VedaVyasa
Praneetha
The Mad Bhagavatam
10.87.16
(16) Thus do Your people of enlightenment o Master of All the Three Worlds, rid themselves of their troubles by diving deep into the ocean of the nectar of the narrations [the kathâ] that eradicates the contamination. No wonder then that they who by the power of their own minds dispelled the qualities of the temporal O Supreme One, in their worship experience the uninterrupted happiness of Your abode.
those śrutis whose presentation of the Supreme Truth may seem impersonal clarified their true purpose. Now, in the present verse, those who focus exclusively on the divine Personality of Godhead, who speak of His transcendental pastimes, take their turn in praising Him.
Because all the Vedas declare the supremacy of the Personality of Godhead as the cause of all causes, discriminating persons should take to His worship. By diving into the ocean of His glories, intelligent devotees help dispel the distress of all souls and loosen their own burning attachment to materialistic life. These advancing devotees gradually give up all material attachment and lose any interest they once had in the troublesome austerities of karma, jñāna and yoga.
Beyond these devotees are the sūris, connoisseurs of spiritual truth, who honor the nectarean ocean of the Supreme Lord's glories by immersing themselves fully within it. These mature devotees of the Supreme Lord achieve unimaginable perfection. The Lord, reciprocating their sincere endeavors, empowers them to realize Him in His personal form. Remembering with rapture the Lord's intimate pastimes and entourage, they are automatically freed from the last subtle traces of mental contamination and from sensitivity to the unavoidable pains of disease and old age.
Referring to the purifying power of devotional service, the śrutis say, tad yathā puṣkara-palāśa āpo na śliṣyante evam evaḿ-vidi pāpaḿ karma na śliṣyate: "Just as water does not adhere to a lotus leaf, so sinful activities do not adhere to one who knows the truth in this way." The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (14.7.28), Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa (3.12.9.8), Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.4.28) and Baudhāyana-dharma-śāstra (2.6.11.30) all concur: na karmaṇā lipyate pāpakena. "One thus avoids becoming tainted by sinful activity."
The Ṛg Veda (1.154.1) refers to the Supreme Lord's pastimes as follows: viṣṇor nu kaḿ vīryāṇi pravocaḿ yaḥ pārthivāni vimame rajāḿsi. "Only he may fully enunciate the heroic deeds of Lord Viṣṇu who can count all the particles of dust in the world." Many śruti-mantras glorify devotional service to the Lord, such as eko vaśī sarva-go ye 'nubhajanti dhīrās/ teṣāḿ sukhaḿ śāśvataḿ netareṣām: "He is the one omnipresent Lord and controller; only those wise souls who worship Him obtain eternal happiness, not anyone else."
In this connection Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays,
"Because all the Vedas describe Your transcendental qualities, all thoughtful persons are attracted to hearing and chanting about Your all-auspicious qualities. Thus by remembering Your lotus feet, they are freed from material distress."
10.87.17
mahad-aham-ādayo 'ṇḍam asṛjan yad-anugrahataḥ
(17) They who only displace air as they breathe [see B.G. 18: 61] are really alive when they are Your faithful followers, for You, elevated above cause and effect, are the underlying reality from Whose mercy the universal egg of the material complete, the separate existence and the other aspects and material elements of the person were produced [see 3.26: 51-53]. According the particular forms that furthermore were manifested, You appear as the Ultimate Form among the more or less material, physical coverings [the kos'as and B.G. 18: 54].
Life is without purpose for one who remains ignorant of his most well-wishing benefactor and thus fails to worship Him. Such a person's breathing is no better than the breathing of a blacksmith's bellows. The gift of human life is a fortunate opportunity for the conditioned soul, but by turning away from his Lord, the living being commits spiritual suicide.
In the words of Śrī Īśopaniṣad (3),
andhena tamasāvṛtāḥ
tāḿs te pretyābhigacchanti
"The killer of the soul, whoever he may be, must enter into the planets known as the worlds of the faithless, full of darkness and ignorance." Asuryāḥ means "to be obtained by demons," and demons are persons who have no devotion for the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu. This definition is stated in the Agni Purāṇa:dvau bhūta-sargau loke 'smin
āsuras tad-viparyayaḥ
"There are two kinds of created beings in this world, godly and demoniac. Those dedicated to the devotional service of Lord Viṣṇu are godly, and those opposed to such service are demoniac."Similarly, the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.4.15) states, na ced avedīn mahatī vinaṣṭiḥ. . . ye tad vidur amṛtās te bhavanty athetare duḥkham evopayanti: "If one does not come to know the Supreme, he must suffer utter destruction.... Those who realize the Supreme become immortal, but others inevitably suffer." A person must revive his Kṛṣṇa consciousness to be relieved of the suffering caused by ignorance, but the process by which this is done need not be difficult, as Lord Kṛṣṇa assures us in Bhagavad-gītā (9.34):
man-manā bhava mad-bhakto
mām evaiṣyasi yuktvaivam
"Engage your mind in always thinking of Me, become My devotee, offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me." Despite disqualifications and weaknesses, one need only willingly become anuvidha, the Supreme Lord's trusting and trustworthy servant. The Kaṭha Upaniṣad (2.2.13) proclaims,nityo nityānāḿ cetanaś cetanānām
"Among all the eternal, conscious beings, there is one who supplies the needs of everyone else. The wise souls who worship Him in His abode attain everlasting peace. Others cannot."
What is alive, and what is dead? The bodies and minds of materialistic nondevotees seem to display the symptoms of life, but this appearance is deceptive. Actually, the conditioned soul has little control over his own bodily existence. Against his will, he has to excrete waste, get sick from time to time, and eventually age and die. And in his mind he unwillingly suffers anger, hankering and lamentation. Lord Kṛṣṇa describes this situation as yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (Bg. 18.61), riding helplessly as a passenger in a mechanical vehicle. The soul undoubtedly is alive, and irrevocably so, but in his ignorance that inner life is covered and forgotten. In its place, the automation of the external mind and body carries out the dictates of the modes of nature, which force one to act in a way altogether irrelevant to the dormant needs of the soul. Calling out to the forgetful prisoners of illusion, the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (2.5) urges,
śṛṇvantu viśve amṛtasya putrā
"All you sons of immortality, hear, you who once resided in the divine kingdom!"
