God is Both Personal and Impersonal

BENGALURU: In the material world, there are a few negative qualities like frustration, immorality, ignorance and so on - all of these come from the back of the universal form of the Lord. People who unfortunately have the rear view of the Lord tend to become impersonalists and those who are fortunate to have the front view of the universal form of the Lord are blessed to have the personal understanding.Srila Prabhupada mentions there are some philosophers - we come across these kinds of arguments both in Indian philosophy and among the western philosophers.  Some people strongly argue that God is personal, some people strongly argue God is impersonal.  But actually the Supreme Absolute Truth is complete and all inclusive.  The perfect description of the Lord holds that He is both impersonal and personal simultaneously.

The Absolute Truth has both impersonal aspect and a personal aspect, has a localized aspect, and also a material universal aspect.

We say that there is an impersonal aspect but the ultimate aspect or the original aspect of the Absolute Truth is Krishna.  Prabhupada explains that - On the contrary since the body is the complete whole of everything that be, one cannot assert that he is impersonal only.  The Personality of Godhead is the original feature of the Lord and His impersonal emanation is but the reflection of His transcendental body.

Those who are fortunate enough to have a view of the Lord from the front can realize His personal feature whereas those who are frustrated and are thus kept on the ignorant side of the Lord are in other words, those who have the view of the Lord from the back, realize Him in His impersonal feature.  So this is the Gaudiya Vaishnava siddhanta and Prabhupada explains as to how the back of the Lord represents frustration, fear, immorality, death and unfortunately some of them have only a view of the back of the Lord and hence they remain in the conclusion of impersonal aspect of the Lord alone.  And even in Bhagavad-gita Krishna explains that because of bhaya and krodha there is a kind of a deep seated anger and frustration; and because of such emotions people land up with conclusions of impersonal feature.  He explains that there are many people who have become freed from attachment to the material world, fear and anger. This fear and anger Prabhupada explains is a kind of deep philosophical frustration and that there are too many conflicting philosophies, one contradicting the other.  People because unfortunately they are not blessed with the right conclusion, they will land up in an impersonal understanding. But Krishna says those who are fortunate, they can be freed from attachment, fear and anger and with jnana tapasa - they become purified - they understand that My birth, My activities are all transcendental and they come to that conclusion and unfortunately, sometimes people become caught up with fear and frustration and they are not blessed with the personal realization and they remain with that impersonal realization.The virata purusa description about the back of the Lord from which frustration, fear, death, anger - all of these negative qualities come about and Prabhupada links that with the impersonal realization.  Somebody who is stuck with that impersonal understanding  is actually having a spiritual calamity in his understanding.