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Swami Prakashanand Saraswati explains that while God’s abstract energy exists, it becomes meaningful only when experienced in a perceivable form. Just as electricity is invisible but proves its existence through its effects, God’s divine form allows devotees to experience His beauty and love.

According to Swami Prakashanand Saraswati:

Abstract or formless things exist but they are simply energy or energies. They cannot be associated with, experienced, or perceived. But because they do exist, they also exist in a perceivable form. So, the abstract existence is proved from the perceivable substance. This is an axiom. From a perceived object, its abstract existence is proved.

Electric power proved electricity exists. With the perceived experience we know that energy exists as abstract. So, the abstract form of God is proved with the Personified Form of God. Whenever one has experienced or perceived the beauty of God, the love of God, the form of God, the charm of God, he says, “Oh yes, this is Godhead Personality, but I didn’t realize Him before.” He existed before but in an energy form.

You are shivering because it’s snowing outside, and your heater has gone off. But electricity is around you; why can’t you use it? Why are you shivering? Because something has gone wrong with the wiring or connections. When electricity is evolved into an experiential form, then that has use, otherwise, it is of no use.

Similarly, when the power or energy of God appears in a perceivable form, that form of Godhead Personality is beautiful, charming, and loving to an unlimited limit – that is why we call Him Godhead Personality.

He has a personality but not like yours. You have a material personality; God has a Divine personality. You have a material brain and mind; He has a Divine mind. You have a body of flesh and bones; He has a body, but not like your body of flesh and bones. How? Before you experience Him, this is beyond understanding. After you experience Him, then everything becomes understandable, because you understand God with the mind of God. You see His form with the eyes of God. You embrace God with the body of God. This theory has been explained in one single verse in the Gita.

नतुमांशक्यसेद्रष्टुमनेनैवस्वचक्षुषा।

दिव्यंददामितेचक्षुःपश्यमेयोगमैश्वरम्॥

Arjun said, “Krishn, I want to see You.” Krishn said, “See Me. I’m standing in front of you.” Arjun said, “But I can’t see You in Your Divine Beauty.” Krishn said, “You cannot see Me, because with physical eyes you see physical things. With My eyes, you can see Me.”

The word dadami means, “I give it to you.” Krishn gave His vision. He put His vision into the eyes of Arjun, and with that vision Arjun saw Krishn. So, with Krishn’s eyes, one can see Krishn. With Krishn’s body, one can embrace and love Krishn. With Krishn’s ears, one can hear Krishn’s flute. With Krishn’s nose, one can smell His perfume. This is called the Grace of Krishn.

When Krishn Graces, He imparts His power into the heart, mind, and soul of a devotee, and then that devotee receives the same power which Krishn has. So with that received power, he perceives Krishn. The material power is finished, and he has only Divine power.

Conclusion: True realization of God comes not through material senses but through His divine grace. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati highlights how Krishn bestows His vision upon devotees, enabling them to see, hear, and embrace Him with divine perception, leading to ultimate spiritual fulfillment.

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati is a profound spiritual guide who emphasizes the transcendence of material and psychic experiences to reach God-realization. He taught that Divine Love, which is beyond all worldly phenomena, is the ultimate truth and path to eternal happiness.

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati Explains:

Our scriptures and our Masters pointed the power of God out which is beyond this material phenomena. Not within; beyond. Your body, the world you live in, and your mental experiences, what are they? They are all material existence. You see dreams. What is that? A state of your mind. Some people can see while they are sitting with closed eyes. What is that? It is psychic experience.

There are two kinds of lights: psychic light and material light. When you see dream, do you see light? Some might say no, but how can you see if there is no light? When you are seeing a dream, light is there. It is illogical to say there is no light when you are seeing dream. So in that dream, everything is there. Whatever is here that you see with your open eyes when you are conscious, is also there.

So, you use subtle senses in the subtle world, and physical senses in the physical world. They are all material phenomena. There is no concern with God. God is entirely different from this existence, though He is absorbed in these existences. You cannot find Him, though He is omnipresent. He has no concern with these material existences. He is beyond.

For that reason, if your path of meditation is only related to the psychic phenomena, that can lead you only a few steps ahead in your psychic stage. Never to God. Because God is beyond material phenomena, beyond psychic phenomena, beyond celestial phenomena. There are not only two, there are three phenomena: material, psychic, and celestial. Beyond material, and beyond psychic, and beyond celestial phenomena, is the abode of God. And God is only the power of Love.

Can we imagine God? No. Why? Because imagination needs perception. What-ever you perceive, the same you can imagine. A blind person has never perceived any color so he can have no imagination about color. You have seen a tree so you can imagine a big, huge tree in a jungle. You can imagine, “Oh, I have seen a tree in my garden, and a garden with trees that is hundreds of miles wide, that might be a jungle.” You need to have some perception about that particular thing, then you can imagine a greater limit. But if you have no perception of anything then you cannot imagine. For that reason, God cannot be imagined. God, God’s qualities, His form, His omnipresence, His virtues – they cannot be imagined. Similarly, God’s love cannot be imagined.

This world has dissatisfaction and unhappiness, and the Divine world has complete happiness with no dissatisfaction. Just the opposite. You see, in material love – take the example of two people, a wife and a husband who love each other very much. Suppose the husband was gone for six months on a long tour, and he came back, and they both met. After six months there was a great excitement, great emotion.