So, on the one hand, what is normally viewed as living — the material body — is in actuality a dead machine being manipulated by the modes of nature. And on the other hand, what the materialist condescendingly views as inert matter meant for exploitation is in its unknown essence connected with a living intelligence vastly more potent than his own. The Vedic civilization recognizes the intelligence behind nature as belonging to demigods who preside over the various elements, and ultimately to the Supreme Lord Himself. Matter, after all, cannot act coherently without the impulse and guidance of a living force. As Kṛṣṇa states in Bhagavad-gītā (9.10),
mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ
hetunānena kaunteya
jagad viparivartate
"This material nature, which is one of My energies, is working under My direction, O son of Kuntī, producing all moving and nonmoving beings. Under its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again."In the beginning of creation, Lord Mahā-Viṣṇu glanced at the dormant material nature, prakṛti. Thus awakened, the subtle prakṛti began to evolve into more concrete forms: first the mahat; then false ego in conjunction with each of prakṛti's three modes; and gradually the various material elements, including intelligence, mind, the senses and the five physical elements with their presiding demigods. Even after becoming separately manifested, however, the deities responsible for the various elements could not work together to produce the perceptible world until Lord Viṣṇu, by His special mercy, once more intervened. This is described in the Third Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (3.5.38-39):
ete devāḥ kalā viṣṇoḥ
prapanna-tāpopaśamātapatram
"The controlling deities of these physical elements are empowered expansions of Lord Viṣṇu. They are embodied by eternal time under the external energy, and they are His parts and parcels. Because they were entrusted with different functions of universal duties and were unable to perform them, they offered fascinating prayers to the Lord. The demigods said, 'O Lord, Your lotus feet are like an umbrella for the surrendered souls, protecting them from all the miseries of material existence. All the sages under that shelter throw off all material miseries. We therefore offer our respectful obeisances unto Your lotus feet.'"Hearing the prayers of the assembled demigods of the elements, the Supreme Lord then showed His favor (Bhāg. 3.6.1-3):
iti tāsāḿ sva-śaktīnāḿ
bibhrac chaktim urukramaḥ
trayoviḿśati tattvānāḿ
so 'nupraviṣṭo bhagavāḿś
"The Lord thus heard about the suspension of the progressive creative functions of the universe due to the noncombination of His potencies, such as the mahat-tattva. The Supreme Powerful Lord then simultaneously entered into the twenty-three elements with the goddess Kālī, His external energy, who alone amalgamates all the different elements. Thus when the Personality of Godhead entered into the elements by His energy, all the living entities were enlivened into different activities, just as one is engaged in his work after awakening from sleep."In Kṛṣṇa, Śrīla Prabhupāda explains the five levels of ego covering the self: "Within the body there are five different departments of existence, known as anna-maya, prāṇa-maya, mano-maya, vijñāna-maya, and at last ānanda-maya. [These are enumerated in the Brahmānanda-vallī of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad.] In the beginning of life, every living entity is food conscious. A child or an animal is satisfied only by getting nice food. This stage of consciousness, in which the goal is to eat sumptuously, is called anna-maya. Anna means 'food.' After this one lives in the consciousness of being alive. If one can continue his life without being attacked or destroyed, one thinks himself happy. This stage is called prāṇa-maya, or consciousness of one's existence. After this stage, when one is situated on the mental platform, that consciousness is called mano-maya. The material civilization is primarily situated in these three stages — annamaya, prāṇa-maya and mano-maya. The first concern of civilized persons is economic development, the next concern is defense against being annihilated, and the next consciousness is mental speculation, the philosophical approach to the values of life.
"If by the evolutionary process of philosophical life one happens to reach to the platform of intellectual life and understands that he is not this material body, but is a spirit soul, one is situated in the vijñāna-maya stage. Then by evolution of spiritual life he comes to understand the Supreme Lord, or the Supreme Soul. When one develops his relationship with Him and executes devotional service, that stage of life is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the ānanda-maya stage. Ānanda-maya is the blissful life of knowledge and eternity. As it is said in the Vedānta-sūtra, ānanda-mayo 'bhyāsāt. The Supreme Brahman and the subordinate Brahman, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities, are both joyful by nature. As long as the living entities are situated in the lower four stages of life — anna-maya, prāṇa-maya, mano-maya and vijñāna-maya — they are considered to be in the material condition of life, but as soon as one reaches the stage of ānanda-maya he becomes a liberated soul. This ānanda-maya stage is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā as the brahma-bhūta stage. There it is said that in the brahma-bhūta stage of life there is no anxiety and no hankering. This stage begins when one becomes equally disposed toward all living entities, and it then expands to the stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, in which one hankers to render service unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This hankering for advancement in devotional service is not the same as hankering for sense gratification in material existence. In other words, hankering remains in spiritual life, but it becomes purified. When our senses are purified, they become freed from all material stages, namely anna-maya, prāṇa-maya, mano-maya and vijñāna-maya, and they become situated in the highest stage — ānanda-maya, or blissful life in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
"The Māyāvādī philosophers consider ānanda-maya to be the state of being merged in the Supreme. To them, ānanda-maya means that the Supersoul and the individual soul become one. But the real fact is that oneness does not mean merging into the Supreme and losing one's own individual existence. Merging into the spiritual existence is the living entity's realization of qualitative oneness with the Supreme Lord in His eternity and knowledge aspects. But the actual ānanda-maya (blissful) stage is obtained when one is engaged in devotional service. That is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā: mad-bhaktiḿ labhate parām [Bg. 18.54]. The brahma-bhūta ānanda-maya stage is complete only when there is the exchange of love between the Supreme and the subordinate living entities. Unless one comes to this ānanda-maya stage of life, his breathing is like the breathing of a bellows in a blacksmith's shop, his duration of life is like that of a tree, and he is no better than the lower animals like the camels, hogs and dogs."
In accompanying the jīva within the coverings of Māyā, the Paramātmā is not bound by karmic entanglement as the jīva is. Rather, the Supreme Soul's connection with these coverings is like the apparent connection between the moon and some tree branches it is seen through. The Supersoul is sad-asataḥ param, always transcendental to the subtle and gross manifestations of anna-maya and so on, although He enters among them as the sanctioning witness of all activities. As their final cause, the Supersoul is in one sense identical with the manifest products of creation, but in His original identity (svarūpa) He remains distinct. In this second sense He is the ānanda-maya alone, the last of the five kośas. Therefore the śrutis address Him here as avaśeṣam, the residual essence. This is also expressed in the text of the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.7): raso vai saḥ. Within His personal essence, the Supreme Lord enjoys rasa, the reciprocation of the mellows of devotional service, and integral to the play of rasas is the participation of realized jīvas. Raso vai saḥ, rasam hy evāyaḿ labdhvānandī bhavati: "He is the embodiment of rasa, and the jīva who realizes this rasa becomes fully ecstatic." Or in the words of the personified Vedas praying in this verse, the Supersoul is ṛtam, which Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī interprets as here meaning "realized by great sages."
