Category:God Bewilders
Theme Analysis
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is inherently bewildering to the conditioned souls. According to Śrīla Prabhupāda, the Lord's activities often appear full of contradictions. He is the supreme controller of time, yet He flees Mathurā in fear of an enemy; He is completely self-sufficient, yet He marries sixteen thousand queens. These transcendental pastimes are so perfectly enacted that they can bewilder even exalted demigods like Lord Brahmā or pure devotees like Uddhava. However, this bewilderment for devotees is a source of spiritual ecstasy and a testament to the Lord's immeasurable sweetness, whereas for the nondevotees, it is a source of deep illusion.
The Lord also deliberately utilizes His bewildering potencies to protect religious principles and cheat the atheistic class. When the demons stole the nectar of immortality, the Lord assumed the form of Mohinī-mūrti, a stunningly beautiful woman, to bewilder the demons and create a quarrel among them, thus ensuring the demigods received the nectar. When He incarnates, He often appears as an ordinary conditioned soul just to bewilder the nonbelievers who are constantly trying to challenge or kill Him.
Furthermore, the Lord's external energy, known as avidyā or ignorance, is specifically designed to bewilder those who possess a rebellious attitude. Materialistic leaders and false arguers, puffed up by their own strength like Dhṛtarāṣṭra, are encouraged by the Lord's illusory potency to remain in darkness. This avidyā induces the less intelligent to mistake an ordinary living entity or a demigod for the Supreme Lord. However, while the ordinary man and the stubborn rebel remain perpetually bewildered by the Lord's external energy, the pure devotees transcend this illusion. By the grace of devotional service, the bewildering ignorance transforms into vidyā, or pure knowledge, allowing the sincere soul to intimately understand and relish the Lord's inconceivable pastimes.
- Contradictory Pastimes: The Lord perfectly enacts pastimes that seem completely contradictory to His supreme status, bewildering even pure devotees and demigods.
- Cheating the Demons: The Lord deliberately bewilders atheists and demons, using forms like Mohinī-mūrti to cheat them and protect His surrendered servants.
- The Power of Avidyā: The Lord's external energy (māyā or avidyā) keeps rebellious, materialistic leaders completely bewildered and subjugated.
- Transcending the Bewilderment: While common men and scholars are baffled by God, pure devotees transcend the illusion and understand Him through the power of bhakti-yoga.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: God Bewilders - The Inconceivable Illusions of the Supreme Lord.
Pages in category "God Bewilders"
The following 18 pages are in this category, out of 18 total.
A
- Although the SPG is time, fearful to everyone, He flees Mathura in fear of His enemy to take shelter in a fort; and although He is self-sufficient, He marries 16,000 women. These pastimes seem like bewildering contradictions, even to the most intelligent
- Avajananti mam mudha manusim tanum asritam (BG 9.11): He is always bewildering to the nondevotees, but He is always seen by the devotees by dint of their pure devotional service to Him
S
- So-called great leaders of human society are stubborn rebels against the supremacy of the Lord because they are ignorant of this great knowledge of bhakti-yoga & are always engaged in ignoble acts of sense gratification, bewildered by the external energy
- Supreme Personality of Godhead said to demigods, "Do not be aggrieved. By My own energy I shall bewilder the demons by creating a quarrel among them. In this way I shall fulfill your desire to have the nectar"
T
- The energy of the Lord called avidya is the bewildering factor of the conditioned souls. The material nature is called avidya, or ignorance, but to the devotees of the Lord engaged in pure devotional service, this energy becomes vidya, or pure knowledge
- The illusory potency of the Lord bewilders the less intelligent to accept Brahmaji, or for that matter any other person, as the Supreme Lord
- The Lord has a potency called avidya, the illusory energy, which induces the false arguer to think himself perfect and which induces the illusory energy to bewilder the conditioned soul
- The Lord is supremely perfect, and whenever He enacts His transcendental pastimes as a son, a rival or an object of enmity, He plays the part so perfectly that even pure devotees like Uddhava are bewildered
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: When the demons took away the jug of nectar, I assumed the form of a beautiful woman to bewilder them by directly cheating them and thus to act in the interest of the demigods
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Mohini-murti, was able to bewilder all the demons, but Rahu was so clever that he was not bewildered
- The uncommon features symptomatic of the incarnation of Godhead can bewilder even the mind of Brahma
- There are the material world and the spiritual world. The sages pray: "Both worlds are bewildered by Your different energies
- This manifestation is bewildering to the living entities. The Lord is therefore the master of the energies, whereas the living entities are subjugated by them