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The Puranas are called the supplementary Vedic literature, because sometimes in the original Vedas the subject matter is too difficult to be understood by the common man. The Puranas, therefore, explain things nicely by different stories and historical incidents. So, in the Srimad Bhagwatam it is stated in the Tenth Canto, Fourteenh Chapter, that Maharaj Nanda and the cowherd men and inhabitants of Vrindaban generally are very fortunate because the Supreme Brahman, the Personality of Gobhead, full of bliss, is now engaged there in His eternal Pastimes as their Friend.
#$p#According to Svetasvatara Upanishad, the Mantra of Apanipado javano grahita comfirms that although Brahman has no materially created hands and legs, still He walks very stately, and He accepts everything offered to Him. These words suggest that He has transcendental limbs of the body, and therefore He is not impersonal. The person who does not understand the Vedic principles simply stresses the impersonal material features of the Supreme Absolute Truth, and thus unceremoniously calls the Absolute Truth impersonal. Although the impersonalist Mayavadi philosophers want to establish the Absolute Truth as impersonal, yet the Vedic literature itself does not confirm this. Vedic literature confirms that the Supreme Absolute has multiple energies, and still the Mayavadi impersonalists want to establish that the Absolute Truth has no energy. The Absolute Truth is therefore full of energy and He is a Person. He cannot be established as impersonal.
#$p#According to the Vishnu Purana, the living entities are considered as Kshetrajna energy. Although the living entity is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, and is fully cognizant, still he becomes entrapped in the material contamination, and therefore suffers all the miseries therein. Such living entities live in different positions in proportion to their entanglement in material Nature. The purport is that the original energy of the Supreme Lord is spiritual and non-different from the Supreme Absolute Personality of Godhead. The living entity is called the marginal energy of the Supreme Lord, whereas the material energy is called inferior. On account of possessing inert and material inebriety, the living entity, although in the marginal position, becomes entangled with the inferior energy, matter. At that time he forgets his spiritual significance and identifies himself with the material energy and therefore becomes subjected to threefold miseries. When he is, however, free from that material contamination, he proportionately becomes situated in different standards of life.
#$p#According to the Vedic instruction, everyone should understand the constitutional position of the living entity, the Lord, and the material energy in their inter-relation. First of all, one should try to understand the constitutional position of the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead. That Supreme Personality of Godhead has eternal, cognizant, blissful Body; His spiritual energy is distributed as eternity, knowledge, and bliss. In His blissful identity there is His pleasure potency, and in His eternal identity He is the Cause of everything, and in His cognizant identity He is the Supreme Knowledge. Krishna means that Supreme Knowledge. In other words, the Supreme Personality of Krishna is the Reservoir of all knowledge, all pleasure, and all eternity. That Supreme Knowledge of Krishna is exhibited in three different energies; they are called internal energy, marginal energy, and external energy. By internal energy, He exists in Himself with His spiritual paraphernalia, by marginal existence He exhibits Himself as the living entities, and by His external energy He exhibits Himself as the material energy. In each and every exhibition of His different energies there is the background of eternity, pleasure potency, and cognizance potency.
#$p#The conditioned soul is the marginal potency, overpowered by the external potency. When the marginal potency, however, comes under the spiritual potency, the marginal potency becomes eligible for love of Godhead. The Supreme Lord enjoys with six kinds of opulences and nobody can establish that He is Formless or that He is without energy. If somebody says that, it is completely against the Vedic instruction. Actually, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the Master of all energies. The living entity, being an infinitesimal part and parcel, becomes overpowered by the material energy.
#$p#In the Mundaka Upanishad it is stated that two birds of the same feather are sitting on one tree. One of them is eating the fruit of the tree, and the other is not eating the fruit of the tree, but is witnessing the activities of the other bird. When the bird eating the fruit of the tree looks on the other bird, he becomes freed from all anxieties. This is the position of the infinitesimal living entity. So long as he is forgetful of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he is subjected to the threefold miseries; but when he looks to the Supreme Lord, or becomes a devotee of the Supreme Lord, he becomes free from all anxieties and miseries of material existence.
