By Abhaya Mudra Dasi
Even though the relationship between the living entity and Shri Krishna is always present, it remains beyond the control of this material world. Often neophytes when coming in contact with Krishna consciousness ask, “How can I be sure that Shri Krishna loves me?” The answer is that Shri Krishna is not an ordinary man, even though He is called Purusha which literally meanings man. Shri Krishna describes Himself in BG 9.11:
avajananti mam muḍha manusim tanum ashriitam
param bhavam ajananto mama bhuta-maheshvaram
Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be.
In order to understand how Shri Krishna is neither a material man nor even a human being, although to the atheists He may appear to be so, we need to understand the basic elements of psychology that drive the material world. Then we can move on to understanding Shri Krishna’s loving relationships with each living entity.
Here in this material world there are two basic prototypes or personalities: male and female. Although we all know that in reality all males and females have their own distinctive personalities, we disregard the personal characteristics in favor of the prototypical characteristics. Thus, if some living entity takes birth as a woman, she will have certain qualities of a woman. And if one is born as a man, then he develops masculine traits. Even so, people tend to generalize gender characteristics while disregarding the personal individual’s own characteristics.
It is practically observed that unless one is a fully self realized soul he or she is influenced by gender-based judgments—the first thing that registers in the mind is whether one is male or female. Following that are certain embedded reactions based upon gender generalizations. In this world only two archetypes or “personalities” make the variety: male and female. Although it is more or less obvious that under these twosome coverings everyone is an individual, it is also obvious that everyone is conditioned to accept the body as the self and hence act accordingly.
It may be speculated that there is no use of having two genders. After all, Brahma, the first living entity secondary creator of the universe, was born from Lord Vishnu. Many great sages were born solely from Brahma. Although in this way Brahma is engaged in the design and construction of the universe, he is not active in fulfilling the desires of all the conditioned living entities, including their desire to procreate. It is said that Brahma can create, Lord Shiva can destroy, but only Lord Vishnu can maintain.
Even when living entities harbor inimical desires towards Shri Krishna, He satisfies them. Shri Krishna’s arrangement of male and female prototypes in the material world creates an illusion of genuine relations between two different energies. And through the interaction of male and female entities other bodies take birth. The material world mimics (or reflects in a perverted sense) the spiritual world wherein there is constant interaction of Shri Krishna with His innumerable liberated servants, friends, mothers, fathers and lovers. In the material world the variety of personal characteristics is limited only to two. The material world does not have the facility to satisfy the spiritual seeker who is after the unlimited variety of the spiritual world.
“The ambitious conditioned soul wants to be very happy in this material world with his family, but he is compared to a traveler in the forest who desires to climb a hill full of thorns and small stones. As stated in the previous verse, the happiness derived from society, friendship and love is like a drop of water in the scorching heat of the desert.” (SB 5.13.8 Purport)
Shri Krishna interacts with everyone whether they are conditioned or liberated. He is not even slightly affected by the illusory bodily covering of the conditional living entities. His perspective is vast. He is like a bee who likes to taste the personalities of every living entity which for Him are like flowers. But the living entity is small and his perspective is always limited whether it is conditioned in the material world or liberated in the spiritual world.
The individual soul’s relationship with Shri Krishna is sufficient to accommodate every one of his desires. The limited nature of the living entity cannot contain a deep personal interaction with other living entities unless those relationships are filtered through his bond with Shri Krishna. Thus, the connection of the living entity with the Supreme Lord is always a unique and one-on-one relationship. But when the rebellious entity seeks to falsely disconnect from Lord Shri Krishna he falls down into this material world. Here his one-on-one relationship with Shri Krishna is translated into the relationship of male and female in this material world. This is actually evidence that the living entity who needs reciprocation cannot exist without Shri Krishna because he constantly reflects on the nature of his relationship with the Supreme Lord.
In this reflective material world, the characteristics of the female prototype are linked to her body and the characteristics of the male prototype are linked to his body. For the purpose of reproduction a woman has a womb while the man does not. A woman comes into her body with a clear perspective of her role and that her role is important. In the mind of the conditioned entity, procreation is the actual goal of existence because through reproduction of the species the living entity falsely thinks that he or she creates other individuals and in this way somehow becomes equal to God.
For this reason a woman holds an important position in this world. A conditioned man seeks to receive his share of credit as the creator and the only way to achieve that is through union with the woman. Thus his objective becomes sexual union and the woman an object of his desire. The man does everything to show others that he is as multifaceted as the woman is. The ego of the conditioned man is very fragile. He may try to flatter the woman in order to receive her favor although ultimately what he desires is to be recognized as a creator and to diminish the role of the woman as such. This is one aspect of the never ending battle of the sexes.
