Patita Pavana das: In the spiritual world, Krishna’s aura or the aura of the planets is liberated souls, brahmavadis. Srila Sanatana Gosvami’s
Brhad Bhagavatmrta 2.3.32-41 describes this.
“By the desire of the Lord, I then crossed beyond that vast region of dense ignorance (pradhana or prakrti, the last shell of the universe) and came to a place flooded with a light so brilliant, so unbearably beyond seeing, that it forced me to close my eyes.
Attracted by the beauty of the covering formed of prakriti, Gopa-kumara had no desire to leave, but the Personality of Godhead, wanting him to reach the abode of liberation, inspired Gopa-kumara to journey on.
With utmost devotion I struggled to look ahead. And then I saw the Supreme Lord, effulgent like millions of suns.
Ever increasing the ecstasy of my mind and eyes, that all-powerful Lord, adorned with many ornaments and sweet features and bearing all the signs of an exalted person, revealed Himself as the most wondrous form of the Supreme Truth.
Though always beyond material qualities, in spiritual qualities He is full; though formless, in form attractive to all. Though never directly connected with Prakriti, that infallible Lord appears resplendent in her company as she performs her pastimes under His shelter.
A flood of reverence, fear, and joy overwhelmed me. At that moment I simply didn’t know what to do.
That self-manifest Lord is beyond the scope of the senses, but one can see Him directly by the power of His mercy. There is no other way.
I was unable to understand whether I was seeing Him with my eyes, with my mind, or with a power of the soul that transcended both.
Although at one moment I saw Him as formless, I remembered the mercy of the Lord of Niladri, and at the next moment I saw Him again in His personal form, vastly effulgent, and I was full of joy.
The Supreme Lord whom Gopa-kumara was perceiving did not actually become impersonal, but when His effulgence intensified, Gopa-kumara could see nothing but that effulgence. This is one characteristic of the abode of liberation, that individual distinctions tend to become obscured by the all-pervading divine light from the transcendental body of the Lord. In this instance, however, Gopa-kumara remembered Lord Jagannatha, who was similarly effulgent, like a brilliant dark-blue mountain. Remembering Lord Jagannatha’s compassion, Gopa-kumara thought that no one else could be as merciful as He. Then, when the Lord’s personal form again became visible past His effulgence, Gopa-kumara’s ecstasy increased even more.
Sometimes I would begin to merge into the Lord’s effulgence, but He mercifully saved Me with the touch of the rays from the nails of His lotus feet.
Sometimes my mind felt special pleasure in beholding Him surrounded by the great perfected beings who were His devotees, at once different and nondifferent from Him. They surrounded Him in subtle spiritual forms, like beams of light around the sun.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead always invites His part-and-parcel jivas to share loving reciprocations with Him, even in the abode of liberation. He kindly considers the liberated souls who surround Him there His bhaktas, but actually they are hardly interested in personal service. The only bhakti they offer the Lord is to decorate Him as particles of His effulgence. Although they are eternal, indissolvable individuals, their separate personalities are now dormant and invisible. Like all other jivas, they are both different and nondifferent from the Supreme, like the rays of light shining from the sun. In spiritual substance they are one with the Lord, but they have autonomous identities, with their own consciousness, their own bodies, and their own small capacity to control.”
In the material world, His -Maha-Visnu’s- aura (brahmajyoti) is conditioned souls.
From a letter of Srila Prabhupada 76-2-52, the 17th of February 1976: “matter originally is spirit and when spirit is not distinctly understood, that is matter. Just like a tree is also a manifestation of spirit soul, but the consciousness is covered. When the tree is cut, it does not protest. But the moving entity has stronger consciousness than the tree. There is consciousness in the tree though. Also consciousness in a dormant state is matter; consciousness in a completely developed state is spirit. Matter is the symbol of undeveloped consciousness.”
Then from a MW in L.A 73-93 on the 5th of December 1973: “Svarupa Damodara: I remember Srila Prabhupada used this “acintya” to differentiate between the life and the non-living.
Prabhupada: Acintya means living.
Svarupa Damodara: No, acintya-sakti. Life, life has acintya…
Prabhupada: Yes.
Svarupa Damodara: Whereas non-life doesn’t have.
Prabhupada: Eh?
