[Just before Śrīla Gurudeva’s initiation ceremony, he was visited by Dādā Dharma-vedānanda, a yoga master, therapist, and founder of the Ananda Marga Wellness Center.]
Śrīla Gurudeva: What is the aim and object of your society?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Self-realization and service to others.
Śrīla Gurudeva: How? Can ladies and gentlemen dance together and live together?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: No, no. I am celibate. I am a sannyāsī. We are very strict in our discipline. I fast four times a month, and we have a strict sattvika diet.
Śrīla Gurudeva: What is the name of that sādhu who died?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: You are talking about Rajaneesh.
Śrīla Gurudeva: We have a strong repulsion towards Rajaneesh. I thought you are from that group.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Rajaneesh and Ananda Marga are very different.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Then, very good. Do you accept God?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Of course.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Do you accept that Kṛṣṇa and Rāma are God?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: You are speaking about Deities. We respect all Deities.
Śrīla Gurudeva: But who is your Deity? Who is your iṣṭadeva (worshipful Deity)?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: There are two factors. One factor is parama-puruṣa, the supreme consciousness.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Who is He?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Secondly, we also have the concept of guru.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Guru is God?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: No, guru is not God.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Who is guru?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Guru is a means to realize God.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Who is the Supreme Lord? Does He have a form?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: The Supreme Being is infinite.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Does He have a form?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: He is with form and without form. The infinite has no limitations.
Śrīla Gurudeva: If He has a form, then He must have a name and qualities.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Yes. Everything and everyone is a manifestation of God.
Śrīla Gurudeva: We are also God?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Everything is a manifestation of God.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Explain clearly. You are God, but now you have been covered by māyā? Is this right?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: This is a concept.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Is this your concept, or not?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: I am an expression of God. I am an expression of the infinite, just as the different colors of the rainbow are the expression of the white light.
Śrīla Gurudeva: If you are God, the Supreme Lord, and now you have been covered by māyā, why were you covered by māyā? Who covered you?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: I can only guess.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Do you follow any bhakti-śāstras such as the Vedas, Upaniṣads, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā, or the Koran or Bible?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: In every scripture there is something good.
Śrīla Gurudeva: What do you follow?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: I don’t follow any particular scripture. In Ananda-mārga, we quote the Vedas, Tantras, and Upaniṣads.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Do you know Śaṅkarācārya?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Yes.
Śrīla Gurudeva: What has he taught?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: When he was about to die, he said that bhakti-yoga is the quickest way.
Śrīla Gurudeva: But what was the main subject of his writing? What did he write before that?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: He confused people.
Śrīla Gurudeva: I think you should follow the Vedas. The essence of the Vedas is Vedānta-sutra, and the explanation of Vedānta is Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. If you want to be happy in your life, try to give up all other conceptions; accept the teachings of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. If you do this, you will realize that ‘I am happy,’ and you will make others happy also. Otherwise, in my conception, what you are telling will not suffice.
What is the proof for your concept of the Absolute Truth?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: There is an infinite Being.
Śrīla Gurudeva: That is okay, but can He be finite or not?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: All the colors and forms that we see are finite. Right?
Śrīla Gurudeva: God is infinite; and He is also finite, meaning that He has a form: Do you know this verse: pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya?
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Please elaborate.
Śrīla Gurudeva: This the first verse from Śrī Īśopaniṣad:
oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ
pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate[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.]
Kṛṣṇa is infinite, pūrṇam, and at the same time He lays on the lap of Mother Yaśodā as a small baby. The entire universe is within Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa is within the universe. This is the conception of the Vedas. Kṛṣṇa is infinite, even when He is on the lap of Mother Yaśodā. We cannot conceive of this truth with our intelligence, but the Vedas, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and Bhagavad-gītā teach us with perfect evidence, and we accept their teachings.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Everything that we see is finite. Is that right?
Śrīla Gurudeva: This body is finite, but the person who is speaking [the jīva] is beyond the finite body. The Soul of all souls, brahma [the Supreme Absolute Truth, Śrī Kṛṣṇa], is also within the body. Without brahma there is no existence.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: That is good. Now, is the finite a part of the infinite?
Śrīla Gurudeva: Our soul is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. Our body is material.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: The body is finite, and the finite is part of the infinite. Outside of the infinite, there cannot be anything.
Śrīla Gurudeva: The body is not part of brahma, or the Supreme Lord. It is part of the deluding material māyā. Kṛṣṇa has many potencies, of which māyā is one. In this way, the material body is a manifestation of māyā; not of Kṛṣṇa and His cit-śakti (spiritual potency).
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Yes.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Thank you for coming.
Śyāmārāṇī dāsī: We say that God has form, and no form. He is a person, and impersonal. We say that the personal form is supreme. He is the source of His impersonal aspect. On the other hand, Ananda Marga says that the impersonal aspect is supreme.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: No, we don’t say that. The personal is the inspiration. Personally, I am not interested to merge into the impersonal. My interest is to go on serving and loving as much as I can. Kṛṣṇa – if we want to call it Kṛṣṇa, that is fine with me – Kṛṣṇa is the expression of love. I want to merge in that.
Śrīla Gurudeva: God is love, in the sense that Kṛṣṇa Himself is love. He is more than love.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: Yes; that from which everything comes.
Thank you so much. I enjoyed meeting you.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Thank you. I was in confusion, thinking that you are from ‘Bhagavān’ Rajaneesh. So, you are okay. I am happy that you don’t want to merge into the Supreme Lord, and that you want to have love and affection and serve Him.
Dādā Dharma-vedānanda: You know, not only do I respect what you are doing, but I love what you are doing. It is very beautiful.
Śrīla Gurudeva: Thank you.
Excerpted from the Gaudiya Vedanta Publication "Walking With a Saint 2009"