Vipramukhaya is now atheist / Krishna's Forms 03 21 25

WAYNE BOYD (ex-Vipramukhya swami)

March 15

I believed in reincarnation for 50 years. Now I'm an atheist. Please don’t be offended! I can't help that I don't believe.

It takes a lot of courage and honesty to reevaluate deeply held beliefs, especially ones that shaped my life for so long. Reincarnation offers a very appealing narrative: continuity, justice, purpose — an explanation for why things happen and what comes after death. For many, it's a comforting thought, a way to make sense of suffering and inequality.

For years, I was inspired by Krishna's words in the Bhagavad-gita: "For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain." I took great comfort in believing that I was not this body — that there was something eternal and indestructible within me.

And for a long time, I was so immersed in my beliefs that even the concept of atheism felt offensive. It wasn't just a disagreement — it felt dangerous, as if God would punish me for daring to question. After all, wasn't doubt supposed to be a sign of spiritual weakness? 

But then I asked myself: Why would God punish us for looking honestly at the world? Why would any loving or just deity create a world of such complexity and beauty and then get angry because we used the minds we were supposedly given to try to understand it?

In the end, giving myself permission to ask — to really question — was what freed me. I had to reassure myself that even if Krishna were real, he wouldn't be a vindictive god who would punish inquiry. And in that quiet act of permission, I found a clearer understanding of myself than I ever had as a sannyasi.

In the Hare Krishna tradition, there's so much talk of self-realization — of discovering who you really are beyond the body. But ironically, I found greater self-realization through science than I ever did through religion.

Religion told me I was an eternal soul trapped in a temporary body, and that the world I experienced was an illusion — maya. But science has shown me something far more awe-inspiring and real: I am made of molecules forged in ancient stars. My consciousness, my thoughts, my sense of "I am," arise from the amazing, intricate activity of neurons firing in my brain — not from a mysterious soul lodged somewhere inside me.

Although we feel like we are "not these bodies," the evidence says otherwise. When the brain stops functioning, consciousness disappears. There is no credible scientific evidence that it goes on or takes a new form.

Some people point to the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and others as "proof" of reincarnation. I used to lean on those cases too, but when you really examine them, you find they rely on anecdotal stories gathered in cultures that already believe in reincarnation. That's not science. And just because something "hasn't been disproved" doesn't make it true. If that were the case, we'd be forced to believe in every fairy tale ever told.

Atheism is what you're left with when you follow reason and evidence where they lead — even if it's uncomfortable. It doesn't offer easy answers, but it offers honest ones. And in that honesty, I’ve found a deeper self-realization — a truer sense of what it means to be alive, to be human, to be part of this vast and beautiful universe.

The universe doesn't care about us. But we can care about each other. And to me, that's far more real — and far more meaningful — than anything I ever believed before.

PADA: Great, except the cells in the body are constantly 24/7 being re-generated while other cells die off and are eliminated as waste. After some time -- none of the cells we have today will still be part of our future body. But we will remain the same conscious entity because we are the soul or eternal consciousness. 

Anyway, this is what happens to a person who becomes a guru artificially and without authority. They make offenses, and then they degrade. Vipramukhya was one of the GBC's voted in gurus, a resident of Krishna loka no less, and now he does not even believe in God or the soul. So this is a warning to all of us, beware of taking artificial posts of spiritual authority, because Krishna will punish a person who does that -- and cast that person down to lower and lower realizations and eventually, lower life forms. 

The good news is, Vipramukhya did say he felt sick everytime he initiated someone because he was taking their karma. So he quit doing that. Yep, that was actually a very intelligent observation. 

Satsvarupa also says he has to battle constantly with doubts that Krishna is a myth. So these fake gurus can start to doubt the existence of God, which is very sad indeed. It means they will find themselves in lower life forms in the future -- such as cock roaches, spiders, worms, insects, plants, trees, etc. 

I just captured an ugly looking big black spider and escorted him out the door. Good luck out there fella! Oh yeah, he was once a big swami and look at his state now! 

But if we are just a pile of atoms all randomly moving and running amok all over the place, then there is no purpose to existence. The bad news for them is, there is a soul that continues after this body. And Srila Prabhupada says the atheists receive very severe punishments. 

So Vipramkhuya is going to be in for a short, sharp, shock when he leaves his body, and finds himself bound up by the ropes of the Yamaduttas, being chased by their hounds. Very sad that he had a chance to elevate himself, and he fell off the train going to Vaikuntha, and ended up in extreme ignorance. He is more ignorant than the common man who at least understands there is a higher being who controls the universe. 

