The Bhagavad-gita (7.24) indicates that impersonalists who consider Krishna’s form to be a temporary and illusory product of the impersonal Brahman are abuddhayah, bankrupt of intelligence.
Impersonalists conceive the Absolute Truth as impersonal, devoid of any personality, quality or activity – they are classic and tragic examples of taking a good thing so far as to make it disastrously bad.
The good thing about them is that they have gained an insight into the futility of all worldly forms. They have recognized that these forms being temporary can never offer lasting pleasure but can instead cause bondage and suffering. Consequently, they conclude that such forms are products of illusion, and seek a reality beyond these forms.
The bad thing about them is that they extrapolate their insight about forms from the material realm, where it holds true, to the spiritual realm, where it doesn’t. Gita wisdom informs us that the spiritual realm is characterized by non-decaying, non-temporal forms among which Krishna’s form is the supreme reality and manifests the ultimate beauty. Not knowing or taking heed of this information, the impersonalists make their insight about worldly forms into an absolute truth. They go so far as to place it on a pedestal higher than the actual Absolute Truth, Krishna. They infer erroneously and disastrously that Krishna’s form is a product of illusion, thereby directly contradicting the revealed wisdom of the Gita and the realized vision of great devotee-sages.
To mistake a counterfeit note to be genuine, as the materialists do by mistaking material forms to be real, is sad. But to mistake the genuine note to be false, as the impersonalists do by mistaking Krishna’s form to be illusory, is tragic. No wonder the Gita laments their intellectual bankruptcy.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 07 Text 24
“Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, was impersonal before and have now assumed this personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme.”
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