Sri Narasingha
Śrī Narasingha

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The second chapter of Bhagavad-gita continues:

arjuna uvaca
katha
m bhismam aham sankhye
dro
nam ca madhusudana
i
subhih pratiyotsyami
p
ujarhav arisudana

Arjuna said: O killer of Madhu [Kṛṣṇa], how can I counterattack with arrows in battle men like Bhisma and Drona, who are worthy of my worship?”

gurun ahatva hi mahanubhavan
sreyo bhoktum bhaiksyam apiha loke
hatv
artha-kamams tu gurun ihaiva
bhu
njiya bhogan rudhira-pradigdhan

It is better to live in this world by begging than to live at the cost of the lives of great souls who are my teachers. Even though they are avaricious, they are nonetheless superiors. If they are killed, our spoils will be tainted with blood.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.4-5]

Kṛṣṇa is accepted by all Vedic authorities as Bhagavan, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And Bhagavan means the personality who is fully equipped with six opulences: wealth, strength, fame, wisdom, beauty and renunciation.

Full with all opulences means Bhagavan is the richest personality. How rich is Bhagavan, or God? We are proud of possessing a few acres of land, but Bhagavan means that He is the creator and proprietor of the whole universe. Therefore He is the richest. No one can approach Him in wealth. His wealth is unlimited, because He is the owner of everything and the Lord of everyone.

bhoktaram yajna-tapasam
sarva-loka-mahesvaram
suhrdam sarva-bhutanam
jnatva mam santim rcchati

The sages, knowing Me as the ultimate purpose of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attain peace from the pangs of material miseries.” [Bhagavad-gita 5.29]

Similarly, He is considered the strongest, because His potency is unlimited. No matter how many spiritual and material universes, planets and living entities emanate from Him, His transcendental potency is undiminished.

om purnam adah purnam idam
purnat purnam udacyate
purnasya purnam adaya
purnam evavasisyate

The personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the complete whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.” [Sri Isopanisad, Invocation]

He is also the most famous person. Is there anyone who has not heard of God? And similarly, He is the wisest.

sva-bodha aste sva-jananusangatah mahanubhavas

By nature Lord Kṛṣṇa is full in knowledge, and He possesses unlimited powers of perception.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.77.28]

sarvasya caham hrdi sannivisto
mattah smrtir jnanam apohanam ca

I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness.” [Bhagavad-gita 15.15]

And similarly, He is the most beautiful personality.

yad dharma-sunor bata rajasuye
niriksya drk-svastyayanam tri-lokah
kartsnyena cadyeha gatam vidhatur
arvak-srtau kausalam ity amanyata

All the demigods from the upper, lower and middle universal planetary systems assembled at the altar of the rajasuya sacrifice performed by Maharaja Yudhisthira. After seeing the beautiful bodily features of Lord Kṛṣṇa, they all contemplated that He was the ultimate dexterous creation of Brahma, the creator of human beings.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.2.13]

smeram bhangi-traya-paricitam saci-vistirna-drstim
vamsi-nyastadhara-kisalayam ujjvalam candrakena
govindakhyam hari-tanum itah kesi-tirthopakanthe
ma preksisthas tava yadi sakhe bandhu-sange 'sti rangah

My dear friend, if you are indeed attached to your worldly friends, do not look at the smiling face of Lord Govinda as He stands on the bank of the Yamuna at Kesighata. Casting sidelong glances, He places His flute to His lips, which seem like newly blossomed twigs. His transcendental body, bending in three places, appears very bright in the moonlight.” [Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu 1.2.239]

In this way, when you find a person who is the richest, the strongest, the most beautiful, the wisest and the most renounced—when you find such a person, that is Bhagavan, or God.

isvarah paramah Kṛṣṇah
sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah
sarva-karana-karanam

There are many personalities possessing the qualities of Bhagavan, but Kṛṣṇa is the supreme because none can excel Him. He is the Supreme Person, and His body is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss. He is the primeval Lord Govinda and the cause of all causes.” [Brahma-samhita 5.1]

When Kṛṣṇa was present on this planet He proved that He possessed all these opulences. For example, everyone marries, but Kṛṣṇa, being the Supreme Person, married 16,108 beautiful princesses. Then He arranged for providing each of the 16,108 wives their own uniquely opulent palace. Each palace was made of first-class marble, with furniture made of ivory and the sitting places made of very nice, soft cotton.

Not only that, He also expanded Himself into 16,108 personal expansions, and He was living with each and every wife. So it is not very difficult task for God. God is omnipresent; He is situated everywhere. So if He is situated in 16,108 palaces in 16,108 forms, what is the difficulty for Him? This is the omnipotence of God, Kṛṣṇa.

So in the beginning of the second chapter of Bhagavad-gita it is said, sri-bhagavan uvaca. The greatest authority is speaking. Another one of Kṛṣṇa’s names is asamaurdhva, which means that no one is equal to or greater than Him. Therefore, whatever He says, it is to be taken as truth.

In our materially conditional life, we have four defects: we commit mistakes, we are illusioned, our senses are imperfect and we have the tendency to cheat. Any knowledge received from a person who is infected with these four kinds of deficiencies is bound to be imperfect. If we speculate with our imperfect senses, what is the value of that knowledge? It may be partial truth or conditional truth, but that is not perfect Absolute Truth.

However, the knowledge of a person who is transcendental to these four human defects is perfect knowledge, unconditional truth or Absolute Truth. In the Esoteric Teaching our epistemology, our process of receiving knowledge, is to receive it from the perfect person. Therefore we are receiving knowledge from Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavan, the most perfect, and therefore our knowledge is perfect.

Just like a child. His knowledge may be imperfect, but if he asks his father and his father says, “My dear child, this is called a watch,” then if the child repeats, “This is a watch,” his knowledge is perfect. The child does not perform empirical research to find out knowledge. He asks his father or mother, “What is this, Daddy? What is this, Mother?”

Another example can be given that if a child does not know who is his father, then he cannot find the answer by empirical research. But if he asks his mother, “Who is my father?” and the mother says, “This man is your father,” that is perfect. Therefore knowledge, knowledge of God, is beyond your sense perception; how can you know? You have to know God from God Himself or His authorized representative. This is the Vedic epistemological process of perfect knowledge: avaroha, or descending knowledge through the process of disciplic succession from Kṛṣṇa.

So here in Bhagavad-gita Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is speaking, and He is the final authority. He is the perfect spiritual teacher and authority, and because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, not only everything He says is perfect, but even His Holy Name is perfect. Just by chanting His Holy Name, we become qualified to realize all transcendental knowledge.

The Vedic scriptures say:

go-koti-danam grahane khagasya
prayaga-gangodaka-kalpa-vasah
yajnayutam meru-suvarna-danam
govinda-kirter na samam satamsaih

“Even if one distributes ten million cows in charity during an eclipse of the sun, lives at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna for millions of years, or gives a mountain of gold in sacrifice to the brahmanas, he does not earn one hundredth part of the merit derived from chanting the name of Govinda, Kṛṣṇa.”

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om namo bhagavate vasudevaya


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