16 Sep 2024
The essence of all the Vedas and all the Shastras is to understand the cosmic form shown by Lord Shri Krishna. Even before Shri Krishna showed the cosmic form, He was in the cosmic form. Even after withdrawing the cosmic form, He remains in the cosmic form. Only Arjuna's vision has changed. The sun is always shining. On wearing black glasses, he looks like a globe without shining. As soon as the spectacles were removed, he was burning with a great shine that could not be seen again. When you wear dark glasses, the radiance of the Sun does not go away from him. As soon as the spectacles are removed, the Sun will not gain new radiance. That's why, before giving the cosmic vision (Vishvarūpa), Krishna said, "Divyaṃ dadāmi te cakṣuḥ", which means “I am giving you divine vision”. It means removing the black spectacles from your eyes and looking at Him with your natural and true vision. Therefore, when Paramātman incarnates, He appears as if He is in human form because of our ignorance, but He is not really covered by ignorance.
Imagine, some people are seen with green complexion. A man with red complexion had to join among them. Green complexioned people cannot tolerate the red color. Then they were put green colored spectacles on their green colored eyes. Then they saw a red man among them, who looked green due to the color of their glasses, though he was of red complexion only. Now, the red complexioned man removed the spectacles of one of them and made him look at Him with his natural, true vision. Then he saw this person appearing in red color. Since they feared seeing the red colour, that person cried out in fear and prayed Him to appear in green again. Then this man again put green spectacles on the green complexioned person and so the red complexioned man looked green. Similarly, as long as Arjuna wore Māyā like green spectacles, God Krishna appeared to him as an ordinary human being only. All Individual souls have this illusory spectacle from birth untill death. The two glasses in the spectacles are i) ego and ii) attachment, which are the two blurring layers of the eye. Swami removed such a spectacle on Arjuna, when he wanted to see Swami's true form. Then Arjuna saw the true form of Swami with his true eyes and true vision. Later, since he is afraid by seeing Swami’s true form, Swami again put the spectacles on Arjuna. So, when the Paramātman descends, He comes down in His true form only. But, individual souls cannot see it.
Therefore, Māyā has put the illusory spectacles on the eyes of individual souls, so that Swami is seen as a human being. Avatāra means incarnation in Sanskrit. Ava= means down; tāra= means to descend. When a person comes down a staircase, he comes down in his true form. Apart from that, he does not wear a mysterious veil (mask) while coming down. Therefore, when the Parabrahman incarnates, He cannot really take refuge in a weak human body due to the above reason. An illusion is created by Māyā that He is appearing in the human body. Therefore, it is the individual soul’s ignorance to think that there is another body of Paramātman within the body of the incarnated human body. In the example given before, green color is not painted on a red complexioned person when wearing green glasses. When you take off the spectacles, the person does not wash the green color with water and appears red again. He always appears in red. Therefore, Shri Krishna is always present in His own cosmic form. His finite human form is an illusion of our eyes. Therefore, when the incarnated God shows divine visions, there is no change in His body. What He is doing is pushing aside the layers on our eyes a little. This is the essence of Vedanta. Accordingly, the Gopikas did not diferentiate the outer form and the inner form of Shri Krishna. For them, Shri Krishna is directly the Paramātman. Their eyes have no illusory layers. Therefore, Krishna never appeared to them as a human being. They are without the color spectacles. They don't feel two different states like green and red colors. They always see only one color that is red. Therefore, their faith in Krishna did not waver, even for a moment. The reason that they don't have this illusion about the incarnation is because they never got ignorance about it. The reason for that is that their knowledge is shining like a fire. They are Brahmarshis who have spent crores of births in the Satsanga of God without ever thinking of sleep, food or any other bodily need. Their unwavering interest in Brahman is the cause of their fire like knowledge of Brahman. ‘Śraddhāvān labhate jñānam" says the Gita, which means ‘interest is the root cause of knowledge.’ The knowledge weakens when there is no interest in the God and ignorance encompasses. Even though the city of Mithila is burning, King Janaka, immersed in the knowledge of Brahman, did not even get up. Think how much interest he has in God. When we sit in a cinema hall, the bedbugs are biting; the mosquitoes are sucking the blood; we may even feel breathlessness due to lack of air since the doors are closed; but we do not move even an inch even if it thunders outside. When the movie is stopped due to thunder, we will come back to this world and think about what happened.
But when there is satsang or while listening to a discourse on a Purana or a Bhashya, we divert our attention even to a silly sound made by a small insect. We remember all worldly issues at that time. Even though there is no urgent work, we still get up as if we have some pressing problem. During the Satsanga, we put milk on the stove and there is still a lot of time for it to boil. But, we get up immediately with the excuse that it may overflow now. See, how much difference is there between you people and King Janaka, who did not get up from the Satsanga, even when the kingdom was burned? Therefore, we are not really interested in the Paramātman and we don’t value Him. Even if some people take interest in the God, that is filled with selfishness. Such people want to use God’s grace for worldly gains and also believe to exploit it after their death. Brahma Jñāna is not digested in us because we doubt the incarnation as human, due to lack of interest. We are doused (quenched) by the water like worldly attractions such as house, its surroundings, the family bonds and are enveloped by the smoke like ignorance. This is what is said in the Gita as ‘dhūmenā vriyate vahniḥ, āvṛtaṃ jñānametena.’ It is because of these layers of ignorance only, when Mādhva has come down in His original form, we do not recognize Him and consider Him as a mere human being. We are not able to see His original form. Therefore, Swami is not covered by Māyā but we only are covered by māyā. Swami need not advertise His original nature to us. When our layers of illusion are removed, then only we can see His original form. Therefore, He does not have to make any effort to show His divine darshan. We only have to try for it for our own welfare.
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