Svarupa Damodara: Matter, just like a molecule doesn’t have this acintya. But they may…
Prabhupada: No, it has, but it is covered too much. Consciousness is covered. Potency, potent. It is potent.
Svarupa Damodara: Molecule has consciousness?
Prabhupada: Yes, everything has consciousness, but it is covered. The degree is of covering.”
And from a lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.21-22
November 9, 1976, Vrindavana: “Everything is generated from Krishna, Para-brahman. Aham sarvasya prabhavo [Bg. 10.8]. From Krishna everything is generated. But according to consciousness, they are divided into two energies: the superior energy and the inferior energy. The more the consciousness is developed, one comes to the platform of superior energy.”
In a lecture on SB 3.26.5. (Bombay, december 17,1974) Srila Prabhupada says: “Living entities they have knowledge. That is the difference between matter and living entities. Living entities, they have got knowledge. The dull matter still requires to be developed. They are also covered knowledge. There is knowledge, but it is covered.”
(Letter from Srutadeva dasa to Srila Prabhupada and Prabhupada’s reply, Oct. 30, 1976) “Question 4) There are some sannyasis and temple presidents who are saying that in the ultimate issue there is no impersonal energy. They say that the brahmajyoti is in actuality innumerable living entities and that the material energy, being a transformation of the brahmajyoti, is also ultimately living souls. In other words, there is no impersonal brahmajyoti or dead matter, only living entities.
However, in the CC Adi 2.96 you refer to Jiva Goswami’s Bhagavat-sandarbha “…the Supreme Transcendence, the summum bonum, eternally and simultaneously exists in four transcendental features: His personality, His impersonal effulgence, His potential parts and parcels (the living beings), and the principle cause of all causes.” And in Adi 4.62 you state “Therefore the Absolute Truth includes these four principles — the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, His internal energy, His marginal energy, and His external energy.”
“My understanding is that there is a difference between the spirit souls and the impersonal brahman and material energy or dead matter. They are one in the sense that they are all Krsna’s energy. They are personal in the sense that they all emanate from Krsna. But they are not one and personal in the sense that the three different energies are all ultimately spirit souls. Which is the proper conclusion?”
Srila Prabhupada’s answer: “It is correct that the brahmajyoti is comprised of spiritual souls and that ultimately nothing is impersonal. Dead matter means forgetfulness of Krsna.”
HH Tamala Krsna Gosvami’s Diary: “Svarupa Damodara asked whether he could apply the philosophy of acintya-bhedabheda-tattva to life in matter. Prabhupada said yes, giving the example that within the atom there is life. Svarupa Damodara questioned whether, if life is in the atom, it can be called jiva? Prabhupada confirmed, saying that it is called covered consciousness. Matter is covered consciousness. As a flower bud blooms, so life is developed. If it is destroyed at an early stage, it doesn’t develop. Acintya-bhedabheda can be applied, because matter is actually spirit in the form of undeveloped consciousness. That, Svarupa Damodara recalled, was what Kapoor had said, that there is no difference between life and matter. The Mayavadis try to compromise in this way with modern science. Prabhupada replied, “No, there is a difference — both are coming from the same source, both are spiritual — but one is superior and one is inferior.” Svarupa Damodara reasoned further, “Within any body there are innumerable atoms, therefore innumerable jivas. But among innumerable jivas, one jiva is highly developed in consciousness, and the other jivas are helping.” (Srila Prabhupada quoted Bhagavad-gita 13.22, October 31, 1977)
Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura’s “Jaiva dharma” chapter 2: “There is no such distinction of classes between chit and jada (mundane) matter, as there are different classes in mundane matter, which the followers of the Nyaya-system of Philosophy call Nitya (permanent). I have already said that it is only chit which is the real thing and jada is its vikara (vitiated state). There are many similarities between a pure thing and its vitiation. The vitiated thing becomes different from the pure thing; yet the similarity lingers in many respects. Ice being a vitiated form of water becomes a different thing from water, but similarity still exists in respect of the properties like coldness, etc. though such similarity does not exist between the cold and the hot water; but they are similar regarding their common property of liquidity. Thus in a vitiated thing there remains some common property or another, of the pure thing. So though the mundane world is the vitiation of the chit world, a chit subject may be deliberated on with the help of an example from a mundane matter, …”
Chapter 14 of Jaiva Dharma: “Svarupa-sakti, Radharani, has 3 kinds of potency of activity (kriya-sakti). They are known as: cit-sakti, jiva-sakti and maya-sakti. Although svarupa-sakti is one, She acts in these 3 ways. Jiva-sakti is an atomic part of svarupa-sakti of same substance. Maya-sakti is only a name for the distortion (vikara) of Bhagavan’s parasakti, in the form of it’s shadow (chaya). It is not an independent, separate sakti.”
