Material energy (Lectures - BG)

Expressions researched:
"material energy" |"material energies"

Lectures

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

The material energy is in the mode of ignorance. So at the time of death, either we can remain in the material energy, or this material world, or we can transfer into the spiritual world. That is the criterion.

Introduction to Gitopanisad (Earliest Recording of Srila Prabhupada in the Bhaktivedanta Archives): In the Viṣṇu Purāṇa the total energies of the Supreme Lord have been summarized. viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā proktā kṣetra-jñākhyā tathā par avidyā-karma-saṁjñānyā tṛtīyā śaktir iṣyate [Cc. Madhya 6.154] All the energies, potencies of the..., parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport]. The Supreme Lord has diverse energies, innumerable energies, which we cannot conceive. But great learned sages, liberated souls, they have studied and they have summarized the whole energies into three parts, into three headings. The first is... All the energies are viṣṇu-śakti. All the energies, they are different potencies of the Lord Viṣṇu. Now, that energy is parā, transcendental. And kṣetra-jñākhyā tathā parā, and the living entities, kṣetra-jña, they are also belonging to the group of that superior energy, as it is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā also. We have already explained. And the other energies, the material energy is tṛtīyā karma-saṁjñānyā [Cc. Madhya 6.154]. The other energy is in the mode of ignorance. So that is material energy. So material energy is also bhagavad-(indistinct). So at the time of death, either we can remain in the material energy, or this material world, or we can transfer into the spiritual world. That is the criterion. So the Bhagavad-gītā says, yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajaty ante kalevaram taṁ tam evaiti kaunteya sadā tad-bhāva-bhāvitaḥ [Bg. 8.6] Now, as we are accustomed to think either of this material energy or of the spiritual energy, now, how to transfer the thinking? The thinking of the material energy, how it can be transferred into thinking of the spiritual energy? So for thinking in the spiritual energy the Vedic literatures are there. Just like thinking in the material energies, there are so many literatures—newspapers, magazines, novels, fictions, and so many things. Full of literatures. So our thinkings are absorbed in these literatures. Similarly, if we want to transfer our thinking in the spiritual atmosphere, then we have to transfer our reading capacity to the Vedic literature. The learned sages therefore made so many Vedic literatures, the Purāṇas. The Purāṇas are not stories. They are historical records.