On the other hand, the woman attracts a man to share in her great burden of creation. She knows she is important and secretly regards the man as inferior. She becomes bitter when she discovers that he is with her only because of his own self-interest. This is the underlying principle of this material world, that there is no real love between the man and the woman because both have conditions that they place on the other person. Because both genders speak different languages and they have different means of achieving what they desire in life, nether understands the other. Therefore in this material world there are innumerable misunderstandings going on between the man and the woman. Neither has any genuine understanding that the other person covered with an illusory material form is a spirit soul who has zero to do with the demands and conditions of the body.
Offspring produced of the male and female are regarded as individuals only for the short period of time until they also take their turns in the reproductive cycle. The different personalities that the mother and father appreciate in the individual children are only related to relative matter.
But the reflective prototypes of males and females do not tell us all about the characteristics of Shri Krishna Who created them. Shri Krishna neither reflects the man or woman in this material world. But from the angle of limited, conditioned material understanding He may seem to possess trends from both male and female prototypes. He has a position which cannot be disputed just like the females in the material world are predestined as prototypes to give birth. Shi Krishna’s position as the Supreme Lord cannot be disputed. He is also the maintainer of the whole universe just like a man maintains his family. Yet Shri Krishna does not have the limitation of the woman for only one significant relationship because He relates always with all of His parts and parcels. He is also neither like the man who is woven by a fragile ego. Shri Krishna is called the Purush or the Supreme Man yet that mainly serves to define the limited position of the living entity who has no capacity to form a loving relationship with more than one individual. Everyone knows that a woman would have a very hard time having more than one husband at a time. Thus, the living entity may well be called prakriti or female.
However, the relationship between the spirit soul and Shri Krishna transcends the material subjective concept of gender because only the personality traits play an important role in it. It is not that the spiritual personality is not visible in the material world but it is covered by a body and for a soul to be able to directly associate with Shri Krishna the gender identity should completely be dropped off. A genuine devotee should understand that the spiritual world has unlimited prototypes. In fact he is one of them. Everyone has his own spiritual unique “gender” that relates in a unique way with Shri Krishna. This is called rasa. And although there are five basic rasas of neutrality, survivorship, friendship, parenthood and conjugal love the variety in them is unlimited.
The personality of the living entity is ever present. Although covered in the material world, the relationship between Shri Krishna and the living entity is eternal. The love of Shri Krishna for the living entity is unconditional because the only thing He gains from the living entity is the taste of his personality and that is eternal and never diminishing. The living entity cannot escape from the fact that he is a person no matter how much he is trying to hide under the cloth of material genders. So, for Shri Krishna who is ever aware of the eternal nature and personality of the living entity there is no obstacles to love. There is not a single moment when the Supreme Lord does not love the individuality of the living entity. And because relationships are only possible on equal footing, the living enmity who desires to restore his eternal relationship with the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna should start to understand that Shri Krishna is the Supreme Person.
Shri Krishna is dressed in a nice yellow dothi and has nice ornaments on His dark blue body. His eyes a like lotus petals and his moonlike face is adored by a nice smile. He plays His flute and is surrounded by His close associates everyone also coming along with their eternal personal characteristics. In the material world nobody wears the same cloths all the time because the cloths are not part of the personality of the persona that wears them. The cloths are just there to be created and destroyed or, in other words, enjoyed temporarily. Everything in the material world carries this false desire to be God and enjoy the creation created by other living entities. But because the material world is in denial of its eternal spiritual origins nothing works properly. A man who is undercover and has to play a different role not being able to show his true identity is never truly satisfied. But that is the cost a person has to pay if he wants to pretend being somebody else and not himself. This is the position of the living entity pretending to be God. And the confusion in the material world is great because everyone is undercover.
This material world may be a place for the enjoyment of the unintelligent, but for Shri Krishna this place is a playground for His pastimes. This is a place where some living entities come to become inimical to Him while others stay on His side. Thus this world is a stage for battles and wars where Shri Krishna is the ultimate winner. There are always constant wars going on in this world and peace is not possible due to the supreme dictum of epic enjoyment of Shri Krishna carried by Him personally in this world.
For example, the doorkeepers of Vaikuntha Jaya and Vijaya prayed to Shri Krishna to make them inimical to Him so his desire for fighting could be satisfied. Thus the great demons Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha were born and then killed by Shri Krishna in a cosmic-scale battle. Shri Krishna likes to fight and win as revealed in Bhagavad–gita (4.8):
paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge
“In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium.”
Therefore whoever understands Shri Krishna’s nature is eligible to go back to His spiritual abode, for as the Lord tells Arjuna:
janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām 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.” (Bg. 4.9)
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