Who Is Lord Krishna?
Is He a Hindu God, an imagination, a manifestation of impersonal Brahman.... what/who is He??
It is the Vedic literature that most clearly reveals the nature and identity of the Absolute Truth or Supreme Personality. As with many of the Vedic texts, they begin to reveal this identity with hints that show how the Absolute is a person from whom everything else originates. One such reference is the first and second verses of the Vedanta Sutra. The first verse states simply that, “Now, one who is endowed with the human form of life, should inquire into the nature of Brahman.” This means that once you have attained a human form of life, you should use your intelligence to discover what is the nature of God, what is the soul, and what is the Absolute Truth. Then the second verse begins to
explain what is this Absolute Truth: “He from whom everything originates is the Absolute Truth or God.” Thus, since it refers to “He”, the source of all that exists, God must be a person.So who is this Being from whom all creation has emanated? Much more information is supplied from numerous Vedic sources. For example, the early Rig-veda relates that Lord Vishnu or Krishna is that Supreme Being, the Absolute Truth whose lotus feet are seen by all the demigods with great eagerness. In the the Svetasvatara Upanishad we find a similar statement: “No one is superior to Him, and nothing is smaller or larger than Him. He is the one Supreme Being from whom the entire creation was manifest.”
It is also explained in the Caitanya-caritamrita that Lord Krishna is the original primeval Lord, the source of all other expansions. All the revealed scriptures accept Sri Krishna as the Supreme Person. Lord Krishna, is worshipable by everyone; is the repository of all love, the fountain of all goodness, and the Lord of all creatures. He is eternally present in all living beings as the Supersoul, or soul of our soul. Furthermore, the Vedas state, “I have realized this transcendental Personality of Godhead who shines most brilliantly like the sun beyond all darkness. Only by realizing Him does one surmount the cycle of birth and death. Unalloyed devotion to Him is the only means to get free from birth and death and attain God-realization.”
Perhaps the Brahma Samhita explains Lord Krishna' identity most succinctly: "Krishna is the supreme controller, the Lord. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all, yet he has no origin. He alone is the cause of all causes."
So, in summary, as it is clearly explained in a variety of Vedic scriptures, Lord Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and is the source of all other incarnations and all other forms of God. He is the ultimate goal of all Truth and philosophical inquiry, and the goal or final word of Vedantic study. He is the all-attractive personality and source of pleasure for which we are always hankering. He is the origin from which everything else is manifest. He is the unlimited source of all power, wealth, fame, beauty, wisdom, and renunciation. Thus, no one is greater than Him or equal to Him and since Krishna is the source of all living beings, He is also the Supreme Father. As we further our investigation to understand the identity of God as found in the Vedic scriptures, especially the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Vishnu Purana, Brahma-samhita, and many others, we find that they all indicate that Lord Krishna is the Supreme Lord. One can experience this directly by adopting the process known as Bhakti-Yoga, the yoga of devotion, by which God agrees to reveal Himself to the serious practitioner.
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