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In our detailed study of Bhagavad-gita, we have arrived at the point where Kṛṣṇa begins speaking the Esoteric Teaching to Arjuna. The very first thing Kṛṣṇa reveals to Arjuna is that both the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities are eternally individual persons, and that therefore the impersonal conception of spiritual life is false.

na tv evaham jatu nasam
na tvam neme janadhipah
na caiva na bhavisyamah
sarve vayam atah param

“Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.12]

The Mayavadi theory that after liberation the individual soul, separated by the covering of maya, or illusion, will merge into the impersonal Brahman and lose its individual existence is not supported herein by Lord Kṛṣṇa, the supreme authority. Nor is the voidist theory of Buddhism, that individuality is a result of the conditioned state of illusion, supported by Kṛṣṇa’s statements.

Kṛṣṇa clearly says herein that in the future also the individuality of the Lord and others, as it is confirmed in the Upanisads, will continue eternally. So there is no time when their individuality will cease, or they will merge into oneness. This statement of Kṛṣṇa is authoritative because as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa cannot be subject to illusion. Everything Kṛṣṇa says is Absolute Truth. If the individual identities of the soul and God were not an eternal fact, then Kṛṣṇa would not have stressed it so much—even for the future.

The Mayavadi philosophers say that this statement of Kṛṣṇa is illusory. They theorize that in the past everyone was one, a homogeneous lump of spirit. Somehow or other, by maya, or illusion, we have become individuals. But if Kṛṣṇa’s statement is wrong, then Kṛṣṇa is also one of the conditioned souls, because the real God is impersonal. Then Kṛṣṇa would lose His spiritual authority, because a conditioned soul cannot give you the Absolute Truth.

Kṛṣṇa is accepted in the Vedic literature as the Absolute. So if the Mayavadi theory is accepted, then the entire Vedic literature has to be rejected, because we cannot take any instruction from a conditioned soul. Even if you think that the spiritual master is conditioned soul, he does not speak anything of his own manufacture. He speaks only what Kṛṣṇa has said.

Ultimately the Mayavadi philosophy is self-defeating, because they try to establish their theory on the basis of certain statements in the Upanisads that, when taken out of context, appear to establish the impersonal existence of God as the Supreme. However, if the Mayavadi impersonal theory is correct, then the Vedas and Upanisads must be rejected.

Thus the Mayavadi philosophy creates a logical short-circuit: it is based on scriptures that, if the theory of impersonalism is correct, must be rejected because they are spoken, compiled and taught by persons, and ultimately teach that the Supreme Absolute Truth is a person: Lord Sri Kṛṣṇa. The theory of impersonalism disproves the very scriptures it relies upon for its proof. Therefore impersonalism is a bogus theory simply meant to mislead foolish people who have no real spiritual knowledge.

The Vedic principle is that one who is not liberated from material conditioned consciousness cannot give perfect spiritual knowledge. The conditioned soul, however he may be advanced academically, or educated in material knowledge, cannot give us any perfect spiritual knowledge. Only one who is above the conditioning of these material laws can give us perfect knowledge of the Absolute Truth, or unconditional truth.

Even Sankaracarya, the original impersonalist, accepts Kṛṣṇa as the supreme authority. Sa bhagavan svayam Kṛṣṇa: “Kṛṣṇa is that Supreme Personality of Godhead.” [Gita-bhasya] The modern Mayavadi philosophers do not disclose this statement of Sankaracarya. Thus they simply cheat people. But Sankaracarya’s statement is there in writing. You can look it up. He accepts Kṛṣṇa as the supreme authority.

He has even written so many nice poems praising Bhagavad-gita and worshiping Kṛṣṇa. And at the time of his death he said, bhaja govindam bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mudha-mate. “You rascal fools. You are simply depending on grammar, word jugglery, to understand spiritual knowledge. This is all nonsense.” Bhaja govindam. “Just worship Govinda.” Three times he says, “Just worship Govinda.”

Just like Caitanya Mahaprabhu says three times, harer nama harer nama harer nama [Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 17.21]. In Vedic usage, repeating something three times means giving maximum stress to an instruction. Just like we sometimes say, “You do this, do this, do this.” That means no more denial. It is conclusive. As soon as a statement is repeated three times, it is final.

So Sankaracarya says, bhaja govindam bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mudha-mate. Mudha, as I’ve explained several times, means rascal, ass. He says, “You are depending on your grammatical understanding, dukrn karane. Dukrn means grammatical affixes, suffixes and prefixes: pratya, prakarana.

“So you are depending on this word jugglery, interpreting the meaning of the scriptures in a different way. All this is nonsense. This dukrn karane, your grammatical jugglery of words, will not save you at the time of death. You rascal, you just worship Govinda, worship Govinda, worship Govinda.”

That is the instruction of Sankaracarya, because he was actually a great devotee. But he pretended to be an atheist because he was instructed by Kṛṣṇa to deal with the atheists. Therefore unless he presented himself as an atheist, the atheists would not hear from him. The voidist philosophy of Buddhism led people away from the Vedas, because the Vedas were being misinterpreted to support animal killing.

Therefore Sankaracarya presented Mayavadi philosophy for the time being, to re-establish the Vedas as the standard of philosophical understanding. Although it is based on the Vedic literature, the Mayavadi philosophy cannot be accepted as the eternal Absolute Truth. The eternal philosophy is Bhagavad-gita. That is the verdict of all the Vedic literatures.

Therefore Kṛṣṇa says that not only are we individual persons eternally in the past, but also we shall remain individual persons eternally in the future. And so far as the present is concerned, it is quite obvious that we are all individual persons. So there is no possibility of losing individuality and personality—no possibility whatsoever.

