The Supreme Brahman is a Person
Brahman is described as conscious and intelligent, creating out of His desire, not as a qualityless, impersonal mass. Brahman is everything and includes the creative potency that produces the world.
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The Supreme Brahman is a Person
The personal nature of the Supreme Brahman is confirmed. Brahman is described as conscious and intelligent, creating out of His desire, not as a qualityless, impersonal mass. Brahman is everything and includes the creative potency that produces the mahat-tattva, from which the whole material creation sprouts. This creative potency is not some mechanical force but is rooted in intelligent and knowledge-based intention. Brahman is a person, not a thing.
This Supreme Person is both the efficient cause (the creator) and the material cause (the substance from which the universe is created). In other words, Brahman creates the universe from His own energy, without depending on any separate force. When a man decides to build a house, he has to obtain bricks and other materials, but that is not the case with the Supreme Lord. He creates the universe from His own energy, and the illusioned souls try to enjoy it.
Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we are His parts and parcels, and the goal of life is to reestablish this eternal relationship. This is the unifying knowledge that leads us to the real understanding of the scriptures.
Text 1.1.9
yaḥ sarva-jñaḥ sarva-vid yasya jñāna-mayam tapaḥ
tasmād etad brahma nāma rūpam annam ca jāyate
From that Supreme Brahman, who is omniscient and who knows everything in all detail, from His creative potency, based on intelligence and knowledge arose the mahat-tattva. From this external potency, also spiritual and non-different from the Supreme Brahman, this world of names and forms that is enjoyed by the illusioned souls is born.
Commentary: While the previous verse described the creation of the material manifestation, this verse starts by describing some of the characteristics of the Supreme Brahman, from whom this temporary material world has emanated.
Brahman is described as omniscient, being everywhere and knowing everything in all detail (sarva-jñaḥ sarva-vid). Brahman includes the creative potency (tapaḥ), responsible for producing the mahat-tattva, the seed of the material creation. The words jñāna-maya indicate that this creative potency is not some mechanical unconscious force but is rooted in intelligent and knowledge-based intention. This resonates with the description of the absolute truth being sat-cit-ananda, full of existence, knowledge, and bliss. This definition describes Brahman as conscious and intelligent, creating out of His desire, not as a qualityless, impersonal mass.
The importance of understanding that the absolute truth is a person right from the beginning is emphasized by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu himself in the Caitanya Caritamrta:
"In His original form the Supreme Personality of Godhead is full with transcendental opulences, which are free from the contamination of the material world. It is to be understood that in all Vedic literature the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate goal. When we speak of the Supreme as impersonal, we deny His spiritual potencies. Logically, if you accept half of the truth, you cannot understand the whole. It is only by devotional service, beginning with hearing, that one can approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the only means to approach Him." (CC Adi 7.139-141)
In his purport, Srila Prabhupada explains:
"Partial realization of the Absolute Truth as impersonal Brahman denies the complete opulences of the Lord. This is a hazardous understanding of the Absolute Truth. Unless one accepts all the features of the Absolute Truth — namely impersonal Brahman, localized Paramātmā and ultimately the Supreme Personality of Godhead — one’s knowledge is imperfect. Śrīpāda Rāmānujācārya, in his Vedārtha-sangraha, says, jñānena dharmeṇa svarūpam api nirūpitam, na tu jñāna-mātram brahmeti katham idam avagamyate. He thus indicates that the real identity of the Absolute Truth must be understood in terms of both His knowledge and His characteristics. Simply to understand the Absolute Truth to be full of knowledge is not sufficient. In the Vedic literature (Muṇḍaka Up. 1.1.9) we find the statement yaḥ sarva-jñaḥ sarva-vit, which means that the Absolute Truth knows everything perfectly, but we also learn from the Vedic description parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate that not only does He know everything, but He also acts accordingly by utilizing His different energies. Thus to understand that Brahman, the Supreme, is conscious is not sufficient. One must know how He consciously acts through His different energies. Māyāvāda philosophy simply informs us of the consciousness of the Absolute Truth but does not give us information of how He acts with His consciousness. That is the defect of that philosophy."
To understand the scriptures, one has to start from the right conclusions, otherwise, he will interpret the verses according to his previous misconceptions, which will in turn just create even more misconceptions. Mayavada philosophy is the epitome of this mistaken approach. If one studies the scriptures starting from the conclusion that the absolute truth is impersonal, he will misinterpret the verses and arrive at the wrong conclusions, which will block him from understanding the Lord.
In the Bhagavad-gita (15.15), Krsna says: vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo, "By all the Vedas, I am to be known." The primary purpose of studying the scriptures is to come to know Krsna.
Madhvācārya goes deep into this point in his commentary. In verse 1.1.3, Saunaka asked Angirasa: "Knowing what does all become known?". In other words, he asks about one science, one subject by knowing which everything becomes known. From understanding this one science, all other sciences can be deducted. Madhvācārya defines this science as Akṣara-Vidyā, the unifying knowledge that is the essence of all understanding. This knowledge is the understanding of Krsna, His energy, and our eternal relationship with Him. When the syllables of the Vedas are studied with this understanding, the real meaning is revealed. Otherwise, one receives only the superficial meaning.