They ran and embraced. How long were they in that stage? A few minutes. How long did the excitement last? A few hours. It might be that after three to four hours they start quarreling on some issue. In just four hours they started quarreling because there was some dispute in the thoughts of both people. Take that instance when they both met together after six months’ separation, that first moment they experienced the maximum love. After some time, it was reduced. After some time, it was further reduced. After a few hours it became normal.

That is the nature of material love: it reduces and slowly fades. But Divine love is ever-increasing.

Conclusion

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s teachings clearly explainthe distinction between material existence and the Divine realm. He revealed that while material love diminishes over time, Divine Love is boundless and ever-increasing, leading the soul to unparalleled bliss and God-realization. Through his wisdom, seekers are inspired to transcend worldly attachments and embrace the eternal joy of Divine Love.

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a revered spiritual leader, guides seekers on deepening their devotion to Krishn. In this Q&A, Swami Ji highlights the role of the intellect in strengthening our emotional connection with God, encouraging us to reflect on the urgency of finding Krishn, and the spiritual loss of missing this rare opportunity.

Question & Answer with Swami Ji

Question: How can I come closer to God?

Answer: There are two forms of mind: the emotional form, and the intellectual form. The intellect is the governing power in your personality. Whatever your intellect decides to do you act accordingly. You want to see, you don’t want to see, you want to get up, you want to lie down. Your mind says all the time, “This is bad. This is good. Go there. Follow this.” It is all the decisive mind, the intellect.

The simple answer is, the more deeply you understand with your intellect that, “Oh, I must love Krishn, He is my only beloved,” the more deeply you feel for Krishn. If there is less understanding, there is less giving of the heart. If there is more understanding there is more giving of the heart. Understand and you have given your heart simultaneously. There is not even a fraction of a second delay.

I’ll give you an example. There was a little boy. His school was past a wooded area, so he used to get scared when he came home in the evenings. One day he told his mother. She said, “You have an older brother, he lives in the woods. His name is Gopal and if you need him, he will come.”

One day when he was coming home late, he got really scared, in the dark jungle with wild beasts, jackals howling. He called out, “Gopal, Gopal, Gopal, GOPAL!” He called as if he was going to die. Gopal had to come. Gopal means Krishn.

Now take this whole incident. The boy took it to his heart in the very beginning when his mother told him, “Your brother is there.” He liked the idea of having someone, but he was not that desperate. But when he saw the disaster, he was desperate, “Oh, I have to find my brother Gopal.” He gave his heart completely to Krishn and He had to appear.

The same thing happens with every devotee. First, how seriously do you take that He is yours? Then, how seriously do you take it that if you don’t meet Him in this lifetime, what may happen. There are two things, what you will gain by finding Krishn and what you will lose if you don’t find Him. Both things incite your excitement towards finding Him.

If we keep these two things in our intellect our heart is already given to Krishn – to the extent of our understanding of that Divine love, which Brahma sought for millions of years but did not find. Oh, that love?! How great it is. And if you lose this chance? You may lose millions, trillions of lifetimes. Who knows?

Conclusion:

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati emphasizes that a deep intellectual understanding of Krishn’s divinity naturally opens the heart to divine love. By recognizing the urgency of connecting with Krishn and understanding the profound loss if we don’t, we can strengthen our devotion and draw closer to Him in this lifetime.

The teachings of Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a revered spiritual guide, are dedicated to guiding devotees on their path to Radha-Krishn’s divine love. Heemphasizes the importance of self-reflection and sincere devotion for spiritual progress. In this insightful Q&A session, Swami Ji explains the true markers of progress on the devotional path, highlighting the role of faith, reduced material attachments, and unwavering confidence in Krishn’s presence. Through his profound answers, he inspires seekers to trust in the grace of their Master and the transformative power of divine love.

Question & Answer with Swami Prakashanand Saraswati

Question: How can we determine how much progress we are making on the path?

Answer: There are many factors involved in progress. Your past sanskars and your present devotion are the main ones. Past sanskars include all kinds of good and bad sanskars. Present devotion includes present association, study, environment, attachments, faith, dedication, and discipline in doing devotions. All these factors determine your devotion. So it becomes difficult for your own mind to judge its progress. This your Master knows.

Progress means faith and confidence.

Suppose a devotee has received for the first time divine-love-consciousness and he feels a great thrill and longing in his heart, tears in his eyes, and another devotee is not feeling those things, but he has great expectations, hope, that Krishn will surely come to him soon. Outwardly both look very different, the first looks very highly evolved, the second just ordinary, but it may be the other way. The first one might not have that much confidence in Krishn coming quickly to him. The second one might have more confidence and faith in Krishn. So it is very difficult to judge on your own.

However, you can see your material attachment. Is it lessening or not? If it is not increasing, if it is staying the same it’s not bad. It should not be increasing.

How much faith do you have? Faith means how much confidence you have that Krishn will really come, “I will see Krishn, without doubt.” With this feeling, you feel a kind of closeness with Radha and Krishn, while working, or not working, even while sleeping you feel Krishn is always with you. So, both decrease in your material attachments, and an increase in your feeling of confidence and closeness with Krishn are a few indications of your progress. But don’t try to judge others. When you cannot judge your own progress exactly, how can you judge others?

If you want to know exactly where you are, think in another way. How much love, reverence, confidence, faith do you have in your Master and Radha Krishn? More than that they give you Their own Grace and blessings.

Conclusion: Swami Prakashanand Saraswati shares that true progress involves reducing material attachments, deepening our faith, and feeling closer to Radha-Krishn. Trust in your Master’s grace and their divine guidance to stay steadfast on the path of devotion.