In text 1 of Anuccheda 16 of Sri Bhagavat-sandarbha, Jiva Goswami cites Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.3.37: brahmaiva bhati sad asac ca tayoh param yat “Brahman, which is the source of all subtle and gross manifestations, is simultaneously transcendental to them, being absolute.”
In text 2 of Anuccheda 16, Jiva Goswami gives this further explanation of the word param in the above quoted Bhagavatam text: “param” svarupa-vaibhavam sri-vaikuntha-rupam tatasthah-vaibhavam suddha-jiva rupa ca, anyatha tat-tad-bhavasiddhih. Here Jiva Goswami says that param means “the Lord’s personal internal potency, which is the spiritual planets of Vaikuntha, and the pure spirit souls, who are His marginal potencies.” He adds, “Any conception that contradicts this is in error.” The marginal potency is described as being param and composed of suddha-jivas, or pure spirit souls.”
Skanda Purana, Sri Vaisnava-khanda, Sri Vasudeva-mahatmya ch. 17. T3 : The Brahman effulgence is the original cause of matter.
“I create after the Lord’s creation by His personal effulgence [known as the brahma-jyoti], just as when the sun manifests its fire, the moon, the firmament, the influential planets and the twinkling stars also manifest their brightness.”
Purport …he creates the universal variegatedness after the potential creation by the glaring effulgence of Lord Sri Krishna. Brahmaji has also separately given this statement in the samhita known as the Brahma-samhita (5.40), where he says:
yasya prabha prabhavato jagad-anda-koti-
kotishv asesha-vasudhadi-vibhuti-bhinnam
tad brahma nishkalam anantam asesha-bhutam
govindam adi-purusham tam aham bhajami
“I serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose transcendental bodily effulgence, known as the brahma-jyoti, which is unlimited, unfathomed and all-pervasive, is the cause of the creation of unlimited numbers of planets, etc., with varieties of climates and specific conditions of life.” This brahma-jyoti is all-pervading, and all creation is made possible by its potential power; therefore the Vedic hymns declare that everything that exists is being sustained by the brahma-jyoti (sarvam khalv idam brahma). Therefore the potential seed of all creation is the brahma-jyoti,…. Just as the small seed of a banyan fruit has the potency to create a big banyan tree, the Lord disseminates all varieties of seeds by His potential brahma-jyoti (sva-rocisha), and the seeds are made to develop by the watering process of persons like Brahma.
(SB 2.5.11. )
Vrndavana mahamrta of Srila Prabhodananda Sarasvati, Sataka 17. T 43: “In Vrndavana all living entities and even all things are blissful eternal spiritual and full of knowledge”.
Krsna book, chapter 89 – Summary description of Lord Krsna: “The brahma-jyoti is a combination of the minute particles known as spiritual sparks, or the living entities, known as cit-kana.”
Nrsimha-uttara-tapaniya Upanisad 7.2: “Someone asks another: Who are you? He answers: aham (I). Similarly, all that exists. Therefore aham is a name for all. Further, all this (this whole world) is Brahman which consists of being, thinking and bliss. For all this consists of being, thinking and bliss. That is, firstly, all this is being; for one says [of all that exist]: That is a being. Further, all this is thinking (spirit, cit) also.”
“The divine expanse of Brahman effulgence you have seen is none other than Myself, O best of the Bharatas. It is My own eternal effulgence.”
“It comprises My eternal, spiritual energy, both manifest and unmanifest. The foremost yoga experts of this world enter within it and become liberated.”
“It is the supreme goal of the followers of Sankhya, O Partha, as well as that of the yogis and ascetics. It is the Supreme Absolute Truth, manifesting the varieties of the entire created cosmos. You should understand this brahma-jyoti, O Bharata, to be My concentrated personal effulgence.”
