Krishna and His name are non-different; purify your senses through devotion to see Him everywhere always.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
The Nectar of Devotion — October 18, 1972, Vṛndāvana 721018ND-VRNDAVAN [51:02 Minutes] NOD_721018ND-VRNDAVAN Prabhupāda: [Hindi with someone] [break] Pradyumna: [reading] "...cannot steadily remain either in sense enjoyment or in renunciation. Change is going on perpetually, and we cannot be happy in either state because of our eternal constitutional position. Sense gratification does not endure for long, and it is therefore called capala-sukha, or flickering happiness. For example, an ordinary family man who works very hard day and night and is successful in giving comforts to the members of his family thereby relishes a kind of mellow, but his whole advancement of material happiness immediately terminates along with his body as soon as his life is over.
"Death is therefore taken as the representative of God for the atheistic class of men. The devotee realizes the presence of God by devotional service, whereas the atheist realizes the presence of God in the shape of death. At death, everything is finished, and one has to begin a new chapter of life in a new situation, perhaps higher or lower than the last one." Prabhupāda: Yes. This is very important point.
The atheist class men, they say, "Can you show me God?" There are statements of atheist class, or sannyāsī even, that he demanded his spiritual master, "Whether you can show me God?" So God cannot be seen by such demand. In the śāstras it is said, ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ [Cc. Madhya 17.136]. Śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi. Śrī Kṛṣṇa is present by His name, by His form, by His pastimes, by His paraphernalia, by His quality. Anything about Kṛṣṇa is non-different.
Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa's name, it is the same. There is no difference. In the materialistic view, there is difference between the substance and the name. Just like water.
If you are thirsty, simply if I chant "water, water, water," it will not quench your thirst. You require the substance, water. So similarly, a..., a person's photograph or a statue is different from the person. If there is a photograph of a certain gentleman and if you want to do business with the photograph, it is not possible.
You'll have to seek for the actual person. But in case of Kṛṣṇa, it is not like that. Kṛṣṇa the person and Kṛṣṇa's name, Hare Kṛṣṇa, the same thing. It is not that we are chanting "Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa" and this Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is different. No.
Nāma rūpe kṛṣṇa avatāra. The name of Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa the person, identical. Just like we are worshiping the form of Rādhā-Govinda, Rādhā-Mādhava, Rādhā-Dāmodara. So this form, atheists will say that "This is statue." But a theist person, who knows Kṛṣṇa, he will see this form of Kṛṣṇa not different from the original person Kṛṣṇa. Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu, when He entered the Jagannātha temple, He immediately fainted: "Here is My Lord." Others who are going in the Jagannātha temple, they are seeing something made of wood. Therefore śāstra forbids, arcye śilā-dhīr guruṣu nara-matir vaiṣṇave jāti-buddhir sa eva narakaḥ [Padma Purāṇa].