#$p#This position of the living entity means that he is eternally subordinate to the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord is always the Master of all energies, whereas the living entities are always under the energies of the Supreme Lord. The living entity, although qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord, has a tendency to lord it over the material Nature; but, being infinitesimal, the living entity has the tendency to be controlled by material Nature. This qualification of the living entity is called marginal potency. Because the living entity has a tendency for being controlled by the material Nature, he cannot at any stage of life become One with the Supreme Lord. If a living entity were equal to the Supreme Lord then there would be no chance of his being controlled by the material energy. In Bhagavad Gita, the living entity has been described as one of the energies of the Supreme Lord. Energy, although inseparable from the energetic, is still energy, and cannot be equal with the energetic. In other words, the living entity is simultaneously one and different from the Supreme Lord. The Bhagavad Gita, in the Seventh Chapter, verses 4-5, clearly states that earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego are the eight different elementary energies of the Supreme Lord. All these energies are of inferior quality, whereas the living entity has energy of superior quality. Therefore Vedic instruction confirms the transcendental Form of the Supreme Lord as eternal, blissful, and full of knowledge.
#$p#The conception of impersonalism is the opposite of the transformations of the material modes of Nature. The form beyond the modes of material Nature is not exactly like the form of this material world, but there is form, which is called spiritual form. That spiritual form cannot be compared with any one of these material forms. Anyone, therefore, who does not agree to accept the spiritual Form of the Supreme Lord, is counted among the atheists. Lord Buddha did not accept these Vedic principles, and therefore the Vedic teachers considered Him an atheist. Although Mayavadi philosophers do pretend to accept the Vedic principles, they indirectly preach the Buddhist philosophy or atheistic philosophy, without acceptance of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This philosophy is inferior to Buddha's philosophy, which directly denies the Vedic authority; for the Mayavadi philosophy is disguised as Vedanta philosophy, and is thus more dangerous than Buddhism or atheism.
#$p#Vedanta Sutra is purely compiled by Vyasadeva for the benefit of all living entities in order to understand the philosophy of Bhakti Yoga. Unfortunately, the Mayavadi commentary, Sarirakabhasya, has practically defeated the purpose of the Vedanta Sutra. In the Mayavadi commentary, the spiritual, transcendental Form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead has been denied and the Supreme Brahman has been dragged down to a level equal with the individual Brahman, the living entity. Both of them have been denied the spiritual form of individuality, although it is clearly stated that the Supreme Lord is the One Supreme Living entity, and the living entities are many. Therefore, to consider the commentary of the Mayavadi philosophy on the Vedanta Sutra is always dangerous. The danger is in the false understanding of the living entity as equal to the Supreme Lord. A living entity can thus be falsely directed; and as a result he can never come to his actual position, his eternal activity in Bhakti Yoga. In other words, the Mayavadi philosophy has rendered the greatest disservice to humanity by promoting the impersonal view of the Supreme Lord. These philosophers are depriving human society of the real message of the Vedanta Sutra.
#$p#From the very beginning of the Vedanta Sutra it is accepted that the cosmic manifestation is a display of the energy of the Supreme Lord. In the very beginning, Janmadyasya, it is described that the Supreme Brahman is That from Whom everything is taking appearance. Everything is being maintained and everything is dissolved in Him. The Absolute Truth is the Cause of Creation, Maintenance, and Dissolution. The cause of the fruit is the tree. When the tree produces a fruit it does not mean that the tree is impersonal. The tree produces many hundreds and thousands of fruits but it remains as it is. The fruit is produced, developed, stays for some time, dwindles, and then vanishes. That does not mean that the tree has vanished. From the very beginning, therefore, the purpose of the Vedanta Sutra is the exposition of the doctrine of by-products. These activities of production, maintenance and dissolution are going on by the inconceivable energy of the Supreme Lord. The cosmic manifestation is a transformation of the energy of the Supreme Lord, although the energy of the Supreme Lord and the Supreme Lord Himself are non-different and inseparable. An example is the touchstone which produces great quantities of gold by contact with iron—but still the touchstone remains as it is. The Supreme Lord, therefore, in spite of His producing the huge material cosmic manifestation, is always in His transcendental Form.
#$p#Mayavadi philosophy has the audacity to decline acceptance of the purpose of Vyasadeva, as explained in the Vedanta Sutra, and has tried instead to establish transformation of the Supreme: a doctrine of transformation by imagination. According to Mayavadi philosophy, the cosmic manifestation is a transformation of the Absolute Truth, and the Absolute Truth has no separate existence. This is not the message of the Vedanta Sutra. This transformation has been explained by Mayavadi philosophers as false; but it is not false—it is temporary. Mayavadi philosophy says that the Absolute Truth is the only truth, and this manifestation of the world is false, Actually it is not so. The material contamination is not false; it is relative truth, and therefore it is temporary.