In the opinion of Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī, the last word of all authoritative scripture (sarvāntima-śruti) is contained in the aphorism raso vai saḥ, which is demonstrably a reference to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa as the infinitely expanding embodiment of divine pleasure (sarva-bṛhattamānanda). The Gopāla-tāpanī śruti (Uttara 96) states, yo 'sau jāgrat-svapna-suṣuptim atītya turyātīto gopālaḥ: "Lord Kṛṣṇa, the cowherd, transcends not only the material consciousness of wakefulness, dream and deep sleep, but also the fourth realm of pure, spiritual awareness." The ānanda-maya Supersoul is simply an aspect of the primeval Lord Govinda, as declared by Him, viṣṭabhyāham idaḿ kṛtsnam ekāḿśena sthito jagat: "With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe." (Bg. 10.42)
The śrutis thus tactfully assert that even among the various personal forms of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa is supreme. Understanding this, Nārada Muni will later offer obeisances to Lord Kṛṣṇa in the words namas tasmai bhagavate kṛṣṇāyāmala-kīrtaye (Text 46), even though He is standing in front of Lord Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi.
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī concludes his comments on this verse by praying,
nara-vapuḥ pratipādya yadi tvayi
"O Lord Narahari, persons who have attained this human form live uselessly, merely breathing like bellows, if they fail to worship You by hearing about You, chanting Your glories, remembering You and performing the other devotional practices."
10.87.18
parisara-paddhatiḿ hṛdayam āruṇayo daharam
(18) According the standards of the seers are they who are engrossed in their vision of worship for the abdomen [the lower centers] and fix the Ârunis [the superior yogis] first of all their attention on the prânic knot of the subtle energies [see cakra] of the heart, after which they, o Unlimited One, go upward to the head which is Your abode and next go to the highest destination from which they, once they reached it, never fall down again into the mouth of death [see also B.G. 8: 16].
Here the śrutis who teach meditational yoga glorify the Personality of Godhead. The various processes of yoga are for the most part gradual and full of opportunities for distraction. Authentic methods of yoga, nonetheless, all aim at meditation on the Supersoul (Paramātmā), whose primary residence is in the region of the heart, alongside the jīva soul. This manifestation of Paramātmā in the heart is very subtle and difficult to perceive (daharam), and thus only advanced yogīs can realize Him there.
Neophyte meditators often practice focusing on the Supersoul's secondary presence in one of the lower centers of vital energy, such as the mūlādhāra-cakra, at the base of the spine, the svādhiṣṭhāna-cakra, in the area of the navel, or the maṇipūra-cakra, in the abdomen. Lord Kṛṣṇa refers to His expansion as Paramātmā in the abdominal cakra as follows:
ahaḿ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā
prāṇāpāna-samāyuktaḥ
"I am the fire of digestion in the bodies of all living entities, and I join with the air of life, outgoing and incoming, to digest the four kinds of food." (Bg. 15.14) Lord Vaiśvānara presides over digestion and in general bestows the capacity of mobility on animals, humans and demigods. In the judgment of the śrutis speaking this verse, those who limit their meditation to this form of the Lord are less intelligent, kūrpa-dṛśaḥ, meaning literally "having eyes clouded by dust."The superior yogīs known as Āruṇis, on the other hand, worship the Supersoul in His form as the indwelling companion of the jīva in the heart, the Lord who endows His dependent with the power of knowledge and inspires him with all varieties of practical intelligence. And just as the physical heart is the center of blood circulation, so the subtle heart-cakra is the crossroads of numerous channels of prāṇa, called nāḍīs, which extend outward to all parts of the body. When these passageways have been sufficiently purified, the Āruṇi yogīs can leave the heart region and go upward to the cakra at the roof of the brain. Yogīs who leave their bodies through this cakra, the brahma-randhra, go directly to the kingdom of God, from which they need never return to be reborn. Thus even the unsure process of meditational yoga can bear the fruit of pure devotion if it is followed perfectly.
Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura cites several śruti-mantras that echo the words of this verse: udaraḿ brahmeti śārkarākṣā upāsate hṛdayaḿ brahmeti āruṇayo brahmā haivaitā ita ūrdhvaḿ tv evodasarpat tac-chiro 'śrayate. "Those whose vision is clouded identify Brahman with the abdomen, while the Āruṇis worship Brahman in the heart. One who is truly Brahman-realized travels upward from the heart to take shelter of the Lord who is manifested at the top of the head."
śataḿ caikā ca hṛdayasya nāḍyas
tāsāḿ mūrdhānam abhiniḥsṛtaikā
tayordhvam āyann amṛtatvam eti
"There are one hundred and one subtle prāṇic channels emanating from the heart. One of these — the suṣumṇā — extends to the top of the head. By passing up through this channel, one transcends death. The other channels lead in all directions, to various kinds of rebirth." (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.6.6)The Upaniṣads refer repeatedly to the indwelling Paramātmā. Śrī Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (3.12-13) describes Him as follows:
mahān prabhur vai puruṣaḥ
sattvasyaiṣa pravartakaḥ
ańguṣṭha-mātraḥ puruṣo 'ntar-ātmā
"The Supreme Personality of Godhead becomes the Puruṣa to initiate the expansion of this cosmos. He is the perfectly pure goal that yogīs strive to reach, the effulgent and infallible ultimate controller. Measuring the size of a thumb, the Puruṣa is always present as the Supersoul within the hearts of all living beings. By exercising proper intelligence, one can realize Him within the heart; those who learn this method will gain immortality. "In conclusion, Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays,
cintito muni-vartmabhiḥ
"Let us worship the Supreme Lord, who resides in the heart. When mortal beings think of Him by the standard procedures established by great sages, meditating upon Him in His expansions in the abdomen and other regions of the body, the Lord reciprocates by destroying all fear of death."10.87.19
atha vitathāsv amūṣv avitathāḿ tava dhāma samaḿ
(19) Apparently as their motivator [pro or contra] entering the by You differently created species of life, do You depending the situation in Your own creation become visible about the way fire manifests itself [depending the form ignited]. You thus being among them as the real [equal to itself and eternal] among the unreal [variegated expansion that is temporal] are by the ones who are connected to Your manifestation and not being entangled have spotless minds, understood as being one [unchanging, permanent] state of love [see also B.G. 2: 12].
Hearing these prayers of the personified Vedas, in which the śrutis describe the Supersoul as entering countless varieties of material bodies, a critic may question how the Supreme can do this without becoming limited. Indeed, proponents of Advaita philosophy see no essential distinction between the Supreme Soul and His creation. In the impersonalists' conception, the Absolute has inexplicably gotten itself entrapped by illusion and has thus become first a personal God and then the demigods, humans, animals, plants and finally matter. Śańkarācārya and his followers take great pains to cite Vedic evidence to support this theory of how illusion is imposed on the Absolute. But speaking for themselves, the Vedas here answer this objection and refuse to lend their authority to Māyāvāda impersonalism.
