Question: I have a question about origins. We say Krishna is the source or origin of all incarnations and also all living entities. From Krishna expands Vishnu and all the other expansions. Does this mean there was some point in time when there were no expansions? We say in the spiritual world there is no time or time is conspicuous by its absence. But as soon as we say origin, it looks like the time factor is being introduced. So what does it mean to say origin in terms of spiritual matters?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
The various expansions of Krishna, including the Vishnu expansions as well as the living entities, are described as being *co-eternal* with Krishna. It is the limitation of language, which is unavoidable, as our acarya Bhaktivinode Thakura writes, to speak of spiritual events using worldly language, eg describing Krishna as the `origin’ of these eternal
expansions. Yet Krishna is their source (janmady asya yathah) while the others are emanations.
Krishna’s expanding Himself in this way is not a chronological event, but “an ontological event”. In other words, it is not that at one point in time there was just Krishna, and after some time lapse the other manifestations of the spiritual world came into being. Such a
description would be appropriate for material events. In this case, the term ‘origin’ or ‘source of emanation’ in spiritual manifestations indicates a transcendental relationship between two spiritual entities. The Absolute Whole refers to Krishna with all His transcendental expansions and paraphernalia.
The position of Krishna as the ‘source of all spiritual emanations’ is beyond the grasp of our conditioned minds, accustomed and limited to conceive of events only in a relative time-sequential way. Our material mind and intelligence are in themselves products within material time, and thus have a beginning and end. These faculties cannot conceive of something that lies beyond the purview of time. This understanding can be realized by the soul through the cultivation of bhakti yoga.
