detecting

There is a system by which one can detect an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Nowadays it has become a cheap fashion to accept any rascal as an incarnation of God, but from this incident we can see that Lord Brahma personally examined the hands and feet of King Prthu for specific signs. In their prophecies the learned sages and brahmanas accepted Prthu Maharaja as a plenary partial expansion of the Lord. During the presence of Lord Krsna, however, a king declared himself Vasudeva, and Lord Krsna killed him. Before accepting someone as an incarnation of God, one should verify his identity according to the symptoms mentioned in the sastras. Without these symptoms the pretender is subject to be killed by the authorities for pretending to be an incarnation of God. (More...)

To accept someone as God or an incarnation of God, one must observe the symptoms of God in his body. All the symptoms were found in the body of Maharaja Nabhi's extraordinarily powerful son. His body was well structured, and He displayed all the transcendental qualities. He showed great influence, and He could control His mind and senses. Consequently He was named Rsabha, which indicates that He was the supreme living being. (More...)

According to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, this is the way an incarnation should be accepted. Srila Narottama dasa Thakura says, sadhu-sastra-guru-vakya, cittete kariya aikya. One should accept a thing as genuine by studying the words of saintly people, the spiritual master and sastra. The actual center is sastra, the revealed scripture. If a spiritual master does not speak according to revealed scripture, he is not to be accepted. Similarly, if a saintly person does not speak according to the sastra, he is not a saintly person. Sastra is the center for all. Unfortunately, at the present moment, people do not refer to the sastras; therefore they accept rascals as incarnations, and consequently they have made incarnations into a very cheap thing. Intelligent people who follow Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's instructions and the instructions of the acarya, the bona fide spiritual master, will not accept a pretender as an incarnation of God. In Kali-yuga, the only incarnation is Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Imitation incarnations take advantage of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. The Lord appeared within the past five hundred years, played as the son of a brahmana from Nadia and introduced the saṅkirtana movement. Imitating Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and ignoring the sastra, rascals present themselves as incarnations and introduce their rascaldom as a religious process. As we have repeatedly said, religion can be given only by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. From the discussions in Caitanya-caritamrta, we can understand that in different ages the Supreme Lord introduces different systems and different religious duties. In this age of Kali, the only incarnation of Krsna is Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and He introduced the religious duty of Kali-yuga, the chanting of the Hare Krsna maha-mantra: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. (More...)

When Lord Chaitanya was describing the incarnation in this Age of Kali, Sanatan Goswami, who had been a government minister and was perfectly capable of drawing a conclusion, indirectly asked Lord Chaitanya, "How can one understand the advent of an incarnation?" He could understand that Lord Chaitanya was the incarnation of Krishna, corroborating the description of the incarnation of the Kali millennium; and he also could understand that, in the future, there would be many imitation incarnations following the incarnation of Lord Chaitanya, because Lord Chaitanya played as an ordinary Brahmin boy, though His devotees accepted Him as an incarnation. Sanatan knew there would be many pretenders, and so he inquired from Lord Chaitanya: "How can one understand the symptoms of an incarnation?" (More...)

The most astonishing factor is that Lord Chaitanya, although the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, never exhibited Himself as Krishna. Rather, whenever He was detected by intelligent devotees as Lord Krishna, and addressed as Lord Krishna, He denied it, and sometimes He closed His ears, protesting that one should not be addressed as the Supreme Lord. This was His indirect teaching to the Mayavadi philosophers: that one should never pose oneself as the Supreme Lord falsely, and thereby misdirect the followers. The followers also should not be foolish enough to accept anyone and everyone as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without testing with the Scriptures and by activities. One should not, however, mistake Lord Chaitanya with His five diverse manifestations as ordinary human beings. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna Himself. The beauty of Lord Chaitanya is that, although He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, He Himself as a great devotee is teaching all the conditioned souls how devotional service should be conducted. The conditioned souls who are interested in devotional service should follow, therefore in the exemplary footsteps of Lord Chaitanya, to learn how Krishna can be achieved by devotional service. In other words, the Supreme Lord Himself teaches the conditioned soul how He should be approached by devotional service. (More...)

To be a good king is not necessarily the qualification for being Lord Rama, but to be a great personality like Krsna is the qualification for being the Personality of Godhead.

Naradaji is one of the liberated souls, and after his liberation he was known as Narada; otherwise, before His liberation, he was simply a son of a maidservant. The questions may be asked why Naradaji was not aware of the Supreme Lord and why he misconceived Brahmaji as the Supreme Lord, although factually he was not so. A liberated soul is never bewildered by such a mistaken idea, so why did Naradaji ask all those questions just like an ordinary man with a poor fund of knowledge? There was such bewilderment in Arjuna also, although he is eternally the associate of the Lord. Such bewilderment in Arjuna or in Narada takes place by the will of the Lord so that other nonliberated persons may realize the real truth and knowledge of the Lord. The doubt arising in the mind of Narada about Brahmaji's becoming all-powerful is a lesson for the frogs in the well, that they may not be bewildered in misconceiving the identity of the Personality of Godhead (even by comparison with a personality like Brahma, so what to speak of ordinary men who falsely pose themselves as God or an incarnation of God). The Supreme Lord is always the Supreme, and as we have tried to establish many times in these purports, no living being, even up to the standard of Brahma, can claim to be one with the Lord. One should not be misled when people worship a great man as God after his death as a matter of hero worship. There were many kings like Lord Ramacandra, the King of Ayodhya, but none of them are mentioned as God in the revealed scriptures. To become a good king is not necessarily the qualification of becoming Lord Rama, but to be a great personality like Krsna is the qualification of becoming the Personality of Godhead. If we scrutinize the characters who took part in the Battle of Kuruksetra, we may find that Maharaja Yudhisthira was no less a pious king than Lord Ramacandra, and by character study Maharaja Yudhisthira was a better moralist than Lord Krsna. Lord Krsna asked Maharaja Yudhisthira to lie, but Maharaja Yudhisthira protested. But that does not mean that Maharaja Yudhisthira could be equal to Lord Ramacandra or Lord Krsna. The great authorities have estimated Maharaja Yudhisthira to be a pious man, but they have accepted Lord Rama or Krsna as the Personality of Godhead. The Lord is therefore a different identity in all circumstances, and no idea of anthropomorphism can be applied there. The Lord is always the Lord, and a common living being can never be equal to Him. (More...)