#$p#Pranava or Omkara is the chief indication of Vedic hymns, and Omkara is considered as the sound Form of the Supreme Lord. From Omkara, all Vedic hymns have emanated, and the world has also emanated from the Omkara sound. The world Tatvamasi, picked up from the Vedic hymns, is not the chief word, but it is an explanation of the constitutional position of the living entity. The meaning of this Tatvamasi is that the living entity is a spiritual particle of the Supreme spirit; but this is not the chief motif of the Vedanta or Vedic literature. The chief sound representation of the Supreme is Omkara.
#$p#All these faulty explanations of Vedanta Sutra are atheism. The Mayavadi philosophers do not agree to accept the eternal, transcendental Form of the Supreme Lord and they are therfore unable to be engaged in real devotional service. The Mayavadi philosopher is ever bereft of Krishna Consciousness and Krishna's devotional service. The pure devotee of the Personality of Godhead never accepts the Mayavadi philosophy as an actual path to transscendental realization. The Mayavadi philosophers are hovering on the moral and immoral material atmosphere of the cosmic world; they are always engaged in rejecting and accepting material enjoyment. They have falsely accepted the nonspiritual as the spiritual. As a result of this misconception they have forgotten the spiritual, eternal Form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, His Name, Quality and Entourage. They consider the transcendental Pastimes, Name, Form and Quality of the Supreme as a product of material Nature, and so the Mayavadi is eternally subjected to the material miseries because of his acceptance or rejection of material pleasure and misery.
#$p#The actual devotees of the Lord are always different from the Mayavadi philosophers. lmpersonalism cannot be a representation of eternity, blissfulness, and knowledge. Being situated in imperfect knowledge of liberation, the Mayavadi decries eternity, knowledge, and blissfulness, under a misconception of materialism. They reject devotional service. Therefore they are less intelligent men. They are unable to understand the effect of devotional service. Their jugglery of words for amalgamating knowledge and the knowable and the knower into one has proved their very existence as a less intelligent class of men. The doctrine of by-product is the real purport of the beginning of Vedanta Sutra. The Lord is empowered with innumerable unlimited energies, and as such He displays the by-products of such energies in different ways. Everything is under His control. The Supreme Controller is called the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He is manifested in innumerable energies and expansions.
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The #i#Purāṇas#/i# are called supplementary Vedic literatures. Because sometimes in the original #i#Vedas#/i# the subject matter is too difficult for the common man to understand, the #i#Purāṇas#/i# explain matters simply by the use of stories and historical incidents. In #i#Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam#/i# (SB 10.14.32) it is stated that Mahārāja Nanda and the cowherd men and inhabitants of Vṛndāvana are very fortunate because the Supreme Brahman, the Personality of Godhead, full of bliss, engages in His eternal pastimes as their friend.
#$p#According to #i#Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad#/i#, the #i#apāṇi-pādo javano grahītā mantra#/i# confirms that although Brahman has no material hands and legs, He nonetheless walks in a very stately way and accepts everything that is offered to Him. This suggests that He has transcendental limbs and is therefore not impersonal. One who does not understand the Vedic principles simply stresses the impersonal material features of the Supreme Absolute Truth and thus incorrectly calls the Absolute Truth impersonal. The impersonalist Māyāvādī philosophers want to establish the Absolute Truth as impersonal, but this is in contradiction to Vedic literature. Although Vedic literatures confirm the fact that the Supreme Absolute Truth has multiple energies, the Māyāvādī impersonalists still try to establish that the Absolute Truth has no energy. The fact remains, however, that the Absolute Truth is full of energy and is a person as well. It is not possible to establish Him as impersonal.
#$p#According to the #i#Viṣṇu Purāṇa#/i# (6.7.61-3), the living entities are considered #i#kṣetrajña#/i# energy. Although the living entity is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord and is fully cognizant, he nonetheless becomes entrapped by material contamination and suffers all the miseries of material life. Such living entities live in different ways in accordance to the degree of their entanglement in material nature. The original energy of the Supreme Lord is spiritual and nondifferent from the Supreme Absolute Personality of Godhead. The living entity is called the marginal energy of the Supreme Lord, and the material energy is called the inferior energy. Due to his material inebriety, the living entity in the marginal position becomes entangled with the inferior energy, matter. At such a time he forgets his spiritual significance, identifies himself with material energy and thereby becomes subjected to the threefold miseries. Only when he is free from such material contamination can he be situated in his proper position.
