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hiraṇmayena pātreṇa
satyasyāpihitaṁ mukham
tat tvaṁ pūṣann apāvṛṇu
satya-dharmāya dṛṣṭaye

SYNONYMS

hiraṇmayena—by a golden effulgence; pātreṇa—by a dazzling covering; satyasya—of the Supreme Truth; apihitam—covered; mukham—the face; tat—that covering; tvam—Yourself; pūṣan—O sustainer; apāvṛṇu—kindly remove; satya—pure; dharmāya—unto the devotee; dṛṣṭaye—for exhibiting

TRANSLATION

O my Lord, sustainer of all that lives, Your real face is covered by Your dazzling effulgence. Kindly remove that covering and exhibit Yourself to Your pure devotee.

PURPORT

Realization of the impersonal spiritual effulgence of the Lord is incomplete without realization of His personal form, because His personal aspect is the cause of the impersonal Brahman. The Lord explains the brahmajyoti, or dazzling effulgence of His personal form, as follows:

brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham
amṛtasyāvyayasya ca
śāśvatasya ca dharmasya
sukhasyaikāntikasya ca

“I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal, and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.” [Bhagavad-gita 14.27]

Without the personal form of the Supreme, the impersonal effulgence could not exist. He emanates the Brahman effulgence from His personal form as Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan are the three primary aspects of the Absolute Truth:

vadanti tat tattva-vidas
tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti paramātmeti
bhagavān iti śabdyate

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.11]

The Brahman aspect is most easily realized by the beginning transcendentalist; Paramatma, the indwelling Supersoul and eternal friend of the individual spirit soul, is realized by intermediate students of the Absolute Truth; and Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita as follows:

mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat
kiñcid asti dhanañjaya
mayi sarvam idaṁ protaṁ
sūtre maṇi-gaṇā iva

“O conquerer of wealth [Arjuna], there is no Truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.” [Bhagavad-gita 7.7]

Lord Krsna here confirms that He is the ultimate concept of the Absolute Truth: mattah parataram nanyat. Therefore Krsna is the source of the brahmajyoti as well as the all-pervading Paramatma. Krsna further explains:

atha vā bahunaitena
kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna
viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam
ekāṁśena sthito jagat

“But what need is there, Arjuna, for all this detailed knowledge? With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe.” [Bhagavad-gita 10.42]

Thus the Lord maintains the complete material cosmic creation by a single plenary expansion, the all-pervading Paramatma. He also maintains the expansive spiritual world, and supplies the necessities of all living entities. Therefore in this mantra of Sri Isopanisad, the Lord is addressed as pusan, the ultimate maintainer.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead Sri Krsna is always in complete transcendental bliss, and full of ecstatic unconditional love for all living entities. As stated in Vedanta-sutra, ananda-mayo 'bhyasat: the Supreme Brahman and the subordinate Brahman, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the individual living entities, are joyful by nature. The happiness experienced in Brahman realization is but a tiny fraction of the bliss we attain when we realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the ocean of all happiness.

When Krsna displayed His eternal Vrndavana pastimes in India 5,000 years ago, He was always in transcendental bliss. He displayed the full potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, even from the beginning of His childhood pastimes. Killing the demons who attacked Vrndavana, like Aghasura, Bakasura, the witch Putana and Pralamba, was simply pleasurable childhood play for Him. He enjoyed continuous ecstatic bliss along with His mother, brother, friends and cows in the cowherd village of Vrndavana.

When He played the role of a naughty butter thief, all His associates experienced celestial bliss. That is the difference between the Lord and others: even when He steals, He gives ecstatic bliss to His associates. The Lord's fame as a butter thief is beyond reproach, for everything the Lord did in Vrndavana was for the pleasure of His beloved eternal associates. The Lord created these pastimes to attract the dry impersonalist speculators, and the frustrated acrobats of the hatha-yoga system to realize the actual Absolute Truth.

