equal to that of the ordinary man, not knowing His inconceivable power.

Because He is full of inconceivable potencies, God can accept our service through any sort of medium, and He can convert His different potencies according to His own will. The unbelievers argue that the Lord cannot incarnate Himself, or if at all, He descends in a form of material energy. This argument is nullified if we accept His inconceivable potencies as realities. Even if He appears before us in the form of material energy, it is quite possible for Him to convert the material energy into spiritual energy. The source of the energies being one and the same, the energies can be utilized suitably according to the will of that energetic Source. For example, the Lord appears in the Form of Arca, or Deities supposedly made of earth or stone. These forms, engraved from wood or stone or any other matter, are not idols, however, as is held by the iconoclasts.

In the present state of our imperfect material existence we cannot see the Supreme Lord on account of our imperfect vision. But still, those devotees who want to see Him by means of material vision are favored by the Lord, Who appears in so-called material form to accept the devotees' service. This does not mean that such devotees, who are in the lowest stage of devotional service, are worshiping an idol. In fact, they are worshiping the Lord, Who has agreed to appear before them in a particular way which is approachable by them. This Arca Form is not fashioned in terms of the order or whim of the worshiper. It is eternally existent with all Its paraphernalia. This can be actually felt by a sincere devotee, but not by an atheist.

In the Bhagavad-gītā [4.11] the Lord says that He treats His devotee in proportion to the degree of surrender made by the devotee. He reserves the right not to expose Himself to anyone and everyone, except those who surrender unto Him. Therefore, for the surrendered soul, He is always within reach, whereas for the non-surrendered soul, He is far, far away, and cannot be approached.

There are two words in the revealed Scriptures which are important in this connection: saguṇa and nirguṇa—with qualities and without qualities. Saguṇa does not mean that the Lord becomes subject to the laws of material Nature when He appears, although He has qualities and appears in the material form. For Him there is no difference between material and spiritual energies, because He is the Source of such energies. He is the Controller of the different energies, and as such He cannot at any time be under their influence, as we are. The material energy works according to His direction, and therefore He can use the material energy for His purpose, but without ever being influenced by any of the qualities of His energies. Nor for this purpose does He become a formless entity at any time. Ultimately He is the eternal Form, the Primeval Lord. And the impersonal representation, or Brahman effulgence, is the glow of His Personal rays, as the Sun's rays are the glow of the Sun god.

When the boy saint Prahlāda Mahārāj was in the presence of his atheist father, his father asked him, "Where is your God?" The child Prahlāda replied that God resides everywhere. The father then angrily asked whether his God was within the pillar of the palace, and the child said yes. At once the atheist king broke the pillar in front of him into pieces, at which the Lord appeared as Nṛsiṁha (the half-man, half-lion Incarnation) from within the pillar, and killed the atheist king. This means that the Lord is within everything, which is created by His different energies. And by His inconceivable power He can appear at any place in order to favor His sincere devotee. Lord Nṛsiṁha appeared from within the pillar not at the order of the atheist king, but by the wish of the devotee Prahlāda. An atheist cannot order the Lord to appear, but to show mercy to His devotee the Lord can appear anywhere and everywhere.

The Bhagavad-gītā [4.8] confirms this, in the statement that the Lord appears to vanquish the unbelievers and to protect the believers. To vanquish an unbeliever, of course, the Lord has sufficient energies and agents who can do the work, but to favor the devotee is a pleasing task for Him, and therefore He descends as an incarnation. He does so only to favor His devotees, then, and not for any other purpose.

In the Brahma-saṁhitā [5.35] it is said that Govinda, the Primeval Lord, enters everything by His plenary portion. He enters the universe as well as the atom of the universe. He is outside in the Virāṭa Form, and He is within as Antaryāmī. As Antaryāmī He is witness of everything that we are doing, and He gives us the result of our actions as karma-phala. We ourselves may forget what we have done in previous lives, but because the Lord is the witness of our actions, the result of our actions is always there, and we have to undergo the reactions all the same.

In fact there is nothing except God within and without. Everything is manifested of His different energies, like the heat and light of fire, which means there is a oneness among the diverse energies. In spite of this oneness, however, the Lord enjoys in His Personal Form all that is enjoyable to the little senses of the little part and parcel living entities.