Q: “How comes Advaita doesn’t regard Krishna as a personal form of God?”
A follower asked this question and I thought I would share the answer I would give to everyone here because some may have this very same doubt.
First of all we need to make a distinction between Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman, what are those?
As you may guess the word “Nirguna” contains “Gunas” which means qualities.
So Nirguna Brahman means Brahman without form or qualities and is regarded as a pure idea or concept and therefore impersonal, formless and beyond comprehension.
In Advaita Vedanta, Para Brahman is defined as nirguna brahman and it is a state of complete knowledge of the Self and being the very same thing with Brahman. This Knowledge is attained by the means of Jnana yoga.
Avid supported of this concept is Adi Shankara which commented the Prasthanatrayi specifically on the unity of Atman and Nirguna Brahman.
It is important to remember that even though in Advaita sometimes you can find some references to a Saguna Brahman but it is to be considered as an illusion.
On the other hand Saguna Brahman is a state of devotion by means of Bhakti Yoga.
For the advanced students one may wonder “what does it mean to be without qualities (Nirguna) or even beyond qualities (Gunatheetha)?”
This boils down to a very specific question:
“If we don’t perceive it then how can one be sure that something really exists?”
But I’ll leave this for another day.
Aum.