The Vedic Perspective
Ravindra Svarupa Dasa is a disciple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and a member of ISKCON's Governing Board Commission. He is also an initiating guru who lectures internationally on Krishna consciousness. Here he shares this thoughts on life and devotion. For more information visit his website. This section of ISKCON News is updated every Saturday. Please check back then for the latest addition. |
Prabhupada—A Prophecy (Continued)
Prabhupada had confidently predicted an imminent nuclear war between the USSR and the USA. It did not happen. Prabhupada was asked why. He responded: Krishna had changed his mind.
Until I heard about Prabhupada’s statement, I had never even entertained the notion of God’s changing his mind. But prompted to think about it, how could I deny the possibility?
Of course, I had, for some time, acknowledged that the Absolute Truth is a person. Shrimad Bhagavatam reports that those who have seen that ultimate source of all energies know it as undifferentiated illimitable spiritual light (brahman), as the all-knowing guiding Self within all selves (paramatman), and as the transcendent enjoying Self endowed with spiritual senses, that is to say, a person (bhagavan). That unique individual is, in Prabhupada’s phrase, “The Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
If the Absolute, the source of everything, is a person, then the uncountable sentient beings in the world, gifted with senses, derive their own personhood from the divine prototype. We are, as Prabhupada says, “small samples of God.” This implies that we can understand God by studying ourselves, for whatever we posses in small measure God possesses in full.
