Category:God Is Impersonal
Theme Analysis
The philosophical essence of this category addresses and refutes the misconception that the Supreme Absolute Truth is ultimately impersonal. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that because the living entities have imperfect, limited senses and a poor fund of knowledge, they often struggle to comprehend the unlimited, inconceivable potencies of the Lord. Consequently, Māyāvādī philosophers and materialists mistakenly conclude that God must be a formless, impersonal void. While it is true that the Lord has an all-pervading, impersonal feature known as the brahma-jyotir, this is simply the dazzling effulgence radiating from His eternal, transcendental body. To say that God is impersonal simply means He possesses no mundane, material form or sensory organs like ours. Ultimately, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is simultaneously personal and impersonal, but His original, supreme aspect is always that of a transcendental person.
- The Incomplete Impersonal View: Understanding the Absolute Truth as merely an impersonal force or dazzling effulgence is a one-sided, preliminary realization experienced by those with imperfect senses or a poor fund of knowledge.
- Refuting Māyāvāda Philosophy: The dangerous theory that God is ultimately formless or void is propagated by Māyāvādī philosophers, who offensively attempt to deny the Lord's transcendental body and activities.
- The True Meaning of Formless: When Vedic texts describe the Lord as formless or impersonal, it strictly means He has no material form, mundane legs, or mundane hands—not that His spiritual personality is nonexistent.
- Simultaneously Personal and Impersonal: Through His inconceivable potencies, the Supreme Lord perfectly exists as the original Supreme Person while simultaneously expanding His impersonal energy throughout the entire cosmic manifestation.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: God Is Impersonal - Refuting the Māyāvāda Misconception.
Subcategories
This category has the following 2 subcategories, out of 2 total.
Pages in category "God Is Impersonal"
The following 73 pages are in this category, out of 73 total.
A
- A devotee does not imagine something whimsical about the form of the Lord, nor does he ever think that the Lord is impersonal and can assume a form desired by the nondevotee
- According to the Mayavada philosophy, when one becomes a sannyasi he is to be considered a moving Narayana. Mayavada philosophy holds that the real Narayana does not move because, being impersonal, He has no legs
- As described in the previous mantras, the real or ultimate aspect of the Absolute is His feature as the Personality of Godhead, and His impersonal brahmajyoti feature is a dazzling covering over His face
- As the same object appears to be different when perceived by different senses, the same Supreme Lord appears to be impersonal by mental speculation
B
- Because we are limited and God is unlimited, the Mayavadis, or impersonalists, with their poor fund of knowledge, think that God must be impersonal
- Bhrgu Muni cursed that persons who worshiped Lord Siva would become followers of this Mayavada asat-sastra, which attempts to establish that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is impersonal
- By misunderstanding the inconceivable energies of the Supreme, one may falsely conclude that the Supreme Absolute Truth is impersonal. Such a deluded conclusion is experienced by a living being when he is in an acute stage of disease
D
- Daksa prays, "One may think of You (God) as personal, impersonal or imaginary, but I wish to pray to Your Lordship that You fulfill my desires to see You as You actually are
- Devotees are very much attached to glorifying the activities of the Lord, whereas the Mayavadis cannot even think of these activities. According to them the Absolute Truth is impersonal
F
- For them (monist philosophers), nirguna Brahman means "the impersonal Absolute Truth without any material qualities" and saguna Brahman means "the Absolute Truth that accepts the contamination of material qualities"
- From the Rk-samhita (1.22.20): The Personality of Godhead Visnu is the Absolute Truth, whose lotus feet all the demigods are always eager to see. Like the sun-god, He pervades everything by the rays of His energy. He appears impersonal to imperfect eyes
G
- God is materially impersonal, just as the executive head of the state may be impersonal in the government offices, although he is not impersonal in the government house
- God is there, but because we cannot realize, therefore somebody is saying, "God has no form," "There is no God," "God is dead," "God is impersonal," "God is void." That means they have no actually knowledge what is God
H
- He (Gandhiji) is a worshiper of the impersonal Godhead. That is to say, his Godhead or Visnu is devoid of transcendental activities. His Godhead cannot eat, cannot see, & cannot hear; for impersonality means being without any of these sensory activities
- He (God) is simultaneously personal and impersonal by His inconceivable potency, or He is the one without a second, displaying complete unity in a diversity of material and spiritual manifestations