The voidism of Buddhism and the impersonalism of Mayavadi philosophy are simply artificial ways of negating the perplexing variegatedness of this material existence. They are negative assertions only. The positive side is given in Bhagavad-gita, for example when Kṛṣṇa says,

janma karma ca me divyam
evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktva deham punar janma
naiti mam eti so ’rjuna

“One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.” [Bhagavad-gita 4.9]

Just like after leaving this room, you have to enter another room. You cannot say, “After leaving this room, I shall live in the sky.” You cannot live in the sky, because your body is not made of air.

Another example is that your body is different from the body of a fish. A fish lives comfortably in the water because its body is made like that. But you cannot live in the water. Similarly, if you take a fish out of the water, it cannot live.

So because you are spirit soul, you cannot live peacefully in this material world. This material world is foreign to the soul; you are like the fish out of water. But if, after leaving this body, you go to Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual kingdom, you will be the same individual, but you’ll have your perfect spiritual body. When you are in your spiritual body there are no imperfections, no perplexities.

As soon as you enter into the spiritual world, your life is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge, real peace.

Tyaktva deham punar janma naiti: Kṛṣṇa says, “After leaving this body, he does not come to the perplexities of the material world.” Mam eti, “He comes to Me.” [Bhagavad-gita 4.9] “Me” means His kingdom, His paraphernalia, His associates, His pastimes, everything. If some rich man or some king says, “All right, you come to me,” that does not mean that he’s impersonal. If a king says, “Come to me,” this means that he has got his palace, his secretary, his nice apartment, everything is there. How he can be impersonal? But he says only, “Come to me.” When Kṛṣṇa says, “Come to Me,” this “Me” means everything; it cannot mean impersonal.

And we get information from the Esoteric Teaching:

cintamani-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vrksa-
laksavrtesu surabhir abhipalayantam
laksmi-sahasra-sata-sambhrama-sevyamanam
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

“I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor who is tending the cows, yielding all desire, in abodes built with spiritual gems, surrounded by millions of wish-fulfilling trees, and always served with great reverence and affection by hundreds of thousands of laksmis or gopis.” [Brahma-samhita 5.29]

So Kṛṣṇa is not impersonal. He’s raising cows, He’s with hundreds and thousands of goddesses of fortune, His friends, His paraphernalia, His kingdom, His house, everything is there. So there is no question of impersonalism.

The Mayavadis argue that the individuality spoken of by Kṛṣṇa is not spiritual but material. Therefore they also think of Kṛṣṇa as material. That is condemned by Kṛṣṇa.

avajananti mam mudha
manusim tanum asritam
param bhavam ajananto
mama bhuta-mahesvaram

“Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature as the Supreme Lord of all that be.” [Bhagavad-gita 9.11]

Mudha means rascal, ass. The Mayavadis identify Kṛṣṇa as one of us conditioned souls. They think that His body and His soul are different. But Kṛṣṇa is not like us; His body is always transcendental.

ajo ’pi sann avyayatma
bhutanam isvaro ’pi san
prakrtim svam adhisthaya
sambhavamy atma-mayaya

“Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all living entities, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.” [Bhagavad-gita 4.6]

That is the distinction. Kṛṣṇa does not change His body. When we come to this world, we change bodies. That is material, and therefore we forget our previous material body and our original spiritual body. Because we change our material body, therefore we forget. But Kṛṣṇa never changes His transcendental body, so He has maintained His spiritual individuality all along.

But if Kṛṣṇa is accepted as an ordinary conditioned soul in individual consciousness, then His Bhagavad-gita has no value as authoritative scripture. A common man with all the defects of human frailty is unable to teach that which is worth hearing. Bhagavad-gita is above such literature. No mundane book compares with the Bhagavad-gita. If one accepts Kṛṣṇa as an ordinary man, the Bhagavad-gita loses all importance.

The Mayavadis argue that the individuality mentioned in this verse is conventional and that the plurality thus refers to the body. But previous to this sloka such a bodily conception has already been condemned. Nanusocanti panditah: “Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.11] After condemning the bodily conception of life, how was it possible for Kṛṣṇa to place a proposition on the conventional bodily ontological platform? That would be illogical, but Kṛṣṇa is perfect.

The trouble with the Mayavadis is that they are envious of Kṛṣṇa. Those who are envious of Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead have no bona fide access to this great literature. The nondevotee’s approach to the teachings of the Bhagavad-gita is something like licking a bottle of honey. One cannot have a taste of honey unless one can open up the bottle. Similarly, the mysticism of the Bhagavad-gita can be understood only by devotees. No one else can taste it. Nor can the Gita be touched by persons who envy the Supreme Lord, and want to become God themselves. Therefore the Mayavadi explanation of the Gita is a most misleading presentation.

Lord Caitanya has forbidden us to read the commentaries of the Mayavadis. Lord Caitanya said,

jivera nistara lagi’ sutra kaila vyasa
mayavadi-bhasya sunile haya sarva-nasa

“Srila Vyasadeva presented the Vedanta philosophy for the deliverance of the conditioned souls, but if one hears the commentary of Sankaracarya, everything is spoiled.” [Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 6.169]

Sarva-nasa literally means disaster, complete destruction. The Mayavadi commentary on the Vedanta simply tries to convince the tiny individual spiritual spark that he is the Supreme. Therefore it is disastrous, because anyone who takes to the Mayavadi philosophy loses all power to understand the real mystery of the Gita. If individuality refers to the empirical universe, then there is no need for teachings of the Lord. The individuality of the individual souls and of the Lord is an eternal fact, and it is confirmed by all the Vedas as discussed above.