Īśo 12: Śrī Īśopaniṣad

The Sanskrit word asambhūti means those who have no independent existence. Sambhūti is the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Who is absolutely independent of everything. In the Bhagavad-gītā [10.2], the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, positively describes Himself in the, following words: "I am the Supreme Cause of the powers delegated to the demigods, the great sages and the mystics. And because these are endowed with limited powers, it is very difficult for them to know how I appear Myself, by My own internal potency, in the form of a man."

All philosophers and great ṛṣis, or mystics, try to distinguish the Absolute from the relative by their tiny brain power. However, this can only help them to reach the point of negating relativity, without realizing any positive trace of the Absolute. Definition of the Absolute by negation is not a concept. Such negative definitions lead one to create a concept of his own, and one then imagines that the Absolute must be formless and without qualities. But these negations are simply the opposite numbers of the relative forms and qualities, and are. themselves therefore relative. By such a concept of the Absolute one can at the utmost reach to the impersonal diligence of God, known as Brahman; but one cannot make further progress to the stage of Bhagavān, the Personality of Godhead.

Such mental speculators do not know that Kṛṣṇa is the Absolute Personality of Godhead, and that the impersonal Brahman is the glaring effulgence of His transcendental body, while Paramātman, the Supersoul, is His all-pervading representation. They do not know that Kṛṣṇa has His eternal Form, with transcendental qualities of eternal bliss and knowledge. The dependent demigods and great sages imperfectly realize Him as one of the powerful demigods, but they consider that the Brahman effulgence is the ultimate Absolute Truth. Kṛṣṇa's devotees, however—who by dint of their unalloyed devotion surrender unto Him—can know that He is the Absolute Person, and that everything emanates from Him only. Such devotees continuously render loving service unto Kṛṣṇa, the Fountainhead of everything.

In the Bhagavad-gītā [7.20, 23] it is also said that only bewildered persons, driven by a strong desire for sense gratification, worship the demigods for the satisfaction of temporary problems. A temporary relief from a certain difficulty by the grace of some demigod is the demand of less intelligent persons. The living being is in the material entanglement, and he has to be relieved from material bondage entirely to obtain permanent relief on the. spiritual plane, where eternal bliss, life and knowledge exist.

In the Bhagavad-gītā [7.23] it is said that the worshipers of the demigods can go to the planets of the respective demigods. The Moon worshipers can go to the Moon, the Sun worshipers can go to the planet of the Sun, and so on. Modern scientists are now trying to go to the Moon with the help of rockets, which is not really a new attempt. The human being with his advanced consciousness is naturally inclined to travel in outer space and to reach other planets, either by sputniks, by mystic powers, or by worshiping the, particular predominating deity on that planet. In the Vedic scriptures it is said that one can reach other planets in any of the ways mentioned above, most generally by worshiping the demigod presiding over the particular planet. But these planets are temporary residential places; the only permanent planets are the Vaikuṇṭha-lokas, found in the spiritual sky, where the Personality of Godhead predominates. The Bhagavad-gītā [8.16] confirms this as follows:

Even though one may rise to the highest planet, Brahma-loka, one has to come back again. But if someone attains to Me (in the spiritual world), he doesn't have to lake birth again.

Śrī Īśopaniṣad suggests that one, remains in the darkest region by hovering over the material planets, whatever his means may he. The whole universe is covered by the gigantic material dements, just like a coconut ball half-filled with water. As it is airtight and fully covered, the darkness within is dense, and therefore planets like the Sun and the Moon are required to illuminate the inside of the universe. Outside the universe there is a vast expansion of unlimited Brahma-jyoti space, full of Vaikuṇṭha-lokas.

The biggest and the highest planet in the Brahma-jyoti is the Kṛṣṇa-loka, or Goloka Vṛndāvana, where the Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, resides. Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa never quits this Kṛṣṇa-loka where He dwells with His eternal associates, and yet He is omnipresent throughout the complete material and spiritual cosmic situation. This fact has already been explained in Mantra four of Śrī Īśopaniṣad. The Lord is present everywhere, as the Sun is. A man can move through space with the highest possible speed, and still he will find that the Sun is there, although the Sun is situated in its own undeviating orbit.

The problem of life cannot be solved by going to the Moon. There are many pseudo-worshipers who become religionists for the sake of name and fame only. Such pseudo-religionists do not wish to get out of this universe and reach the spiritual sky. They want only to maintain the status quo in the material world, under the garb of worshiping the Lord. And the atheists and the impersonalists lead such foolish pseudo-religionists into the darkest regions by preaching the cult of atheism. The atheist directly denies the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the impersonalist supports the atheist by preaching the impersonal existence of the Supreme Lord. As far as we have gone through Śrī Īśopaniṣad, we have not come across any mantra where the Personality of Godhead is denied. It is said that He can run faster than anyone. Those who are running after the planets are certainly persons, and if the Lord can run faster than all of them, why should He be considered impersonal? The impersonal conception of the Supreme Lord is another face of ignorance, due to an imperfect vision of the Absolute Truth.

And so the ignorant pseudo-religionists, the manufacturers of so-called incarnations—directly violating the Vedic injunctions—are liable to enter into the darkest region of the universe, on account of their business of misleading those who follow them. These impersonalists generally pose themselves as incarnations of God to the foolish, who have no knowledge of the Vedic wisdom. And if such foolish men have any knowledge at all, it is more, dangerous in their hands than ignorance itself. Such impersonalists do not even worship the demigods as is recommended in the scriptures.

In the scriptures there is a recommendation for worshiping the demigods under different circumstances, but at the same time it is said that there is no real need for this. In the Bhagavad-gītā [7.23] it is clearly stated that the results of worshiping the demigods are not permanent. The whole material world is not permanent, and therefore anything achieved here within the darkness of material existence is also impermanent. The problem, then, is how to obtain real and permanent life.

The Lord states that as soon as one reaches Him by devotional service—which is the one and only way to approach the Personality of Godhead—there is complete freedom from the bondage of birth and death. In other words, the path of salvation, or getting out of the material clutches, fully depends on the principles of knowledge and detachment. And the pseudo religionists have neither knowledge nor detachment from material affairs. Most of them want to continue in the golden shackles of material bondage, under the shadow of altruistic and philanthropic activities, and in the name of religious principles. By false religious sentiments they present a make-show of devotional service, indulging in all sorts of immoral principles, and still pass as spiritual masters and devotees of God. Such violators of religious principles have no respect for the authoritative ācāryas, the holy teachers in the strict disciplic succession; and to mislead the people in general they themselves become so-called ācāryas, without even following the principles of the ācāryas.

These rogues in human society are the most dangerous elements and, for want of religious government, they pass on without being punished by the law of the state. They cannot, however, avoid the law of the Supreme, Who has clearly declared in the Bhagavad-gītā [16.19-20] that these envious demons, in the garb of religious propagandists, shall be thrown down into the darkest region of hell. It is confirmed in Śrī Īśopaniṣad that the pseudo religionists are heading toward the most obnoxious place in the universe after finishing with the spiritual mastership business, which is simply for the matter of sense gratification