The process of creation is technically called sṛṣṭi, "sending forth." The Supreme Lord sends forth His variegated energies, and these partake of His nature while remaining distinct from Him. This fact is expressed in the true Vedic philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda, the inconceivable, simultaneous oneness and difference of the Supreme Lord and His energies. Thus although each of the multitude of individual souls is a distinct entity, all souls consist of the same spiritual substance as the Supreme. Since they partake of the Supreme Lord's spiritual essence, the jīvas are unborn and eternal, just as He is. Lord Kṛṣṇa, speaking to Arjuna on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, confirms this:
na tv evāhaḿ jātu nāsaḿ
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ
"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." (Bg. 2.12) Material creation is a special arrangement for those jīvas who choose to separate themselves from the Supreme Lord's service, and thus the creation involves producing an imitation world where they can try to be independent.After creating the many species of material life, the Supreme Lord expands into His own creation as the Supersoul in order to provide the intelligence and inspiration every living being needs for his day-to-day existence. As stated in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.6.2), tat sṛṣṭvā tad evānuprāviśat: "After creating this world, He then entered within it." The Lord enters the material world, however, without forming any binding connection to it; this the śrutis here declare by the phrase viśann iva, "only seeming to enter." Taratamataś cakāssi means that the Paramātmā enters the body of every living being, from the great demigod Brahmā down to the insignificant germ, and exhibits differing degrees of His potency according to each soul's capacity for enlightenment. Analavat sva-kṛtānukṛtiḥ: Just as fire ignited in several objects burns according to the different forms of those objects, so the Supreme Soul, entering the bodies of all living creatures, illuminates the consciousness of each conditioned soul according to his individual capacity.
Even in the midst of material creation and destruction, the Lord of all creatures remains eternally unchanged, as expressed here by the word eka-rasam. In other words, the Lord eternally maintains His personal form of immeasurable, unalloyed spiritual pleasure. The rare living beings who completely (abhitas) disengage themselves from material dealings, or paṇa (thereby becoming abhivipaṇyavaḥ), come to know the Supreme Lord as He is. Every intelligent person should follow the example of these great souls and beg from them the chance to also be engaged in the Supreme Lord's devotional service.
This prayer is recited by śrutis whose mood is similar to that expressed in the following mantra of the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (6.11):
eko devaḥ sarva-bhūteṣu gūḍhaḥ
karmādhyakṣaḥ sarva-bhūtādhivāsaḥ
"The one Supreme Lord lives hidden inside all created things. He pervades all matter and sits within the hearts of all living beings. As the indwelling Supersoul, He supervises their material activities. Thus, while having no material qualities Himself, He is the unique witness and giver of consciousness."Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī submits his own prayer:
sva-nirmiteṣu kāryeṣu
bhagavantaḿ bhajāmahe
"Let us worship the Supreme Lord, who enters the products of His own creation yet remains aloof from their superior and inferior material gradations. He is the pure, undifferentiated existence pervading everything."10.87.20
sva-kṛta-pureṣv amīṣv abahir-antara-saḿvaraṇaḿ
bhavata upāsate 'ńghrim abhavam bhuvi viśvasitāḥ
(20) The person within the bodies he owes to his own activities is in fact as an expansion of You, the possessor of all energies so it is said [by the Vedas], not of the external [the gross body, the deha], nor of the internal [the subtle body, the linga] but [by these bodies] enveloped. And so do, once they have developed faith ascertaining the status of the living entity as being manifested in this manner, the ones learned in the sacred precepts worship Your feet as the source of liberation and field in which all offerings are sown.
Not only does the Supreme Lord remain totally uncontaminated when He resides within the material bodies of the conditioned souls, but even the infinitesimal jīva souls are never directly touched by the coverings of ignorance and lust they acquire while passing through repeated cycles of birth and death. Thus the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (3.10.5) proclaims, sa yaś cāyaḿ puruṣe yaś cāsāv āditye sa ekaḥ: "The soul of the embodied living being is one with Him who stands within the sun. " Similarly, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6.8.7) teaches, tat tvam asi: "You are nondifferent from that Supreme Truth."
In this prayer, the personified Vedas refer to the finite enjoyer of material bodies (the jīva soul) as an expansion of the transcendental reservoir of all potencies, the Supreme Lord. The term aḿśa-kṛtam, "made as His portion," must be properly understood, however, in this context. The jīva is not created at any time, nor is he the same kind of expansion of the Lord as the omnipotent viṣṇu-tattva expansions. The Supreme Soul is the proper object of all worship, and the subordinate jīva soul is meant to be His worshiper. The Supreme Lord enacts His pastimes by showing Himself in innumerable aspects of His personality, whereas the jīva is forced to change bodies whenever his accumulated karmic reactions so dictate. According to Śrī Nārada Pañcarātra,
yat taṭa-sthaḿ tu cid-rūpaḿ
sva-saḿvedyād vinirgatam
"The marginal potency, who is spiritual by nature, who emanates from the self-cognizant saḿvit energy, and who becomes tainted by his attachment to the modes of material nature, is called the jīva.''Although the jīva soul is also an expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa, he is distinguished from Kṛṣṇa's independent Viṣṇu expansions by his constitutional position on the margin between spirit and matter. As the Mahāvarāha Purāṇa explains,
svāḿśaś cātha vibhinnāḿśa
aḿśino yat tu sāmarthyaḿ
"The Supreme Lord is known in two ways: in terms of His plenary expansions and His separated expansions. Between the plenary expansions and Their source of expansion there is never any essential difference in terms of either Their capabilities, forms or situations. The separated expansions, on the other hand, possess only minute potency, being endowed only to a small extent with the Lord's powers."The conditioned soul in this world appears as if covered by matter, internally as well as externally. Externally, gross matter surrounds him in the forms of his body and environment, while internally desire and aversion impinge upon his consciousness. But from the transcendental perspective of realized sages, both kinds of material covering are insubstantial. By logically eliminating all material identities, which are misconceptions based on the soul's gross and subtle coverings, a thoughtful person can determine that the soul is nothing material. Rather, he is a pure spark of divine spirit, a servant of the Supreme Godhead. Understanding this, one should worship the Supreme Lord's lotus feet; such worship is the fully bloomed flower of the tree of Vedic rituals. One's realization of the splendor of the Lord's lotus feet, gradually nourished by the offering of Vedic sacrifices, automatically bears the fruits of liberation from material existence and irrevocable faith in the Lord's mercy. One can accomplish all this while still living in the material world. As Lord Kṛṣṇa states in the Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad (Uttara 47),
mathurā-maṇḍale yas tu
jambūdvīpe sthito 'tha vā
"One who worships Me in My Deity form while living in the district of Mathurā or, indeed, anywhere in Jambūdvīpa, becomes most dear to Me in this world."Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays,
tvad-aḿśasya mameśāna
parānanda nivartaya
"My Lord, please free me, Your partial expansion, from the bondage created by Your Māyā. Please do this, O abode of supreme bliss, by directing me to the service of Your feet."10.87.21
duravagamātma-tattva-nigamāya tavātta-tanoś carita-mahāmṛtābdhi-parivarta-pariśramaṇāḥ
(21) By diving deep into the vast ocean of nectar of the pastimes of the forms You assumed in order to propagate the hard to grasp principle of the soul, do the few who found relief from the fatigue [of a material life] not even wish to be liberated from this world, o Lord. This is so because they, abandoning their homes, found association with the community of the swans [the transcendental people] at Your lotus feet [see e.g. 4.24: 58, 4.30: 33, 5.12: 16, 5.13: 21, 7.6: 17-18, 7.14: 3-4].