The childhood play between the Lord and His cows, cowherd boys and other friends, is not ordinary or material. Actually it is the exalted destination of great devotees who have accumulated a tremendous stock of transcendental knowledge and pious activities. Sukadeva Gosvami, one of the greatest Master Teachers in the line of the Esoteric Teaching, says:

itthaṁ satāṁ brahma-sukhānubhūtyā
dāsyaṁ gatānāṁ para-daivatena
māyāśritānāṁ nara-dārakena
sākaṁ vijahruḥ krtta-punya-puñjāḥ

“The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is perceived as the impersonal, blissful Brahman by the jnanis, who is worshiped as the Supreme Lord by devotees in the mood of servitude, and who is considered an ordinary human being by mundane people, played with the cowherd boys, who had attained their position after accumulating many pious activities.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.12.11]

The Supreme Lord is not impersonal or static; He is always engaged in transcendental loving activities with His spiritual associates in five flavors of ecstatic spiritual relationships: santa-rasa (neutrality), dasya-rasa (servitude), sakhya-rasa (friendship), vatsalya-rasa (parental affection) and madhurya-rasa (conjugal love). Because these relationships are fully spiritual, they are eternal and fully satisfying to the spirit soul.

Since the scriptures state that Lord Krsna never leaves Vrndavana, how does He manage the creation and maintenance of the material creation? The answer is that He expands Himself as the Supersoul. Krsna describes the Supersoul as follows:

“Everywhere are His hands and legs, His eyes and faces, and He hears everything. In this way the Supersoul exists. The Supersoul is the original source of all senses, yet He is without senses. He is unattached, although He is the maintainer of all living beings. He transcends the modes of nature, and at the same time He is the master of all modes of material nature. The Supreme Truth exists both internally and externally, in the moving and nonmoving. He is beyond the power of the material senses to see or to know. Although far, far away, He is also near to all. Although the Supersoul appears to be divided, He is never divided. He is situated as one. Although He is the maintainer of every living entity, it is to be understood that He develops and devours all. He is the source of light in all luminous objects. He is beyond the darkness of matter and is unmanifested. He is knowledge, He is the object of knowledge, and He is the goal of knowledge. He is situated in everyone's heart.” [Bhagavad-gita 13.14-18]

The Lord pervades and controls the entire material creation by His plenary expansion of Paramatma, the Supersoul. Lord Krsna is completely spiritual; He is not directly connected with material creation, maintenance and destruction. He causes the material creation through His plenary expansion, the Paramatma. Every living being is atma, spirit soul, and the supreme living being who controls them all is Paramatma, the Supersoul.

The system of God realization given in the Esoteric Teaching is a great science, but its proper application requires the comprehension of the transcendental ontology of Vedanta-sutra and Srimad-Bhagavatam. Materialistic so-called followers of the Vedas who present the Esoteric Teaching as a sectarian religion can in reality only perceive the twenty-four factors of the material creation. They have very little information and no direct perception of the purusa, or Lord. And the impersonalists are so bewildered by the glaring effulgence of the brahmajyoti that they foolishly deny the very existence of the Lord.

Anyone who wants to realize the Absolute Truth in full has to know all three aspects: Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. His consciousness has to penetrate the twenty-four material senses and sense objects, and the glaring spiritual effulgence to reach the Supreme Person. Sri Isopanisad points this out by praying to the Lord to remove His hiranmaya-patra, or dazzling golden effulgence. Complete realization of the Absolute Truth is attained when He removes the impersonal effulgence, allowing us to perceive the transcendental form of the Personality of Godhead.

The Paramatma feature is one of three plenary expansions of the Personality of Godhead associated with universal creation. These three visnu-tattvas or aspects of Godhead are called the purusa-avataras, or incarnations of the Supreme Person in the material world. Among the three principal deities―Brahma, Visnu and Siva―Ksirodakasayi Visnu is the all-pervading Visnu; He is also the Paramatma in each and every individual living entity. The second visnu-tattva within the universe is Garbhodakasayi Visnu, the collective Supersoul of all living entities. Beyond these two is Karanodakasayi Visnu or Maha-visnu, who lies in the Causal Ocean and is the creator of all universes. The yoga system teaches the serious student to transcend the twenty-four material elements of the cosmic creation and meet the visnu-tattvas after attaining perfection in self-realization.

