Inexplicable

Expressions researched:
"inexplicable" |"inexplicably"

BG Chapters 7 - 12

BG 8.15, Translation and Purport:

After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

Since this temporary material world is full of the miseries of birth, old age, disease and death, naturally he who achieves the highest perfection and attains the supreme planet, Kṛṣṇaloka, Goloka Vṛndāvana, does not wish to return. The supreme planet is described in Vedic literature as avyakta and akṣara and paramā gati; in other words, that planet is beyond our material vision, and it is inexplicable, but it is the highest goal, the destination for the mahātmās (great souls). The mahātmās receive transcendental messages from the realized devotees and thus gradually develop devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and become so absorbed in transcendental service that they no longer desire elevation to any of the material planets, nor do they even want to be transferred to any spiritual planet. They only want Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa's association, and nothing else. That is the highest perfection of life. This verse specifically mentions the personalist devotees of the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. These devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness achieve the highest perfection of life. In other words, they are the supreme souls.

SB Preface and Introduction

SB Introduction:

At Vṛndāvana the Lord took bath in twenty-four important bathing places and ghāṭas. He traveled to all the twelve important vanas (forests). In these forests all the cows and birds welcomed Him, as if He were their very old friend. The Lord also began to embrace all the trees of those forests, and by doing so He felt the symptoms of transcendental ecstasy. Sometimes He fell unconscious, but He was made to regain consciousness by the chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. The transcendental symptoms that were visible on the body of the Lord during His travel within the forest of Vṛndāvana were all unique and inexplicable, and we have just given a synopsis only.

SB Canto 1

SB 1.9.15, Purport:

As far as the material or spiritual resources were required, there was no scarcity in the case of the Pāṇḍavas. Materially they were well equipped because two great warriors, namely Bhīma and Arjuna, were there. Spiritually the King himself was the symbol of religion, and above all of them the Personality of Godhead, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, was personally concerned with their affairs as the well-wisher. And yet there were so many reverses on the side of the Pāṇḍavas. Despite the power of pious acts, the power of personalities, the power of expert management and the power of weapons under the direct supervision of Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Pāṇḍavas suffered so many practical reverses, which can only be explained as due to the influence of kāla, inevitable time. Kāla is identical with the Lord Himself, and therefore the influence of kāla indicates the inexplicable wish of the Lord Himself. There is nothing to be lamented when a matter is beyond the control of any human being.

SB 1.11.37, Purport:

The mental speculators misunderstand Him as the Supreme Person, and they consider His impersonal features as inexplicable Brahman to be all. Such a conception is also the product of conditioned life because they cannot go beyond their own personal capacity. Therefore, one who considers the Lord on the level of one's limited potency is only a common man. Such a man cannot be convinced that the Personality of Godhead is always unaffected by the modes of material nature. He cannot understand that the sun is always unaffected by infectious matter. The mental speculators compare everything from the standpoint of experimental knowledge of their own selves. Thus when the Lord is found to act like an ordinary person in matrimonial bondage, they consider Him to be like one of them, without considering that the Lord can at once marry sixteen thousand wives or more. Due to a poor fund of knowledge they accept one side of the picture while disbelieving the other. This means that due to ignorance only they always think of Lord Kṛṣṇa as like themselves and make their own conclusions, which are absurd and unauthentic from the version of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

SB 1.13.44, Translation:

O King, in all circumstances, whether you consider the soul to be an eternal principle, or the material body to be perishable, or everything to exist in the impersonal Absolute Truth, or everything to be an inexplicable combination of matter and spirit, feelings of separation are due only to illusory affection and nothing more.

SB 1.17.23, Purport:

A question may be raised as to why a devotee should refrain from identifying an actor, although he knows definitely that the Lord is the ultimate doer of everything. Knowing the ultimate doer, one should not pose himself as ignorant of the actual performer. To answer this doubt, the reply is that the Lord is also not directly responsible, for everything is done by His deputed māyā-śakti, or material energy. The material energy is always provoking doubts about the supreme authority of the Lord. The personality of religion knew perfectly well that nothing can take place without the sanction of the Supreme Lord, and still he was put into doubts by the deluding energy, and thus he refrained from mentioning the supreme cause. This doubtfulness was due to the contamination of both Kali and the material energy. The whole atmosphere of the age of Kali is magnified by the deluding energy, and the proportion of measurement is inexplicable.

SB Canto 2

SB 2.6.39, Purport:

The impersonal conception of the Absolute Truth is also a form of the Lord called avyakta-mūrti. Mūrti means "form," but because His impersonal feature is inexplicable to our limited senses, He is the avyakta-mūrti form, and in that inexplicable form of the Lord the whole creation is resting; or, in other words, the whole creation is the Lord Himself, and the creation is also nondifferent from Him, but simultaneously He, as the original Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is aloof from the created manifestation. The impersonalist gives stress to the impersonal form or feature of the Lord and does not believe in the original personality of the Lord, but the Vaiṣṇavas accept the original form of the Lord, of whom the impersonal form is merely one of the features. The impersonal and personal conceptions of the Lord are existing simultaneously, and this fact is clearly described both in the Bhagavad-gītā and in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and also in other Vedic scriptures.

