Texts 18-19
oṁ namas tubhyaṁ bhagavate
vāsudevāya dhīmahi
pradyumnāyāniruddhāya
namaḥ saṅkarṣaṇāya ca
namo vijñāna-mātrāya
paramānanda-mūrtaye
ātmārāmāya śāntāya
nivṛtta-dvaita-dṛṣṭaye
om — O my Lord; namaḥ — obeisances; tubhyam — unto You; bhagavate — the Supreme Personality of Godhead; vāsudevāya — Kṛṣṇa, the son of Vasudeva; dhīmahi — let me meditate upon; pradyumnāya — unto Pradyumna; aniruddhāya — unto Aniruddha; namaḥ — respectful obeisances; saṅkarṣaṇāya — unto Lord Saṅkarṣaṇa; ca — also; namaḥ — all obeisances; vijñāna-mātrāya — unto the form full of knowledge; parama-ānanda-mūrtaye — full of transcendental bliss; ātma-ārāmāya — unto the Lord, who is self-sufficient; śāntāya — and free from disturbances; nivṛtta-dvaita-dṛṣṭaye — whose vision turns away from duality, or who is one without a second.
[Nārada gave Citraketu the following mantra.] O Lord, O Supreme Personality of Godhead, who are addressed by the oṁkāra [praṇava], I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. O Lord Vāsudeva, I meditate upon You. O Lord Pradyumna, Lord Aniruddha and Lord Saṅkarṣaṇa, I offer You my respectful obeisances. O reservoir of spiritual potency, O supreme bliss, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You, who are self-sufficient and most peaceful. O ultimate truth, one without a second, You are realized as Brahman, Paramātmā and Bhagavān and are therefore the reservoir of all knowledge. I offer my respectful obeisances unto You.
In Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa says that He is praṇavaḥ sarva-vedeṣu, the syllable om in the Vedic mantras. In transcendental knowledge, the Lord is addressed as praṇava, oṁkāra, which is a symbolic representation of the Lord in sound. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Vāsudeva, who is an expansion of Nārāyaṇa, expands Himself as Pradyumna, Aniruddha and Saṅkarṣaṇa. From Saṅkarṣaṇa comes a second Nārāyaṇa expansion, and from this Nārāyaṇa come further expansions of Vāsudeva, Pradyumna, Saṅkarṣaṇa and Aniruddha. The Saṅkarṣaṇa in this group is the original cause of the three puruṣas, namely Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu and Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu. Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu is situated in every universe in a special planet called Śvetadvīpa. This is confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā: aṇḍāntara-stha. The word aṇḍa means this universe. Within this universe is a planet called Śvetadvīpa, where Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu is situated. From Him come all the incarnations within this universe.
As confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā, all these forms of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are advaita, nondifferent, and they are also acyuta, infallible; they do not fall down like the conditioned souls. The ordinary living entity is prone to falling into the clutches of māyā, but the Supreme Lord in His different incarnations and forms is acyuta, infallible. Therefore His body is different from the material body possessed by the conditioned soul.
The word mātrā is explained in the Medinī dictionary as follows: mātrā karṇa-vibhūṣāyāṁ vitte māne paricchade. The word mātrā, in its different imports, is used to indicate the decoration of the ear, possession, respect, and the possession of a covering. As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (2.14):
mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya
śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
āgamāpāyino ’nityās
tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata
“O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.” In the conditioned state of life, the body is used as our dress, and as one needs different dresses during the summer and winter, we conditioned souls are changing bodies according to our desires. However, because the body of the Supreme Lord is full of knowledge, it needs no covering. The idea that Kṛṣṇa’s body is like ours — in other words, that His body and soul are different — is a misunderstanding. There are no such differences for Kṛṣṇa, because His body is full of knowledge. Here we receive material bodies because of a lack of knowledge, but because Kṛṣṇa, Vāsudeva, is full of knowledge, there is no difference between His body and His soul. Kṛṣṇa remembers what He said forty million years ago to the sun-god, but an ordinary being cannot remember what he said the day before yesterday. This is the difference between Kṛṣṇa’s body and our body. Therefore the Lord is addressed as vijñāna-mātrāya paramānanda-mūrtaye.
Because the Lord’s body is full of knowledge, He always enjoys transcendental bliss. Indeed, His very form is paramānanda. This is confirmed in the Vedānta-sūtra: ānandamayo ’bhyāsāt. By nature the Lord is ānandamaya. Whenever we see Kṛṣṇa, He is always full of ānanda in all circumstances. No one can make Him morose. Ātmārāmāya: He does not need to search for external enjoyment, because He is self-sufficient. Śāntāya: He has no anxiety. One who has to seek pleasure from other sources is always full of anxiety. Karmīs, jñānīs and yogīs are full of anxiety because they want something, but a devotee does not want anything; he is simply satisfied in the service of the Lord, who is fully blissful.
Nivṛtta-dvaita-dṛṣṭaye: in our conditioned life our bodies have different parts, but although Kṛṣṇa apparently has different bodily parts, no part of His body is different from any other part. Kṛṣṇa can see with His eyes, and Kṛṣṇa can see without His eyes. Therefore in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad it is said, paśyaty acakṣuḥ. He can see with His hands and legs. He does not need a particular bodily part to perform a particular action. Aṅgāni yasya sakalendriya-vṛttimanti: He can do anything He desires with any part of His body, and therefore He is called almighty.