Ritualistic brāhmaṇas (smārtas) and impersonalists (Māyāvādīs) always try to relegate the process of bhakti-yoga to a relative or minor role. They say that devotion to the Personality of Godhead is for sentimental persons who lack the maturity to observe strict rituals or pursue the rigorous culture of knowledge.
In this verse, however, the personified Vedas most emphatically declare the superexcellence of devotional service, clearly identifying it with ātma-tattva, the science of the self that impersonalists so proudly claim as their own domain. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī here defines ātma-tattva as the confidential mystery of the Supreme Lord's personal forms, qualities and pastimes. He also gives a second meaning for the phrase ātta-tanoḥ. Instead of meaning "who assumes various bodies," the phrase can also mean "He who attracts everyone to His transcendental body."
The pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa and His various expansions and incarnations are an unfathomable ocean of enjoyment. When a person comes to the point of complete exhaustion in his materialistic pursuits — whether he has been searching after material success or some impersonal notion of spiritual annihilation — he can gain relief by submerging himself in this nectar. As Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī explains in his textbook on the science of bhakti-yoga, Śrī Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (rendered into English by Śrīla Prabhupāda as The Nectar of Devotion), one who tastes even a single drop of this vast ocean will forever lose all desire for anything else.
Giving an alternative interpretation of the word pariśramaṇāḥ, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī comments that although the devotees of the Lord become fatigued after repeatedly diving into the endless waves and undercurrents in the ocean of the Lord's pleasure pastimes, these devotees never desire any happiness other than the Lord's service, even the happiness of liberation. Rather, their very fatigue becomes pleasure for them, just as the fatigue produced by sex indulgence is pleasurable to those addicted to sex. The Supreme Lord's pure devotees become enthused by hearing the charming narrations of His pastimes and feel impelled to dance, sing, shout out loud, kick their heels together, faint, sob and run about like madmen. Thus they become too absorbed in ecstasy to notice any bodily discomfort.
Pure Vaiṣṇavas do not want even liberation, what to speak of other desirable goals, such as an exalted position as ruler of the heavenly planets. This degree of exclusive dedication is admittedly only rarely achieved in this world, as the śrutis speaking this verse indicate by the word kecit ("a few"). Not only do pure devotees abandon their hankering for future gain, but they also lose all their attraction for what they already possess — the common comforts of home and family life. The association of saintly Vaiṣṇavas — the disciplic succession of masters, disciples and granddisciples — becomes for them their real family, filled with swanlike personalities like Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī. These great personalities always drink the sweet nectar of service to the Supreme Lord's lotus feet.
Many mantras of the Upaniṣads and other śrutis openly declare devotional service to be superior to liberation itself. In the words of the Nṛsiḿha-pūrva-tāpanī Upaniṣad, yaḿ sarve vedā namanti mumukṣavo brahma-vādinaś ca: "To Him all the Vedas, all seekers of liberation and all students of the Absolute Truth offer their obeisances." Commenting on this mantra, Śrī Śańkarācārya admits, muktā api līlayā vigrahaḿ kṛtvā bhajanti: "Even liberated souls take pleasure in establishing the Supreme Lord's Deity and worshiping Him." The great rival of Ācārya Śańkara, Śrīla Madhvācārya Ānandatīrtha, cites his own favorite śruti-mantras in this regard, such as muktā hy etam upāsate, muktānām api bhaktir hi paramānanda-rūpiṇī: "Even those who are liberated worship Him, and even for them devotional service is the embodiment of supreme bliss"; and amṛtasya dhārā bahudhā dohamānaḿ/ caraṇaḿ no loke su-dhitāḿ dadhātu/ oḿ tat sat: "May His feet, which bountifully pour forth floods of nectar, bestow wisdom upon us who are living in this world."
In summary, Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays,
tvat-kathāmṛta-pāthodhau
"Those rare, fortunate souls who derive great delight by sporting in the nectar ocean of topics about You consider the four great goals of life [religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and liberation] to be no more important than a blade of grass."10.87.22
(22) This body useful for serving You acts as one's self, one's friend and beloved. However, even though You, favorably disposed as their very Self, are helpful and affectionate, do they who alas fail to delight in You rather find the degradation of the physical frame [in successive births], suicidal as they are in their worship of the unreal when they time and again fail to find their way with their existential fears [see also B.G. 16: 19].
The Vedas have strong words for those who choose to remain in illusion rather than serve the all-merciful Personality of Godhead. The Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.3.15) states, ārāmam asya paśyanti na taḿ paśyati kaścana. na tam vidātha ya imā jajānānyad yuṣmākam antaram babhūva. nīhāreṇa prāvṛtā jalpyā cāsu-tṛpa uktha-śāsaś caranti: "Everyone can see the place where the Lord manifested Himself in this world for His own pleasure, but still no one sees Him. None of you know Him who generated all these living beings, and thus there is a great difference between your vision and His. Covered by the fog of illusion, you performers of Vedic rituals indulge in useless talk and live only to gratify your senses."
The Supreme Lord pervades this universe, as He says in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.4), mayā tataḿ idaḿ sarvaḿ jagat. Nothing in this world, not even the most insignificant clay pot or shred of cloth, is devoid of the presence of the Personality of Godhead. But because He keeps Himself invisible to envious eyes (avyakta-mūrtinā), materialists are misled by His material energy and think that the source of material creation is a combination of atoms and physical forces.
Displaying their compassion for such foolish materialists, the personified Vedas advise them in this prayer to remember the real purpose for which they exist: to serve the Lord, their greatest well-wisher, with loving devotion. The human body is the ideal facility for reviving one's spiritual consciousness; its organs — ears, tongue, eyes and so on — are quite suitable for hearing about the Lord, chanting His glories, worshiping Him and performing all the other essential aspects of devotional service.
One's material body is destined to remain intact for only a short time, and so it is called kulāyam, subject to "dissolving into the earth" (kau līyate). Nonetheless, if properly utilized it can be one's best friend. When one is immersed in material consciousness, however, the body becomes a false friend, distracting the bewildered living entity from his true self-interest. Persons too much infatuated with their own bodies and those of their spouses, children, pets and so on are in fact misdirecting their devotion to the worship of illusion, asad-upāsanā. In this way, as the śrutis state here, such people commit spiritual suicide, insuring future punishment for failing to carry out the higher responsibilities of human existence. As the Īśopaniṣad (3) declares,
asuryā nāma te lokā
andhena tamasāvṛtāḥ
tāḿs te pretyābhigacchanti
"The killer of the soul, whoever he may be, must enter into the planets known as the worlds of the faithless, full of darkness and ignorance."Those who are overly attached to sense gratification, or who worship the impermanent in the form of false, materialistic scriptures and philosophies, maintain desires that carry them into more degraded bodies in each successive life. Since they are entrapped in the perpetually rotating cycle of saḿsāra, their only hope for salvation is getting a chance to hear the merciful instructions spoken by the Supreme Lord's devotees.