SB 2.7.47, Purport:

The relationship with the Lord is never broken; thus there is no grief and no fear. Such happiness is inexplicable by words, and there can be no attempt to generate such happiness by fruitive activities by arrangements and sacrifices. But we must also know that happiness, unbroken happiness exchanged with the Supreme Person, the Personality of Godhead as described in this verse, transcends the impersonal conception of the Upaniṣads. In the Upaniṣads the description is more or less negation of the material conception of things, but this is not denial of the transcendental senses of the Supreme Lord. Herein also the same is affirmed in the statements about the material elements; they are all transcendental, free from all contamination of material identification. And also the liberated souls are not devoid of senses; otherwise there cannot be any reciprocation of unhampered spiritual happiness exchanged between them in spontaneous unbroken joy. All the senses, both of the Lord and of the devotees, are without material contamination. They are so because they are beyond the material cause and effects, as clearly mentioned herein (sad-asataḥ param).

CC Adi-lila

CC Adi 5.14, Purport:

According to Sāṅkhya philosophy, the material cosmos is composed of twenty-four elements: the five gross material elements, the three subtle material elements, the five knowledge-acquiring senses, the five active senses, the five objects of sense pleasure, and the mahat-tattva (the total material energy). Empiric philosophers, unable to go beyond these elements, speculate that anything beyond them must be avyakta, or inexplicable. But the world beyond the twenty-four elements is not inexplicable, for it is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā as the eternal (sanātana) nature. Beyond the manifested and unmanifested existence of material nature (vyaktāvyakta) is the sanātana nature, which is called the paravyoma, or the spiritual sky. Since that nature is spiritual in quality, there are no qualitative differences there: everything there is spiritual, everything is good, and everything possesses the spiritual form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself. That spiritual sky is the manifested internal potency of Śrī Kṛṣṇa; it is distinct from the material sky, manifested by His external potency.

CC Adi 6.14-15, Purport:

There are two kinds of research to find the original cause of creation. One conclusion is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the all-blissful, eternal, all knowing form, is indirectly the cause of this cosmic manifestation and directly the cause of the spiritual world, where there are innumerable spiritual planets known as Vaikuṇṭhas, as well as His personal abode, known as Goloka Vṛndāvana. In other words, there are two manifestations—the material cosmos and the spiritual world. As in the material world there are innumerable planets and universes, so in the spiritual world there are also innumerable spiritual planets and universes, including the Vaikuṇṭhas and Goloka. The Supreme Lord is the cause of both the material and spiritual worlds. The other conclusion, of course, is that this cosmic manifestation is caused by an inexplicable unmanifested void. This argument is meaningless.

CC Madhya-lila

CC Madhya 8.207, Translation:

“There is an inexplicable fact about the natural inclinations of the gopīs. The gopīs never want to enjoy themselves with Kṛṣṇa personally."

Easy Journey to Other Planets

Easy Journey to Other Planets 1:

The atomic scientist may consider annihilating the material world by nuclear weapons, but his weapons cannot destroy the antimaterial world. The antimaterial particle is more clearly explained in the following lines:

It is neither cut into pieces by any material weapon, nor is it burnt by fire. Nor is it moistened by water, nor withered, nor dried up, nor evaporated in the air. It is indivisible, nonflammable and insoluble. Because it is eternal, it can enter into and leave any sort of body. Being steady by constitution, its qualities are always fixed. It is inexplicable, because it is contrary to all material qualities. It is unthinkable by the ordinary brain. It is unchangeable. No one, therefore, should ever lament for what is an eternal, antimaterial principle.

Renunciation Through Wisdom

Renunciation Through Wisdom 1.9:

The eight mystic perfections—aṇimā, laghimā, prāpti, prākāmya, and so on—which the yogī acquires during his discipline, are by-products of his yoga practice. In samādhi the yogī regards all these mystic perfections as insignificant. Many yogīs, after mastering a few of these mystic perfections, pretend to have mastered them all, and because of a restless mind they deviate from the goal of permanent samādhi. On the other hand, for the karma-yogī, the devotee of the Lord, there is no such possibility: his heart and concentration remain fixed on his goal because he always works for the pleasure of Lord Kṛṣṇa. He is always in samādhi, the yogī's ultimate destination. In the Lord's devotional service, the devotee experiences ever-fresh emotions, and his perfections become more mature, the transcendental bliss he relishes is inexplicable and inconceivable to mundane mercenaries.

