From Vaikuntha or from Brahmayoti
BY: NANDANANDANA DASA (ACBSP)
Mar 11, MEXICO (SUN) — The discussion about the origin and fall of the soul has been going on for long time, and perhaps will continue for many more years. A recent article by Acaryavilasa dasa (March 4) on this issue attracted my attention – "To Protect the Name and Legacy of Srila Prabhupada".
Does he? Why not better accept the statements of the Sampradaya Acarya, His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, bas, finished.
"Formerly we were with Krsna in His lila or sport…The real position is servant of Krsna, and servant of Krsna means in Krsna lila." (Letter to Madhudvisa)
"The next question, about the living entities falling down in this material world are not from the impersonal brahman." (Letter 13 June, 1970)
A New Theory
Acaryavilasa dasa is spreading a new theory. Now we have to confront with a new theory. This new theory is only wishful thinking all along. This theory is that the jivas, living entities, originated from Maha-Vishnu.
He quotes from Brahma-samhita 5.11:
sahasra-sirsa purusah
sahasraksah sahasra-pat
sahasra-bahur visvatma
sahasramsah sahasra-suh
"The Lord of the mundane world, Maha-Visnu, possesses thousands of thousands of heads, eyes, and hands. He is the source of thousands of thousands of avataras in His thousands of thousands of subjective portions. He is the creator of thousands of thousands of individual souls."
Acaryavilasa dasa's own comment:
"Sri Maha Visnu, situated within the Causal Ocean is "the creator of thousands of thousands of individual souls." So Sri Maha Visnu creates souls and in the tata or margin between the material and spiritual realms these tatastha-shakti-jivas choose devotion or rebellion in the spiritual and material realms respectively."
Now what the Parampara says
Anyone who has read Srimad-Bhagavatam (First Canto, Chapter 3) knows that the function of the Purusha Avataras (Garbhodakasayi Vishnu, Karanodakasyi Vishnu and Ksirodakasayi Vishnu) is the creation of the material world. Those living entities manifested from Mahavishnu are the ones dissolved from previous dissolution or cataclysm. You can study this also from Brahma-samhita 5.11-22, 48, and Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 6.
Purport by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada from Bs.5.11:
"Maha-Vishnu, the object of worship of the hymns of all the Vedas, is possessed of an infinity of senses and potencies, and He is the prime avatara-purusha, the source of all the avataras."
"By conglomerating all those separate entities He manifested the innumerable mundane universes and Himself entered into the inmost recess of every extended conglomerate. At that time those jivas who had lain dormant during the cataclysm were awakened."
Purport: "Those jivas that were merged in Hari at the end of the life of Brahma in the great cataclysm during the preceding great age of the universe, reappeared in this world in accordance with their former fruitive desires."- Bs. 5.20.
Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.10.6:
nirodho 'syanushayanam
atmanah saha shaktibhih
muktir hitvanyatha rupam
sva-rupena vyavasthitih
"The merging of the living entity, along with his conditional living tendency, with the mystic lying down of the Maha-Visnu is called the winding up of the cosmic manifestation. Liberation is the permanent situation of the form of the living entity after he gives up the changeable gross and subtle material bodies."
Forgetfulness of Krishna: "Forgetfulness of Krishna is the disease" (Letter, 14/11/68)
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada from Bs. 5.44:
"When jivas begotten of the marginal potency (tatastha sakti) forget the service of Krsna they are confined in the mundane prison house, the citadel of Durga. The wheel of karma is the instrument of punishment at this place. The work of purifying these penalized jivas is the duty devolved upon Durga. She is incessantly engaged in discharging the same by the will of Govinda. When, luckily, the forgetfulness of Govinda on the part of imprisoned jivas is remarked by them by coming in contact with self-realized souls and their natural aptitude for the loving service of Krsna is aroused, Durga herself then becomes the agency of their deliverance by the will of Govinda. So it behooves everybody to obtain the guileless grace of Durga, the mistress of this prison house, by propitiating her with the selfless service of Krsna. The boons received from Durga in the shape of wealth, property, recovery from illness, of wife and sons, should be realized as the deluding kindness of Durga. The mundane psychical jubilations of dasa-maha-vidya, the ten goddesses or forms of Durga, are elaborated for the delusion of the fettered souls of this world. Jiva is a spiritual atomic part of Krsna. When he [jiva] forgets his service of Krsna he is at once deflected by the attracting power of Maya in this world, who throws him into the whirlpool of mundane fruitive activity (karma) by confining him in a gross body constituted by the five material elements, their five attributes and eleven senses, resembling the garb of a prisoner. In this whirlpool jiva has experience of happiness and miseries, heaven and hell."