In other words, the real meaning of the scriptures, parā-vidyā, is the linking process of devotional service that connects us with Krsna. When one studies the scriptures starting from the conclusion that all verses describe Krsna and our relationship with Him, armed with the proper philosophical conclusions, received through the Parampara, he can understand the deep meaning of the verses, parā-vidyā. Otherwise, one gets just the superficial meaning and has the impression that the verses describe other subjects apart from Krsna, aparā-vidyā. This illustrates the importance of the work of Srila Prabhupada in his books, condensing the teachings of the previous acaryas in his purports and giving us the conclusions by which we can understand the scriptures.
Back to the current verse, the second line, tasmād etad brahma nāma rūpam annam ca jāyate, gives the conclusion of the description of creation from the previous verse.
In his purport to Bg 14.3, Srila Prabhupada explains that the word "brahma" (brahman) in the second line refers to the mahat-tattva, from where the material creation sprouts due to the presence of the souls. The reason the mahat-tattva is called "brahman" is because it is the external potency of the Lord, and being part of His energy is non-different from Him.
The Lord is both the efficient cause, the creator, and the material cause, the substance from which the universe is created. Brahman creates the universe from His own energy, and the illusioned souls who are charmed by the illusion of Maya, seeing themselves as independent enjoyers, assume temporary material forms and names to try to enjoy it.
This relationship of the souls and the mahat-tattva is explained in more detail in his purport:
"This is an explanation of the world: everything that takes place is due to the combination of kṣetra and kṣetra-jña, the body and the spirit soul. This combination of material nature and the living entity is made possible by the Supreme God Himself. The mahat-tattva is the total cause of the total cosmic manifestation; and that total substance of the material cause, in which there are three modes of nature, is sometimes called Brahman. The Supreme Personality impregnates that total substance, and thus innumerable universes become possible. This total material substance, the mahat-tattva, is described as Brahman in the Vedic literature (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.1.9): tasmād etad brahma nāma-rūpam annam ca jāyate. The Supreme Person impregnates that Brahman with the seeds of the living entities. The twenty-four elements, beginning from earth, water, fire and air, are all material energy, and they constitute what is called mahad brahma, or the great Brahman, the material nature. As explained in the Seventh Chapter, beyond this there is another, superior nature – the living entity. Into material nature the superior nature is mixed by the will of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and thereafter all living entities are born of this material nature.
The scorpion lays its eggs in piles of rice, and sometimes it is said that the scorpion is born out of rice. But the rice is not the cause of the scorpion. Actually, the eggs were laid by the mother. Similarly, material nature is not the cause of the birth of the living entities. The seed is given by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and they only seem to come out as products of material nature. Thus every living entity, according to his past activities, has a different body, created by this material nature, so that the entity can enjoy or suffer according to his past deeds. The Lord is the cause of all the manifestations of living entities in this material world." (Bg 14.3 purport)
Madhvācārya interprets this line slightly differently, interpreting the words “etat brahma” as meaning the caturmukha Brahmā, the creator of this particular universe. Following this interpretation, the verse could be translated as "From that Supreme Brahman, who is omniscient and who knows everything in all detail, from His creative potency, based on intelligence and knowledge arose the four-headed Brahma, and from him this world of names and forms is born."
The essence is however the same. The material world arises from the Lord, who is both the efficient cause and the material cause. The Lord creates the universe from His own energy, and the illusioned souls try to enjoy it.
This illustrates how even great acaryas can sometimes disagree on minor points, and therefore one who looks for differences will surely find them. However, they all agree on the main points: Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we are His parts and parcels, and the goal of life is to reestablish this eternal relationship. This is the unifying knowledge that leads us to the real understanding of the scriptures.
What to say about our immediate acaryas, even Śaṅkarācārya agreed on this point in his later instructions to his disciples, captured in the Moha Mudgara, urging his disciples to ascend to the platform of bhakti:
bhaja govindam bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mūḍha-mate
samprāpte sannihite kāle nahi nahi rakṣati ḍukṛñ-karaṇe
"Worship Govinda, worship Govinda, worship Govinda, O foolish-minded one! When the time of death approaches, the rules of grammar will not save you."
As Prabhupada explains: "The current Brahma-sampradāya is known as the Madhva-Gauḍīya-sampradāya. Even though Lord Śiva appeared to preach Māyāvāda philosophy, at the end of his pastime in the form of Śaṅkarācārya, he preached the Vaiṣṇava philosophy: bhaja govindam bhaja govindam bhaja govindam mūḍha-mate. He stressed worshiping Lord Kṛṣṇa, or Govinda, three times in this verse and especially warned his followers that they could not possibly achieve deliverance, or mukti, simply by word jugglery and grammatical puzzles. If one is actually serious to attain mukti, he must worship Lord Kṛṣṇa. That is Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya's last instruction." (SB 4.28.18 purport)