Question: In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna Himself says that He is ‘om’, and in His impersonal feature He is Brahman. Why does ISKCON not give due regards to om and impersonal Brahman, “nir vishesha shunya vadi”? [Editor’s Note: This is part of the pranama mantra for Srila Prabhupada describing his mission to defeat the impersonalists]. Also, we have to be humbler than the grass, so why develop a superiority complex over other modes of worship of His potencies, which are He Himself (how can His potencies, lower or higher, be different from Him)?
Answer by Romapada Swami: Krishna says that He is the basis of the impersonal Brahman [Bg 14.27]. The brahmajyoti is the effulgence of His transcendental body and ‘aum’ is a sound representation of Himself. Vaishnavas never disrespect or disregard the Brahman feature or the omkara, rather they extol them, seeing them as identical to the Supreme, just as we also find in Srila Prabhupada’s books. (Cf. purports to Bg. 7.8, 8.13, 9.17 etc)
However, a Vaishnava certainly takes objection to the impersonalist theory which maintains that the form of Krishna is a product of material transformation and that the Absolute Truth is the undifferentiated impersonal Brahman only (nirvishesha) or that in the ultimate issue there is no God and that everything is a void (shunya vadi). This is blasphemous to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and therefore a devotee cannot tolerate such an idea, and for the same reason Srila Prabhupada soundly defeated such ideas.
Regarding the second part of the question, the Supreme Lord and His energies are in one sense non-different, but there is certainly a difference between the energies and the Energetic, Who is the source and controller of all the energies? Everything in existence is ultimately an energy of the Supreme Lord, but as stated in Sri Ishopanishad, (Mantra 13) different results are obtained by worship of the Absolute Energetic and worship of the various energies. Therefore, Vaishnava devotees consider the Personality of Godhead, the reservoir of all the energies, to be the ultimate object of worship and devotion. Making such discrimination is not out of pride or to minimize the position of another, but just to see things in the proper perspective.
