The Supreme Controller

Furthermore, God is the controller of everything. This is another clue to meditation. Krsna is directly and indirectly controlling everything. In the Bhagavatam it is said that nothing, not even a blade of grass, moves without the will of the Supreme Lord. Therefore it is also explained here that everything is either directly or indirectly under His control. This is quite logical and scientific in accordance with whatever strength or capacity I have, I exercise some control. If I had a colony of ants, I could exercise a great amount of relative control over those ants, and similarly a stronger individual can exercise the same degree of control over me.

Yet we have not found anyone who can claim that he is the supreme controller. There have been many politicians, soldiers, statesmen and famous personalities who have come and gone with the passing of history. They have performed their pastimes and exercised some temporary control, and now they are all gone. At present, President Nixon is controlling very powerfully in the United States, but in fifty years he will be gone, and there will be little memory of him. That is the nature of relative control. That is not supreme control, for God is eternally the supreme controller. He always has been the controller, always is the controller, and always will be the controller, both directly and indirectly.

Truly enlightened souls (and Vyasadeva, the compiler of all the Vedas, is among the most enlightened) consider the Vedas the supreme authority in detailed information of God. There must always be some authority. A standard must always be set. For example, how do we know how long a foot is? There is a government bureau of standard weights and measures that keeps a golden rod of a certain length designated as one foot. If we want to manufacture a ruler, it has to come within a certain tolerance of this rod in order to qualify as legally representing a foot. That is the standard. If someone wants to make a ruler, he must agree to accept that standard. We cannot say that we do not accept it, for if we say that a foot is a different length than the standard rod, who is to decide? There will be complete chaos. Thus in order to come to any conclusion or common ground, we must find an accepted standard. Of course, the example of the rod is relative and material, but there is no such material relativity in spiritual consideration. All different schools of transcendental science accept the Vedas as the supreme standard. If I want to prove something, I must be able to back it up with Vedic injunctions.

According to the Vedic standard of transcendental knowledge, one cannot simply make wonderful statements. One must be able to quote from the Vedas, and in order to fully support any philosophical statement, one must be able to review, correlate and integrate all the Vedic aphorisms. They are all in harmony, but sometimes people will take a small portion, divorce it from the rest, and, not understanding its overall pertinence, make a statement out of proper context. We therefore sometimes see disagreements or conflicts between different camps of Vedic knowledge, but this is due to shortsightedness. We must therefore take the correct understanding from Vyasadeva, the original author himself.

Vyasadeva informs us that God is the supreme controller. Although we are not very much in control, there is someone in control. It is a nonsensical theory that there is no supreme controller. In the morning the sun comes up, but I can neither demand that the sun come up earlier nor force it to go down earlier because the sun is independent of my control. Someone, however, is controlling it. One should not conclude that because he or his fellow men cannot control it, no one can. That is called frog philosophy, for a frog who cannot see beyond the length and breadth of his own pond concludes that the pond is everything. That we simply cannot imagine how anyone can control the sun does not mean that the sun is not controlled.

Everything in this material universe has a particular design and order; there is no question of randomness. Scientists should know this. When an experiment is performed in a science class, there is a certain reaction when chemicals are combined. If a professor inquires from a student why this reaction occurs and the student says that it is random and there is no meaning or controlled reason, that is nonsensical. It is not at all a scientific answer. There is a reason, and one must factually understand it.

There is a reason why everything is going on as if designed under conscious control. That we cannot perceive it directly or through deduction does not mean that it does not exist. For example, in Los Angeles, where this article is being written, all the civic activities are now going on-trash is being picked up, the police are on duty, etc.-but I cannot fully understand how. Although I am not participating in these activities, however, they are going on anyway. I cannot say that nothing is happening or being controlled except where I am involved and aware of it. That would be foolish. Similarly, everything is going on under some control, whether we know it or not. That is a scientific fact, and it is God who is doing this controlling. He is the Supreme, He is the cause of all causes, He is the creator, maintainer, and destroyer of everything, and He controls everything. This information is given by the Vedic literature.