Personal Impersonal God
Everyone accepts that God is one, transcendental, infinite, and the abode of infinite divine bliss. Some of you may not know that God is also described as having two aspects, personal and impersonal. The Vedas state, “He, the Supreme Being, is without a body, yet He has a form. He is unborn, yet He takes innumerable births.” Attaining Him through either aspect, personal or impersonal, results in the attainment of divine bliss. However, the bliss of divine love of the Personal Form of God has a special distinctive quality.
Imagine seeing someone smelling the stem of a rose instead of the flower. You would naturally consider that person foolish. Although the flower and stem are both parts of the rose plant, the rose itself has a special distinctive aromatic quality that the stem lacks. Similarly, if a person eats the branch of a mango tree instead of the mango, we all would consider him mad. Although the fruit and branch are parts of the same tree, there is a special sweetness and flavour only found in the fruit. From these simple examples we can imagine to a certain extent the difference between the bliss of the Impersonal Absolute and the bliss of the Personal Form of God.
The Bhagavatam (1.2.11) states that there are three aspects of God — Brahm, Paramatma and Bhagavan. The all-pervading, formless, Impersonal Brahm performs no actions and is the object of worship of the jnanis. Paramatma dwells in the heart of every living being and keeps a record of our uncountable actions of innumerable lifetimes. He dispenses the fruits of our actions and notes each and every action of our present life. He is the object of worship of the yogis. A yogi’s experience of the Supreme Being is therefore sweeter than the jnanis. The third aspect of God is the only one that bestows grace and descends to do so in a Personal Form on Earth. This Personal Form of God can be experienced through our senses and therefore is the sweetest and most intimately experienced. Worshippers of this form of God or Bhagavan are called bhaktas or devotees.
Please understand that the yogi, jnani and bhakta all attain the same Supreme Lord. They all are liberated and attain complete fulfilment by experiencing unlimited divine bliss for eternity. However, they are known to be different based on the proximity of their experience of the Supreme Lord.
To conclude, the manifestation of God we should focus on becomes very clear through this simple analogy. If the bliss experienced by a jnani was compared to that attained by seeing a mango, then the bliss experienced by the yogi could be compared to seeing and smelling the mango, while the bliss experienced by the devotee could be compared to the combined bliss of seeing, smelling, and tasting the mango.
Spirituality in Daily Living, Volume 2, p69–72
Kripalu Bhaktiyoga Tattvadarshan, Vedic knowledge revealed by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj and presented in English by Dr Vishakha Tripathi, president of Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat.
https://www.jkpliterature.org.in/en/product/spirituality-in-daily-living-set-of-4