#$p#According to Vedic instructions, one should understand the constitutional position of the living entity, the position of the Lord, and the position of material energy in their interrelation. First of all, one should try to understand the constitutional position of the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead. That Supreme Lord has an eternal, cognizant, blissful body, and His spiritual energy is distributed as eternity, knowledge and bliss. In His blissful identity can be found His pleasure potency, and in His eternal identity He can be seen as the cause of everything. In His cognizant identity, He is the supreme knowledge. Indeed, the word #i#kṛṣṇa#/i# indicates that supreme knowledge. In other words, the Supreme Personality, #i#Kṛṣṇa,#/i# is the reservoir of all knowledge, pleasure and eternity. The supreme knowledge of Kṛṣṇa is exhibited in three different energies—internal, marginal and external. By virtue of His internal energy, He exists in Himself with His spiritual paraphernalia; by means of His marginal energy, He exhibits Himself as the living entities, and by means of His external energy He exhibits Himself as material energy. Behind each and every energetic exhibition there is the background of eternity, pleasure, potency and full cognizance.
#$p#The conditioned soul is the marginal potency overpowered by the external potency. However, when the marginal potency comes under the jurisdiction of the spiritual potency, it becomes eligible for love of Godhead. The Supreme Lord enjoys six kinds of opulences, and no one can establish that He is formless or that He is without energy. If someone claims so, his contention is completely opposed to the Vedic instructions. Actually the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the master of all energies. It is only the living entity, who is an infinitesimal part and parcel of Him, who is overpowered by the material energy.
#$p#In the #i#Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad#/i# it is stated that there are two birds sitting on the same tree, and one of these birds is eating the fruit of this tree while the other bird is simply witnessing his activities. Only when the bird eating the fruit looks at the other bird does he become free from all anxieties. This is the position of the infinitesimal living entity. As long as he is forgetful of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who witnesses all his activities, he is subjected to the threefold miseries. But when he looks to the Supreme Lord and becomes the Supreme Lord's devotee, he becomes free from all anxieties and material miseries. The living entity is eternally subordinate to the Supreme Lord; the Supreme Lord is always the master of all energies, whereas the living entity is always under the domination of the Lord's energies. Although qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord, the living entity has the tendency to lord it over material nature; however, being infinitesimal, he is actually controlled by material nature. Thus the living entity is called the marginal potency of the Lord.
#$p#Because the living entity tends to be controlled by material nature, he cannot at any stage become one with the Supreme Lord. If a living entity were equal to the Supreme Lord, there would be no possibility of his being controlled by material energy. In #i#Bhagavad-gītā#/i# the living entity is described as one of the energies of the Supreme Lord. Although inseparable from the energetic, energy is still energy, and it cannot be equal with the energetic. In other words, the living entity is simultaneously one and different from the Supreme Lord. #i#Bhagavad-gītā#/i# (7.4-5) clearly states that earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego are the eight elementary energies of the Supreme Lord and are of inferior quality, whereas the living entity is of superior quality. The Vedic literatures confirm the fact that the transcendental form of the Supreme Lord is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge.
#$p#The form of the Supreme Lord which is beyond the modes of material nature is not like the forms of this material world. His form is fully spiritual and cannot be compared with any material form. According to Vedic literatures, one who does not accept the spiritual form of the Supreme Lord is an atheist. Because Lord Buddha did not accept these Vedic principles, the Vedic teachers consider him to be an atheist. Although Māyāvādī philosophers pretend to accept the Vedic principles, they indirectly preach Buddhist philosophy, or atheistic philosophy, and do not accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Māyāvādī philosophy is inferior to Buddhist philosophy, which directly denies Vedic authority. Because it is disguised as #i#Vedānta#/i# philosophy, Māyāvādī philosophy is more dangerous than Buddhism or atheism.
#$p##i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i# is compiled by Vyāsadeva for the benefit of all living entities. It is through #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i# that the philosophy of #i#bhakti-yoga#/i# can be understood. Unfortunately, the Māyāvādī commentary, #i#Śārīraka-bhāṣya#/i#, has practically defeated the purpose of #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i#. In the Māyāvādī commentary, the spiritual, transcendental form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead has been denied, and the Supreme Brahman has been dragged down to the level of the individual Brahman, the living entity. Both the Supreme Brahman and the individual Brahman have been denied spiritual form and individuality, although it is clearly stated that the Supreme Lord is the one supreme living entity and the other living entities are the many subordinate living entities. Thus reading the #i#Māyāvādī#/i# commentaries on #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i# is always dangerous. The chief danger is that through these commentaries one may come to consider the living entity to be equal to the Supreme Lord. It is easy for a conditioned living entity to be falsely directed in this way, and once he is so directed he can never come to his actual position or enjoy his eternal activity in #i#bhakti yoga#/i#. In other words, the Māyāvādī philosophy has rendered the greatest disservice to humanity by promoting the impersonal view of the Supreme Lord. Thus Māyāvādī philosophers deprive human society of the real message of #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i#.
