Īśo 15: Śrī Īśopaniṣad

In the Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord explains about His Personal rays, called Brahma-jyoti—the dazzling effulgence of His Personal Form—as follows:

I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal and imperishable, eternal, the constitutional position of ultimate happiness. (Gītā, 14/27)

Brahman, Paramātman and Bhagavān are three angles of vision of the same Absolute Truth. Brahman is the phase of the Absolute Truth most perceptible to the beginner. Paramātman is the phase of the Absolute Truth for those who have progressed. And Bhagavān is the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth. This is confirmed in the Gītā [7.7], where the Lord says that He is the ultimate concept of the Absolute Truth. He is the source of Brahma-jyoti, as well as of the all-pervading Paramātman feature. As He says that He is the ultimate reservoir of the Brahma-jyoti, or impersonal conception of the Absolute Truth, so also He says in the Gītā [10.42] that there is no need of explaining His unlimited potency: it can be summarized in short that, by His one plenary portion—the all-pervading Paramātman—He maintains the complete material cosmic creation. And in the Spiritual World also He maintains all manifestations. Therefore, in the Śruti mantra of Śrī Īśopaniṣad, He is addressed as Pūṣan, the ultimate Maintainer.

The Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is always full with transcendental bliss. When He was present at Vṛndāvana in India 5,000 years ago, He always remained in transcendental bliss, even from the beginning of His childhood pastimes. The killing of varieties of demons, such as Agha, Buka, Pūtanā and Pralamba were also pleasure excursions for Him. When He was within His village He was enjoying with His mother, sisters and friends as the naughty Butter Thief, and every one of His associates was enjoying celestial bliss by His stealing. The Lord is known as the Butter Thief, but the term is never used in a derogatory sense. The term Butter Thief, in the case of the Lord, is used with the understanding of the pleasure of His pure devotees. Everything that was done by the Lord at Vṛndāvana was for the pleasure of His associates there. Such manifestations were created by Him to attract the dry speculators in the transcendental line, as well as the acrobats of the so-called haṭha-yoga system, trying to find the Absolute Truth.

Of the childhood play of the Lord with His playmates, the cowherd boys, Śukadeva Gosvāmī in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam [10.12.11] said:

The Personality of Godhead, Who is perceived as the impersonal Brahman of bliss, Who is worshiped as the Supreme Lord by the devotees, and Who is considered an ordinary human being by the mundane, played with the cowherd boys who had achieved that position after a huge accumulation of pious deeds.

Thus the Lord is ever engaged in transcendental loving activities along with His spiritual associates in the various relationships of śānta, calmness, dāsya, servitorship, sakhya, friendship, vātsalya, paternal affection, and mādhurya, conjugal love.

It is said that the Lord never goes out of the Vṛndāvana-dhama, and so it may be asked how He manages the affairs of His different creations. This is answered in the Gītā [13.14-18]: He pervades all the material creation by His plenary part, known as the Puruṣa incarnation. The Lord has nothing to do with material creation, maintenance and destruction, but He causes it to be done by His plenary expansion, this Paramātman or Supersoul feature. Every living entity is known as ātman, soul. The principal Ātman, Who controls them all, is Paramātman—Supersoul.

The whole system of God realization is a great science. The materialists can only analyze and meditate on the twenty-four factors of the material creation. They have very little information of the Puruṣa, the Lord. The impersonal transcendentalists are simply bewildered by the glaring effulgence of the Brahma-jyoti. If one wants to see the Absolute Truth in full, one has to penetrate beyond the twenty-four material elements and the glaring effulgence as well. Śrī Īśopaniṣad hints at this direction, praying for removal of the hiraṇmaya-pātra, the dazzling covering. Unless this covering is removed, and unless one can perceive the Supreme Personality of Godhead as He is, factual realization of the Absolute Truth can never be achieved.

The Paramātman feature of the Personality of Godhead is one of three plenary expansions, collectively called Viṣṇu-tattva. The Viṣṇu-tattva within the universe (one of the three principal deities—Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva) is known as the Kṣīrodaka-śāyī Viṣṇu. He is the all-pervading Paramātman in each and every individual living entity. And the Garbhodaka-śāyī Viṣṇu is the collective Supersoul of all living entities. Beyond these two there is the Kāraṇodaka-śāyī Viṣṇu lying in the Causal Ocean. He is the Creator of all the universes. The yoga system teaches the serious student to meet such Viṣṇu-tattvas after overcoming the twenty-four material elements of cosmic creation. The culture of empiric philosophy helps one to realize the impersonal Brahma-jyoti, which is the glaring effulgence of the transcendental body of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā [14.27] as well as in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5/40):

In the millions and millions of universes, there are innumerable planets, each and every one of them different from the others by cosmic constitution, and all of them situated in a corner of the Brahma-jyoti. This Brahmajyoti is the Personal ray of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Whom I do worship.

This mantra of the Brahma-saṁhitā is the position of factual realization of the Absolute Truth, and the Śruti mantra of Śrī Īśopaniṣad under discussion is a confirmation of this mantra as a process of realization. It is a simple, prayer to the Lord to remove the Brahma-jyoti, so that one can see the real face of God.

Perfect knowledge means to know the root of Brahman. The root of Brahman is Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and in scriptures such as the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam the science of Kṛṣṇa is perfectly elaborated. In the Bhāgavatam, the author, Śrīla Vyasadeva, has established by realization that the Supreme Truth is described either as Brahman, Paramātman or Bhagavān. But he has never said that the Supreme Truth is anywhere described as jīva, the ordinary living entity. Therefore the living entity is not the all powerful Supreme Truth. Otherwise, there would be no need of prayer by the entity for the Lord to remove the dazzling cover in order to see His real face.

The conclusion is, therefore, that in the absence of potent manifestations of the Supreme Truth, the impersonal Brahman is realized. Similarly, when there is realization of the material potencies of the Lord, with little or no information of the spiritual potency, it is called Paramātman realization. Therefore, both Brahman and Paramātman realization of the Absolute Truth are partial realizations. But when one realizes the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, in full potency after the removal of the hiraṇmaya-pātra, as is prayed for in this mantra, then he realizes that Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti:Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, known as Vasudeva, is everything—Brahman, Paramātman and Bhagavān. He is Bhagavān, the root, and Brahman and Paramātman are His branches.

In the Bhagavad-gītā [6.46-47] there is a comparative, analysis of the three grades of transcendentalists, known as jñānins, the worshipers of the impersonal Brahman, the yogis, or worshipers of the Paramātman feature, and bhaktas, or devotees of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. It is stated in the Gītā that amongst all types of transcendentalists, one who is a jñāni, who has cultured the Vedic knowledge, is supreme. Yet the yogis are still more than the jñānins. The yogis are far superior to fruitive workers as well. And amongst all kinds of yogis, "the one who constantly serves the Lord with all his energy is topmost."

The summary is that a philosopher is better than a laboring man, and a mystic is far superior to a philosopher. And of all the mystic yogis, one who is following bhakti-yoga, who is constantly engaged in the service of the Lord, is the highest. Śrī Īśopaniṣad directs us toward this perfection of life.