“The divine expanse of Brahman effulgence you have seen is none other than Myself, O best of the Bharatas. It is My own eternal effulgence.”
“It comprises My eternal, spiritual energy, both manifest and unmanifest. The foremost yoga experts of this world enter within it and become liberated.”
“It is the supreme goal of the followers of Sankhya, O Partha, as well as that of the yogis and ascetics. It is the Supreme Absolute Truth, manifesting the varieties of the entire created cosmos. You should understand this brahma-jyoti, O Bharata, to be My concentrated personal effulgence.”
(Hari- vamsa, Visnu-parva 114.9-10)
This we discuss with the most elevated devotees, of ISKCON, in this Dandavat, since in conversations 17-10-71 Srila Prabhupada says: “These questions are not to be discussed in public. These are very higher understanding. For public should be, “This is matter, this is spirit.” That’s all.”
Thus the Isopanisad T16 purport under discussion, namely:
“The all-pervading feature of the Lord—which exists in all circumstances of waking and sleeping as well as in potential states and from which the jiva-sakti (living force) is generated as both conditioned and liberated souls—is known as Brahman. “
means that the all-pervading feature of the Lord is all the souls, liberated-in the spiritual world, brahmavadi’s and Vaikuntha-vasi’s- and conditioned– in the material world.
ANALYSIS ISOPANISAD
This purport to mantra 16 cannot mean brahmajyoti-fall-vada because in all the other mantras Srila Prabhupada explains fall from lila.
In the Sri Isopanisad mantra 1 at the end of the purport Srila Prabhupada writes: “if one is sober and knows the laws of nature, without being influenced by unnecessary attachment or abhorrence, he is sure to be recognized again by the Lord and thus become eligible for going back to Godhead, back to the eternal home.”
If I leave the temple, my home-base, to go out for book distribution and then later return back home that doesn’t mean I have come from the neighboring mayavadi Hindu temple. (true story) Nor will I ever make my home there.
Lecturing on this verse Srila Prabhupada says, translating Bg 4.9 “To come back to Me, that is the highest perfection of life. He does not come to this miserable world.” (Sri Isopanishad, Mantra 1, Los Angeles, May 4, 1970)
Mantra 4 purport: “When the part-and-parcel living entity forgets his particular activities under the Lord’s will, he is considered to be in maya, illusion.”
Thus the jiva had activities with the Lord. A few sentences later Srila Prabhupada writes: “…he can revive his original consciousness, which was lost due to association with maya…”
The soul had Krishna consciousness and activities of bhakti-service- and lost it. If one wants to stretch this and argue that this consciousness and lila was at the border region then this must have been full Krishna consciousness and lila to have a fair, fully conscious choice. If one can fall from that Krishna consciousness one can also fall from the Krishna consciousness of the spiritual planets of Vaikuntha or Krishna’s planet. Since Visnu is 94% Krishna (see Nectar of Devotion, The 64 qualities of Krishna) the Maha-Visnu brahmajyoti-fall-vada is 94% Goloka Vrindavana fall-vada and 100% Vaikuntha fall-vada.
Mantra 8 purport: “The fallen condition of the living entities is due entirely to forgetfulness of their relationship with God….those who are captivated by the temporary beauties of the external energy forget the real aim of life, which is to go back to Godhead…. if he wants to go back home, back to Godhead, the Lord helps him.”
Srila Prabhpada means with back to Godhead back to the head of the Gods, Krishna.
ete camsa-kalah pumsah
krishnas tu bhagavan svayam
indrari-vyakulam lokam
mridayanti yuge yuge
“All the lists of the incarnations of Godhead submitted herewith are either plenary expansions or parts of the plenary expansions of the Supreme Godhead, but Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself.” (SB 1.3.28)
This is the paribhasa-sutra (basic, essential, most important verse) of the Bhagavatam. The Godhead is Krishna, bhagavan svayam. He never said in all his teachings: back to the brahmajyoti, not even once. He did say:
Back to Goloka Vrindavana 4x
Back to Krishnaloka 1x
Back to Krishna’s loka, back to home 1x
Back to the Vaikuntha planets 7x
Go back to My planet 2x
Go back to Jagannatha 1x
Back to the rasa-lila dance 5x
Back to Vaikuntha 14x
Later in this purport Srila Prabhupada states: “Real liberation means going back to Godhead. Liberation as conceived of by an impersonalist is a myth…” From this statement it is clear that this Godhead is not the brahmajyoti. Real liberation is the Godhead where the souls came from and should be going back to. We came from real liberation and will go back to real liberation. We didn’t come from the brahmajyoti.
