86 THE SCIENCE OF SELF-REALIZATION

Him all devotional obeisances, knowing Him as the son of Devaki and
Vasudeva. According to the Bhagavad-gita, only by knowing the tran-
scendental birth and activities of Krsna can one attain liberation by
acquiring a spiritual form like Krsna’s. There are five different kinds of
liberation. One who merges into the spiritual auras of Krsna, known as
the impersonal Brahman effulgence, does not fully develop his spiritual
body. But one who fully develops his spiritual existence becomes an
associate of Narayana or Krsna in different spiritual abodes. One who en-
ters into the abode of Narayana develops a spiritual form exactly like
Narayana’s (four-handed), and one who enters into the highest spiritual
abode of Krsna, known as Goloka Vrndavana, develops a spiritual form
of two hands like Krsna’s. Sankara, as an incarnation of Lord Siva, knows
all these spiritual existences, but he did not disclose them to his then
Buddhist followers because it was impossible for them to know about the
spiritual world. Lord Buddha preached that void is the ultimate goal, so
how could his followers understand spiritual variegatedness? Therefore
Sankara said, brahma satyam jagan mithya, or, material variegatedness is
false but spiritual variegatedness is fact. In the Padma Purana Lord Siva
has admitted that he had to preach the philosophy of mdyd, or illusion, in
the Kali-yuga as another edition of the ‘‘void’’ philosophy of Buddha. He
had to do this by the order of the Lord for specific reasons. He disclosed
his real mind, however, by recommending that people worship Krsna,
for no one can be saved simply by mental speculations composed of word
jugglery and grammatical manuevers. Sankara further instructs:

bhaja govindam bhaja govindam
bhaja govindam mudha-mate
samprapte sannihite kale
na hi na hi raksati dukrii-karane

‘*You intellectual fools, just worship Govinda, just worship Govinda, just
worship Govinda. Your grammatical knowledge and word jugglery will
not save you at the time of death.”’

—6—

Of that terrifying river

Of the battlefield of Kuruksetra

Over which the Pandavas victoriously crossed,
Bhisma and Drona were as the high banks,