Message of Godhead

Message of Godhead 1:

Being minute and thus invisible to our material eyes, the spirit soul is called inexplicable, inconceivable, and so on. The spirit soul is nonetheless understood to be eternal, because he is never subject to the ordeals of birth, death, disease, and old age or to any other physical transformations. Therefore, eternal peace and prosperity will be established only when there is vigorous propagation of this inexplicable, eternal religion of the living spirit soul. For then only shall we be relieved of physical transformations such as birth, death, disease, and old age. We should always remember, however, that this eternal religion of the soul is never bound by any physical limitation of people, place, or time.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

Lecture on SB 1.15.46 -- Los Angeles, December 24, 1973:

Liṅgam eva āśrama-khyātau. Liṅgam eva. A dress simply. Taking white dress, a gṛhastha, he may do like anything. He is gṛhastha. No. There are so many duties. Taking a saffron cloth, he is sannyāsī. These are the... If we explain, it will take more, but these are the symptoms. Avṛttyā nyāya-daurbalyaṁ pāṇḍitye cāpalaṁ vacaḥ. If you have no money, then you will never get justice in the court. This is Kali-yuga. Nowadays the high-court judges, they are taking bribe, to give you a favorable judgment. You can purchase judgment. So if you have no money, then don't go to court. To push good money after bad money. No. No. Avṛttyā nyāya-daurbalyaṁ pāṇḍitye cāpalaṁ vacaḥ. If a man talks expertly, it doesn't matter what he talks. Nobody requires to understand him. Then he is paṇḍita. He is (speaks gibberish:) "Haperkulasvena bagavad dagvendikali gundulas, by the lacticism of wife...," like, if you go on speaking, nobody will understand. (laughter) Nobody will understand, and people, "Oh, see how learned he is." (laughter) Actually it is happening. There are so many rascals. They are writing book, and "Oh, such and such, oh..." "What you have understand?" "Oh, it is inexplicable. Inexplicable." That is going on.

1969 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- April 11, 1969, New York:

Prabhupāda: So that brahmaṇanda is here, Kṛṣṇa. And dāsyaṁ gatānāṁ para daivatena. And for the devotees, He is the Supreme Lord. And māyāsritanam nara-dārakeṇa. Those who are covered in māyā, for them He is ordinary human boy. And with Him these boys are playing. They have amassed pious activities of many, many millions of births. Otherwise it was not possible. So they do not know Kṛṣṇa is God. They do not know. But their affection for Kṛṣṇa is so great and nice that it is inexplicable. They were playing, Kṛṣṇa is defeated. Oh, Kṛṣṇa has to take the friend on His shoulder. Yes, because He was defeated. So Kṛṣṇa is accepting, "Yes, come on My shoulder." So this Kṛṣṇa-līlā, that also one who tries to understand and understands, they are also like those boys who have amassed pious activities of many, many births. It is not ordinary thing. Yes. And māyāśritānāṁ nara dārakeṇa. Those who are under the clutches of māyā, they will think these Kṛṣṇa's pastimes, "What is this? What is this? Kṛṣṇa conscious persons, they are enjoying about Kṛṣṇa's going to the field with some cows?" Yes. Just like one of our students, that Raṇacora. He asked me, "Swamiji, how is that God has become a cowherd boy?" Yes. Because ordinary people, they are thinking God must be so great, so great, great, that they cannot conceive. And that great personality, how He becomes a cowherd boy playing with cowherd boys? Yes. Brahmā also became astonished, and therefore he came to check "Whether He is my Lord or not?"

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation with Rosicrucians -- August 13, 1973, Paris:

Prabhupāda: Ramakrishna is bogus.

Yogeśvara: He says that this is not a new order, this Rosicrucian order. It goes back at least as far as Ancient Egypt.

Prabhupāda: That's all right, but you do not know what is the aim of your this progress.

Yogeśvara: He says all he can is repeat to you his answer previously, which is that (it) is to reach the perfection of consciousness at which point man is in communion, in unity with the beyond. He calls it the cela (French), "the inexplicable."

Prabhupāda: But he cannot express what is that beyond. But he cannot describe what is God. That is imperfect knowledge.

Yogeśvara: He says that communion with God is something that is subjective; it's something you experience, not that you describe.

Prabhupāda: That is not perfect.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 1, 1976, Mayapur:

Prabhupāda: Wherefrom the atom comes?

Hṛdayānanda: The atom is the eternal fact. It is inconceivable or it's unexplainable where it has come from.

Prabhupāda: Then what is the use of your explaining? Then you prove yourself you are a rascal. Inexplicable? Why you are trying to explain?

Guru-kṛpā: "We're not explaining. We're just accepting it's a fact."

Prabhupāda: So everything is fact. But the real knowledge is to find out the source of the fact. That is real knowledge. Just like if we ask any gentleman—at least in India—for your identification, your father's name is required, your name of the village is required. If you go to the court, then such and such; father's name, such and such; village, this; religion, this; like this.... So father.... Why father's name? "What is the source of your existence? Wherefrom you are coming?" "I am coming from this family." So that is knowledge. Atom.... Atomic theory is there in Vedic conception, paramāṇuvāda. Kaṇada, the great sage, Kaṇada, he gave this theory, Kaṇada. Paramāṇuvāda. Paramāṇuvād. Paramāṇuvāda is accepted in Vedic philosophy also. But we know what is this paramāṇu also. Just like the sunshine. What is the sunshine? A combination of shining atoms. But we can see it is coming from the sun, incessantly coming. We can see. We can, immediately say, "This is.... The source is the sun." Similarly, the paramanu, the atoms, they are incessantly coming out. But wherefrom it is coming?