By Sankirtana Das (ACBSP)
There’s a legend about a tribe called the Invisible People in the Amazon jungles. When standing silently and unmoving in the middle of the forest, they would remain undetected by their enemies. Then there’s the comic book character Plastic Man who, in his fight against crime, would at times mold himself into part of the landscape or appear as inanimate objects. His ability was because of a freak chemical accident.
Now if you wanted to go undetected in plain view of everyone how would you do that? Could you take the shape of a rock, bicycle or garbage can? Could you blend into the marble wall in the lobby of some big downtown hotel? What about taking on the color and texture of a plush armchair you’re sitting in so it appears that no one’s there?
Carl Zimmer, in his New York Times article Revealed: Secrets Of The Camouflage Masters,
reports how some living entities can, within a moments notice, blend into their surroundings and “disappear.” It sounds like the talents of the best Special Forces Units, Undercover Squads, Hollywood make up artists, and the likes of Houdini and David Copperfield all rolled into one.
But the marvels explained therein are not of human design, but of Intelligent Design. The Supreme Intelligent (Krishna – God) has given various living entities and species their own special intelligence and has parceled out to them an array of extraordinary abilities that in many ways seem to out perform those of us humans.
The article focuses on Dr. Roger Hanlon and his ongoing research over a 30 year period with cephalopods, animals that can change or disguise themselves in their environments. Among them, the cuttlefish, squids and octopus are the “world’s camouflage champions.” One account tells that after following an octopus for an hour and a half underwater, Dr Hanlon turned away for an instant, and when he turned back, the octopus was gone. After searching for 20 minutes he realized it was right in front of him all the time, exactly where he had seen it before. Other Octopuses he observed “assume the shape of a rock and move in plain sight across the sea floor. But no faster than the ripples of light around them, so they never seem to move.”
It would serve Dr Hanlon and colleagues to study the camouflage abilities of Sri Krishna. Krishna appears in numerous forms, shapes, and guises. He is always with us, He surrounds us and maintains us, but we cannot see Him nor readily detect Him. This is the greatest deception. He simultaneously walks and does not walk. He is within everything and yet he is also outside of everything. He is the furthest away, and even if one travels at the speed of the mind, no one can approach Him. And yet He is the closest of all, residing undetected, in the core of our hearts. And on those rare occasions when yogis and mystics, meditating for ages, finally glimpse the Lord Within The Heart, they think it’s themselves. O’Krishna – the supreme master of camouflage!
“I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by my creative potency. And so the deluded world knows Me not , who am unborn and infallible. I know everything that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all things yet to come. I also know all living entities; but Me no one knows.” Bhagavad Gita 7: 25-26
If you’re attending the Festival of Inspiration, I will be offering a workshop – Mahabharata In America – on Friday afternoon.
I really loved this article. There may be so many experts at the art of camouflage, but no one can compare with Krishna, who is present everywhere and yet goes completely undetected by nondevotees.
“Srimati Kunti said: O Krishna, I offer my obeisances unto You because You are the original personality and are unaffected by the qualities of the material world. You are existing both within and without everything, yet You are invisible to all.”
“Being beyond the range of limited sense perception, You are the eternally irreproachable factor covered by the curtain of deluding energy. You are invisible to the foolish observer, exactly as an actor dressed as a player is not recognized.”
S.B. 1.8.18-19
When we talk to nondevotees it is amazing sometimes how limited their capacity is to perceive Krishna or Krishna consciousness.
I remember one of the first times I visited the temple a devotee took me to show me the Deities (small Gaura-Nitai Deities in Miami, Florida), and as best as I can recall even though I was sitting right in front of Them I did not even notice the Deities. It just seemed to me like a colorful display of flowers and decorations!
Recently I met a childhood friend I had not seen since I was 13-years-old. He and I used to play every day as kids and now we were meeting after all this time, having both become lawyers, family men, etc. He was even telling me, based on the qualities I displayed as a child, that he expected me to become something more interesting and exotic than a lawyer.
Yet when I tried to explain that I have discovered this fascinating world of Krishna consciousness, all this fabulous Vaisnava literature and culture, I could tell that he just couldn’t see it. He had heard years ago that I hadbecome a Hare Krishna devotee, and now he was hearing it directly from me, but it just did not seem to compute for him. It was not the fabulous, interesting thing he expected me to discover. It was just some quirk about me to be overlooked, like a birth mark that it would be rude to notice.
I had a similar experience with a long lost step brother a couple years ago.
As preachers we somehow or another must help people acquire sufficient sukrti that they can somehow recognize marvelous Krishna, who is present everywhere, maintaining everything, supplying and digesting our very food even, keeping the planets in their orbits, and yet keeping Himself completely invisible from people in general.