Back to (the) Godhead means back to Krishna, Parabrahman.
Srila Prabhupada uses, see vedabase, the phrases
“expansions of Godhead” 7x,
“expansion of Godhead” 5x,
“incarnation of Godhead” 142x
“incarnations of Godhead” 59x
It is Parabrahman-the Godhead- who incarnates or expands not Brahman. Brahman only transforms, controlled by the Parabrahman.
It is not as atheistic science teaches “Nature, chance, spontaneous creation”. There is no proof or experiment of that.
Mantra 9 purport: “…the Supreme Lord is the proprietor of everything… to awaken this God consciousness in the forgetful living being… to bring one back to Godhead… revive the forgetful soul’s lost relationship with the Personality of Godhead… the lust (e.g. the attainment of heavenly pleasure for sense gratification) for which causes their material bondage in the first place…”
The soul became lusty and forgot the Godhead the head of (all) the Gods with whom they had a relationship.
“Devotee: In Krsna book it says that there were some color fighting in Dvaraka. They were throwing color. And some men became lusty seeing the women. Will that be the first part of their falldown, to be in Vaikuntha and think of personal lust with Krsna’s associates?
Prabhupada: Yes.” (Conversation, Mayapur, February 19, 1976)
This cannot have happened while swimming or flying out of Maha-Visnu, as the brahman-fall theory teaches, misunderstanding/translating “Jaiva dharma– Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura” chapter 15. There were no material forms to become lusty towards. Brahma starts to create [after] 2000 demigods years after the glancing of Maha-Visnu.
The universes (golden eggs), in an undeveloped form, are laying inactive on the causal ocean for 1000 divine years (or 360.000 solar years). This is in SB 3.20.15. Then Garbhodakasayi Visnu enters the universe. Brahma takes place in the lotus growing from this Visnu’s navel and needs to meditate for another 1000 divine years (or 360.000 solar years). This is in SB 2.9.8. Only then lord Brahma starts creating all the planets within the universal shells. Only then there is something of maya to be attracted to. (Brahma meditates 100 divine years at the beginning of each of his next days, after an anda-pralaya, dissolution within the shells of the universe)
Mantra 9 p. “…find out the means by which one may regain his spiritual identity.”
One had a spiritual identity before one dropped down. In the brahmajyoti one had no spiritual identity. One was only a spiritual spark with one’s spiritual body nascent, sleeping and contracted.
One’s spiritual identity is loving servant of Krishna. If one gained and lost this at the border, having seen the spiritual world and rejecting it, this oscillation, marginal display can occur anywhere even on the Vaikuntha planets.
The following purport tells us also, again that the soul originally was in Vaikuntha, fell down and has to go back there.
Mantra 11 purport: “In order to attain a permanent life, one must be prepared to go back to Godhead. The process by which one goes back to Godhead is a different branch of knowledge… The conditioned living being has forgotten his eternal relationship with God.”
Back to Godhead, the head of Gods, Krishna with whom one had an eternal relationship before and with whom one must develop this relationship again. In the brahmajyoti one didn’t have an eternal intimate, loving relationship. Srila Prahupada says one has to *revive* his intimate loving relationship with Krishna:
“If you want actually peace, then your intelligence should be utilized for searching out the Supreme and your relation with Him. As soon as you find out… Just like you have lost your father, if you find out your father, immediately your relationship with father is revived. There is no question. “Here’s my father.” And father says, “Here is my son.” Because the relationship is very intimate. Son may go out for years together, but as soon as he comes back home he sees his father, mother, and that original intimacy immediately revived…So we have got that intimate relation. So when we come to that position to understand our intimate relationship with God, or Krsna, that is called svarupa-siddhi, svarupa-siddhi. Svarupa-siddhi means realization of perfection, svarupa-siddhi. So here Suta Gosvami says sauhardena gadhena, santa. If an old friend meets another old friend, they become very much delighted. Similarly, if the father meets the lost child, he becomes very delighted and the child also becomes delighted. The husband, wife separated, again they meet. So they become very delighted. It is quite natural. The master and servant after many, many years, if they again meet, they become very delighted. So we have got our relationship with Krsna in so many ways, santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, madhurya. .. here it is said that sauhardena ati-gadhena. Very deep. There are different types of sauharga, friendship, but there is very intimate, deep friendship. So as soon we revive our Krsna consciousness, our deep relationship with Krsna as servant, as friend, as paternal relationship or conjugal love.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.15.28, Los Angeles, December 6, 1973)
Also, the inhabitants of Dvaraka pray when Krishna returns:
“Oh, it is our good luck that we have come again today under Your protection by Your presence. Although Your Lordship is rarely visited even by the denizens of heaven, now it is possible for us to look upon Your smiling face, which is full of affectionate glances. We can now see Your transcendental form, full of all auspiciousness.”