- He (Prakasananda Sarasvati Thakura) was supposed to teach Vedanta philosophy, but he would not accept the form of the Lord; therefore he was attacked with leprosy. Nonetheless, he continued to commit sins by describing the Absolute Truth as impersonal
- How can He be impersonal? That which is impersonal has no intelligence. We have invented so many very wonderful machines, but the machines are not intelligent. The intelligence belongs to the operator
I
- If we say that the Supreme Absolute Truth is impersonal, we mean that His personality is not material
- Impersonal appreciation of the Absolute Truth is one-sided and incomplete. One should also accept the other side, the personal side - Bhagavan
- 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 Hayasirsa-pancaratra it is explained that although in each and every Upanisad the Supreme Brahman is first viewed as impersonal, at the end the personal form of the Supreme Lord is accepted
- It is simply foolish to think of the Lord as being originally impersonal but accepting a material body when He appears as a personal incarnation. Whenever the Lord appears, He appears in His original transcendental form, which is spiritual and blissful
M
- Making a material comparison, they (impersonalist) say that just as the sky, which we think of as unlimited, is impersonal, if God is unlimited He must also be impersonal
- Mayavada philosophy says that the Lord is originally impersonal but assumes a human form and many other forms when He descends. Actually, however, He is originally like a human being, and the impersonal Brahman consists of the rays of His body
- Mayavadis believe that the Absolute Truth is ultimately impersonal. When an incarnation of God or God Himself comes, they think He is covered by maya
O
- Only those who follow Sankara's commentary have described the Vedanta-sutra in an impersonal way, without reference to visnu-bhakti, or devotional service to the Lord, Visnu
- Only through devotional service can one understand how the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by His inconceivable potencies, simultaneously acts impersonally and as a person
P
- People may sometimes think of You as impersonal or personal, but You (the Lord) are one
- People with less intelligence consider the Supreme Truth to be impersonal, but He is a transcendental person, and this is confirmed in all Vedic literatures. BG 1972 Introduction
- Prakasananda Sarasvati only business was to sever the limbs of the Lord by proving the Lord impersonal. Although the Lord has form, Prakasananda Sarasvati attempted to cut off the hands and legs of the Lord. This is the business of demons
S
- Samadhi involves concentrating the mind upon the supreme cause of all, even if one is unaware of whether His actual nature is personal, impersonal or localized. Concentration of the mind on the Supreme is certainly a form of devotional service
- Sankara's philosophy says that brahma satyam jagan mithya. It is little farther advanced, admitting the spirit, but he says that spirit is impersonal. "There is no God. It is impersonal." So practically the same thing: it is void or there is no God
- Sankaracarya, to convince the less intelligent men who take Krsna to be an ordinary human being, said that God is impersonal
- Sayujya is generally demanded by Mayavadi philosophers; they demand to become one with the impersonal Brahman effulgence of the Lord
- Since (God's) His body is the complete whole of everything that be, one cannot assert that He is impersonal only. On the contrary, the perfect description of the Lord holds that He is both impersonal and personal simultaneously
- Since his (Sankaracarya's) conception of God is impersonal, he does not believe that the entire cosmic manifestation is a transformation of the energies of the Lord
- Since they (the materialists) do not believe in the existence of God, they have manufactured the idea that God is impersonal and that to have some conception of God one may imagine any form
- Some of you are saying there is no God, some of you are saying God is dead, and some of you are saying God is impersonal or void. These are all nonsense
T
- That (God must be impersonal because He is unlimited) is not the Vedic instruction. The Vedas instruct that God is a person. Krsna is a person, and we are also persons, but the difference is that He is to be worshiped whereas we are to be worshipers
- That the Lord is formless or impersonal means that He has nothing like a material form and is not like any material personality
- The dangerous Mayavada theory set forth by Sankaracarya - that God is impersonal - does not tally with the injunctions of the Vedas. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu therefore described the Mayavadi philosophers as the greatest offenders
- The fact is that ultimately the Absolute Truth is the Supreme Person. But because He acts through His different potencies, which are impossible for the gross materialists to see, the materialists accept Him as impersonal
- The impersonal brahma-jyotir is only the glaring effulgence of the body of the Lord, and there is no difference in quality between the body of the Lord and the impersonal ray of the Lord, called brahma-jyotir