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays,
"When will I receive a human birth in which my mind may take pleasure in You, who are the Supreme Soul and Lord of the universe?"
10.87.23
(23) That what by the sages with their breathing, mind and senses brought under control in steadfast yoga is worshiped in the heart, is also attained by the ones who remember You in enmity [see also 3.2: 24 and 10.74: 46]. Similarly will we attain You and equally relishing the same nectar from the lotus-like feet, as do the women [the gopîs, the wives] who in their mind and with their eyes are attracted to Your arms that are as firm as mighty snake bodies.
such as the Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad — who identify the cowherd boy Kṛṣṇa with absolute Brahman in its highest aspect had so far been patiently waiting for their turn to speak. But after hearing the other śrutis offer prayers openly glorifying the Lord's personality, these intimate śrutis could no longer contain themselves, and so they spoke out of turn in this verse.
Followers of the path of mystic yoga subdue their senses and minds by practicing breath control and severe austerities. If they succeed in thoroughly purifying themselves by this regimen, they may eventually begin to realize the Paramātmā, the personal form of Brahman within the heart. And if they continue this meditation without deviation for a long time, they may in the end come to the point of true God consciousness. But the same objective achieved in this difficult and uncertain way was also attained by the demons who were killed by Lord Kṛṣṇa during His pastimes on the earth. Obsessed with enmity toward Him, demons like Kaḿsa and Śiśupāla quickly obtained the perfection of liberation simply by His killing them.
Speaking for themselves, however, the personified Vedas here state that they would prefer to develop love of Godhead by learning to emulate the favorable surrender of Lord Kṛṣṇa's confidential devotees, especially the young gopīs of Vraja. Though they appeared to be simple women attracted conjugally to the Lord's physical beauty and strength, the goddesses of Vraja exhibited the highest perfection of meditation. The śrutis wish to become just like them.
In this regard, Lord Brahmā relates the following historical account in the supplement to the Bṛhad-vāmana Purāṇa:
brahmānanda-mayo loko
"The infinite world of spiritual bliss is called Vaikuṇṭha. There the Supreme Truth lives, being glorified by the personified Vedas, who are also present there."
ciraḿ stutvā tatas tuṣṭaḥ
"Once, after the Vedas had elaborately praised Him, the Lord felt especially satisfied and spoke to them in a voice whose source remained invisible: 'My dear sages, I am very satisfied with you. Please ask of Me some benediction that you secretly desire.'"
śrutaya ūcuḥ
cikīrṣājani nas tathā
"The śrutis replied, 'We have developed the desire to become like the cowherd women of the mortal world who, inspired by lust, worship You in the mood of a lover.' "śrī-bhagavān uvāca
durlabho durghaṭaś caiva
yuṣmākaḿ sa manorathaḥ
mayānumoditaḥ samyak
"The Lord then said, 'This desire of Yours is difficult to fulfill. Indeed, it is almost impossible. But since I am sanctioning it, your wish must inevitably come true.' "āgāmini viriñcau tu
vraje gopyo bhaviṣyatha
" 'When the next Brahmā takes birth to faithfully execute his duties of creation, and when the day of his life called the Sārasvata-kalpa arrives, you will all appear in Vraja as gopīs.' "pṛthivyāḿ bhārate kṣetre
vṛndāvane bhaviṣyāmi
" 'On the earth, in the land of Bhārata, in My own district of Mathurā, in the forest of Vṛndāvana, I will become your beloved in the circle of the rāsa dance.' "jāra-dharmeṇa su-snehaḿ
" 'Thus obtaining Me as your paramour, you will all gain the most exalted and steadfast pure love for Me, and in this way you will fulfill all your ambitions.' "
brahmovāca
śrutvaitac cintayantyas tā
"Lord Brahmā said: After hearing these words, the śrutis meditated on the Personality of Godhead's beauty for a long time. When the designated time ultimately arrived, they became gopīs and obtained the association of Kṛṣṇa."A similar account can be found in the Sṛṣṭi-khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa, which describes how the Gāyatrī mantra also became a gopī.
Regarding the development of bhakti, Lord Kṛṣṇa further states in the Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad (Uttara 4), apūtaḥ pūto bhavati yaḿ māḿ smṛtvā, avratī vratī bhavati yaḿ māḿ smṛtvā, niṣkāmaḥ sa-kāmo bhavati yaḿ māḿ smṛtvā, aśrotrī śrotrī bhavati yaḿ māḿ smṛtvā: "By remembering Me, one who is impure becomes pure. By remembering Me, one who follows no vows becomes a strict follower of vows. By remembering Me, one who is desireless develops desires [to serve Me]. By remembering Me, one who has studied no Vedic mantras becomes an expert knower of the Vedas."
The Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.5.6) refers to the gradual steps in the process of becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious: ātmā vā are draṣṭavyaḥ śrotavyo mantavyo nididhyāsitavyaḥ. "It is the Self which must be observed, heard about, thought of and meditated upon with fixed concentration." The idea here is that one should realize the Supreme Self as directly visible in His full personality by the following means: First one should hear the instructions of a qualified representative of the Paramātmā and take the words of such a spiritual master into one's heart by offering him humble service and striving in all ways to please him. One should then ponder the divine message of the spiritual master continuously, with the aim of dispelling all one's doubts and misconceptions. Then one can proceed to meditate on the Supreme Lord's lotus feet with total conviction and determination.
So-called jñānīs may think that the Upaniṣads praise nirviśeṣa (impersonal) realization of the Supreme as more complete and final than sa-viśeṣa (personal) worship of the Supreme Godhead. All honest Vaiṣṇavas, however, join in adhering to the devotional service of the Supreme Lord, always meditating with pleasure on His infinitely wonderful, variegated spiritual qualities. In the words of the śruti-mantras, yam evaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyas/ tasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanūḿ svām: "To that person whom the Supreme Soul chooses, He becomes attainable. To that person the Supreme Soul reveals His personal form." (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.23 and Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.2.3)
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī concludes with the prayer,
"O Lord, loving remembrance of Your lotus feet is very rarely achieved. Please, O Nṛhari, somehow arrange for me to have that remembrance day and night."
10.87.24
(24) Ah, who out here who but recently was born and soon will die has an inkling who the first one would be from whom arose the seer [Brahmâ] after whom followed the two groups of demigods [to the senses and the principles. See B.G. 7: 26]? When He lies down to withdraw is there at that time neither the gross, nor the subtle, nor that [the bodies] comprising both; nor is there the flow of Time or are the S'âstras there [B.G. 9: 7].