PURPORT
..the inhabitants of Dvaraka, because of their being pure devotees without any tinge of the material contamination of fruitive activities and empiric philosophical speculation, can see Him face to face by the grace of the Lord. This is the original state of the living entities and can be attained by reviving our natural and constitutional state of life, which is discovered by devotional service only. (SB 1.11.8)
To see Krishna face to face is the *original* state of the living entities and can be attained by *reviving* our *natural and constitutional* state of life, which is discovered by devotional service.
Continued, Isopanisad Mantra 11 p.“…remind the forgetful human being that his home is not here in this material world…returning to the spiritual home…. The living being is a spiritual entity, and he can be happy only by returning to his spiritual home.”
The brahmajyoti is not one’s spiritual home. How can home be, floating in the spiritual light, alone and isolated, so that in boredom one will fall down.
Home is where is Krishna, not the outskirts, the Brahman effulgence. Just as when one’s father lives in an oasis in a desert, returning home means back to the oasis not coming in the desert. And returning home means that one left one’s father’s house. One hasn’t grown up in the desert.
“…return to Godhead.” (mantra 11 p) Return to head God. The brahmajyoti is not God but His effulgence. They are not different (brahmeti, paramatmeti, bhagavan iti) but also different. Here he says the head or chief of the Gods. Only impersonalists belief the brahmajyoti to be the head or origin of all the gods.
“…every living being in his original, spiritual form has all the senses… The activities of the material senses are perverted reflections of the activities of the original, spiritual senses… In our pure spiritual form, free from all material contamination, real enjoyment of the senses is possible. A patient must regain his health before he can truly enjoy sense pleasure again…cure the material disease…recover from the disease.” (mantra 11 p)
But in the Brahmayjoti one has no sense activities. One’s senses are withdrawn as a tortoise withdraws all the limbs under the shell.
To say, as in the Brahman effulgence fall theory, that one had at the border one’s spiritual form with fully developed senses, completely healthy but then turned perverted is the same as falling from Vaikuntha planets.
Mantra 12 purport: “We must worship the Absolute Personality of Godhead, Krishna, who is all-attractive and who can bestow upon us complete freedom from material bondage by taking us back home, back to Godhead.”
Mantra 12 purport: “…reestablishing the lost relationship between the living entity and the Supreme Lord.”
Isopanisad mantra 17, purport: “As we have learned from previous mantras, the brahmajyoti is full of spiritual sparks, individual entities with the full sense of existence. Sometimes these living entities want to enjoy their senses and therefore they are placed in the material world to become fake lords under the dictation of the senses.”
He has used the term Brahman as energy of Parabrahman. Because he states here in mantra 17 purport that the living entities before falling down for sense enjoyment have “full sense of existence.” These are the brahmavadis. Thus this purport to text 16 means that all jivas, liberated and conditioned are Brahman. It cannot mean that the brahmajyoti gives souls to the border of matter and spirit where they choose for nitya-mukta, nitya-baddha because the brahmajyoti is only fallen souls, who generally all will fall and are given nityamukti after sadhana in the material world. That he states here. “Sometimes they want to enjoy” then the brahmavadi leaves the brahmajyoti. He doesn’t say they go back to Godhead, up, to the source of Brahman.
Brahman as brahmajyoti the light rays have only impersonalists. Their realization is sat, hardly any cit and ananda. The ananda is relief from matter. No positive bliss. They have only “full sense of existence.”
