Why do you consider Krishna to be God?
Answer: The Vedic scriptures also give us an objective description of God as the person possessing fully the six opulences (excellences) whose fractional presence makes their possessor attractive for everyone. These six opulences are wealth, strength, wisdom, beauty, fame and renunciation. For example, people are attracted to Bill Gates due to wealth, to Superman due to strength, to Emerson due to wisdom, to [put your favorite movie star’s name] due to beauty, Alexander due to fame and Gandhi due to renunciation. After giving these objective opulences that distinguish God, the Vedic scriptures describe a personality who possesses these opulences. Krishna is wealthier than Gates, stronger than Superman, wiser than Emerson, more beautiful than the most beautiful movie star, more famous than Alexander and more renounced that Gandhi. No wonder that Krishna is celebrated in the Vedic tradition as God in his highest manifestation, as the epitome of all-attractiveness. This all-attractiveness is also the import of the name ‘Krishna’, which means ‘sarva akarshati iti krishna’ (one who has the opulences that can attract everyone is Krishna). Yes, God is all-powerful and all-merciful as indicated by names like Allah and Jehovah, but his all-powerfulness and his all-mercifulness contribute to making him all-attractive. And his all-attractiveness includes all other divine attributes like all-powerfulness and all-mercifulness. Thus the name of God, Krishna, conveys all that is conveyed by all other names and also conveys that which is not conveyed by any other name.
Still, some may consider Krishna to be a sectarian god worshiped by a particular tradition. However, in principle the Vedic revelation of as Krishna doesn’t contradict the revelations of God in other religious traditions. And in details it supplements the revelations of God in other religious traditions. For example, none of the great theistic religions would deny that God possesses the six opulences. Significantly, these traditions don’t reveal any personality who possesses these opulences.
That’s why, for the open-minded, the Vedic revelation of God as Krishna is a spiritual bonanza. They see the particulars about God revealed therein – his charming threefold bending pose, his unforgettably mesmerizing bluish-black complexion, his heart-captivating flute music, his endearingly pastoral peacock feather – not as a signs of sectarianism, but as signs of the culmination of the revelation of the divine given in various religious traditions. Given the rationally analyzable facts:
- An objective, universally acceptable enumeration of God’s opulences given in the Vedic scriptures
- A specific personality fitting that description given in those scriptures
- The absence of any competing or contradictory personality revealed as God in any other religious traditions,
open-minded people naturally infer that Krishna is indeed the one God whom Jesus called as his father and whom Mohammed referred to as Allah.