Here the śrutis express the difficulty of knowing the Supreme. Devotional service, or bhakti-yoga, as described in these prayers of the personified Vedas, is the surest and easiest path to knowledge of the Lord and to liberation. In comparison, the philosophic search for knowledge, known as jñāna-yoga, is very difficult, favored though it is by those who are disgusted with material life but still unwilling to surrender to the Lord. As long as the finite soul remains envious of the Lord's supremacy, the Lord does not reveal Himself. As He states in Bhagavad-gītā (7.25),
nāhaḿ prakāśaḥ sarvasya
mūdho 'yaḿ nābhijānāti
"I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible." And in the words of Lord Brahmā,panthās tu koṭi-śata-vatsara-sampragamyo
vāyor athāpi manaso muni-puńgavānām
"I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, only the tip of the toe of whose lotus feet is approached by the yogīs, who aspire after the transcendental and betake themselves to prāṇāyāma by drilling the respiration; or by the jñānīs, who search out the undifferentiated Brahman by the process of elimination of the mundane, extending over thousands of millions of years." (Brahma-saḿhitā 5.34)Brahmā, the first-born living being in this universe, is also the foremost sage. He is born from Lord Nārāyaṇa, and from him appear the hosts of demigods, including both the controllers of earthly activities and the rulers of heaven. All these powerful and intelligent beings are relatively recent productions of the Lord's creative energy. As the first speaker of the Vedas, Lord Brahmā should know their purport at least as well as any other authority, but even he knows the Personality of Godhead only to a limited extent. As Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam states (1.3.35), veda-guhyāni hṛt-pateḥ: "The Lord of the heart hides Himself deep within the confidential recesses of the Vedic sound." If Brahmā and the demigods born from him cannot easily know the Supreme Lord, how then can mere mortals expect success in their independent pursuit of knowledge?
As long as this creation lasts, living beings face many obstacles on the path of knowledge. Because of identifying themselves with their material coverings, consisting of body, mind and ego, they acquire all sorts of prejudices and misconceptions. Even if they have the divine scripture to guide them and the opportunity to execute the prescribed methods of karma, jñāna and yoga, the conditioned souls have but little power for gaining knowledge of the Absolute. And when the time of annihilation comes, the Vedic scriptures and their regulative injunctions become unmanifest, leaving the dormant jīvas completely in darkness. Therefore we should abandon our futile endeavors for knowledge without devotion and simply surrender ourselves to the Supreme Lord's mercy, heeding the advice of Lord Brahmā:
jñāne prayāsam udapāsya namanta eva
"Those who, even while remaining situated in their established social positions, throw away the process of speculative knowledge and with their body, words and mind offer all respects to descriptions of Your personality and activities, dedicating their lives to these narrations, which are vibrated by You personally and by Your pure devotees, certainly conquer Your Lordship, although You are otherwise unconquerable by anyone within the three worlds." (Bhāg. 10.14.3)
In this regard, the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.4.1) refers to the Supreme as yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasā saha, "where words cease, and where the mind cannot reach. " The Īśopaniṣad (4) states,
anejad ekaḿ manaso javīyo
"Although fixed in His abode, the Personality of Godhead is more swift than the mind and can overcome all others running. The powerful demigods cannot approach Him. Although in one place, He controls those who supply the air and rain. He surpasses all in excellence." And in the Ṛg Veda (3.54.5) we find this mantra:
ko 'ddhā veda ka iha pravocat
arvāg devā visarjanenā-
"Who in this world actually knows, and who can explain, whence this creation has come? The demigods, after all, are younger than the creation. Who, then, can tell whence this world has come into being?"Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī thus prays,
kvāhaḿ buddhy-ādi-saḿruddhaḥ
"What am I, a being entrapped by the material coverings of worldly intelligence and so on? And what are Your glories by comparison, O almighty one? O friend of the fallen, O ocean of mercy, Lord Nṛhari, please bless me with Your devotional service."10.87.25
vipaṇam ṛtaḿ smaranty upadiśanti ta ārupitaiḥ
(25) They who teaching with authority declare that life springs from dead matter and that there would be finality to the eternal [see B.G. 2: 16], that the soul wouldn't be one [see 10.14: 9] and that the duality of mundane business is something real [see B.G. 17: 28], are mistaken in their from ignorance born dualistic conception that the living entity thus would be produced from the three modes [only without You, their Oneness Beyond, see B.G. 14: 19 and 13: 28]; that is what one gets when one concerning such transcendental matters is not of [knowledge with] You, the Essence of Full Perception [see also 5.6: 9-11].
The true position of the Supreme Personality is a sublime mystery, as is also the dependent position of the jīva soul. Most thinkers are mistaken in one way or another about these truths, since there are countless varieties of false designation that can cover the soul and create illusion. Foolish conditioned souls submit to obvious delusions, but the illusory power of Māyā can easily subvert the intelligence of even the most sophisticated philosophers and mystics. Thus there are always divergent schools of thought propounding conflicting theories concerning basic principles of truth.
In traditional Indian philosophy, the followers of Vaiśeṣika, Nyāya, Sāńkhya, Yoga and Mīmāḿsā philosophies all have their own erroneous ideas, which the personified Vedas point out in this prayer. The Vaiśeṣikas say that the visible universe is created from an original stock of atoms (janim asataḥ). As Kaṇāda Ṛṣi's Vaiśeṣika-sūtras (7.1.20) state, nityaḿ parimaṇḍalam: "That which is of the smallest size, the atom, is eternal. " Kaṇāda and his followers also postulate eternality for other, nonatomic entities, including the souls who become embodied, and even a Supreme Soul. But in Vaiśeṣika cosmology the souls and the Supersoul play only token roles in the atomic production of the universe. Śrīla Kṛṣṇa-dvaipāyana Vedavyāsa criticizes this position in his Vedānta-sūtras (2.2.12): ubhayathāpi na karmātas tad-abhāvaḥ. According to this sūtra, one cannot claim that, at the time of creation, atoms first combine together because they are impelled by some karmic impulse adhering in the atoms themselves, since atoms by themselves, in their primeval state before combining into complex objects, have no ethical responsibility that might lead them to acquire pious and sinful reactions. Nor can the initial combination of atoms be explained as a result of the residual karma of the living entities who lie dormant prior to creation, since these reactions are each jīva's own and cannot be transferred from them even to other jīvas, what to speak of inert atoms.
Alternatively, the phrase janim asataḥ can be taken to allude to the Yoga philosophy of Patañjali Ṛṣi, inasmuch as his Yoga-sūtras teach one how to achieve the transcendental status of Brahmanhood by a mechanical process of exercise and meditation. Patañjali's yoga method is here called asat because it ignores the essential aspect of devotion — surrender to the will of the Supreme Person. As Lord Kṛṣṇa states in Bhagavad-gītā (17.28),
aśraddhayā hutaḿ dattaḿ
"Anything done as sacrifice, charity or penance without faith in the Supreme, O son of Pṛthā, is impermanent. It is called asat and is useless both in this life and in the next."
