I was recently asked this question: “How does the Supreme Personality of Godhead observe the cosmic manifestation?”

Krsna, although the director of the material energy, is aloof from it. The Lord is always neutral in the material activities of the created world. Although He has control over every minute detail of all material activities, He is sitting as neutral. Just like the High Court judge is giving orders by which someone is fined a huge amount, someone is awarded great wealth and so on, but the judge is always neutral. He has nothing to do with all that gain and loss. Similarly, Krsna is not directly involved. He simply monitors our desires born as a reaction to our past deeds and, according to that karma, awards us the facility to satisfy them.

His involvement is via His various energies which act so wonderfully we cannot imagine. However, His main activity is ananda cimnmaya rasa, or involvement in His eternal, blissful spiritual pastimes. Just like in Vrindavana Krsna is so absorbed in playing with His cowherd friends He even forgets to come home to eat so mother Yasoda has to call Him: bhela ho’lo damodara aisa ekhono, bhoga-mandire bosi koraha bhojana, “My dear Krsna, it is late, come and sit in the bhoga-mandira and eat your lunch.” Still He does not come, so she chides Him, and then appeals to His competitive spirit, “Krsna please, do You think that You are a street boy who has no home? Don’t you see how all the other boys have been nicely bathed, dressed and decorated by their mothers?” Still no reply from the Lord of the Universe, so, “Nanda Baba is waiting for you. He refuses to eat until you come.” Then Krsna relents: nandera nidese baise giri-bara dhari, baladeva-saha sakha baise sari-sari, “At the order of Nanda Maharaja Krsna sits down for lunch with Balarama and His friends sitting in rows.” All these wonderful arrangements for His enjoyment are done by Yogamaya so nicely He is not even aware of it, although every detail is inconceivably under His direction. Similarly, Maha-maya does Krsna’s work within the material universes while He remains aloof but in inconceivable full control. However, should some pure bhakti be manifested from this place, then yes, He will come directly but still without in any way affecting His eternal lila. So the answer is twofold: He does not personally observe this cosmic manifestation unless there is some pure bhakti manifested, as there was by Srila Prabhupada during his manifest lila in this world. As many of us experienced, during that period Krsna became directly involved. Therefore Srila Prabhupada consistently gave credit to Krsna for his achievements, athaca enecho prabhu katha bolibare, je tomar iccha prabhu koro ei bare, “Somehow or other, O Lord, You have brought me here to speak about You. Now, my Lord, it is up to You to make me a success or failure as You like.”

Once, in Mayapura there was an exchange between Srila Prabhupada and one of his young disciples. He was asked (I am paraphrasing), “Does Krsna control us directly or through the modes of material nature?”. Prabhupada replied, “In your case, through the modes of material nature.” Then he was further asked, “But Krsna controls you directly and we follow you.” Prabhupada replied, “Yes, I give so many instructions but you don’t take them so what to do?”

If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me at: dorigatti@yahoo.com

Now you can listen to the ancient sanskrit chants of Bhagavad Gita, sung in classical melodies by noted devotional singer Sri Vidyabhushana. Listen to all 700 verses of the Gita with a beautiful accompaniment of flute, veena, sitar, mridanga, tabla and tala. (Scroll down to listen to it online.)

Set includes 10 audio CDs (7 CDs of sanskrit chants, 2 CDs containing english translations for the entire Bhagavad Gita, and 1 CD providing an introductory lecture on the Bhagavad Gita by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada).