Category:God's Personality
Theme Analysis
Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies the concept of God's personality, which is often misunderstood by impersonalists and conditioned souls. The Absolute Truth is not a void or a formless energy; He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, full of knowledge, bliss, and eternity. Although He expands into innumerable universes and localized features, such as the Paramātmā, He never loses His original spiritual personality. The Lord's personality is entirely transcendental, devoid of any material contamination. By executing unalloyed devotional service (bhakti-yoga), a living entity can transcend the limitations of material speculation and come to understand the supreme, beautiful, and absolute personality of Śrī Kṛṣṇa.
- The Original Spiritual Personality: The Supreme Lord is the absolute source of everything, and despite His unlimited expansions and energies, He permanently maintains His original, supreme personality.
- Beyond Impersonal Speculation: Mundane scholars and empiric philosophers, due to their reliance on flawed material logic, cannot comprehend the transcendental personality of the Lord.
- The Transcendental Body: The personality of Godhead is not constructed of material elements; His form and characteristics are entirely spiritual, antimaterial, and eternally perfect.
- Realization Through Devotion: The supreme personality of the Lord can only be understood through the process of pure devotional service and by hearing from authorized, pure devotees.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Understanding the Supreme Nature of God's Personality.
Subcategories
This category has the following 8 subcategories, out of 8 total.
G
Pages in category "God's Personality"
The following 70 pages are in this category, out of 70 total.
A
- A liberated man and even a common man may realize impersonal Brahman or localized Paramatma, yet they may not understand God's personality from the verses of Bhagavad-gita, which are being spoken by this person, Krsna. BG 1972 purports
- A person under the influence of the material energy cannot understand the nature and form of the Personality of the Absolute Truth
- Aham means - I; therefore the speaker who is saying aham, - I, must have His own personality
- All (varnas) must be properly well versed in knowledge of the Supreme Lord, knowing factually His name, quality, pastimes, entourage, paraphernalia and personalities
- All the great devotees of the Lord, who flourished in past or present, and all the devotees who will come in the future, are aware of the different potencies of the Lord along with the potency of His name, quality, pastimes, entourage, personality, etc
- Arjuna also says that the personality of the Lord is very difficult to understand and that He cannot be known even by the great demigods
- As a performer, He (the Absolute Truth) is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for these are symptoms of personality
- As soon as the Supreme Personality of Godhead is introduced, they (the Mayavadis) consider that His personality arises from maya, or the external material energy. Such persons consider all incarnations of the Supreme Lord to be contaminated
B
- Because we are part and parcel of God, we can study God's personality from our personality. Just like we can study the father by the symptoms of the son
- Both the Lord and the living entity exist as unborn and inexhaustible personalities. Thus Hiranyakasipu's conclusion that Visnu was dead was wrong
- Brahma & other lords of the mundane worlds, appear from the pores of hair of Maha-Visnu, remain alive as long as the duration of His one exhalation. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, of whose subjective personality Maha-Visnu is the portion of a portion
- Brahma, Visnu and Siva are His three incarnations of the material qualities. Creation, maintenance and destruction respectively are under the charge of these three personalities
H
- He (Brahma) has described expansions of the Supreme Lord, Govinda, in his Brahma-samhita (BS 5.38), - Although He is the oldest personality, He is ever youthful, unaffected by old age
- He (the Absolute Truth) is causative, for He is the original designer of the cosmos. And He is locative: that is, everything is resting in His energy. These attributes are all clearly attributes of personality
- How do they know (The Lord's name, quality, pastimes, entourage, personality, etc.)? Certainly it is not by mental speculation, nor by any attempt by dint of limited instruments of knowledge
- However much the impersonalist may be engaged in studying the Vedanta. The fact is that impersonalists are covered by the above-mentioned three modes of material nature; therefore, they are unable to approach the transcendental Personality of the Lord
I
- If one saw the personal characteristics and activities of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, one would certainly be convinced that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One can ascertain this by following in the footsteps of the sastric injunctions
- If one thinks that Visnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the only perfect personality whereas the demigods, even demigods as Siva, are inclined to improper social affairs, he is an offender. Citraketu was somewhat harsh in his behavior with Siva
- If we say that the Supreme Absolute Truth is impersonal, we mean that His personality is not material
- In all circumstances, the Lord and the living entities are individual personalities, and the personal features of both the Lord and living beings are never abolished
- In another feature of this verse, no one can deny the personalities of both the Lord and Brahma. Therefore in the ultimate issue both the predominator and predominated are persons
- In order to distinguish His transcendental body from ordinary material bodies, some philosophers have explained Him (the Supreme Absolute Truth) as being impersonal. In other words, material personality is denied, and spiritual personality is established
- In the Vedic dictionary it is said - His (the Supreme Lord's) person is full of different potent energies, and His determination is itself actual fact. In this way the Personality of Godhead is to be understood. BG 1972 purports
L
- Lord Brahma said to Lord Krsna the Supreme Personality of Godhead: My Lord, if one is favored by even a slight trace of the mercy of Your lotus feet, he can understand the greatness of Your personality
- Lord Brahma said: My dear Lord, Your personality and eternal form cannot be understood by any person who is trying to know You through the different processes of acquiring knowledge
- Lord Brahma said: O my Lord, today, after many, many years of penance, I have come to know about You. Oh, how unfortunate the embodied living entities are that they are unable to know Your personality
M
- Maharaja Prahlada informed his classmates about the all-pervasiveness of the Supreme Lord. But although the Supreme Lord is all-pervasive by means of His expansions and His energies, that does not mean He has lost His personality. That is significant
