The Divine Bliss, which is the source of all happiness, is related to its Knowledge that was revealed in its original form by the Supreme Divine power, Krishna, during His miraculous appearance in this world. That was the Gita. The origin of all the spiritual “isms” and the knowledge of all the knowledges, which has now been further simplified by His Divinity Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, the foremost disciple of Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj, who is the Supreme Divine descension of this age.
The Gita is not only a philosophy. It is a promise of God.
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जना: पर्युपासते |
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ||
Ananyāśhchintayantomāṁ ye janāḥparyupāsate.
Teṣhāṁnityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣhemaṁvahāmyaham.
It tells to merge all the spiritual formalities into the exclusiveness of loving devotion to the Supreme form of God, and you will receive His vision.
The Blessed souls,
In the last speech, I explained the secret of the soul’s incarnation and the descension of Krishna. God only descends, and souls only incarnate. What Krishna Himself said about His descension is in the Gita,
जन्म कर्म च मे दिव्यमेवं यो वेत्ति तत्त्वत: |
त्यक्त्वा देहं पुनर्जन्म नैति मामेति सोऽर्जुन || 9||
Janm karm cha me divyamevaṁyovettitattvataḥ
Tyaktvādehaṁpunarjanmnaitimāmeti so ’rjun.
Krishna says, “The one who understands the secret of My Divine descension and Divine actions, he has learned the whole of the Gita.”What does Gita knowledge give? It gives liberation from the bondage and experience of Divine Bliss, God-realization. Krishna says, “Janm karm cha me divyam, and evamyovettitattvataḥ. The one who understands this secret leaves this body, crosses the mayaand enters into My abode – punarjanmnaitimāmeti. There’s no further incarnation of that particular soul. Then what happens?“Māmeti –he comes to me. He becomes a Saint. Arjun, that’s my promise, that’s my word.”So you see, this is the keyword – Divya. Divya means if you understand the Divineness of Krishna’s appearance, Krishna’s descent, then that’s enough to understand the Gita, and if you cannot understand even this fact, then Gita you cannot understand.
मूढोऽयं नाभिजानाति लोको मामजमव्ययम् ||
Mūḍho ’yaṁnābhijānātilokomāmajamavyayam
Krishna further says, “Ignorant people don’t understand Me – nābhijānāti.”Mūḍho means ignorant people…. lokahmāmajamavyayam. Mūḍho’yaṁnābhijānātilokomāmajamavyayam.
Krishna says, “He is aj. He is avyayam.
In the Vedas, Krishna says, “I am never born, and I am ever born. I am omnipresent. I am complete. I am eternal. I am Divine always. The same Me appears in the world.” There cannot be a fraction of God just like a fraction appeared at descension and the rest remains in the Divine abode – no! There cannot be a fraction,avyayayam, no fraction. The whole of the Divineness appears over here on this Earth planet, the whole of the Divineness; not a part of Divineness. Anyway, there are many such verses where Krishna explains that His karma, His actions, are Divine, His form is Divine, His appearance is Divine, His descension is Divine. So he is always Divine. Then how does the Divine body, when a person sees it, is not seen(His body) as Divine. Krishna again explains…
…सम्भवाम्यात्ममायया||
…sambhavāmyātma-māyayā.
That does happen. Krishna has a power. His personal power is called yogmaya. With that yogmaya power, He descends on this Earth planet. So, although He is the whole and same Divine, absolute Krishna, there’s no difference between the Krishna of Golok and Krishna of the descension period. It’s absolutely the same. Krishna is avyaya, but what happens for a material soul is that Krishna’s body looks like material. Why? It’s because the soul’s eyes are material. The soul’s mind is material. So, from the material mind and material senses, even the Divine body looks material because your mind, body, and senses are material.
