Суд над Бхагавад-гитой / Attempt to ban Bhagavad-gita

The Impersonal Idea of the Origin of the Soul

(Taken from Sridhar Maharaja's book, Search for Krishna)

"There are two classes of souls, jivas, who come into this world. One class comes from the spiritual Vaikuntha planets for the necessity of nitya-lila, the eternal pastimes of Krsna. Another comes by constitutional necessity.

"The Brahmajyoti, the non-differentiated marginal plane, is the source of infinite jiva souls, atomic spiritual particles of non-differentiated character. The rays of the Lord's transcendental body are known as the brahmajyoti, and a pencil of a ray of the brahmajyoti is the jiva. The jiva soul is an atom in that effulgence, and the brahmajyoti is a product of an infinite number of jiva atoms.

"Generally, souls emanate from the brahmajyoti which is living and growing. Within the brahmajyoti, their equilibrium is somehow disturbed and movement begins. From non-differentiation, differentiation begins. From a plain sheet of uniform consciousness, individual conscious units grow. And because the jiva is conscious it is endowed with free will. So, from the marginal position they choose either the side of exploitation or the side of dedication... The fallen souls come from the marginal position within the brahmajyoti, and not from Vaikuntha.

"In the brahmajyoti, we are equipoised in the marginal potency as an infinite number of pinpoints of spiritual rays, electrons of consciousness. Consciousness means endowed with free will, for without free will, no consciousness can be conceived. An atomic pinpoint of consciousness has very meager free will, and by misuse of their free will, some jivas have taken their chance in the material world. They refused to submit to the supreme authority. They wanted to dominate. So with this germinal idea of domination, the jiva enters into the world of exploitation... Upon retiring from the world of exploitation, the soul may return to his former position in the brahmajyoti as spirit. But, if the soul has gathered the tendency of dedication through his previous devotional activities, he does not stop there; he pierces through the brahmajyoti and goes towards Vaikuntha...

"The responsibility is with the soul, otherwise, the Lord would be responsible for his distressed condition. But Krsna says that the soul's innate free will is responsible for his entanglement in the material world. The soul is conscious, and is atomic, his free will is imperfect and vulnerable. The result of that free choice is that some are coming into the material world, and some are going to the spiritual world."

But Srila Prabhupada says:

"As living spiritual souls we are all originally Krsna conscious entities, but due to our association with matter from time immemorial, our consciousness has now become polluted by the material atmosphere." (Original Hare Krsna album)

"As soon as we try to become Lord, immediately we are covered by Maya. Formerly, we were with Krsna in His lila or sport. But this covering of Maya may be of very, very, very, very long duration-therefore, many creations are coming and going. Due to this long period of time, it is sometimes said that we are ever-conditioned. But this long duration of time becomes very insignificant when one actually comes to Krsna consciousness.

This Brahma-sayujya mukti is non-permanent. Every living entity wants pleasure, but brahma-sayujya is minus pleasure. There is eternal existence only. So when they do not find transcendental bliss they fall down to make a compromise with material bliss. Unless one develops full devotional service to Krsna, he goes up only to brahma-sayujya but falls down. But after millions and millions of years of keeping oneself away from the lila of the Lord, when one comes to Krsna consciousness, this period becomes insignificant, just like dreaming. 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 Krsna." (Lecture in Australia)

"The conditioned living being has forgotten his eternal relationship with God and he has mistakenly accepted the temporary place of birth as all-in-all... The living entities are not without spiritual senses; every living being in his original, spiritual form has all the senses, which are now material, being covered by the body and mind. Activities of the material senses are perverted reflections of spiritual pastimes." (Sri Isopanisad 11)

"Real sense enjoyment is possible only when the disease of materialism is removed. In our real, spiritual form, free from all material contamination, pure enjoyment of the senses is possible." (Sri Isopanisad, 11)

"This attachment of the devotee to a particular form of the Lord is due to natural inclination. Each and every living entity is originally attached to a particular type of transcendental service because he is eternally the servitor of the Lord.

"Lord Caitanya says that the living entity is eternally the servitor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, therefore, every living entity has a particular type of service relationship with the Lord, eternally." (SB3.9.11)

In an attempt to minimize or nullify all of the above truths, our impersonalistic adversaries are fond of quoting part of one purport from Srila Prabhupada's commentary on Sri Isopanisad. It reads as follows:

"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-shakti (living force) is generated as both conditioned and liberated souls-is known as the Brahman. (Sri Isopanisad 16)

Regarding this quotation, the "all-pervading feature" can refer to either Brahman or Paramatma. "Potential states" is referred to in the Vedanta Sutra. For example, the state of a coma is a potential state. There are others. "Jiva shakti is generated" does not mention the adverb "originally". Generated can mean several things. Already Srila Prabhupada has said in the Australian lecture (above) that the living entity may descend (generate) many times from the Brahma-sayujya, but that is not his original home.

