View source for The living entity should never be considered the all-powerful Supreme Truth. If he were the Supreme, he would not need to pray to the Lord to remove His dazzling cover so that the living entity could see His real face

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{{terms|"The living entity should never be considered the all-powerful Supreme Truth. If he were the Supreme, he would not need to pray to the Lord to remove His dazzling cover so that the living entity could see His real face"}}
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[[Category:God and the Living Entities]]
[[Category:Should Never]]
[[Category:Do Not Consider]]
[[Category:God Is All-powerful]]
[[Category:Supreme Truth]]
[[Category:Would Not]]
[[Category:Need Not]]
[[Category:Praying to God]]
[[Category:Remove]]
[[Category:God's Dazzling]]
[[Category:God's Covering]]
[[Category:So That]]
[[Category:Seeing God]]
[[Category:God's Face]]
[[Category:Real God]]
[[Category:Sri Isopanisad, Mantra 15]]
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<h2>Other Books by Srila Prabhupada</h2>
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<h3>Sri Isopanisad</h3>
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The living entity should never be considered the all-powerful Supreme Truth. If he were the Supreme, he would not need to pray to the Lord to remove His dazzling cover so that the living entity could see His real face.
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[[Vanisource:ISO 15 (1974)|Sri Isopanisad 15, Translation and Purport]]
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O my Lord, sustainer of all that lives, Your real face is covered by Your dazzling effulgence. Kindly remove that covering and exhibit Yourself to Your pure devotee.
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Perfect knowledge means knowing Kṛṣṇa as the root of this Brahman effulgence. This knowledge can be gained from such scriptures as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which perfectly elaborates the science of Kṛṣṇa. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the author, Śrīla Vyāsadeva, has established that one will describe the Supreme Truth as Brahman, Paramātmā or Bhagavān according to one's realization of Him. Śrīla Vyāsadeva never states that the Supreme Truth is a jīva, an ordinary living entity. The living entity should never be considered the all-powerful Supreme Truth. If he were the Supreme, he would not need to pray to the Lord to remove His dazzling cover so that the living entity could see His real face.

The conclusion is that one who has no knowledge of the potencies of the Supreme Truth will realize the impersonal Brahman. Similarly, when one realizes the material potencies of the Lord but has little or no information of the spiritual potencies, he attains Paramātmā realization. Thus both Brahman and Paramātmā realization of the Absolute Truth are partial realizations. However, when one realizes

the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, in full potency after the removal of the hiraṇmaya-pātra, one realizes vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti: ([[Vanisource:BG 7.19 (1972)|7.19]]) Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who is known as Vāsudeva, is everything-Brahman, Paramātmā and Bhagavān. He is Bhagavān, the root, and Brahman and Paramātmā are His branches.

In the Bhagavad-gītā ([[Vanisource:BG 6.46 (1972)|6.46-47]]) there is a comparative analysis of the three types of transcendentalists—the worshipers of the impersonal Brahman (jñānīs), the worshipers of the Paramātmā feature (yogīs) and the devotees of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa (bhaktas). It is stated there that the jñānīs, those who have cultivated Vedic knowledge, are better than ordinary fruitive workers, that the yogīs are still greater than the jñānīs, and that among all yogīs, those who constantly serve the Lord with all their energies are the topmost. In summary, a philosopher is better than a laboring man, a mystic is superior to a philosopher, and of all the mystic yogīs, he who follows bhakti-yoga, constantly engaging in the service of the Lord, is the highest. Śrī Īśopaniṣad directs us toward this perfection.
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