Take a local example. Suppose you are wearing red-colored spectacles, so the whole view is like red because the spectacle glass is red color. It’s just an example. You cannot see the pure colors of the outside view. So your mind is material, and the material mind sees Divine Krishna, but because you have a material mind, you only see Krishna as a material body. But no, Krishna is Divine even at that same time. Take, for instance, suppose two people are walking through Braj at that time of the descension 5,000 years ago. One is a Saint and one is an ordinary person. They happen to see Krishna playing with His playmates. The material person sees someone is playing, some beautiful, handsome boy – just a handsome, nice-looking…pleasant to look at. That’s all. He is playing, and the Saint gets absorbed in the Bliss of Krishna love and Krishna beauty, “Oh my beloved Krishna!” See, at the same time, both people are seeing the same Krishna, but the soul sees Him as just a handsome boy, and the Saint sees Him as Divine Krishna!SoKrishna was Divine for all the Saints, but souls did not see Him as Divine. That was the secret. Anyway,Krishna is always Divine.
We can learn some more in the same context about the further Divine bodies. There are a few kinds of bodies, like the material body we explained already. All the souls have a material body. Then there is a celestial body that’s also material. There are three kinds of material bodies under the bondage of maya: local mundane body, all the souls as we know, and celestial bodies like gods and goddesses. Their bodies are also material, but from a very fine material matter. It’s refined. For example, there’s a very crude rusty, useless piece of ferrumand then there’s stainless steel that is purified and non-stained, but the quality is the same substantially, but visually different. So celestial body is substantially the same. They have a purified body of pure substance of maya, and we have this mundane body which is like a crude substance of maya, but both have material bodies.
In the celestial world, there are two kinds of gods and goddesses:1) General gods and goddesses, or you can say ‘regular’. They have a material body of refined matter called the sattva gun of Maya. 2) And some souls also reach there when they have done great, great selfless good deeds and rituals for a long, long time, for their whole life. They get a seat in the heaven, in the celestial abodefor a certain period of time. They also receive the same kind of body as the gods and goddesses of that abode, but again, whatever body that soul has received is again a purified, material substance. That’s all. He has desire, ambition, greed, jealousy, hatred, love, longing, attachment – all of those things he has in his mind because the mind is the same. Mind is not changed, only the physical body has been changed. It’s like in the world you see a very sick, very ugly body and a very handsome, very healthy body – body is body. Somind does not change; only the body. So, celestial body and mundane material body are two kinds of material bodies.
Then there’s Divine body – Divine is Divine. Divine means beyond the limits of maya, that is, Divine. Within the limits of maya is material. So for the Divine body there is no example. You can just say, “Divya, Divine, beyond understanding.” What you might like to say is that Saints have a Divine body – sant parșhad – the eternal Associates of God, and God has a Divine bodies. So there are three kinds of Divine body in the Divine abode: Saint’s Divine body, eternal Associate’s or parșhad’s Divine body, and God’s Divine body. In those three Divine bodies, is there any difference? There are some very subtle differences that we can’t explain now due to a lack of time, but the quality of their body is exactly the same with no difference.So Brahma Sutra (Vedant) says,
भोगमात्र साम्यलिंगाच्च।
Bhogmātrasāmyalingāchch.
Brahma Sutra 4.4.2
Ved Vyas made a sutra explaining the situation that the Saint and God enjoy the same place. So their bodies have no difference, yet there is some internal difference as I explained before – God is God and Saint is Saint and partial eternal Associate and eternal Associate. In this way, in the Divine world, all those three have a similar kind of Divine body and They all descend. Sometimes a Saint descends, sometimes an eternal Associate descends, and sometimes God descends.
Here, there becomes a little difference on this Earth planet. When God descends, He has a Divine body – always, all through, always 100%. So He appears, as I explained before, and He disappears. He descends and ascends, appears or disappears. When a Saint descends, either eternal Associate or general Associate, he has a choice, and depending upon the various situations, he might have a material body but inside he has a Divine bodyor he could have a Divine body and inside a Divine body.
When you dream, you have a subtle body – it is an example. Yes. When you dream, your body is lying on the bed and you are walking or driving or flying, and you see, you watch, you listen, you hear, you act, you get angry, you get scared. You have a bad dream. You have a body? Yes. What is that body? Is it a physical body? You would say no. Then what is that body? It’s an internal body, or you can say mental body with subtle senses. Okay. When you are awake then do you see from this body? No. You see from the mind and through this physical body. Physical body is the means. The observer, the perceiver, is your mind. So your inner body is more important. Your outer body is just a shell outside. That’s all.
