material, no

In this verse the word anahahkara means "without ego." The conditioned soul has a false ego, and as a result of his karma he gets different types of bodies in this material world. Sometimes he gets the body of a demigod, and he thinks that body to be his identity. Similarly, when he gets the body of a dog he identifies his self with that body. But for the Supreme Personality of Godhead there is no such distinction between the body and the soul. Bhagavad-gita, therefore, certifies that anyone who thinks of Krsna as an ordinary human being is without knowledge of His transcendental nature and is a great fool. The Lord says, na mam karmani limpanti: He is not affected by anything He does because He is never contaminated by the material modes of nature. That we have a material body proves that we are infected by the three material modes of nature. The Lord says to Arjuna, "You and I had many, many births previously, but I remember everything, whereas you do not." That is the difference between the living entity, or conditioned soul, and the Supreme Soul. The Supersoul, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has no material body, and because He has no material body, He is not affected by any work He executes. There are many Mayavadi philosophers who consider that Krsna's body is the effect of a concentration of the material mode of goodness, and they distinguish Krsna's soul from Krsna's body. The real situation, however, is that the body of the conditioned soul, even if he has a large accumulation of material goodness, is material, whereas Krsna's body is never material; it is transcendental. Krsna has no false ego, for He does not identify Himself with the false and temporary body. His body is always eternal; He descends on this world in His own original spiritual body. This is explained in Bhagavad-gita as param bhavam. The words param bhavam divyam are especially significant in understanding Krsna's personality.    (More...)

In this verse the word mayaya means "by your causeless mercy." The Mayavadi philosophers explain the word maya as meaning "illusion" or "falseness." However, there is another meaning of maya-that is, "causeless mercy." There are two kinds of maya-yogamaya and mahamaya. Mahamaya is an expansion of yogamaya, and both these mayas are different expressions of the Lord's internal potencies. As stated in Bhagavad-gita, the Lord appears through His internal potencies (atma-mayaya). We should therefore reject the Mayavada explanation that the Lord appears in a body given by the external potency, the material energy. The Lord and His incarnation are fully independent and can appear anywhere and everywhere by virtue of the internal potency. Although born out of the so-called dead body of King Vena, King Prthu was still an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead by the Lord's internal potency. The Lord can appear in any family. Sometimes He appears as a fish incarnation (matsya-avatara), or a boar incarnation (varaha-avatara). Thus the Lord is completely free and independent to appear anywhere and everywhere by His internal potency. It is stated that Ananta, an incarnation of the Lord who has unlimited mouths, cannot reach the end of His glorification of the Lord, although Ananta has been describing the Lord since time immemorial. So what to speak of demigods like Lord Brahma, Lord Siva and others? It is said that the Lord is siva-virinci-nutam-always worshiped by demigods like Lord Siva and Lord Brahma. If the demigods cannot find adequate language to express the glories of the Lord, then what to speak of others? Consequently reciters like the sūta and magadha felt inadequate to speak about King Prthu.    (More...)

Doubts of duality begin from the misconception of the material body, which is accepted as the self by less intelligent persons. The most foolish part of our ignorance is our identifying this material body with the self. Everything in relation with the body is ignorantly accepted as our own. Doubts due to misconceptions of myself and mine, in other words, my body, my relatives, my property, my wife, my children, my wealth, my country, my community, and hundreds and thousands of similar illusory contemplations, cause bewilderment for the conditioned soul. By assimilating the instructions of the Bhagavad-gita, one is sure to become released from such bewilderment because real knowledge is to know that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vasudeva, Lord Krsna, is everything, including one's self. Everything is a manifestation of His potency as part and parcel. The potency and the potent are nondifferent, so the conception of duality is at once mitigated by attainment of perfect knowledge. As soon as Arjuna took up the instructions of the Bhagavad-gita, expert as he was, he could at once eradicate the material conception of Lord Krsna, his eternal friend. He could realize that the Lord was still present before him by His instruction, by His form, by His pastimes, by His qualities and everything else related to Him. He could realize that Lord Krsna, his friend, was still present before him by His transcendental presence in different nondual energies, and there was no question of attainment of the association of the Lord by another change of body under the influence of time and space. By attainment of absolute knowledge, one can be in association with the Lord constantly, even in this present life, simply by hearing, chanting, thinking of and worshiping the Supreme Lord. One can see Him, one can feel His presence even in this present life simply by understanding the advaya-jnana Lord, or the Absolute Lord, through the process of devotional service, which begins with hearing about Him. Lord Caitanya says that simply by chanting the holy name of the Lord one can at once wash off the dust on the mirror of pure consciousness, and as soon as the dust is removed, one is at once freed from all material conditions. To become free from material conditions means to liberate the soul. As soon as one is, therefore, situated in absolute knowledge, his material conception of life is removed or emerges from a false conception of life. Thus the function of the pure soul is revived in spiritual realization. This practical realization of the living being is made possible due to his becoming free from the reaction of the three modes of material nature, namely goodness, passion and ignorance. By the grace of the Lord, a pure devotee is at once raised to the place of the Absolute, and there is no chance of the devotee becoming materially entangled again in conditioned life. One is not able to feel the presence of the Lord in all circumstances until one is endowed with the required transcendental vision made possible by devotional service prescribed in the revealed scriptures. Arjuna attained this stage long before on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra, and when he apparently felt the absence of the Lord, he at once took shelter of the instructions of the Bhagavad-gita, and thus again he was placed in his original position. This is the position of visoka, or the stage of being freed from all grief and anxieties.    (More...)