[What Exactly is God?]
"Everything that comes into existence, however and whenever it does so, is created within You, by You, from You, for You, and in relation to You"
SB 10.85.4
This verse from the 10th canto (section) of the Bhagavatam is the one of the most succinct, specific, and beautiful definitions of what God is in his entirety found in any of the world's great literary, philosophical, or theological works. All of the prepositions used are indicative of the breadth of this statement. Although I spent some time studying religion on an academic level, I am by no means an expert of all of the different traditions of the world. What I can say is only based on my personal experience being raised in a small town in America in post-modernity. Until I began to read and understand perspectives from the Gaudiya tradition, I conceived of God as just some gentleman in the sky, or in another realm, wherever heaven is supposed to be (where is it exactly?), who sanctioned people to either live happily forever or suffer forever depending on just a few small, arbitrary choices that they make in life, a life, that is, which is filled with seemingly random and unpredictable kinds of suffering and happiness without a clear source. Why he made the world eluded me, and why he would make it the way that he did rather than another way was even more of a mystery.
This verse makes things very clear. The "You" being referred to is Krishna, or Hari, or God, or Allah, or whatever name is preferred to use, and everything, in any way, at any time, has an intrinsic connection with Krishna. Krishna is the source of everything. This description is more than that of an old man judging everyone. Or a formless thing who decided to make the world one day (outside of time). Simultaneously, Krishna is the source of everything, and everything itself. That's the unique thing about him. Usually, as we experience in ourselves and others, a person is not themselves and something else at the same time. This is true only of Krishna. He is himself, his own personal self with individuality, and he is everything else at the same time, including us and the world that we live in. And everything in this world, including ourselves, are expansions of his energy with individual personalities too. Briefly put from the teachings he spoke in the Gita, he has two energies that we experience in this world. The superior energy consists of all living things, and the inferior energy consists of all matter. The superior energy is characterized by its being of the same quality as Krishna, eternally full of bliss and knowledge, and transformed into unlimited individualized entities. The inferior energy is everything else in the world that we observe, i.e., matter. These two energies are essentially one energy, but illusion, or seeing things as separate from Krishna, makes us perceive matter as being antithetical to those aforementioned qualities: temporarily full of suffering and ignorance.
By looking closer at the many prepositions in this verse and supplementing them with some more explanation and with other literature about Krishna, a lot more can be extracted in this regard.
"comes into existence" This is the crux of the verse. All of the prepositions in the English translation (within, by, from, for, etc.) are the same word in Sanskrit, they are all of the different cases of yat and are leading up to this verb syat or "to become." Things that exist, or this that become, or things that be, are all being referenced by the different prepository words.
"Everything" This is fairly explanatory. Krishna is everything and makes it clear in his own words in the Bhagavad Gita. Among other things, this self expression of Godhood is something that makes Krishna unique. In the Gita, 9.4 and 5, he states that "By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them. And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold My mystic opulence! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities and although I am everywhere, I am not a part of this cosmic manifestation, for My Self is the very source of creation." A couple of ideas are presented in these two verses from divinity speaking about itself. Everything is in Krishna, and he is everywhere. Krishna is everything.
"However" Everything comes into being in different ways. It is observable in nature that different varieties of lifeforms and non lifeforms come into being in variegated ways. Colonial insects, arachnids, mammals, reptiles, fish, seahorses, plants, mountains, rivers, etc. Everything in this world has a unique coming into being according to what it is. No matter which way a thing manifests, it is ultimately manifesting from Krishna. In the second part of the Bhagavatam, King Pariksit inquires from Sukadeva Goswami to "kindly describe how the Supreme Lord, who is all-powerful, engages His different energies and different expansions in maintaining and again winding up the phenomenal world in the sporting spirit of a player" (SB 2.4.7) After this inquiry, Sukadeva Goswami, the fully-self realized teacher of the Bhagavatam, describes for the next four chapters how the universe in all of its variety or planets, species of life, and energies are manifested.
"Whenever" At different times throughout history, both archaic and modern, in this world and others, before things were manifested in this world and after they become unmanifested, things are coming into being. Things are becoming. Everything, that is. No matter what time something manifests in this world, or others, it is manifesting from Krishna.
"within You" Two prominent examples of this are displayed in the 11th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita and in the 8th chapter of the 10th canto of the Bhagavatam. In the Gita, Arjuna requests Krishna to reveal the "universal form." Krishna proceeds to manifest this form to Arjuna and shows him that everything, literally everything in existence, is within him and he can display it to someone on a whim. For a proper description of the "everything" that Arjuna saw, look into BG 11. The second example is from in the tenth canto Bhagavatam in which the inside of Krishna's mouth is investigated, on the accusation of eating dirt by his older brother, Balarama, by his mother, Yasoda. When she peers inside his mouth she sees herself peering inside of his mouth, in his mouth.
"by You" One of the texts in the Gaudiya tradition recounts the earliest experiences of the first being in this universe. This text is known as the Brahma Samhita, and the first verse of this text offers the following prayer/description of Krishna: "Krishna who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes." (BS 5.1) This verse could be used in place of a couple of the other categories that our original verse presents (within You, for instance), but due to the ultimate phrase of the verse, it fits most appropriately in this category. "Everything is caused by Krishna" or "Krishna is the cause of all causes" was discerned by the first being in the universe.
"for You" The famous "peace formula" verse from the Bhagavad Gita, chapter five text 29, aptly displays this facet of Krishna's personality. The first word of this text in Sanskrit is "bhoktaram" or "enjoyer." What is Krishna the enjoyer of? All sacrifices and penances that people may practice in the world. This verse was noted as the peace formula verse by Prabhupada due to the strong implications that it has. If everyone was aware that Krishna is the enjoyer of everything, the owner and benefactor of everything, there would be no need to quarrel over ownership, greed, possessiveness, etc. Everything could be used in relation to Krishna.
"in relation to You" On that note, the ultimate relationship that everything has to Krishna is described by Krishna himself in his most recent appearance five-hundred years ago in West Bengal, India. In the form of Krishna Chaitanya, during a conversation with one of his intimate disciples, he describes that: "It is the living entity’s constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Krishna" (CC Mad. 108). The relationships that living entities have with Krishna are each individual, with each entity, each person, fulfilling Krishna in a unique way. In this regard, Srila Prabhupada, the preeminent Gaudiya teacher and theologian of the 20th century, writes in his purport to the 15th verse of the 4th chapter of the second canto of the Bhagavatam that anyone can realize their unique relationship with Krishna and become "a devotee of the Lord of his own standard, unique in the history of devotional service." This is a hopeful statement for those on the spiritual path, trying to realize their relationship with Krishna.
In summary, God is not simply an old judge in the sky, determining whether people go to hell or not forever just because they might make a couple mistakes in their lives. He is actually the simultaneous sum total of everything and separated, individualized source of everything, which is always expanding and increasing in his levels of bliss, cognizance, and permanence. Everything, whenever and however it exists is within, by, for, and in relationship with Krishna.