So Saint’s inner body is always Divine, and the outer body is also Divine sometimes. Some time she is playful, so he can take a material body. Again, that is optional, and it doesn’t matter very much but internally he is Divine. So some Saints had material body outside but inside they had a Divine body, Divine mind, Divine senses; and the majority of the Saints in our history had a Divine body -the majority of the Saints. And God, whenever He descends, He only has a Divine body.
अवजानन्ति मां मूढा मानुषीं तनुमाश्रितम् |
Avajānantimāṁmūḍhāmānuṣhīṁtanumāśhritam.
Krishna Himself explained, “Oh those people are very ignorant who think that I have taken a human body –mānuṣhīṁtanumāśhritam.”
They are ignorant people. They are naive people. They don’t know. They don’t understand, “I cannot take a material body. I am always in My Divine body!”So Gita itself explains the whole situation in the words of Krishna. There remains no doubt of any kind. So, we understand that Krishna’s body is Divine, the Saint’s body is Divine, and soul’s body is material. When souls understand this truth, they can also exceed this maya and enter into a Divine body and reach Krishna’s abode and experience Krishna’s Bliss.
You can understand one more thing. Over here His actions might be different – sometimes He acts like God, sometimes He acts like a Saint, sometimes He may act like a regular human…sometimes, but again His body is always Divine. I’ll give you three examples when the supreme God descended as Krishna, He acted as God.
सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज |
Sarva-dharmānparityajyamāmekaṁśharaṇaṁvraj.
“Come to me!”He orders.
अहं त्वां सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुच: ||
Ahaṁtvāṁsarva-pāpebhyomokṣhayiṣhyāmimāśhuchaḥ.
“I am the Liberator! I am God! I am Supreme!” He tells all through Gita acting as supreme God. In the history, Brahma comes and praises, Shiv comes and praises, Indra comes and praises Krishna, “Oh, You are the supreme God!” So all through the Gita He revealed Himself as the supreme form of Godhead Personality.
He appeared once more and acted as a Krishna devotee, and at that time He was called Chaitanya Mahaprabhu- 500 years ago. He was Krishna Himself. He had a Divine body, but he acted as a Krishna devotee, “Oh Krishna, I’m longing for Your love! Oh Radhey I’m desiring Your kindness, Your Grace, Your love!”So he acted as a Krishna devoteebut he was God. His body was Divine. All through his life he acted as a Krishna devotee and showed the path how a devotee should be. At that time, all the Saints around him were seeing him as Krishna – Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. They were always seeing him as Krishna and other ordinary souls were seeing him as an ordinary, handsome person. That’s it.
He also came once as Bhagwan Ram millions of years ago. When he came as Ram, Maharishi Valmiki says that Bhagwan Ram acted as Raja Ram, King Ram, not God Ram. Soall through his Valmiki Ramayanam (Valmiki) refers to King Ram asRaja Ram. So at that time, the same Divine descension of Godhead Personality acted as a regular human being showing His emotions, showing His grief, showing His excitement, crossing the bay, reaching Lanka, fighting with Ravan in a regular way. Again, although He acted as a regular human being at that time,His body was always Divine. All the Saints who saw Him, “Oh Bhagwan Ram! My beloved Ram!”
Take one instance, He’s walking through the jungle and enters a patch of jungle where there were hundreds of rishis and munis worshiping God, desiring Their Grace. They had reached the limit of their heart purification. Bhagwan Ram enters and they all come, “Oh my beloved has come?!” They saw Ram as Bhagwan Ram, Divine Ram not Raja Ram, not King Ram,“Oh my beloved Supreme God, You have appeared to me!” So He acted as Ram, Mahaprabhu and Krishna, but the question remains; why the word Krishna is there? Why is Krishna called Krishna? That I’ll explain in the next speech. That’s all for today. We’ll do some chanting…