sattvät sanjäyate jnänam

Prabhupada does say that “Even in preparing the forms of the lord, there is individual taste.” In the Bhagavatam Krishna is said to be highly theatrical. I mean, look at Krishna. Krishna dressed in this real punk way. If you read the Mahabharata, they were totally punk- I don’t mean they had blue hair, they didn’t have spikes, or tongue rings or anything, but when Krishna, Bhima and Arjuna dressed up, they dressed in this really far out way and they went to city as kinda like young punks. They started Vandalism and tearing thing up. The Mahabharata say that they didn’t go in the main entrance- they just kinda went over one of the main hills and started ripping things apart and making their own road.
So Krishna is theatrical. What to speak of wearing Khakis or a polo shirt. Krishna comes as a HOG! If you want to talk about being- like… an incredible concept of come as you are. Think about it, here is Krishna- as we know- Krishna has this human life form- and yet he decides to come as a fish. Its like this supreme personality of surfer, Krishna, and he surf the waves of annihilation. I mean those are the biggest waves in the universe. So when Krishna comes to swim, he surfs the biggest waves. These are waves- of who knows- of millions of miles wide. Tiresome. And there he is as a fish, surfing these waves. Krishna comes as a tortoise, come on a tortoise? We are dealing with an extremely fun loving guy. I mean Krishna is god. It not like material hedonism- but Krishna is really really far out. He says “I am here for your party”. (laughter)

The way I put it is sometimes it is not that God is playing like Krishna, Krishna is sorta like playing like God, doing the God thing because some people need it. But he comes to this world and says, “OK I’ll be the God of religion, do your thing”.

Purusottma means “the ultimate guy”. So here he is the Purusottma, Krishna- he is a person- and he thinks “OK I am going to come down to the material world, and be a FISH”, “I am going to be a tortoise.” – “I am going to be a HOG”- Its very far out. So look at that we are dealing with: Krishna. He is this incredible creative, supremely theatrical, far out; I’ll do anything if I feel like it, Supreme Personality of Godhead.

It’s not as if there is a God who plays as if he is a teenager. He actually is a teenager. Otherwise you’d be left with this absurd implication or entailment- this absurd notion that Krishna is different from his body. The absurd notion that there is some essence of Krishna- that there is some divine essence of Krishna that is different from Krishna himself. That this essence of Krishna is in the body of this far out teenager. As we know Krishna is not different. This is in fact what Prabhupada says- he criticized that Dr. Radhakrishna, the highly learned clueless scholar- who said that- this referrers Man-manavo, it doesn’t refers to Krishna but to the unborn essence within Krishna. The idea there is some essential God that plays like Krishna is not our philosophy. Our Philosophy that Krishna really is God. Whether you like it or not- God really is a teenager. Live with it. That’s Krishna. He’s our guy. He’s young, He’s playful- that’s really him. It’s the other stuff that he is doing for our benefit. It is like He is agreeing to be the object of religion.

As far as I can understand there is no religion in the spiritual world. There are no temples. They don’t have formal religion in Krishnaloka, where people are attending services. They don’t practice anything. That’s the whole point. When you have the whole universe where no one is practicing anything, there is no formal religion. Religion as we know it is an instrument given by God- for our purification. Sadhana is religion. Religion means you practice religion, that’s sadhana-bhakti. But when you have a world where no one is practicing Sadhana-bhakti; no one is practicing anything. Everyone is just following their Raga.