Do you know why time exists? Have you ever thought of ‘time history analysis’? Time is the impersonal aspect of God – Brahman. The reason time exists is because it has always existed. There is no better answer to the question, why do time exist? than time has always existed.

In fact, it’s logical to assume that before time, there was time… nothing except time can precede time.

That’s how we can empirically understand the necessity for eternal time.

Krishna says:
na tvevaham jatu nasam na tvam neme janadhipah
na chaiva na bhavishyamah sarve vayamatah 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. —Bg 2.12

Srila Prabhupada explains:

In the Vedas — in the Katha Upanisad as well as in the Svetasvatara Upanisad — it is said that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the maintainer of innumerable living entities, in terms of their different situations according to individual work and reaction of work.

That Supreme Personality of Godhead is also, by His plenary portions, alive in the heart of every living entity. Only saintly persons who can see, within and without, the same Supreme Lord can actually attain to perfect and eternal peace.

The same Vedic truth given to Arjuna is given to all persons in the world who pose themselves as very learned but factually have but a poor fund of knowledge.

The Lord says clearly that He Himself, Arjuna and all the kings who are assembled on the battlefield are eternally individual beings, and the Lord is eternally the maintainer of the individual living entities both in their conditioned and in their liberated situations.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the supreme individual person, and Arjuna, the Lord’s eternal associate, and all the kings assembled there are individual eternal persons. It is not that they did not exist as individuals in the past, and it is not that they will not remain eternal persons.

Their individuality existed in the past, and their individuality will continue in the future without interruption. Therefore, there is no cause for lamentation for anyone.

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 Krishna, the supreme authority.

Nor is the theory that we only think of individuality in the conditioned state supported herein. Krishna 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.

This statement of Krishna’s is authoritative because Krishna cannot be subject to illusion. If individuality were not a fact, then Krishna would not have stressed it so much-even for the future.

The Mayavadi may argue that the individuality spoken of by Krishna is not spiritual, but material. Even accepting the argument that the individuality is material, then how can one distinguish Krishna’s individuality?

Krishna affirms His individuality in the past and confirms His individuality in the future also. He has confirmed His individuality in many ways, and impersonal Brahman has been declared to be subordinate to Him.

Krishna has maintained spiritual individuality all along; if He 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 four defects of human frailty is unable to teach that which is worth hearing. The Gita is above such literature. No mundane book compares with the Bhagavad-gita. When one accepts Krsna as an ordinary man, the Gita loses all importance.

The Mayavadi argues that the plurality mentioned in this verse is conventional and that it refers to the body. But previous to this verse such a bodily conception is already condemned. After condemning the bodily conception of the living entities, how was it possible for Krishna to place a conventional proposition on the body again?

Therefore, individuality is maintained on spiritual grounds and is thus confirmed by great acharyas like Sri Ramanuja and others. It is clearly mentioned in many places in the Gita that this spiritual individuality is understood by those who are devotees of the Lord. Those who are envious of Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead have no bona fide access to the great literature.

The nondevotee’s approach to the teachings of the Gita is something like that of a bee licking on a bottle of honey. One cannot have a taste of honey unless one opens the bottle. Similarly, the mysticism of the Bhagavad-gita can be understood only by devotees, and no one else can taste it, as it is stated in the Fourth Chapter of the book. Nor can the Gita be touched by persons who envy the very existence of the Lord.

shri bhagavan uvacha
imam vivasvate yogam proktavan aham avyayam
vivasvan manave praha manur ikshvakave ’bravit
evam parampara-praptam imam rajarshayo viduh
sa kaleneha mahata yogo nashtah parantapa
sa evayam maya te ’dya yogah proktah puratanah
bhakto ’si me sakha cheti rahasyam hyetad uttamam

The Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krishna said: I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the sun-god, Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind, and Manu in turn instructed it to
Iksvaku. This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost. That very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you because you are My devotee as well as My friend; therefore you can understand the transcendental mystery of this science. —Bg 4.1-3

Therefore, the Mayavadi explanation of the Gita is a most misleading presentation of the whole truth. Lord Chaitanya has forbidden us to read commentations made by the Mayavadis and warns that one who takes to such an understanding of 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 of teaching by the Lord. The plurality of the individual soul and the Lord is an eternal fact, and it is confirmed by the Vedas as above mentioned.

(Guest Post)

Talker:Jahnu Das