Srila Prabhupada on this clearly states “Existence in the impersonal Brahman 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.” (SPL , June 13th, 1970)
“[Someone may say that aside from devotees, who always seek shelter at the Lord’s lotus feet, there are those who are not devotees but who have accepted different processes for attaining salvation. What happens to them? In answer to this question, Lord Brahma and the other demigods said:] O lotus-eyed Lord, although nondevotees who accept severe austerities and penances to achieve the highest position may think themselves liberated, their intelligence is impure. They fall down from their position of imagined superiority because they have no regard for Your lotus feet.” (SB 10.2.32)
They fall down to nitya-baddha, they do not go up to nitya-mukta.
Mantra 17, purport: “No living entity is originally formless.”
But according to this brahmajyoti-fall-vada the nitya-svarupa is/was eternally folded up or contracted.
Why the Lord would decide this eternal suffering of the living entity; eternally shrunk in a fetus state. This makes Him sadist. Or masochist since the suffering of the child is the suffering of the father.
Mantra 18 purport: “Thus the spiritual master, the Vedic injunctions and the Lord Himself from within—all guide the devotee in full strength. In this way there is no chance for a devotee to fall again into the mire of material illusion.”
“Fall again, ” we have once fallen into this material world, fallen from a non fallen condition. Now by the grace of Hari, guru, vaisnava, bhagavad gita this will not happen again. We will go back and not fall again.
Just like when you had a nightmare and wake up, you get out of the bed and don’t go back to sleep again. Or at least you wish to never have a nightmare again.
Thus in this isopanisad t 16 p. “the brahman generating conditioned and liberated souls”, generating is metaphoric or figurative, because the soul is eternal (Bg 2.12-25) and never generated or produced. In this meaning, the dictionary defines the word generate as: to bring to view, to show, to exhibit, to form. This means that the brahmajyoti, Krishna’s effulgence is souls, jiva sakti.
This whole mantra 16 purport elaborates on Bhagavan, Paramatma and Brahman since the verse is about the Lord and His effulgence. The effulgence is covering the Lord. In Bhagavad-gita 7.25 naham prakasa sarvasya yogamaya samavritah the purport states “He is covered by His internal potency…He is covered by the internal potency of the brahmajyoti.”
Then in Bg 7.25 Srila Prabhupada quotes Srimad Bhagavatam 1.8.19 “In the prayers of Queen Kunti it is said that the Lord is covered by the curtain of yogamaya and thus ordinary people cannot understand Him.” Lecturing on this verse Srila Prabhupada says mAyA-javanikAcchannam: mAyA—deluding; javanikA—curtain; Acchannam—covered. “the manifestation of this material world is the impersonal feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead…Big scientists they cannot see what is behind this material nature because maya, this wonderful material energy, is acting in such a big curtain. They cannot understand that beyond this there is something else.” Thus the curtain of yogamaya includes her amsa, mahamaya (amsa is expansion).
After quoting SB 1.8.19 (in the Bg purport 7.25) he writes: “This yogamaya curtain (of yoga and maha-maya) is also confirmed in Isopanisad (mantra 15) in which the devotee prays – hiranmayena patrena satyasyApihitam mukham – Your transcendental form is covered by the yogamaya – the brahmajyoti.” Thus the Brahman effulgence covering our vision of Krishna in Goloka is the material energy and the souls in impersonal liberation.
The covering of the material energy means the bodies of the conditioned souls (clouds, trees) or the deities and their planets, stars, moon.
Alternatively, since the material energy is composed of paramanus which are ultimately, actually spirit souls in tamo guna or susupti, deep sleep, unconscious-the suksma jivas —the undeveloped living entities (CC antya lila 3.79), this covering is also souls.
This we have shown above.
Along with this “the brahman is conditioned and liberated souls” Srila Prabhupada states, in isopanisad t 16 p. “ exists in all circumstances of waking and sleeping as well as in potential states”. This means that the brahmayjoti-souls are everywhere and in 3 states: 1. awake– liberated souls of the planets in the spiritual world and the brahmayjoti-souls, 2. sleeping -8.400.000 species and 3. susupti -potential, atoms. Alternatively, the 3 states means: 1. waking – jagrat , the active state, in matter or in spirit, 2. sleeping -svapna, at night and 3. potential– susupti and sayujya-mukti. Or, 1. waking– material world, 2. sleeping– at night, 3. potential– liberated, since all jivas can fall, and susupti.