#$p#From the very beginning of #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i# it is accepted that the cosmic manifestation is but an energetic display of the Supreme Lord. The very first aphorism (#i#janmādy asya#/i# (SB 1.1.1)) describes the Supreme Brahman as He from whom everything emanates. Everything is maintained by Him, and everything is dissolved in Him. Thus the Absolute Truth is the cause of creation, maintenance and dissolution. The cause of a piece of fruit is the tree; when a tree produces a piece of fruit, one cannot say that the tree is impersonal. The tree may produce hundreds and thousands of fruits, but it remains as it is. The fruit is produced, and it develops and stays for some time; then it dwindles and vanishes. This does not mean that the tree also vanishes. Thus from the very beginning the #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i# explains the doctrine of by-products. These activities of production, maintenance and dissolution are carried out by the inconceivable energy of the Supreme Lord. The cosmic manifestation is a transformation of the energy of the Supreme Lord, although the energy of the Supreme Lord and the Supreme Lord Himself are nondifferent and inseparable. A touchstone may produce great quantities of gold in contact with iron, but still the touchstone remains as it is. Despite His producing huge material cosmic manifestations, the Supreme Lord is always in His transcendental form.
#$p#Māyāvādī philosophy has the audacity to reject the purpose of Vyāsadeva, as explained in the #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i#, and to attempt to establish a doctrine of transformation which is totally imaginary. According to the Māyāvādī philosophy, the cosmic manifestation is but the transformation of the Absolute Truth, and the Absolute Truth has no separate existence outside the cosmic manifestation. This is not the message of #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i#. The transformation has been explained by Māyāvādī philosophers as false, but it is not false. It is only temporary. The Māyāvādī philosophers maintain that the Absolute Truth is the only truth and that this material manifestation known as the world is false. Actually this is not the case. The material contamination is not exactly false; because it is relative truth, it is temporary. There is a difference between something that is temporary and something that is false.
#$p##i#Praṇava#/i#, or #i#oṁkāra#/i#, is the chief vibration found in the Vedic hymns, and #i#oṁkāra#/i# is considered to be the sound form of the Supreme Lord. From #i#oṁkāra#/i# all Vedic hymns have emanated, and the world itself has also emanated from this #i#oṁkāra#/i# sound. The words #i#tat tvam asi,#/i# also found in the Vedic hymns, are not the chief vibrations but are explanations of the constitutional position of the living entity. #i#Tat tvam asi#/i# means that the living entity is a spiritual particle of the supreme spirit, but this is not the chief motif of the #i#Vedānta#/i# or Vedic literatures. The chief sound representation of the Supreme is #i#oṁkāra#/i#.
#$p#All these faulty explanations of #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i# are considered atheistic. Because the Māyāvādī philosophers do not accept the eternal transcendental form of the Supreme Lord, they are unable to engage in real devotional service. Thus the Māyāvādī philosopher is forever bereft of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and Kṛṣṇa's devotional service. The pure devotee of the Personality of Godhead never accepts the Māyāvādī philosophy as an actual path to transcendental realization. The Māyāvādī philosophers hover in the moral and immoral material atmosphere of the cosmic world and consequently are always engaged in rejecting and accepting material enjoyment. They have falsely accepted the nonspiritual as the spiritual, and as a result they have forgotten the spiritual eternal form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as well as His name, quality and entourage. They consider the transcendental pastimes, name, form and qualities of the Supreme to be products of material nature. Because of their acceptance and rejection of material pleasure and misery, the Māyāvādī philosophers are eternally subjected to material misery.
#$p#The actual devotees of the Lord are always in disagreement with the Māyāvādī philosophers. There is no way that impersonalism can possibly represent eternity, bliss and knowledge. Being situated in imperfect knowledge of liberation, the Māyāvādī decries eternity, knowledge and bliss as materialism. Because they reject devotional service, they are unintelligent and unable to understand the effects of devotional service. The word jugglery they use in an attempt to amalgamate knowledge, the knowable and the knower simply reveals them to be unintelligent. The doctrine of by-product is the real purport of the beginning of #i#Vedānta-sūtra#/i#. The Lord is empowered with innumerable unlimited energies, and consequently He displays the by-products of these energies in different ways. Everything is under His control. The Supreme Lord is also the supreme controller, and He is manifested in innumerable energies and expansions.
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