"When the living entity desires to enjoy separately from Krsna, the illusory potency of the Lord, maya, immediately grabs the soul in her clutches. Being maya's captive, he becomes bewildered and acts like someone who has been possessed by a witch.
The jiva soul, forgetting his constitutional position as the eternal servant of Krsna, perfect and pure, becomes a slave of maya. In this condition he roams eternally in the material world from one body to another." (Jagadananda Pandit's Prema-vivarta 6.2-3)
"Anyone who hears about the loving exchanges between Jagadananda Pandit and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, or who reads Jagadananda's book Prema-vivarta, can understand what love is. Moreover, he achieves ecstatic love of Krsna." (Cc. Antya 12.154)
Sri Jagadananda Pandit is Lord Caitanya's close associate and one of His internal devotees, he knows rasa.
Lord Caitanya instructing Srila Sanatana Gosvami on the issue, the following three verses are recorded by Srila Krsnadas Kaviraja Gosvami in his Sri Caitanya-caritamrta:
"O King, the ksetra-jña-sakti is the living entity. Although he has the facility to live in either the material or the spiritual world, he suffers the threefold miseries of material existence because he is influenced by the avidya [nescience] potency, which covers his constitutional position.
This living entity, covered by the influence of nescience, exists in different forms in the material condition. O King, he is thus proportionately freed from the influence of the material energy, to greater or lesser degrees." (Cc. Madhya 20.114-115. From Vishnu Purana 6.7.62-63)
krsna bhuli' sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsara-duhkha
"Forgetting Krsna, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore the illusory energy [maya] gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence." (Cc. Madhya 20.117)
Read the purport, it is important. Part of it says: "The living entity is eternal, and he existed before the creation of this material world."
Not from Maha Vishnu when He creates the material world.
"The living entity is bound around the neck by the chain of maya because he has forgotten that he is eternally a servant of Krsna." (Cc. Madhya 22.24)
You cannot forget something or someone whom you do not know nor have not known. If you originated from Mahavishnu, when did you forget Krishna or His service?
From Gita; bhutva bhutva praliyate
"When Brahma's day is manifest, this multitude of living entities comes into being, and at the arrival of Brahma's night they are all annihilated." (Bg. 8.18)
Purport: "… [The jivas] In the day they receive various bodies for material activities, and at night these bodies perish. The jivas (individual souls) remain compact in the body of Vishnu and again and again are manifest at the arrival of Brahma's day. When Brahma's life is finally finished, they are all annihilated and remain unmanifest for millions and millions of years. Finally, when Brahma is born again in another millennium, they are again manifest. In this way the jivas are captivated by the material world (…)."
bhutva bhutva praliyate: "Again and again the day comes, and this host of beings is active; and again the night falls, O Partha, and they are helplessly dissolved. " (Bg. 8.19)
"By becoming fixed in this knowledge, one can attain to the transcendental nature, which is like My own nature. Thus established, one is not born at the time of creation nor disturbed at the time of dissolution." (Bg. 14.2)
Living Entities Are Superior Energy
apareyam itas tv anyam
prakrtim viddhi me param
jiva-bhutam maha-baho
yayedam dharyate jagat
"Besides this inferior nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which are all living entities who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe." (Bg.7.5)
Purport: "Here it is clearly mentioned that living entities belong to the superior nature (or energy) of the Supreme Lord (…)."
"Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in this world, know for certain that I am both its origin and dissolution." (Bg. 7.6)
From Bhagavatam
"Brahma-samhita (5.47) as follows:
yah karanarnava jale bhajati sma yoga-
nidram ananta jagadanda-saroma-kupah
adhara-saktim avalambya param sva-murtim
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami
The first purusha incarnation of Govinda, Lord Krsna, known as the Maha-Visnu, goes into a yoga-nidra mystic sleep, and the innumerable universes are situated in potency in each and every hair hole of His transcendental body." (SB 2.10.3. Purport).