BRAHMAN PARAMATMA BHAGAVAN
This is the meaning to this “the brahman is conditioned and liberated souls”. This must be so also since The Absolute Truth or Complete Existence or Being is according to SB 1.1.11 brahman paramatma bhagavan. Bhagavan and the Paramatma are the Lord, Krishna and His expansions. Brahman is all the saktis. The saktis must include also the material energy so that Bhagavan, Paramatma, Brahman together comprise the totality of Being. Thus Brahman is svarupa-sakti, the laxmi’s and souls, anu-atma’s, which are:
1. the spiritual world’s cintamanis or building blocks, which are souls (see Brahma-samhita 5.29 purport), 2. the spiritual world’s yjoti or brahmavadi’s (see Brahma-samhita 5.40) and
3. the material world’s souls and material atoms. The material world has conditioned souls and material atoms- sat and asat. But all material atoms are also souls, since Brahman or the Brahmayjoti is only souls, see above.
ISOPANISAD BHASYA’S
Also in the commentaries of our sampradaya-acaryas there is nothing mentioned that the brahmajyoti is the original position of the soul. In fact, the opposite is concluded.
First see their translations to T 16:
-Madhvacarya translates this mantra:
“O Visnu ! Your form is covered by the brilliant sun. Please remove the covering so that your devotee can see the form.” Hiranmaya-patram refers to the sun planet. The face of Lord Visnu (satya) is always covered by this.
-Vedanta Desika (Sri-sampradaya):
“The mind of the jiva is covered by a golden covering made of ignorance and passion. Please remove that covering for realizing You [the Paramatma].”
-Baladeva Vidyabhusana translates: “The form of the eternal Lord is covered by the brilliant rays of the sun…”and comments: “By the brilliant (hiranmayena) sun globe (patrena) the face (mukham – meaning also body) of the the Supreme Lord in the sun planet (Surya Narayana), is covered (apihitam).”
-Bhaktivinoda Thakura translates: “The form of Paramatma is covered by a vessel of light…” and comments: “I remain covered by the energy of maya…” and then quotes Narada Pancaratra 1.3: “There is an incomparable form of Syamasundara within the light.”
The commentaries.
In mantra one Baladeva Vidyabhusana comments:
“The jiva and isvara are both endowed with qualities such as eternal knowledge .. true form and qualities.”
In mantra 3 Bhaktivinoda Thakura comments that the soul’s tendency is to worship the Lord.
Vedanta desika in mantra 15 translates “realizing You is the natural function of the pure jiva.”
“Prabhupada: Impersonal means if you have nothing to do, then you’ll become mad.
And again you come back to this material world.” ( Room Conversation—July 17, 1976, New York ).
This Brahman is the worst naraka or hell. Because in mantra 10 Bhaktivinoda Thakura comments:
“Falling under maya’s control, he begins to lament. Covered by avidya he experiences suffering in the darkness of matter. When he takes shelter of vidya to get relief from suffering, he falls into even greater suffering by contemplating the impersonal God without qualities.”
Also in mantra 9 , “ andham tamah pravisanti ye ‘vidyam upasate | tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayam ratah – One who is situated in ignorance (material life) goes to the region of darkness. One engaged in knowledge (seeking impersonal liberation) goes to an even darker region. “
Bhaktivinoda Thakura comments: “Those men engaged in avidya, their spiritual nature is covered by the darkness of matter. Those with vidya (impersonal knowledge) enter into a darker region where the atma seems to be destroyed.”
Why would the Lord eternally cover this, with the jiva, eternally suffering a fetus state in the brahmajyoti, as the brahmayjoti-fall-vadis speculate. It is a wrong idea. We didn’t originally come from there. We were eternally in bliss, in Krishna’s Lila. And fell from there.
“One who is thus drawn to the Krishna consciousness movement and tries to keep himself in constant touch with such consciousness certainly gets the supreme salvation, going back to Krishna in Goloka Vrindavana.” (Bhaktivedanta purport of the Ninetieth Chapter of Krishna, “Summary Description of Lord Krishna’s Pastimes.”)
Hare Krishna