Text 19] The First Step in God Realization 33

body, and thus the mind becomes free from all sense objects. There should
be no other thing to be thought upon. Because the Supreme Personality of
Godhead, Visnu, is the Ultimate Truth, the mind becomes completely
reconciled in Him only.

PURPORT

Foolish persons, bewildered by the external energy of Visnu, do not
know that the ultimate goal of the progressive search after happiness is to
get into touch directly with Lord Visnu, the Personality of Godhead.
Visnu-tattva is an unlimited expansion of different transcendental forms
of the Personality of Godhead, and the supreme or original form of Visnu-
tattva is Govinda or Lord Krsna, the supreme cause of all causes. Therefore,
thinking of Visnu or meditation upon the transcendental form of Visnu,
specifically upon Lord Krsna, is the last word on the subject of meditation.
This meditation may be begun from the lotus feet of the Lord. One should
not, however, forget or be misled from the complete form of the Lord;
thus one should practice thinking of the different parts of His transcenden-
tal body, one after another. Here in this verse, it is definitely assured that
the Supreme Lord is not impersonal. He is a person, but His body
is different from those of conditioned persons like us. Otherwise,
meditation beginning from the pranava omkara up to the limbs of
the personal body of Visnu would not have been recommended by
Sukadeva Gosvami for the attainment of complete spiritual perfection.
The Visnu forms of worship in great temples of India are not, therefore,
arrangements of idol worship, as it is wrongly interpreted by a class of men
with a poor fund of knowledge, but they are different spiritual centers of
meditation on the transcendental limbs of the body of Visnu. The wor-
shipable deity in the temple of Visnu is identical with Lord Visnu by the
inconceivable potency of the Lord. Therefore, a neophyte’s concentration
or meditation upon the limbs of Visnu in the temple, as contemplated in
the revealed scriptures, is an easy opportunity for meditation for persons
who are unable to sit down tightly at one place and then concentrate upon
pranava omkara or the limbs of the body of Visnu, as recommended herein
by Sukadeva Gosvami, the great authority. The common man can benefit
more by meditating on the form of Visnu in the temple than on the
omkara, the spiritual combination of A.U.M. as explained before. There is
no difference between omkara and the forms of Visnu, but persons who
are unacquainted with the science of Absolute Truth try to create
dissension by differentiating between the forms of Visnu and that of
