God’s Leelas and Virtues Are Unlimited
If God's leelas have unfolded eternally, can they ever be exhausted—and are His Divine virtues limited to those we know?
📍 Where You Are in the Inquiry
We have established that God's names and forms cannot be confined to a finite list. His descensions are uncountable, and no Divine name is intrinsically greater or lesser than another. The sweetness a devotee experiences in a particular name or form arises from the love associated with it.
But names and forms are not all that a devotee remembers. Much of devotion centers upon God's leelas—His Divine pastimes. The scriptures record many leelas of Shri Ram, Shri Krishna, and other forms of God.
This raises the next question: Are those recorded leelas the complete history of what God has done? And are God's Divine virtues similarly limited to those we already know?
God's Leelas Cannot Be Counted
The scriptures declare:
हरि अनन्त हरि कथा अनन्ता।
hari ananta hari kathā anantā
God is unlimited, and His Divine narratives are unlimited.
Whatever leelas of Shri Ram, Shri Krishna, and other forms of God have been recorded in scripture are only a tiny portion of them.
They are like a drop of water in a boundless ocean.
The leelas of Shri Ram and Shri Krishna have been occurring every moment since eternity, and yet they are ever new. To imagine that God's leelas can eventually be exhausted is therefore to place a limit upon the Unlimited.
This is also the intent behind the statement:
रामायण शत कोटि अपारा।
rāmāyaṇa śata koṭi apārā
The Ramayan is immeasurably vast.
God's descensions are unlimited, and so are His leelas.
Could God Perform a Leela Never Performed Before?
A devotee might then wonder:
What if I imagine Shri Ram, Shri Krishna, or another Avatar performing a completely new leela—something God has never done before?
The question itself arises because we do not comprehend the extent of God's unlimited leelas.
What leela could we imagine and confidently say that God has never performed it during His eternal and uncountable descensions?
Nevertheless, the devotee has freedom here as well.
Whatever leela is especially pleasing to the heart may be imagined in devotional remembrance. And if that particular leela truly has never occurred, God can perform it for the devotee.
Seeing the devotee's pure love, God can do everything for him.
But Shri Maharaj Ji places an important condition upon this freedom: the imagination must contain devotional emotion. If it is merely an arbitrary mental invention without loving devotion, the question of God performing that leela does not arise.
The point is therefore not imaginative novelty.
It is love.
God's Leelas Are Ever New
This resolves an apparent difficulty.
If God's leelas have been occurring eternally, one might assume that everything must eventually become repetitive. But Divine leelas are simultaneously:
- beginningless in their occurrence;
- unlimited in number;
- and ever new.
The finite collection of leelas known to us through scripture should therefore never be mistaken for the limit of God's activity.
Scripture gives us access to Divine leelas. It does not place a boundary around them.
And the same principle now extends beyond what God does to what God is like.
God's Divine Virtues Are Also Limitless
All Divine virtues exist in God, and every one of those virtues is limitless.
A devotee therefore does not have to select one prescribed virtue for remembrance.
One person may be especially attracted to God's compassion. Another may be drawn to His sweetness, His mercy, His playfulness, His protection, or another Divine quality.
These preferences arise partly from the influence of one's past Sanskars (संस्कार | saṁskāra).
Because different devotees may naturally feel drawn toward different Divine virtues, no one should conclude:
The virtue I love is greater than the one another devotee loves.
No Divine virtue should be ranked as intrinsically superior or inferior.
The devotee should take the help of whichever Divine virtue is personally loving to him and remember God through that virtue.
Just as there is no need to search for the objectively “best” name of God, there is no need to search for the objectively “best” Divine virtue.
The purpose is devotional remembrance.
Where This Inquiry Leads
God's leelas are not limited to those presently known or recorded in scripture. The recorded leelas of Shri Ram, Shri Krishna, and other forms of God are like a drop in a boundless ocean. His leelas have been occurring eternally, yet remain ever new.
A devotee may lovingly remember whatever Divine leela is pleasing to the heart. Pure devotional love—not novelty of imagination—is what gives that remembrance its spiritual significance.
God's virtues are equally unlimited. Different devotees may naturally be attracted to different Divine qualities because of their past Sanskars, but no Divine virtue should therefore be considered greater or lesser than another.
The devotee is free to remember the virtue that most awakens love.
We have now seen this freedom repeatedly:
uncountable forms → uncountable names → uncountable leelas → limitless virtues.
But devotion also gives God a place.
Scripture speaks of Ayodhya, Golok, Vaikuntha, and other Divine abodes. Does choosing one Divine abode mean that God is more present there than somewhere else?
That is where the inquiry turns next.
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Part 4 of 8 — Avatar
God's leelas are unlimited and ever new, and His Divine virtues are equally limitless. A devotee may remember whichever leelas and virtues are most loving to the heart. But the same question now extends to God's Divine abodes and Saints: should distinctions of greater and lesser be made among them?
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