Seeing the energy, missing the Energetic

Imagine you are a bacterium living in the paint used by an artist to paint a masterpiece. You observe the paint moving around you but can’t see the artist acting.

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Imagine you are a bacterium living in the paint used by an artist to paint a masterpiece. You observe the paint moving around you, but can’t see the artist acting. You thus presume that things are just happening by chance or that the paint is moving by itself as the ultimate cause. In other words, you can see the energy but not the energetic, and because of this lack of knowledge, your understanding is imperfect.

Interestingly enough, this is similar to the position of both Māyāvādis and empiric philosophers in general. They can observe the movements of the material energy and the creation and maintenance of the cosmos. Some can even go beyond and understand Brahman, the spiritual energy beyond matter, but, lacking understanding of the Personality of Godhead, their conclusions are equivocal. Due to their faulty understanding, they can see the energy but not the energetic. This bacteria-in-the-paint position is a good way to understand the limitations of impersonalist and purely empirical approaches to reality.

Most schools based on the Vedas understand that reality is a combination of matter and spirit. Some, like the Māyāvādis, believe that the material manifestation is ultimately false, but even they have to admit that it exists on a practical level. Vaiṣnava philosophy, however, goes beyond, identifying both matter and spirit as śakti (energy, or potency) and then identifying the śaktimān (the energetic, or the conscious source and controller of energy).

This is a point Vyāsadeva makes right in the second aphorism of the Vedanta-sūtra: janmādy asya yataḥ, “Brahman is He from whom everything emanates.”

Śaṅkarācārya was forced to use a good deal of word jugglery in his commentary on this verse, ultimately arguing that Vyāsadeva was mistaken in composing it, all to avoid the logical conclusion of the Upaniṣads: a personal God, with will and desire, who has multiple potencies and uses them to create everything that exists.

Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja gives the correct conclusion in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta:

jīva-tattva — śakti, kṛṣṇa-tattva — śaktimān gītā-viṣṇupurāṇādi tāhāte pramāṇa

“The living entities are energies, not the energetic. The energetic is Kṛṣṇa. This is very vividly described in the Bhagavad-gītā, the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and other Vedic literatures.”

This is also supported in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:

vadanti tat tattva-vidas tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavān iti śabdyate

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramātmā or Bhagavān.”

This is the conclusion given by Caitanya Mahāprabhu: simultaneous oneness and difference (acintya-bhedābheda). We can’t understand the whole picture by saying that “everything is one” or by saying “everything is separate.” We are all one in the sense of sharing the same spiritual nature, just as all people of the world are one in the sense of being all human beings, but at the same time are different individuals. If we think we are different from Kṛṣṇa, some kind of beings part of a different nature, nothing makes sense, but to go to the other extreme, believing we are one with Him, as the Māyāvādis do, is also equivocal. This mistake prevents one from understanding the real conclusion of the Vedas, which is devotional service to the Lord as the ultimate spiritual realization.

Kṛṣṇa Himself explains this in the Gītā (18.54):

brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati
samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām

“One who is thus transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman and becomes fully joyful. He never laments or desires to have anything. He is equally disposed toward every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service unto Me.”

Brahman realization is partial. Real realization is the understanding of one’s personal, eternal relationship with the Lord.

Bhagavān realization is complete: it includes the two previous stages (Brahman and Paramātmā) but also reveals the Supreme Person and His complete potencies. A simple example to understand it is to imagine Brahman as the sunlight, Paramātmā as the sun reflected everywhere, and Bhagavān as the sun globe and the sun-god, the source of the illumination noted in the other two stages of realization.

Another important nuance is that not all impersonalists are the same. Brahmavādīs are unaware of the personal feature of the Lord, but they are sincere seekers and can easily become attracted to the personal aspect when they come in contact with devotees or in direct contact with the Lord, as in the case of the four Kumāras.

Māyāvādīs, however, are envious and resist surrendering. Even when they receive knowledge about Kṛṣṇa’s opulences, they reject and ridicule it, concluding that Kṛṣṇa is just a material manifestation. According to them, Brahman assumes a material body and performs material activities under the influence of the material mode of goodness, which is absurd.

This is an important nuance to understand, because it shows how the same philosophical knowledge can produce different conclusions in different classes of people. It is not just about the evidence or the intelligence we use for processing it, but the attitude we have toward this knowledge. Without the right attitude, we will always misunderstand, even if the source of knowledge is correct. Both Vaiṣnavas and Māyāvādis, as well as all other ancient philosophical systems, study the Vedas, but only a tiny portion of these transcendentalists can understand the proper conclusions of the scriptures. Even most Vaiṣnavas misunderstand important points. Finding the truth is thus not about vox populi; it is about finding the pure devotee who received the proper conclusions through the paramparā and is transmitting them after personal realization.

Māyāvādis conclude that “everything is Brahman.” This is correct in a sense, but it doesn’t mean that everything is God. Everything is Brahman in the sense of being all energies of Kṛṣṇa, but that does not mean the energies are identical to the energetic, just as the paint is the material used by the artist, but it is not the artist himself.

In this way, the correct conclusion from the bacteria’s view is not that paint is God, but that paint is the artist’s energy, and the artist is the ultimate controller who uses it to create his masterpiece. Conversely, when we see only the energy, we tend to fall into one of two traps:

a) Materialism: The material world is all there is; enjoy it.

b) Impersonalism: There is a spiritual cause behind it; enjoy it by merging into it and becoming God.

Both leave the heart unsatisfied, because the soul’s eternal characteristic is relationship and service. True spiritual realization means to understand that I am part of Kṛṣṇa’s potency, and He is energetic. He is the master, and I am His eternal servant. From this conclusion, the process shifts from analyzing the paint to serving the painter.

The bhakti process is thus specifically designed to reveal the Person behind both matter and spirit. When we treat the Supreme as just impersonal, as in the case of the Māyāvādis, or we accept just the cosmic manifestation but not God behind it, we can’t understand the whole. Kṛṣṇa can be understood in all His aspects only by devotional service, beginning with hearing.

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