Personally, I can barely lift a bag of cement. Yet someone else is out there lifting this entire planet and many other planets that are way bigger than this one, and He is making all these millions of very heavy planets float like cotton puffs in space. The person doing that weight lifting has immense power and intelligence, which is why these planets never collide with one another and so on. 

There is no way this could all be going on with random movements of atoms and planets etc. -- flying all around randomly hither and thither. There is a whole lot of higher intelligent thinking required to keep all this whole creation functioning and glued together. 

One other big devotee who was very prominent in the 1970s saw me in San Francisco some years back and he told me he is now an atheistic Buddhist. There is nothing left to experience when you die, it all ends, you just cease to exist. Sure dude!

A few months after that -- he was across the street from the temple -- somehow -- outside his girlfriend's house at 2AM in his underwear. She had locked the door and would not let him back inside. So he was yelling and knocking. 

Then the police came and all that, it was quite a big scene. So we all joked about it. He left Krishna and went back to chasing sex life, and now he is like the mule who gets kicked in the face by the female mules. Hee hee. Anyway not believing in God and the soul is ignorance, and that is what keeps us locked into the material world. 

Sad that he could not be saved, but we have to want to be saved in the first place -- if we expect any help from Krishna. My desire to be saved in not that strong either, but just saying there is no creator is -- not something that makes any sense to me. The material world is just too complicated to have a random big bang explosion that made everything come into being. 

In short, I think the random explosion of some so-called universal big bang -- is a desperate and clueless way to describe the origins of life, and is not very scientific as well. Anyway, somehow or other I avoided falling into that pot hole, but I should be careful not to be too proud, pride seems to make these big spiritual people -- fall down on their behinds. And it might take millions of years for them to recover. Lord please save me from ever falling like that again!     

ys pd angel108b@yahoo.com   

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HIS FORMS ARE ONE AND THE SAME TLC Ch.6

By devotional service one can understand that Kṛṣṇa first of all manifests Himself as svayam-rūpa, His personal form, then as tadekātma-rūpa, and then as āveśa-rūpa. It is in these three features that He manifests Himself in His transcendental form. The feature of svayam-rūpa is the form by which Kṛṣṇa can be understood by one who may not understand His other features. In other words, the form by which Kṛṣṇa is directly understood is called svayam-rūpa, or His personal form. 

The tadekātma-rūpa is that form which most resembles the svayam-rūpa, but there are some differences in the bodily features. The tadekātma-rūpa is divided into two manifestations-the personal expansion (svāṁśa) and the pastime expansion (vilāsa). As far as the āveśa-rūpa is concerned, when Kṛṣṇa empowers some suitable living entity to represent Him, that living entity is called āveśa-rūpa, or śaktyāveśa-avatāra.

The personal form of Kṛṣṇa can be divided into two: svayam-rūpa and svayam-prakāśa. As far as His svayam-rūpa (or pastime form) is concerned, it is in that form that He remains always in Vṛndāvana with the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana. This personal form (svayam-rūpa) can be further divided into the prābhava and vaibhava forms. For instance, Kṛṣṇa expanded Himself in multiple forms during the rāsa dance in order to dance with each and every gopī who took part in forms in order to accommodate His 16,108 wives. 

There are some instances of great mystics' also expanding their bodily features in different ways, but Kṛṣṇa did not expand Himself by any yoga process. Each expansion of Kṛṣṇa was a separate individual. In Vedic history, Saubhari Ṛṣi, a sage, expanded himself into eight forms by the yoga process, but Saubhari Ṛṣi remained one. As far as Kṛṣṇa is concerned, when He manifested Himself in different forms, each and every one of them was a separate individual. 

When Nārada Muni visited Kṛṣṇa at different palaces at Dvārakā, he was astonished at this, and yet Nārada is never astonished to see expansions of a yogī's body, since he knows the trick himself. Yet in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated that Nārada was actually astonished to see the expansions of Kṛṣṇa. He wondered how the Lord was present with His queens in each and every one of His 16,108 palaces. With each queen, Kṛṣṇa Himself was in a different form, and He was acting in different ways. 

In one form He was engaged in playing with His children, and in yet another form He was performing some household work. These different activities are conducted by the Lord when He is in His "emotional" forms, which are known as vaibhava-prakāśa expansions. Similarly, there are other unlimited expansions of the forms of Kṛṣṇa, but even when they are divided or expanded without limit, they are still one and the same. There is no difference between one form and another. That is the absolute nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated that when Akrūra was accompanying both Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma from Gokula to Mathurā, he entered into the waters of the Yamunā River and could see in the waters all the planets in the spiritual sky. He also saw there the Lord in His Viṣṇu form as well as Nārada and the four Kumāras, who were worshiping Him. As stated in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (SB 10.40.7):

anye ca saṁskṛtātmāno
vidhinābhihitena te
yajanti tvan-mayās tvāṁ vai
bahumūrty-ekamūrtikam

There are many worshipers who are purified by different processes of worship-such as the Vaiṣṇavas or the Āryans-who also worship the Supreme Lord according to their convictions and spiritual understanding. Each process of worship involves understanding different forms of the Lord, as mentioned in scriptures, but the ultimate idea is to worship the Supreme Lord Himself.