If we consider the all-pervading feature to be the Paramatma, Maha Vishnu is the original Paramatma, and Brahma Samhita states that innumerable jivas come from Maha Vishnu. Thus this purport says that liberated souls are also generated from the all-pervading feature of the Lord, and it is a fact that the Avatars come from Ksirodakasayee Vishnu, the Paramatma. The last word of the purport, namely "Brahman," the key word stressed by the impersonalists, can refer to either the Brahmajyoti, the Paramatma, or Bhagavan. In Vedanta Sutra, Brahman almost exclusively refers to the Bhagavan feature. So our point is that this segment of the Isopanisad purport does not in any way indicate that jiva souls originally emanate from the Brahmajyoti. However, Sridhar Maharaja's statements above very definitely tag the jiva with an impersonal origin.

So this discrepancy is very, very important. It conclusively proves that Sridhar Maharaja does not have a personal relationship with Krsna. And that makes all the difference in the world. We have heard some devotees of Sridhar Maharaja try to brush this discrepancy off as insignificant, quoting the above Isopanisad purport by Srila Prabhupada, but actually, it reveals the heart of the whole problem. It clearly shows the difference between a completely pure devotee, who knows Krsna personally, and one who is still interested in his own happiness and mental speculation.

The impersonalist's dilemma is almost identical to that of the evolutionists. The impersonalist cannot explain why the jiva soul first became envious. Sridhar Maharaja uses the words: The jiva's "equilibrium is somehow disturbed." He cannot explain how or why. Similarly, the evolutionists say there was a big bang out of nowhere. They also cannot explain how or why. Both concepts are totally illogical. For the soul to become disturbed in the first place, he has to have an innate nature of something other than non-differentiated existence. Otherwise, what is there for him to become disturbed about? And the second problem with this philosophy is that the soul, in order to be able to make a fair choice of going either to Krsna or matter, would have to have full knowledge of the two choices. Sridhar Maharaja says that he may make the wrong choice due to his being "irnperfect and vulnerable." But that is not the case. Prabhupada often explains that the soul is Sat Cit Ananda, and so he is in full knowledge when in his original position. The soul is perfect. He does not come to this world by some unintentional mistake. He does not come to this world of free will, an intentional act of envy and pride. Or as the Christians say, "He ate the forbidden fruit." One may say that his ability to become envious is a fault, but, factually, that is due to his having free will. If he did not have free will, that would be a fault.

So the only logical explanation for the souls coming into this world and having to undergo suffering is that they became envious to Krsna and proud of their own glories ("Why is Krsna enjoying like this, and I cannot; I'm as good as Krsna"). So they decided to chance it on their own. The original misuse of free will does not lead to utter degradation. When the soul first falls, he does not go to the demoniac species. He takes his birth as a demigod. As long as we follow the rules, and do not try to exploit others, we can live quite happily there. But if we become greedy and commit sins, we go down into the lower species. One may argue, "If God is so kind, then why doesn't he create a place where we can live separate from Him and not have to fall down into suffering where we can be little gods ourselves and have control of our environment? But the answer entails the question, "Have full control of what? If you have control over other living beings, then you are denying them the freedom you so badly want."

So then if you say, "Well, He may not let us have full control, but we should be able to live in perfect harmony with everyone else." That place does exist. It is called the spiritual world, or Vaikuntha. Even in the spiritual world there are degrees of surrender to the personal God. The shanta rasa is often described as an impersonal type realization of Krsna. Not everyone is equally in love and surrendered to the personal feature of Krsna even in the spiritual world. So going back to Godhead is a personal thing and very difficult for the impersonalists to understand or accept. Therefore, they try to rationalize that they came from the brahmajyoti by dint of their being "imperfect and vulnerable" and that their going to Krsna is not a matter of begging forgiveness and surrendering to a person, but simply a matter of moving to where the grass is greener.

Say, for example, a citizen becomes envious of the King and decides to go out to become a King himself. But he doesn't have the qualifications of a King, and so he suffers in a foreign land where no one speaks his language and where he has no friends. He wants to go back to his own land where his friends and family are, but he knows that he will have to personally confront and make amends to the King first. That is difficult. Even though he is suffering, and he wants to go back, his false prestige won't easily allow him to humbly beg forgiveness from the King. The King is a very kind person and is eager to forgive the foolish citizen, but the citizen has lust in his heart and so cannot bring himself to make amends. So, in utter frustration, he may try to merge into a void state by taking intoxication to sidestep his current suffering and postpone his dilemma of having to surrender to the King. This appears to work for some time, and he gets some temporary relief from pain. Eventually, however, because he factually is a person, he again desires to enjoy with family, friends, etc. So, he again tries to get situated in this foreign land. Again he suffers, and again he is given a chance to surrender to the King. This can go on many, many times until he finally realizes that he cannot live separate from his real home and, naturally, from the King. So finally, after many, many ups and downs, he realizes that he must go back and beg forgiveness from the King. Then the King sends his representative to guide him in how to rectify himself. And he is tested to make absolutely sure that he is finally ready to come home and not simply eager to exploit the King. Eventually he is able to go right up to the King, with tears in Ws eyes, and beg forgiveness. The King naturally is very compassionate on his fallen friend and so not only forgives him,but awards him great happiness. Thus the citizen is fully satisfied and never again thinks he can be happy in another land. But to approach the King he must give up his pride.