The incredible thought which no one in want of His power of knowledge (bhakti) does not even dare to think is this: each and everyone, all of His forms are always present everywhere but are not visible as long as we are ignorant and in want of premabhakti. The Inner Guide (antaryami), the different Vishnus, the different realms of Vaikuntha: Ayodhya, Goloka etc., everything is always present everywhere at the same time, and nothing but Him; each form, each respective “realm” fills everything without gaps in time and space.
The mundane law that only makes it possible for one thing to be present at a certain place at a certain time does not exist in the realm of Reality, where an infinite number of different cit-forms and cit-realms are present everywhere at the same time. – This is acintya . And according to his individual nature the atma experiences, through bhakti, that very Divine realm as filling everything perpetually to which he belongs according to his inner nature – and in this realm, where he is at home, he does not experience any other realm and any other form of the Absolute.
Our mundane concepts of time and space only govern the realm where bhakti and knowledge do not prevail, as in the case of the physical laws of gravity and penetration etc.; when one object, at a certain time, is at a certain place in space, another object cannot be there at the same time: I have to push away a book in order to put another one in its place etc. And when the Shastrams tell about above and below, one realm above the other etc., it is only to indicate the different degrees of intensity in the different realms of the lila.
What Mahaprabhu says here (Madhya-Lila 10.130) is not mysticism or “Indian thinking”. It does not arise from any human brain, Indian or other; it is not possible to grasp for any brain, anywhere on this earth. It is about God’s Own metaphysics, that He Himself gives, from His point of view, and no one likes this, neither here, nor in the west.
Mysticism appears when man approaches the Absolute from his angle; this can still be understood in some way, still be sensed intuitively. Shastram means that which governs us, restrains, corrects, chastises us. It is not the way you think, says the Shastram. – What you yourself like, feel, love and think: the Absolute etc. must be like this or that – let go of it, altogether. Listen to what I, the Shastram, say, and you must accept it – if you have shraddha, at all – and hear it over and over again, however unpleasant, uncomfortable and totally contrary to your expectation it may be. – And when you receive bhakti, which is nirguna-shakti (free from Maya’s gunas), in order to understand the Absolute and God’s realm, which are beyond the gunas, then you will understand that this, which now seems impossible and abstruse to you, is true.
Please, always remember and don’t be afraid of hammering into the West this absolutely revolutionary metaphysics, seen from the viewpoint of God. Without a powerful shock, which knocks us off our feet and removes the whole metaphysical foundation we believe in, there is no hope whatsoever of getting even the faintest idea of what God, what Krishna, what Caitanya is.
We don’t do anyone a favour by trying to facilitate “the transition” for him. – There is no transition. It doesn’t matter if people ridicule, deride your book, and consider you and me mad. If only one single person gets a powerful shock – like I got – then all the efforts, all the strain of your work have reached Krishna. You must write for God, not for people.
Svami Sadananda Dasa