BY: SUN STAFF
Feb 14, CANADA (SUN) —
Bhagavat Sandarbha
by Srila Jiva Goswami
SECTION TWELVE
Lord is the fountainhead of mutually conflicting potencies - I
Although the internal potency (svarupa sakti) and the external potency (maya sakti) are antagonistic to each other, and both have many sub-branches that are opposite to their counterparts, still the Supreme Lord is their only shelter. This is stated in the prayers of Daksha to Sri Purushottama in the Srimad Bhagavatam (6.4.31.):
Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the all-pervading Supreme Personality of Godhead, who has unlimited transcendental qualities. His potencies repeatedly bewilder the philosophers' who make them the subject of dispute and agreement and argue about them inconclusively.
His potencies become the object of dispute and accordance for the contenders of various philosophies. The rest is self-explanatory.
COMMENTARY
After establishing that the Lord has integral potencies, Srila Jiva Gosvami explains that both the internal and external potencies have their ultimate shelter in the Lord. The internal and external potencies, although antagonistic to each other, like light and darkness, are perfectly supported by the Lord. One of the most wonderful characteristics of the Lord is that he accommodates opposing qualities. Not understanding this inconceivable feature of the Absolute Truth, speculative philosophers argue endlessly about God's nature. Some philosophers realize a certain aspect of the Lord, say His formless nature, and try to limit Him to that. Other philosophers believe what they think to be the opposing aspect, that God is a person. Both camps then cite scripture and use logic to advance their respective philosophical conclusions. Daksha Maharaja, however, refers to the Lord as ananta-guna, one who has unlimited qualities. Unless we recognize this factor we will remain bewildered about the Personality of the Lord.
In the last Text it was explained that while Maya inflicts the threefold miseries on the living entities, the internal potency dispels them. Similarly, Maya causes bondage and svarupa sakti grants liberation. In this way Maya, svarupa sakti, and their respective subdivisions, function in opposite ways yet both are supported by the Lord. Sri Vyasa's trance also reveals that Maya is sheltered by the Personality of Godhead--mayanca tadapasryam (S.B. 1.7.4). The word ca "also" is indicative of the other potencies such as the internal and marginal. All these energies have various subdivisions. "Out of these the internal energy with its various divisions will be described in the later part of this book and the other two will be discussed in the Paramatma Sandarbha. It is not only the one group of energy functions against another, sometimes even energies within the same group act contrary to each other and yet they co-exist under the shelter of the Lord. For example, the modes of material nature are always vying for supremacy and yet they cannot exist independent of each other. It is like a ghee lamp. The flame consumes both the wick and ghee but it also subsists on them. Ghee is motionless yet it moves up through the wick. Ghee can also extinguish the flame. In this way energies have vivada, dispute and samvada agreement simultaneously.
In the next text Srila Jiva Gosvami gives further proof of the conflicting nature of the Lord's energies.
Go to Section Thirteen
Return to Section Eleven
