Who Are You?

Do you know who you are? Do you consider yourself to belong to a certain gender, race, nationality, or age bracket? If you do, you are grossly mistaken. You have nothing to do with any of these identities because you are not your material body. You are instead an eternal spiritual being, who is constitutionally a servant of Krishna or God. If you want factual permanent happiness, you must solidly resituate yourself in your original, natural consciousness. This enlightened state is known as Krishna consciousness, and can also be designated as Christ consciousness, Jehovah consciousness, or Allah consciousness.

Revealing the Real Self--Sofia, Bulgaria 5 September 2011

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Objection:  We Cannot Concentrate on a Formless God

From what I understand from the scriptures, meditation is not concentration, but we call it de-concentration because scriptures say we meditate by saying "neti neti" (not this not that). God is not a thing whereupon we can concentrate. When we solve a problem, we can concentrate because our intellect has the ability to capture a problem. Intellect does not have capability to capture God. Therefore when we take our mind from other things we get a glimpse of God.

In bhakti, the path of devotion, we try to remember Lord Krishna or pray to Lord Krishna to give us His glimpse. We don't concentrate here as well.

Please correct my understanding.

Narendra B.

Answer:  Don't Throw Away the Baby with the Bathwater

The "neti neti" meditation, which literally means, "not this, not that" is for clearing away all the material obstacles so that one can concentrate his mind in a state of pure transcendental meditation on the form of God, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Sri Krishna. "Neti neti" is not meant to negate God's form, which is the very object of our meditation. It is simply meant to clear away all the material obstacles. Just as the mother who bathes her baby does not throw the baby away with the bath water, we should be careful not to negate the transcendental form of God when we go through the cleansing process of negating our attachment to the material forms, which are the very cause of our bondage in the cycle of birth and death.

According to the impersonal conception of God, meditation is de-concentration because if God is formless, meditation must mean to completely detach the mind from all forms. In other words, according to the impersonal conception there is nothing ultimately existing upon which to fix or concentrate the mind. Therefore, for the impersonalists meditation is a de-fixing or de-concentrating of the mind. Your idea of de-concentration makes perfect sense as long as we assume an impersonal, formless God.

But this impersonal, formless conception of God is not scientifically valid, either from the viewpoint of logic, Vedic science, or modern day empirical science. When the Vedas describe the Supreme as formless this means that God has no material form. This does not mean that He has no spiritual form. It is confirmed in the Brahma-samhita that Krishna has eternal form composed of eternity, knowledge, and bliss:

īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ
sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
anādir ādir govindaḥ
sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam

"Krishna who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual form. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes."
--Brahma-samhita 5.1

From the standpoint of empirical science there has never been a scientific experiment to prove that form can be generated from nothingness or formlessness.

And from the standpoint of logic if everything is ultimately one impersonal formless lump, we do not even exist to be engaged in the act of meditation.

It is directly instructed in the Bhagavad-gita that we should concentrate our minds on the person Krishna as stated here:

man-manā bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru
mām evaiṣyasi yuktvaivam
ātmānaṁ mat-parāyaṇaḥ

"Engage your mind always in concentrating on Me, become My devotee,
offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me."
--Bhagavad-gita 9.34

While it is true that we cannot capture Krishna or God with our intellect, we can capture Him with a loving heart. He is actually very eagerly waiting for us to capture Him by our love, just as Mother Yasoda captured Him by her love. If you truly love someone, you will always think of them 24 hours a day. The more you think of them, the more your love will grow. So please always concentrate your mind on Krishna in transcendental loving meditation 24 hours a day, and you will capture Him.

In a mood of humble service to you, I was forced to point out your mistaken understanding on this point to clear away all the obstacles on your path way of spiritual realization. I hope you understand and can appreciate my humble attempt to correct and enlighten you.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari