Questions & Answers
Questions & Answers

Self- and Brahman Realization

Question: How can the jīva be a witness of the mind if the mind is the very instrument through which the jīva’s knowledge capacity is actualized since without being conjoined with the body-mind complex jīva’s potential to apprehend remains dormant or idle? Answer: All the material experience of the jīva is outside of him, not

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Questions & Answers

Brahma’s Daughter, Touching Feet, Yugas, Confidential Items

Question: In Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.12, we find Brahmā desiring and becoming passionate about his own daughter Vāk. Since Brahmā’s daughter is called Vāk (“spoken word”), may we conclude that Brahmā’s heinous intention is connected to how difficult it is to control the urge of the tongue, specifically in relation to the impulse for speech? Answer:

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Questions & Answers Sandarbhas

The Nature of Absolute Nondual Reality

Question: In Bhagavat Sandarbha, Anuccheda 3, Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī cites Viṣṇu Purāṇa (6.5.66–69): That which is unmanifest, free from aging, inconceivable, unborn, never decaying, indefinable and formless, which is thus devoid of hands, legs and other such bodily limbs; which is supreme, all-pervading, eternal, the cause of all beings, yet without any cause; which is

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Questions & Answers

Stories in Srimad Bhagavata: literal or allegorical?

Question: Apart from the known allegorical stories in the Bhāgavata, can we take the rest of the pastimes as literal? I ask because the cosmology in the Fifth Canto is different from modern astronomy. Even cosmology according to Sūrya Siddhānta is quite different from the Bhāgavata. Are the cosmology and other pastimes in the Bhāgavata then

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Gaudiya Philosophy Questions & Answers

Spiritual Bodies and the Internal Potency

Question: Would you please explain about spiritual body of the jīva? When the jīva enters spiritual realm of Kṛṣṇa, does the soul get a beautiful spiritual body? Or does the soul already possess such an eternal body, which is with us right now? Answer: The soul does not possess any body. It is formless. It

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Bhakti Questions & Answers Sadhana

Dealings among Devotees, Krishna’s Involvement

Question: How shall I deal with a situation when a person in the position of an authority is acting inappropriately? As I consider you an authority in spiritual literature, Vedic spiritual history and so on, perhaps you can give me some new aspects or views.  Answer: If it does not concern you directly, and if

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Questions & Answers

Bhagavān’s Potencies

Question: In Anuccheda 16 of the Bhagavat Sandarbha, it is explained that Bhagavān’s potencies are intrinsic to Him because He alone existed before anything came into existence—aham eva asam eva agre (SB 2.9.33). The commentary mentions that this proves that the potencies are inherent in Brahman. But we also see that the māyā-śakti is not

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