- The Lord is personal although impersonal, He is atomic although great, and He is blackish and has red eyes although He is colorless
- The Mayavadi philosophers think that although all these forms are assumed by the Lord just as the devotees desire to see Him, actually He is impersonal. From Brahma-samhita, however, we can understand that this is not so, for the Lord has multiforms
- The members of the Bhagavata school, adopting the perfect conception of the Lord, accept His inconceivable potencies and thus understand that He is both personal and impersonal
- The only difference is that Sankaracarya's sampradaya, they take the ultimate Absolute Truth as impersonal, and we Vaisnava, we take the Absolute Truth as person. But Sankaracarya, in his later stage, he also admitted in a different way
- The propaganda that the Lord is impersonal, that He has no activity and that He is a dumb stone without any name and form has encouraged people to become godless, faithless demons
- The Supreme Absolute Truth is unlimited. No living being can know about the unlimited by his limited capacity. The Lord is impersonal, personal and localized
- The Supreme Lord is very beautiful. The word sasvat is significant. It is not that He appears beautiful to the devotees but is ultimately impersonal. Sasvat means "ever existing." That beauty is not temporary. It is ever existing - He is always youthful
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead is full with six opulences. All of these potencies are on the transcendental platform. To understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead as impersonal and devoid of potency is to go completely against Vedic information
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead is originally the Supreme Person, and He expands Himself impersonally through His potency
- The Supreme Personality of Godhead, in His original form, has not entered everything (apravistah), but in His impersonal form He has entered (pravistah). Thus He has entered and not entered simultaneously
- The yogis and jnanis - that is, the mystic yogis and the impersonalists - can understand the Absolute Truth as impersonal or localized, but they cannot understand how the Supreme Absolute Truth can be a person
- There is always a difference of opinion about the Absolute Truth. One class of transcendentalists concludes that the Absolute Truth is impersonal, and another class concludes that the Absolute Truth is a person
- They (demigods) execute the order of the Supreme Lord exactly according to His plan. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is in the background, and because His orders are carried out by others, it appears that He is impersonal
- They (karmis and jnanis) believe that since the Absolute Truth is impersonal, they can call Him by any name. Otherwise, they maintain, He has no name. This is not a fact
- This is described in Bhagavad-gita (God is everything but has His own separate existence): "I am spread all over the universe in My impersonal form. Everything is resting on Me, but I am not present."
- This is the demonic spirit; demons are always wanting to kill Krsna so they can say - God is dead. There is no God. God is impersonal
- Those who adhere to the Mayavada philosophy of anthropomorphism say, "The Absolute Truth is impersonal, but because we are persons we imagine that the Absolute Truth is also a person." This is a mistake, and in fact just the opposite is true
- Those who espouse these more or less nonsensical conceptions of the Supreme Lord (like God is impersonal etc.) cannot dissuade him from firm faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna
- Those who want to see God by the agency of their imperfect senses, they say that God is impersonal. They're imperfect. That is a realization of the imperfect senses. Perfectly, the perfectly vision, perfect vision of the Supreme Lord is a person
- Those who want to see God or the Supreme Absolute Truth by the agency of their imperfect senses, they say that God is impersonal. They're imperfect. That is a realization of the imperfect senses. Perfectly, perfect vision of the Supreme Lord is a person
W
- What to speak of great yogis or jnanis who conclude that the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, is impersonal
- When explaining the first aphorism of the Vedanta-sutra, Sankara most unceremoniously tried to explain that Brahman, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is impersonal. He also cunningly tried to switch the doctrine of by-product into the doctrine of change
- When He (The Supreme Personality of Godhead) is realized in His impersonal form He is called the Supreme Brahman, when realized as the Paramatma He is called antaryami
- When it is stated that the Supreme Lord has no hands and legs, one should not think that He is impersonal. Rather, He has no mundane hands or legs like ours
- When the Lord actually descends on the earth or anywhere within the universe, the less intelligent class of men also mistake Him to be one of them, and thus they imagine the Transcendence to be formless or impersonal