The culture of speculative empiric philosophy can at most help one realize the impersonal brahmajyoti, the glaring effulgence of the transcendental body of Lord Sri Krsna. That the brahmajyoti is Krsna's effulgence is confirmed by Lord Brahma:

iyasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi vibhūti-bhinnam
tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

“In the millions and millions of universes there are innumerable planets, and each and every one of them is different from the others by its cosmic constitution. All of these planets are situated in a corner of the brahmajyoti. This brahmajyoti is but the personal rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, whom I worship.” [Brahma-samhita 5.40]

This mantra from Brahma-samhita and the sruti-mantra of Sri Isopanisad under discussion are spoken from the platform of complete realization of the Absolute Truth. This mantra. This simple prayer to the Lord to remove the brahmajyoti so we can see His real face is a part of the bona fide process of realization according to the Esoteric Teaching. The brahmajyoti effulgence of the Lord is described in detail in the mantras of several other Upanisads:

“In the spiritual realm, beyond the material covering, is the unlimited Brahman effulgence, which is free from material contamination. That effulgent white light is understood by transcendentalists to be the light of all lights. In that realm there is no need of sunshine, moonshine, fire or electricity for illumination. Indeed, whatever illumination appears in the material world is only a reflection of that supreme illumination. That Brahman is in front and in back, in the north, south, east and west, and also overhead and below. In other words, that supreme Brahman effulgence spreads everywhere throughout both the material and spiritual skies.” [Mundaka Upanisad 2.2.10-12]

Perfect knowledge of transcendence means knowing that the personal form of Krsna is the source of this Brahman effulgence. This knowledge is given in the scriptures of the Esoteric Teaching such as Srimad-Bhagavatam, which perfectly elaborates the ontological science of Krsna. In Srimad-Bhagavatam, the author, Srila Vyasadeva, has pointed out that people describe the Supreme Truth as Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan according to the degree of their realization. Srila Vyasadeva never states that the Supreme Truth is a jiva, an ordinary living entity. The living entity can never become the all-powerful Supreme Truth. If he were one with the Supreme, he would not need to pray to the Lord to remove His dazzling effulgence so that he could see the Lord’s real face.

The conclusion is that one who has no knowledge of the potencies of the Supreme Truth can only realize the impersonal Brahman. Similarly, when one realizes the material potencies of the Lord but has little or no information of the spiritual potencies, he attains Paramatma realization. Both Brahman and Paramatma realization of the Absolute Truth are partial. However, after the removal of the hiranmaya-patra effulgence, one can realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, in full potency:

bahūnāṁ janmanām ante
jñānavān māṁ prapadyate
vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti
sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ

“After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.” [Bhagavad-gita 7.19]

Lord Sri Krsna, who is known as Vasudeva, is everything: Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan. Bhagavan, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the root, and Brahman and Paramatma are His branches. If we comparatively analyze the three types of transcendentalists, we find that only the students of the Esoteric Teaching can realize the complete Absolute Truth.

“A yogi is greater than the ascetic, greater than the empiricist and greater than the fruitive worker. Therefore, O Arjuna, in all circumstances, be a yogi. And of all yogis, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all.” [Bhagavad-gita 6.46-47]

The three types of transcendentalists mentioned here are the worshipers of the impersonal Brahman (jnanis), the worshipers of the Paramatma feature (yogis) and the devotees of Lord Sri Krsna (bhaktas). Thus Krsna teaches us in Bhagavad-gita that a philosopher is better than a gross materialist, a mystic is superior to a philosopher, and of all mystic yogis, one who performs bhakti-yoga, constantly engaging in the devotional service of the Lord, is the highest. Sri Isopanisad directs us toward this perfection.