Time
- heidhasookun
- Apr 9
- 6 min read
The following is an article written by His Grace Nityananda Dasa from one of the previous Matchless Gift Magazines.
Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is everywhere and everything.
"No He’s not," you may say, "I can't see Him anywhere!" You're most certainly right; the only place where Krishna is not is the consciousness of the person trying to forget Him. It can be difficult to remember Krishna, but it can also be difficult to forget Krishna since remembrance and forgetfulness are not always straightforward. For example, someone comes up to me one day and asks, "Where did you put the keys to the temple?" I don't remember immediately, and no matter how hard I try, the memory is not coming. But the next day, I see some silly 10-second commercial advertisement with a catchy jingle, and the song gets immediately ingrained in my mind. Forget about forgetting. It's there, and it's not going away, even to the point where it may become annoying. Yet still, no matter what I do, I just can't seem to get the tune out of my head. Perhaps you share a similar experience?
Sometimes we want to remember, but can't; sometimes we want to forget, but can't.
Therefore, this means we are not the source of remembrance and forgetfulness ourselves.
If we were the source, we would be able to dictate our forgetfulness and memory, but since we cannot, there must be something outside of us dictating our memory—some higher power. Logically that power must be more advanced than ourselves. "What is that higher force?" is the next question a reasonable person will ask. The higher force in question is a person. Indeed, a person in charge of our memory and forgetfulness is the only reasonable conclusion to this question. This fact is understandable by observing the world around us, wherein we can always see persons controlling the non-personal, or impersonal. For example, a person is controlling a phone. The person can choose when and where to use the phone and for what as well. It is not that the phone is controlling the person and telling him what to do and how to act. It may be that sometimes the person is addicted to some app he is using on the phone and is therefore dictated by the app, even to the extent of loosing sleep or food, or losing precious moments of human life aimlessly scrolling the feed. It may appear, therefore, that the person is controlled by an impersonal thing—in this example, the phone. Upon further consideration, however, it becomes very clear that the app itself was created by a person in the first place. And even further, the very microchips on which the app is running were also created by a person. And the machine that dug out the minerals used for the microchips was also fully controlled and created by a person. In fact, the rare earth minerals used in phone production were created by a person, and so on.
No matter how far back in the chain you go, the source is always a person. Even a child can understand that something does not come from nothing. You cannot see this happening anywhere around us, except maybe in a magic trick. But even in a magic trick, where the magician pulls a rabbit from a hat, the source of that cheap trick is the magician—another person. Obviously, a grown adult will not believe in cheap magic tricks from a hired magician, but that poses the question: why, then, is anyone believing in cheap magic tricks being sold to us by hired magician-like scientists? Tricks neatly packaged as the "big bang theory" and "evolution theory" are simply cheap tricks, and the hired (sponsored) magicians (scientists) are selling them to us, expecting us to buy the false narrative that something does in fact appear from nothing. In the evolution theory, they claim life has come from chemicals, and in the big bang, they go so far as to claim that the entire universe came from nothing. Although we cannot see this happening anywhere around us, these theories are still being imposed upon us, although they are nothing more than blind beliefs with no basis in actual reality.
We cannot see life coming from matter, as the modern narrative would want us to believe. In fact, we can observe all life coming from life. A child is coming from a father and a mother, and so are they, and so on and on. And if we take this train of thought all the way back, we will eventually come to the first father that does not have a father. So that is God, that is Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead! Just as a father controls the child and as a person controls impersonal matter, similarly, the Supreme Father, being the Supreme Person, is controlling all living beings and all the material coverings of the living beings. For our span of abilities, controlling a small phone is nothing extraordinary, and in the same way, controlling our forgetfulness and remembrance is nothing extraordinary for Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam (Katha Upanishad 2.2.13). Both the Lord and the living entities are eternal and sentient, but the difference is that the Lord is unlimited, whereas the living entities are limited. We are a person, and God is also a person.
Krishna is the source of all personality; actually, our personality comes from Him. Otherwise, how can you explain the cause of personality? As we have elaborated on earlier, nothing personal ever comes from something impersonal, such as a child coming from a rock, for example. Krishna is the ultimate person, and we are ultimately the small person, just a tiny part and parcel of Him. That is the main difference. Our control is limited, and there's nothing we can do about it. We can only control what we're given by the Supreme Controller—no more, no less. In this context, a person may be trying to remember Krishna, but for some reason or another, he may be struggling in his endeavor. Krishna, being the Supreme Controller of all matter and spirit, being very merciful, will help such a sincere soul so that in the crucial moment, the kind-hearted devotee will be able to remember Krishna at the time of death because of his sincere endeavor to do so throughout his life. An unfortunate person trying to forget Krishna will share the same fate. Krishna will similarly help him remember—but not remember Krishna; just the opposite! He will help him remember whatever he was meditating on throughout his life, for that is actually Krishna's mercy. We have come into this world to fulfill our material desires, and on the way, from life to life, we have picked up countless temporary, material desires. As we travel through this life, fulfilling one desire after another, chasing after temporary achievements like money, name, and fame, we may think we're acting as we want to act; however, it's simply the immeasurable power of material desires that completely controls us at every step along the way. The poor, unfortunate conditioned soul finds himself hopeless in a very dangerous sea, being tossed here and there by the gigantic wave-like desires for enjoyment, wealth, beauty, power, name, and fame, control, and so on. Just like a ship untied from the port and now left to the mercy of the ocean, being tossed around violently, similarly, a conditioned spirit soul, when untied from Krishna consciousness, is being tossed, rendering him completely hopeless with no escape, left completely at the mercy of cruel nature. This is factual: sometimes a person may even desire to quit some bad habit, such as smoking, but is unable to do so because other pushes and habits are so strong.
A drowning man’s position is very difficult. But if someone comes and lifts him out of the water even a little bit, his position improves immediately and tremendously. That person throwing us the rope, our only chance of survival, is the spiritual master. The only thing left to do is grip on very tightly. Can you imagine not grabbing the rescue rope while someone throws it to you? Certainly, that would be the greatest foolishness.
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