03 Mar 2023
[Dr J S R Prasad asked:- Rama told sages that He thinks about Himself as a human being (Aatmaanam maanusham manye). Here the verb think (manye ) can mean that though that is not true, He is only thinking, which means that His thinking is not truth.]
Swami replied:- What you said is also correct because God comes down as incarnation to have entertainment for which thinking Himself as human being is necessary to get full entertainment. Rama means He, who is always immersed in entertainment (Ramate iti Rāmaḥ). Moreover, He is called as Aadarsha maanushaavataara (ideal human incarnation), which means that He came here to behave like an ideal human being and hence, He never expressed His divinity. In this way, continuous expression of human behaviour is useful in both ways, which are:- i) To entertain continuously and ii) To establish the ideal human behaviour, continuous expression of human nature is essential. The verb used here can also mean that Rama is really thinking Himself as the human being without remembering His divinity because if He remembers His divinity, His entertainment will get disturbed.
Even though there is possibility of your way of interpretation in the verb, if such interpretation is correct, His entertainment gets disturbed in which case He cannot be Rama! In the case of Krishna, He is called Liilaamaanushaavataara, which means that He came here to express the divinity of God. To suit to His program, Krishna was often out of the game by expressing divine miracles and by saying that He is God. The word Krishna means God, who attracts the devotees to develop their faith in God. Hence, according to His program He was always behaving like a superhuman being. In the case of Krishna, your way of interpretation becomes perfectly correct had He also told the same statement: Ātmānaṃ mānusham manye, Śrī Kṛṣṇaṃ Vāsudevajam (I am thinking that I am a human being, the son of Vasudeva.).
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