The Yoga-sūtras acknowledge the Personality of Godhead in an oblique way, but only as a helper whom the advancing yogī can utilize. Īśvara-praṇidhānād vā: "Devotional meditation on God is yet another means of achieving concentration." (Yoga-sūtra 1.23) In contrast, Bādarāyaṇa Vedavyāsa's philosophy of Vedānta emphasizes devotional service not only as the primary means to liberation but also as identical with liberation itself. Ā-prāyaṇāt tatrāpi hi dṛṣṭam: "Worship of the Lord continues up to the point of liberation, and indeed goes on in the liberated state also, as the Vedas reveal." (Vedānta-sūtra 4.1.12)
Gautama Ṛṣi, in his Nyāya-sutras, proposes that one can attain liberation by negating both illusion and unhappiness: duḥkha-janma-pravṛtti-doṣa-mithyā-jñānānām uttarottarāpāye tad-anantarābhāvād apavargaḥ. "By successively dispelling false conceptions, bad character, entangling action, rebirth and misery — the disappearance of one of these allowing the disappearance of the next — one can achieve final liberation." (Nyāya-sutra 1.1.2) But since Nyāya philosophers believe that awareness is not an essential quality of the soul, they teach that a liberated soul has no consciousness. The Nyāya idea of liberation thus puts the soul in the condition of a dead stone. This attempt by the Nyāya philosophers to kill the soul's innate consciousness is here called sato mṛtim by the personified Vedas. But the Vedānta-sūtra (2.3.17) unequivocally states, jño 'ta eva: "The jīva soul is always a knower."
Although the soul is in truth both conscious and active, the proponents of Sāńkhya philosophy wrongly separate these two functions of the living force (ātmani ye ca bhidām), ascribing consciousness to the soul (puruṣa) and activity to material nature (prakṛti). According to the Sāńkhya-kārikā (19-20),
tasmāc ca viparyāsāt
siddhaḿ sākṣitvaḿ puruṣasya
kaivalyaḿ madhya-sthyaḿ
draṣṭṛtvam akartṛ-bhāvaś ca
"Thus, since the apparent differences between puruṣas are only superficial (being due to the various modes of nature that cover them), the puruṣa's true status is proven to be that of a witness, characterized by his separateness, his passive indifference, his status of being an observer, and his inactivity."tasmāt tat-saḿyogād
karteva bhavaty udāsīnaḥ
"Thus, by contact with the soul, the unconscious subtle body seems to be conscious, while the soul appears to be the doer although he is aloof from the activity of nature's modes."Śrīla Vyāsadeva refutes this idea in the section of the Vedānta-sūtra (2.3.31-39) that begins, kartā śāstrārtha-vattvāt: "The jīva soul must be a performer of actions, because the injunctions of scripture must have some purpose." Ācārya Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, in his Govinda-bhāṣya, explains: "The jīva, not the modes of nature, is the doer. Why? Because the injunctions of scripture must have some purpose (śāstrārtha-vattvāt). For example, such scriptural injunctions as svarga-kāmo yajeta ('One who desires to attain to heaven should perform ritual sacrifice') and ātmānam eva lokam upāsīta (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.15: 'One should worship with the aim of attaining the spiritual kingdom') are meaningful only if a conscious doer exists. If the modes of nature were the doer, these statements would serve no purpose. After all, scriptural injunctions engage the living entity in performing prescribed actions by convincing him that he can act to bring about certain enjoyable results. Such a mentality cannot be aroused in the inert modes of nature."
Jaimini Ṛṣi, in his Pūrva-mīmāḿsā-sūtras, presents material work and its results as the whole of reality (vipaṇam ṛtam). He and later proponents of Karma-mīmāḿsā philosophy teach that material existence is endless — that there is no liberation. For them the cycle of karma is perpetual, and the best one can aim for is higher birth among the demigods. Therefore, they say, the whole purpose of the Vedas is to engage human beings in rituals for creating good karma, and consequently the mature soul's prime responsibility is to ascertain the exact meaning of the Vedas' sacrificial injunctions and to execute them. Codanā-lakṣaṇo 'rtho dharmaḥ: "Duty is that which is indicated by the injunctions of the Vedas."(Pūrva-mīmāḿsā-sūtra 1.1.2)
The Vedānta-sūtra, however — especially in the fourth chapter, which deals with life's ultimate goal — elaborately describes the soul's potential for achieving liberation from birth and death, while it subordinates ritual sacrifice to the role of helping one become qualified to receive spiritual knowledge. As stated there (Vedānta-sūtra 4.1.16), agnihotrādi tu tat-kāryāyaiva tad-darśanāt: "The Agnihotra and other Vedic sacrifices are meant only for producing knowledge, as the statements of the Vedas show." And the very last words of the Vedānta-sūtra (4.4.22) proclaim, anāvṛttiḥ śabdāt: "The liberated soul never returns to this world, as promised by the revealed scripture."
Thus the fallacious conclusions of the speculative philosophers prove that even great scholars and sages are often bewildered by the misuse of their own God-given intelligence. As the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (1.2.5) says,
avidyāyām antare vartamānāḥ
andhenaiva nīyamānā yathāndhāḥ
"Caught in the grip of ignorance, self-proclaimed experts consider themselves learned authorities. They wander about this world befooled, like the blind leading the blind."Of the six orthodox philosophies of Vedic tradition — Sāńkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāḿsā and Vedānta — only the Vedānta of Bādarāyaṇa Vyāsa is free of error, and even that only as properly explained by the bona fide Vaiṣṇava ācāryas. Each of the six schools, nonetheless, makes some practical contribution to Vedic education: atheistic Sāńkhya explains the evolution of natural elements from subtle to gross, Patañjali's yoga describes the eightfold method of meditation, Nyāya sets forth the techniques of logic, Vaiśeṣika considers the basic metaphysical categories of reality, and Mīmāḿsā establishes the standard tools of scriptural interpretation. Apart from these six, there are also the more deviant philosophies of the Buddhists, Jains and Cārvākas, whose theories of voidism and materialism deny the spiritual integrity of the eternal soul.
Ultimately, the only perfectly reliable source of knowledge is God Himself. The Personality of Godhead is avabodha-rasa, the infinite reservoir of unfailing vision. To those who depend on Him with absolute conviction, He grants the divine eye of knowledge. Others, following their own speculative theories, must grope for the truth through the obscuring curtain of Māyā. Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī prays,
mithyā-tarka-śukarkaśerita-mahā-vādāndhakārāntara-
"For the bewildered soul wandering within the darkness of those exalted philosophies promoted by the harsh methods of false logic, the path of true knowledge of You, O Lord of magnificent glory, remains invisible. O Lord of Madhu, husband of the goddess of fortune, when will I become liberated by joyfully chanting Your names — Mādhava, Vāmana, Trinayana, Śrī Śańkara, Śrīpati and Govinda?"
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