"There are three puruña features in the material creation, and this form, who is known as the Karanodakasayi Visnu, is the first of the three. The others are known as the Garbhodakasayi Visnu and the Ksirodakasayi Visnu, which we shall know one after another. The innumerable universes are generated from the skin holes of this Karanodakasayi Visnu, and in each one of the universes the Lord enters as Garbhodakasayi Visnu …Those fortunate living entities who catch the truth and surrender unto the lotus feet of Vasudeva after many, many births in the material world join the eternally liberated souls and thus are allowed to enter into the kingdom of Godhead. After this, such fortunate living entities need not come again within the occasional material creation. But those who cannot catch the constitutional truth are again merged into the mahat-tattva at the time of the annihilation of the material creation. When the creation is again set up, this mahat-tattva is again let loose. This mahat-tattva contains all the ingredients of the material manifestations, including the conditioned souls." (SB, 3.1, purport)
"…Therefore, the conclusion is that the purusha-avatara is manifested in three features — first the Karanodakasayi who creates aggregate material ingredients in the mahat-tattva, second the Garbhodakasayi who enters in each and every universe, and third the Ksirodakasayi Visnu who is the Paramatma of every material object, organic or inorganic. One who knows these plenary features of the Personality of Godhead knows Godhead properly, and thus the knower becomes freed from the material conditions of birth, death, old age and disease, as it is confirmed in Bhagavad-gita. In this sloka the subject matter of Maha-Visnu is summarized. The Maha-Visnu lies down in some part of the spiritual sky by His own free will. Thus He lies on the ocean of karana, from where He glances over His material nature, and the mahat-tattva is at once created." (SB 1.3.2, purport)
Arbitrary or Free Will
Some time back I read in The Sampradaya Sun a weird "explanation" of the "Maha-Vishnu theory" by another advocate (or maybe the same one) of this theory. His argument goes something like this:
"Since Krsna is all attractive the spirit soul cannot fall from Vaikuntha or Goloka. When the spirit soul is produced by Maha-Vishnu he can choose between the material world or the service to Maha-Vishnu."
What he is saying is that Maha-Vishnu does not resemble the beauty of Krsna or His attractiveness and therefore many souls choose the material world. All that is just plain mental concoction, as we have already seen.
Falling from Brahma-Sayuya
This proposition that the living entities fall down from brahma-sayujya has an impersonalist leaning.
Those who advocate that the living entity falls from Brahmayoti, not from Vaikuntha, they propound that the Lord created nitya-siddhas, eternally liberated, to reside eternally in the Vaikuntha planets. And then He created nitya-baddhas, eternally conditioned, to reside eternally in the material world from their very beginning, and maybe later get a chance to be liberated.
In this proposition the living entity has not a chance to exercise his free will, he is just put in the material world and he has no choice at all. This is a Judeo-Christian concept, not Vedic.
In this idea, the living entity is put in the material world covered-up by illusion, subjected to suffer the material miseries: birth, death, old age and disease, without having anything to do with this situation. He is put in disadvantage by the "all merciful Lord" and if he fails he is condemned eternally to hell. In the Judeo-Christian idea the living entity has to pay the sin of somebody else, Adam and Eve, is that logical? And since nobody knows why they are here, they say, "The Lord works in mysterious ways". In the falling from Brahman proposition the living entity is made nitya-baddha. This not the Vedic idea.
Our very dear Friend and Well Wisher
Lord Sri Krsna Himself declares in Bhagavad-gita (5.29), "suhridam sarva bhutanam." That He is everyone´s dear friend, but not just any kind of friend, there are different degrees of friends. He didn't say mitra or bandhu, He said suhridam, very dear friend, bosom friend. He is always our well wisher, that is suhridam. The Lord accompanies the spirit soul as the Paramatma. Krishna sends His dear associate like the spiritual master to help us, He descends Himself to attract the living entities and provides the Vedic literature just to help the living entity to go back home. Do you think that your dearest friend would put you in a difficult position in the first instance? That He would put you into a temporary and illusory situation where you are subjected to suffering, out of arbitrary will?
It doesn't make sense that first He would put you in a predicament and later try to save you.
Prahlada Maharaja has said:
"My dear Lord of the Vaikuntha planets, where there is no anxiety, my mind is extremely sinful and lusty, being sometimes so-called happy and sometimes so-called distressed. My mind is full of lamentation and fear…" (SB 7.9.39).
It is described, harsha-shoka-bhaya. Harsha temporary happiness and shoka lamentation both are source of fear and anxiety, in the Vaikuntha planets such things do not exist.
-o-
Just like the propounders of "The Maha-Vishnu theory", because they were again manifested from Maha-Vishnu at the time of creation, they think that their origin is from Maha-Vishnu, they don't remember they existed before that. In this case, because they may have fallen down from Brahmayoti, they think that that is their origin.
"Because he falls down from brahma-sayujya, he thinks that may be his origin; but he does not remember that before that even he was with Krishna. Formerly we were with Krishna in His lila or sport" (Lecture in Australia).