In His vaibhava-prakāśa feature, the Lord manifests Himself as Balarāma. The Balarāma feature is as good as Kṛṣṇa Himself, the only difference being that the bodily hue of Kṛṣṇa is dark and that of Balarāma is fair. The vaibhava-prakāśa form was also displayed when Kṛṣṇa appeared before His Mother Devakī in the four-handed form of Nārāyaṇa, just when He entered the world. At the request of His parents, however, He transformed Himself into a two-handed form. 

Thus He sometimes manifests four hands and sometimes two. The two-handed form is actually vaibhava-prakāśa, and the four-handed form is prābhava-prakāśa. In His personal form, Kṛṣṇa is just like a cowherd boy, and He thinks of Himself in that way. But when He is in the Vāsudeva form, He thinks of Himself as the son of a kṣatriya and acts as a princely administrator.

In the two-handed form, as the cowherd son of Nanda Mahārāja, Kṛṣṇa fully exhibits His opulence, form, beauty, wealth, attractiveness and pastimes. Indeed, in some of the Vaiṣṇava literatures it is found that sometimes, in His form as Vāsudeva, He becomes attracted to the form of Govinda in Vṛndāvana. Thus as Vāsudeva He sometimes desires to enjoy as the cowherd boy Govinda does, although the Govinda form and the Vāsudeva form are one and the same. 

In this regard, there is a passage in the Fourth Chapter of the Lalita-mādhava (4.19), in which Kṛṣṇa addresses Uddhava as follows: "My dear friend, the form of Govinda, the cowherd boy, attracts Me. Indeed, I wish to be like the damsels of Vraja, who are also attracted by this form of Govinda." Similarly, in the Eighth Chapter, Kṛṣṇa says: "O how wonderful it is! Who is this person? 

After seeing Him, I am so attracted that I am now desiring to embrace Him just like Rādhikā."

There are also forms of Kṛṣṇa which are a little different, and these are called tadekātma-rūpa forms. These may be further divided into the vilāsa and svāṁśa forms, which in turn have many different features and can be divided into prābhava and vaibhava forms. As far as the vilāsa forms are concerned, there are innumerable prābhava-vilāsas by which Kṛṣṇa expands Himself as Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. Sometimes the Lord thinks of Himself as a cowherd boy, and sometimes He thinks of Himself as the son of Vasudeva, a kṣatriya prince, and this "thinking" of Kṛṣṇa is called His "pastimes." 

Actually He is in the same form in His vaibhava-prakāśa and prābhava-vilāsa, but He appears differently as Balarāma and Kṛṣṇa. His expansions as Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha are in the original catur-vyūha, or four-handed forms.

There are innumerable four-handed manifestations in different planets and different places, and they are manifested in Dvārakā and Mathurā eternally. From the four principal four-handed forms (Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha) there are manifest the principal twenty-four forms called vaibhava-vilāsa, and they are named differently according to the placement of different symbols (conch, mace, lotus and disc) in their hands. 

The four principal manifestations of Kṛṣṇa are found in each planet in the spiritual sky, and these planets are called Nārāyaṇaloka or Vaikuṇṭhaloka. In the Vaikuṇṭhaloka He is manifested in the four-handed form of Nārāyaṇa. From each Nārāyaṇa the forms of Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha are manifested. Thus Nārāyaṇa is the center, and the four forms of Vāsudeva, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha surround the Nārāyaṇa form. Each of these four forms again expand into three, and these all have different names, beginning with Keśava. These forms are twelve in all, and they are known by different names according to the placement of symbols in their hands.

As far as the Vāsudeva form is concerned, the three expansions manifested from Him are Keśava, Nārāyaṇa and Mādhava. The three forms of Saṅkarṣaṇa are known as Govinda, Viṣṇu and Śrī Madhusūdana. (It should be noted, however, that this Govinda form is not the same Govinda form that is manifested in Vṛndāvana as the son of Nanda Mahārāja.) Similarly, Pradyumna is also divided into three forms known as Trivikrama, Vāmana and Śrīdhara; and the three forms of Aniruddha are known as Hṛṣīkeśa, Padmanābha and Dāmodara.