Demigods worship cannot give permanent relief

Continued from previous page… Purports to Mantra 12 begins on this page.

MANTRA 12

TRANSLATION. Those who are engaged in the worship of demigods enter into the darkest region of ignorance, and still more so do the worshipers of the impersonal Absolute.

PURPORT. The Sanskrit word asambhuti refers to those who have no independent existence. Sambhuti is the Absolute Personality of Godhead, who is absolutely independent of everything. In the Bhagavad-gita (10.2), the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, states:

na me viduh sura-gana prabhavam na maharshayah
aham adir hi devanam maharshinam cha sarvasah

“Neither the hosts of demigods nor the great sages know My origin or opulences, for in every respect I am the source of the demigods and sages.” Thus Krishna is the origin of the powers delegated to demigods, great sages and mystics. Although they are endowed with great powers, these powers are limited, and thus it is very difficult for them to know how Krishna Himself appears by His own internal potency in the form of a man.

Many philosophers and great rishis, or mystics, try to distinguish the Absolute from the relative by their tiny brain power. This can only help them reach the negative conception of the Absolute without realizing any positive trace of the Absolute. Definition of the Absolute by negation is not complete. Such negative definitions lead one to create a concept of one’s own; thus one imagines that the Absolute must be formless and without qualities. Such negative qualities are simply the reversals of relative, material qualities and are therefore also relative. By conceiving of the Absolute in this way, one can at the utmost reach the impersonal effulgence of God, known as Brahman, but one cannot make further progress to Bhagavan, the Personality of Godhead.

Such mental speculators do not know that the Absolute Personality of Godhead is Krishna, that the impersonal Brahman is the glaring effulgence of His transcendental body, or that the Paramatma, the Supersoul, is His all-pervading plenary representation. Nor do they know that Krishna has His eternal form with its transcendental qualities of eternal bliss and knowledge.

The dependent demigods and great sages imperfectly consider Him to be a powerful demigod, and they consider the Brahman effulgence to be the Absolute Truth. But the devotees of Krishna, by dint of their surrendering unto Him and their unalloyed devotion, can know that He is the Absolute Person and that everything emanates from Him. Such devotees continuously render loving service unto Krishna, the fountainhead of everything.

In the Bhagavad-gita (7.20, 23) it is said that only unintelligent, bewildered persons driven by a strong desire for sense gratification worship the demigods for the temporary relief of temporary problems. Since the living being is materially entangled, he has to be relieved from material bondage entirely to attain permanent relief on the spiritual plane, where eternal bliss, life and knowledge exist.

(To be continued to the next page…)

Source: Sri Isopanishad. Translation and purports by His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Copyright BBT International http://www.vedabase.com/en/iso