SRI ISOPANISHAD THEMATIC STUDY (ACCORDING TO SRILA BHAKTIVINODA THAKURA’S TATTVA-SUTRA), SASTRA CAKSUS YEAR 2, LECTURE #2, 15th Sep 2011

• Anything outside the Lord is padartha, but He is beyond everything.
• Upanishads are still given in story form, but the philosophical element is prominent. Puranas give much more detail, so story is more prominent.
• Upanishads are more meant for someone on the platform on jnana.

• The Lord cannot be scrutinized by anyone.
• The freedom to go out and do whatever one wants, actually reduces one's power and position. Powerful people are not seen and scrutinizable.
• There is nothing we can do to make the Lord reveal Himself to us.
• Deism believes that Lord created the universe and its laws, but is not in any way involved with running it. (to avoid putting fault on God for the bad of this world)
• Saying Prabhupada is from spiritual world and therefore does not know how material functions, therefore 'let us run things here' is actually deism.
• Deifying brings things back to us doing the work and considering ourself the controller and enjoyer.
• The difficuly with deism is that if something is beyond, there can be no connection.
• Theologians are easier to discuss with that common Christian priests and laymen because there is much more intelligence involved. Common man or priests consider us devil, if we bring up something that is intelligent, but that they cannot explain.
• For Vaishnavas there is nothing mystical.
• Bible says that out of anger God gave Adam and Eve flesh to eat, as a curse. So God has given the flesh, but it was a curse. That information is left out.
• Deism, monism, pantheism and dualism are actually atheistic. Modern Christianity is influenced by deism and dualism.
• Logic provides an understanding of the unknown through the known.
• Lord can be understood by His grace alone, through the devotional process.
• We don't have to prove that we exist in the Vedic understanding. That may be a Buddhist problem. Vedic problem is how to see things around us properly.
• There is no external proof needed in the relationship between the Lord and the living entity.
• We will not understand the Lord using intellect, we understand Him through cit potency descending in the parampara.
• Our own intellect establish that we exist, and the Lord establishes His own existence.
• The Christians have the intent that the Lord is there, but since the material world has nothing to do with Him, they invent their own laws.
• On the material platform both karma and jnana is produced from material energy. God made man from a lump of dirt, but it still means that consciousness has come from the material energy.
• The Lord can use material energy for His own purposes without being influenced by it in any way.
• Nirguna means that the Lord doesn't have any material qualities and is not influenced by the material energy.
• Some say that the acceptance of contradictions in the Lord will bring up irrational beliefs. But contradicting qualities are quite possible for the Lord. They are only impossible for phenomenal manifestation.
• Faith comes by association with devotees, but we only take that association when there is a spark of interest.
• Doing everything is based on faith. So in religion, at some point faith has to come in.
• One has to have incredible amounts of faith to believe in the modern science.
• Verses 4-5 describe and prove the inconceivable qualities of the Lord.
• Such statements are contradictory only for people with a poor fund of knowledge.
• The Lord is both personal and impersonal.
• The Lord is the superior quality in everything. For example, in intoxication one is looking for happiness, and that quality is Krishna. But other effects that intoxication creates have nothing to do with higher qualities.
• If one can actually see Krishna in everything, one will never go for the lower things, especially the sinful ones.