- My dear lord, you create this cosmic manifestation, maintain it, and annihilate it by expansion of your personality, exactly as a spider creates, maintains and winds up its web
O
- O best of the great personalities, I am not at all afraid of material existence, for wherever I stay I am fully absorbed in thoughts of Your glories and activities
- One should not conclude that because He (the Lord) is spread all over He has lost His personal existence. To refute such arguments, the Lord says - I am everywhere, and everything is in Me, but still I am aloof
- Our dear lord, it is your occupational duty to rule over your citizens. That is not a very wonderful task for a personality like you, who are so affectionate in seeing to the interests of the citizens, because you are full of mercy
S
- Sanatana Gosvami said, "The color of the personality in whom the characteristics of the Lord are found is yellowish. His activities include the distribution of love of Godhead and the chanting of the holy names of the Lord"
- Sanatana Gosvami, has especially warned that one should not hear anything about the personality of the Lord from the lips of a nondevotee
- Since the Personality of Godhead is in the absolute position, there is no difference between His pastimes and His personality
T
- The Absolute Truth is so perfect that although innumerable energies emanate from Him and manifest creations which appear to be different from Him, He nevertheless maintains His personality. He never deteriorates under any circumstances
- The activities of the Lord are pleasing to experimental vision also, but impersonalists will not believe in His identity because they study the personality of the Lord by comparing their personality to His
- The Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad confirms, purnam idam purnat purnam udacyate: Although He expands in many ways, He keeps His original personality. His original spiritual body remains as it is
- The Christians pray in the church, "Oh, God, give us our daily bread." So God has got ear so that He will hear and supply. But His personality, His word, His hearing, they're all transcendental, nonmaterial
- The Deity of the Lord in the house of a pure devotee can act exactly as He can in His original transcendental personality
- The devotees accept the Supreme Lord as the most dear personality and reciprocate with Him in different relationships
- The king dedicated his own personal body to fulfill the measurement of the Lord's third step. For such a personality, even the kingdom of heaven, which he conquered by his strength, was of no value
- The Lord exists with dhama; His eternal name, quality, pastimes, entourage and personality are all a display of His different energies and expansions
- The Lord is never affected by the activities which He apparently performs by His different incarnations and personalities, nor does He have any desire to achieve success by fruitive activities. The Lord is full by His different potencies
- The Lord is the cause for everything, but there is no cause for Him. Sarvam khalv idam brahma. Mat-sthani sarva-bhutani na caham tesv avasthitah (BG 9.4). Although He is everything, His personality is different from the cosmic manifestation
- The Lord is the complete spirit whole, and His name, form, quality, pastimes, entourage and personality are all identical with Him
- The Lord is the personality of religious principles. In three millenniums religious principles are protected by three kinds of spiritual culture, namely austerity, cleanliness and mercy. The Lord is called tri-yuga in that way also
- The Lord lives in the spiritual world in His original personality, and a devotee who follows the instructions of the Lord approaches Him - mam eti
- The Lord, or the Supreme Godhead, who is one without a second, is a fully cognizant and eternally joyful personality with a full sense of His identity. No one is equal to Him or greater than Him. This is a concise description of the Supreme Lord
- The manifested personalities are the demigods like the ruler of the heavenly kingdom, Indra, and his associates; and the nonmanifested personality is the Lord Himself
- The only difference is that the Lord is the greatest personality of all and absolute in all His affairs. If, therefore, the Lord is attracted by the pure devotee's chanting of His glories, there is nothing astonishing
- The Personality of Godhead and the personalities of devotees of the Lord are all transcendental; they do not have material bodies
- The Personality of Godhead is the supreme truth, and He is the whole antimaterial principle. The material principle as well as the antimaterial principle is an emanation from His person. He is the root of the complete tree
- The presiding Deity of the anti-material world is Sri Krsna, who exists in His original personality as well as in His many plenary expansions
- The Supreme Lord, who is the leader of all living entities, can award all the qualities of His personality unto His devotees, including immortality and spiritual bliss
- The Supreme Transcendence, the summum bonum, eternally and simultaneously exists in four transcendental features: His personality, His impersonal effulgence, particles of His potency (the living beings), and the principal cause of all causes
- The word atma also includes all kinds of personalities known as Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This means that Krsna has unlimited expansions
- There is a king in the sun planet. We may call him sun-god or something like, but there is a predominating personality. He has got his personal effulgence, body. Just like fire has got effulgence, heat and light, similarly, he is the fiery god
- They (the impersonalists) may be good scholars in the Vedic literatures, they are practically ignorant of My (God's) inconceivable energies and My eternal forms of personality
- This impersonality means that He (God) is not a person of this material condition. He is a transcendental personality without a material body
- This personality (Krsna) and His plenary expansions can be known only by antimaterial activities commonly known as bhakti-yoga, or devotional service
- This theory cannot be supported either, because the Lord Himself says in the Bhagavad-gita that the Brahman effulgence rests on His personality
- To the layman His activities, appearance and disappearance, His names, His forms, His paraphernalia, His personalities and all things in relation with Him are mysterious
W
- When the Lord is described as impersonal it should be understood that His personality is not exactly the type of personality found within our imperfect speculation
- When the Lord is perceived as visva-murti, it is not that He loses His personality or transcendental eternal form, but He becomes visible in the same form everywhere
Y
- Yogis who follow the principles of Patanjali accept the personality of the Absolute Truth, but they want to merge into the transcendental body of the Supreme Lord. That is their desire
- You are the friend of all suffering humanity, and for great personalities it is necessary to show mercy to the foolish. Therefore I think that You will show Your causeless mercy to persons like us, who engage in Your service