The impersonalist philosophers cannot differentiate between activities in the material world and similar activities in the spiritual world. Nor do they differentiate between the material form and Gods form. They are convinced that the impersonal brahmajyoti, the spiritual effulgence emanating from the Lords body, is the Supreme Absolute Truth. The Mayavadis mistakenly assume that when God appears He accepts a material body, just as we have taken this material form in the material world. That kind of thinking is impersonalism, or Mayavada philosophy.

God has a form, but not a material form like ours. His form is sac-cid-ananda-vigraha [Bs. 5.1], a spiritual form full of eternity, bliss, and knowledge. Anyone who understands the transcendental nature of Krsnas form achieves perfection. This Krsna confirms in the Bhagavad-gita (4.9):

Impersonalists cannot know God because they see Him as an ordinary man. This is rascaldom, as Krsna declares in the Bhagavad-gita (9.11): avajananti mam mudhah. Only rascals accept Me as an ordinary human being. The Maya-vadis say, Oh, here is a child. How can He be God? Even Brahma and Indra became bewildered. They thought, How can this boy be the Supreme Lord? Let me test Him.

Sometimes a so-called incarnation of God declares, I am God. He should be tested to determine whether or not he is actually God. The Mayavadis are claiming, I am God, I am Krsna, I am Rama. Everyone becomes Krsna, everyone becomes Rama, yet people do not challenge their claims: If you are Rama, exhibit your supreme potency! Rama constructed a bridge over the Indian Ocean. What have you done? At the age of seven, Krsna lifted Govardhana Hill. What have you done? When they are challenged by Krsnas pastimes, these rascals say, It is all fiction; it is all legend. Therefore people accept an ordinary person as Rama or Krsna. This nonsense is going on, and both those who declare themselves to be God and those who accept them as God will have to suffer for it. Anyone can claim to be God, and any foolish person can accept, but no one will benefit by serving a false God.

Once Lord Brahma thought that Krsna might also be such a false God. He observed that a mere boy in Vrndavana, India, was accepted as the Supreme Lord and that He was performing extraordinary activities. So Brahma decided to make a test. He took away all of Krsnas calves and playmates and hid them. When Brahma returned to Vrndavana after one year and saw the same calves and playmates still there, he could understand that Krsna had expanded Himself by His unlimited potency into so many calves and boys. The boys own mothers could not detect that their sons were Krsnas expansions, though the mothers could not explain why every evening when their boys returned home from the fields, their affection for them increased more and more. Finally, Brahma surrendered to Krsna, composing very nice prayers in glorification of the Lord.

Similarly, Indra became bewildered when Krsna told His father, Nanda Maharaja, There is no need of performing sacrifices to Indra, because he is under the order of the Supreme Lord. Krsna did not say to Nanda Maharaja, I am the Supreme Lord, but He said, Indra is under the order of the Supreme Lord; therefore he has to supply you with water. So there is no need of performing this yajna [sacrifice] to him.

When the sacrifice to Indra was stopped, he became furious and tried to punish the inhabitants of Vrndavana by sending incessant torrents of rain for seven days. Vrndavana was nearly drowned in waterso great was the downpour. But Krsna, a child of about seven years, immediately lifted Govardhana Hill and invited all the residents of Vrndavana, together with their animals, to take shelter underneath the hill. Krsna held up the hill for seven days and nights without taking any food or rest, just to protect the residents of Vrndavana. Thus Indra understood that Krsna was the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

In this way the Srimad-Bhagavatam warns that if even great personalities like Brahma and Indra can sometimes become bewildered by maya, the external manifestation of Krsnas energy, then what to speak of us.

So, God sometimes displays Himself as God and sometimes as a human being, but the rascal impersonalists dismiss His pastimes as legend or mythology. Either they do not believe in the sastras or they interpret them in their own way, using ardha-kukkuti-nyaya, the logic of half a hen. Once a man kept a hen that delivered a golden egg every day. The foolish man thought, It is very profitable, but it is expensive to feed this hen. Better that I cut off her head and save the expense of feeding her. Then I will get the egg without any charge. The impersonalists accept the sastras in this way. They think, Oh, this is not good; it is inconvenient. We shall cut this portion out. When Krsna says, One should see Me everywhere, the rascal Mayavadis think it is very palatable, but when He says, Give up everything and surrender to Me, they disagree. They accept what is convenient and reject what is not. But the acaryas do not distort the sastras in this way. When Krsna spoke the Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna said, I accept whatever You have said.