“The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the complete whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance” (Sri Ishopanishad, Invocation).
Science of Identity Foundation – Tusta Krishna Das
Two more principles characterize the
Bhagavata,
viz., liberty and progress of the soul throughout eternity. The
Bhagavata teaches us that God gives us truth and He gave it to Vyasa, when we earnestly seek for it. Truth is eternal and unexchausted. The soul receives a revelation when it is anxious for it. The souls of the great thinkers of the by-gone ages, who now live spiritually, often approach our inquiring spirit and assist it in its development. Thus Vyasa was assisted by Narada and Brahma. Our
sastras, or in other words, books of thought do not contain all that we could get from the infinite Father. No book is without its errors. God's revelation is absolute truth, but it is scarcely received and preserved in its natural purity. We have been advised in the 14th Chapter of llth
skandha of the
Bhagavata to believe that truth when revealed is absolute, but it gets the tincture of the nature of the receiver in course of time and is converted into error by continual exchange of hands from age to age. New revelations, therefore, are continually necessary in order to keep truth in its original purity. We are thus warned to be careful in our studies of old authors, however wise they are reputed to be. Here we have full liberty to reject the wrong idea, which is not sanctioned by the peace of conscience. Vyasa was not satisfied with what he collected in the
Vedas, arranged in the
Puranas and composed in the
Mahdbharata. The peace of his conscience did not sanction his labors. It told him from inside “No, Vyasa! you can’t rest contented with the erroneous picture of truth which was necessarily presented to you by the sages of by-gone days! You must yourself knock at the door of the inexhaustible store of truth from which the former ages drew their wealth. Go, go up to the Fountain-head of truth where no pilgrim meets with disappointment of any kind.” Vyasa did it and obtained what he wanted. We have been all advised to do so. Liberty then is the principle, which we must consider as the most valuable gift of God. We must not allow ourselves to be led by those who lived and thought before us. We must think for ourselves and try to get further truths which are still undiscovered. In the 23rd text 21st Chapter llth
skandha of the
Bhagavata we have been advised to take the spirit of the
sastras and not the words. The
Bhagavata is therefore a religion of liberty, unmixed truth and absolute love.