"The next question, about the living entities falling down in this material world are not from the impersonal brahman. Existence in the impersonal brahma is also within the category of non-Krsna consciousness. Those who are in the brahman effulgence they are also in the fallen condition, so there is no question of falling down from a fallen condition. When fall takes place, it means falling down from the non-fallen condition."
(Letter 13 June, 1970)
Real liberation is to be established in one´s own svarupa, eternal nature:
muktir hitvanyatha rupam
sva-rupena vyavasthitih
And what is that svarupa? Lord Caitanya says:
jivera ‘svarupa' haya——krsnera ‘nitya-dasa'
"It is the living entity's constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Krsna" (Cc. Madhya 20.108)
Then our nature is to go back home, back to Godhead, Krsna, or rather to Radha-Krsna.
sa nityo nitya-sambandhah
prakrtish ca paraiva sa
"The same jiva is eternal and is for eternity and without a beginning joined to the Supreme Lord by the tie of an eternal kinship. He is transcendental spiritual potency." (Bs. 5.21)
That those who are situated in the brahman effulgence are in the fallen condition is elucidated in the following verse:
ye 'nye 'ravindaksha vimukta-maninas
tvayy asta-bhavad avishuddha-buddhayah
aruhya krcchrena param padam tatah
patanty adho 'nadrta-yushmad-anghrayah
"Persons who are falsely under the impression of being liberated, without devotional service to the Lord, may reach the goal of the brahmajyoti, but because of their impure consciousness and for want of shelter in the Vaikunthalokas, such so-called liberated persons again fall down into material existence." (Bhag. 10.2.32)
"The Vedic conclusion is transcendental light, whereas the non-Vedic conclusion is material darkness." (SB 2.10.3, purport)
Marginal
"In the material world, either ordinary living entities and the demigods, they belong to the same category of jiva tattva, the marginal potency of Visnu." (Letter, 21 October, 1968)
"You are not eternally conditioned. You are eternally liberated but since we have become conditioned on account of our desire to enjoy materialistic way of life, from time immemorial, therefore it appears that we are eternally conditioned. Because we cannot trace out the history or the date when we became conditioned, therefore it is technically called eternally conditioned. Otherwise the living entity is not actually conditioned. A living entity is always pure. But he is prone to be attracted by material enjoyment and as soon as he agrees to place himself in material enjoyment, he becomes conditioned, but that is not permanent. Therefore a living entity is called on the marginal state, sometimes this side, sometimes that side. These are very intelligent questions. And I am very glad that you are putting such intelligent questions and trying to understand it. It is very good. But best thing is that one should know he is in conditioned life and try to cure it. When a man is in diseased condition he should try to get out of diseased condition without harassing his brain when the disease has begun. But it is to be understood that the disease is not our constant companion, it is temporary. So the best thing is to cure the disease, and not waste our time to find out the date when it began. Forgetfulness of Krishna is the disease, so let us keep ourselves always in Krishna Consciousness, and get out of the disease, that is healthy life." (Letter, 14 November, 1968)
Being marginal you have to be under the material, external energy, or the internal spiritual energy. Maya or Srimati Radharani.
"Regarding your question about our relationship with Srimati Radharani, She is the internal energy, we are marginal energy. Marginal means sometimes internal, sometimes external. When we are under the internal energy, that is our normal life, and when we are under the external energy, that is our abnormal life. Therefore, we are called marginal energy; we can be either this way or that way. But being qualitatively one with the purusa, our tendency is to remain in the internal energy. Being in the external energy is our artificial attempt." (Letter, 25 April, 1969)
Again Nitya-Siddha
"There are two kinds of living entities: nitya-siddha and nitya-baddha. Nitya-siddha means they never fall a victim of maya. That is nitya-siddha. Even though they are within this material world, they are never victimized. That is called nitya-siddha. And one who is victimized, he is called nitya-baddha. But the actual constitutional position of every living entity is nitya-siddha, because God is eternal and His part and parcels, the living entities, they are also eternal. So that is nitya-siddha. Nitya-siddha, sadhana-siddha, krpa-siddha—there are different grades. They are all described in The Nectar of Devotion. So one can become sadhana-siddha. By following the rules and regulations and instructions of the spiritual master, he can also become siddha. He can become again nitya-siddha.
So the Krsna consciousness movement is to make the nitya-baddhas again nitya-siddha…"
(Class, Cc. Madhya 20.107. NY 7.13.76)
