How can Krsna be the creator if all souls are eternal?
In the Gītā, Krsna explains that the soul is eternally existent and never created. At the same time, He is as the creator. How can we be eternal if we are created by Krsna?
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In the Gītā, Krsna explains that the soul is eternally existent and never created:
na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin, nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo, na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre“For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.”
He also explains that the souls are His fragmental parts. We all come from Him:
mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke, jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi, prakṛti-sthāni karṣati“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.”
At the same time, however, Krsna is described as the creator, the father of everyone, and so on. These two sets of statements may appear to be difficult to reconcile, since creation automatically implies a beginning. How can we be eternal if we are created by Krsna?
One point in this question is that the two versions describe different aspects.
When it is said that God is the creator of all beings, what is usually described is Lord Mahā-Viṣṇu, creating all universes and all living beings. While descriptions of the soul being eternal and without beginning describe life in the spiritual world, where there is no past or creation, everything just exists eternally.
So, if Mahā-Viṣṇu created all universes and all living beings, does it mean that some souls have a beginning, being created by Mahā-Viṣṇu at some point, while others are eternal? Of course not.
There are many different terms in Sanskrit used to describe us, such as ātmā and jīva. These terms are used in different meanings in different passages. Ātma can be used in the sense of the soul, the mind, or the body, while jīva is sometimes used in the sense of the eternal soul, and sometimes in the sense of the subtle body (our conditioned self). It is also sometimes used in the sense of the pure soul, and sometimes in the sense of the conditioned soul. Prabhupāda often makes it simple by just translating all of this as “living entity”. Just as in the Sanskrit terms, “living entity” can mean the pure soul, the combination of the soul and body, the subtle body, or even the physical body itself. We need to understand by context.
In passages that describe Mahā-Viṣṇu, God is described as the creator of all living beings in the sense that he creates both the subtle bodies and gross bodies, and sends the souls who so desire in the direction of the material creation. The souls sent by Mahā-Viṣṇu are not created at this point; this is just one of the stages of their journey.
Other passages, however, describe the spiritual sky, where everything is eternally existing, and there is no beginning or end. In this way, all souls are eternal, but some get somehow entrapped in the material universes, where things have a beginning.
If I see myself as the body or mind (which is the case for most people in this material world), the description of Mahā-Viṣṇu creating the material universes and all living beings is more appropriate, and when the point is to emphasize that we are eternal souls, different from the body and mind, is emphasized, then the explanation that we are eternal, without a beginning or end is more relevant.
The problem is that when we say that both ourselves and Krsna are eternal, without a beginning, one side of the explanation is lost: the point that Krsna is Supreme. This point is automatically emphasized when we say that Mahā-Viṣṇu is the creator, but when we say that both us and Krsna are eternal, we often get the idea that we are independent from Krsna, or on the same level as Him.
To counter this, our ācāryas often give the idea that Krsna is the father of all souls, describing a complicated concept in simple, mundane language. This description doesn’t mean the soul suddenly has a beginning; it just emphasizes the relationship: Krsna is Supreme, and we are dependent on Him.
We can summarize these different principles as a list of points that must be taken together for us to understand them:
a) In our real identity as souls, we are eternal, without a beginning or end.
b) Krsna is also eternal, and He is Supreme, the foundation and the maintainer.
c) Our conditioned nature, as the body or mind, has a beginning. We were created by Mahā-Viṣṇu.
d) We are all dependent on and subordinate to Krsna.
These points are exemplified in a famous passage from the Upaniṣads, the verse nityo nityānām, which appears both in the Katha Upaniṣad (2.2.13) and Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (6.13):
nityo nityānām cetanaś cetanānām, eko bahūnām yo vidadhāti kāmān
tam ātma-stham ye ’nupaśyanti dhīrās, teṣām śāntiḥ śāśvatī netareṣām
This verse is deeply significant, revealing the nature of the soul, the nature of the Lord, the relationship between the two, and the importance of transcendental knowledge. It is quoted frequently by Srila Prabhupāda in his lectures.
The verse starts with the word “nityo” describing an eternal being who is the creator of everything. Everything we can see around us in this material world is temporary, with a beginning and an end. However, this temporary manifestation originates from this eternal being.
The next word, nityānām, reveals that this eternal one is not alone. He exists together with many other eternals. There is one supreme eternal, who is the principal, and many other subordinate eternals. These subordinate eternals are us, the jīvas, which share the same eternal nature of the Supreme Lord, but are subordinate to Him.
The next word, cetanaś, indicates that this supreme eternal is conscious (cit). He is conscious and full of knowledge. The word cetanānām indicates that all the other eternals, the jīvas, share this same conscious nature of the supreme eternal.
The word “kaman” in the second line indicates that all these jīvas possess many desires. However, they alone are not capable of acting on these desires. Eko bahūnām yo vidadhāti: the one supreme eternal provides for all the subordinate eternals. In this way, Krsna is defined as the possessor of all the potencies and opulences, the maintainer of everyone, and the support of everything. Everyone else is dependent on Him.
Because we have material desires, the Lord supplies us with material bodies, so we can try to satisfy these desires. These bodies are, however, different from us in nature, just like a car is different from a human being driving it.
The soul is, however, not alone inside the body. Tam ātma-stham: this supreme eternal (tam) enters the body together with the soul. He is present everywhere as Paramātmā, and all souls are eternally connected with Him, inside or outside the body. Both the soul and the Lord are present inside the heart, just like two birds residing in a tree, but they are not the same. The soul is absorbed in enjoying the fruits of the tree, some perceived as sweet and others as bitter, while the Lord simply observes, as a neutral witness. He sanctions and enables the activities of the soul, yet He is not responsible for the results.
As long as we are absorbed in the body and the material activities connected with it, we remain in anxiety, hankering for material things we are attracted to and desperately trying to hold onto whatever we have, trying to find some kind of stable situation amongst the temporality of this world. However, when we become sober and wise, we can perceive the Lord inside our hearts and become again connected with our original, spiritual nature; we attain eternal peace (anupaśyanti dhīrās, teṣām śāntiḥ). This eternal peace is, however, not available for others who fail to do so (na itareṣām).
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