But in spiritual world, the absolute world, the name and the person is the same. Otherwise, why we stress so much on chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa name? Not we, it is in the śāstra. Harer nāma harer nāma harer nāma eva kevalam, kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva nāsty eva gatir anyathā (CC Adi 17.21). This is shastric. But there are many rascals. They give the example, that "Chanting, what is the benefit? I can chant 'soda water, soda water,' like that." But they do not know, rascals, what is the śāstra's injunction. And actually, it is happening. But they are blind. How these European, American boys and girls, simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra they are becoming purified? How? Unless there is spiritual potency in chanting, how they are becoming so purified? Even in..., so-called Hindus they are surprised that "How these Europeans and Americans they have become so nice devotees." The chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra has got the power, has got the potency.
Spiritual potency (Lectures)
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
So when Kṛṣṇa wants... Kṛṣṇa is Paraṁ Brahman. He cannot enjoy anything material. He has to create the source of enjoyment by His own spiritual potency. That is Rādhārāṇī. So Rādhārāṇī is described in the śāstra: rādhā-kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtir hlādinī-śaktir asmād (CC Adi 1.5). That is Kṛṣṇa's hlādinī-śakti. She gives pleasure to Kṛṣṇa. So She is very kind. And today is Rādhāṣṭamī. If we pray to Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī... Therefore in Vṛndāvana you'll see. They are first of all glorifying, "Jaya Rādhe!" Everywhere you'll hear. "Jaya Rādhe."
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
So the spirit soul has got immense power, immense power. That is only fragment of Kṛṣṇa, part and parcel. Now, just you can imagine what is the power of Kṛṣṇa. A..., a small, fragmental portion of Kṛṣṇa... Mamaivāṁśo jīva-bhūtaḥ (BG 15.7). The living entity, he has got so much potencies. And what potency Kṛṣṇa has got, who is full of spiritual potency? So actually if we want to be happy, as part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, we must join Him. That is our value.
One who is mad after Bhagavān, he's as good as Bhagavān. Therefore bādarāyaṇi is addressed here as Bhagavān. In the spiritual world, Bhagavān and His paraphernalia, there is no difference. Don't think that the calf or the cows in Vṛndāvana is less than Kṛṣṇa. No. They're as good as Kṛṣṇa. Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ (Bs. 5.37). They are expansion of Kṛṣṇa's ānanda-cinmaya-rasa. Kṛṣṇa wants to play with the cows and calves. So He's ānanda-cinmaya. His spiritual potency appears as cows and calves. Therefore we see Kṛṣṇa is embracing the calves and cows. He's not embracing a material cow. He has nothing to do with material. Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ.
So don't think that this hari-nāma-saṅkīrtana is ordinary vibration of this material world. Never think so. You should immediately see that the saṅkīrtana, Hare Kṛṣṇa, is Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. Harā and Kṛṣṇa. Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa or Sītā-Rāma or Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa. Any form of the Lord Viṣṇu. Hare Kṛṣṇa means the Supreme Lord and His spiritual potency.
Devotee:
- tvam ādyaḥ puruṣaḥ sākṣād
- īśvaraḥ prakṛteḥ paraḥ
- māyāṁ vyudasya cic-chaktyā
- kaivalye sthita ātmani
- (SB 1.7.23)
"You are the original Personality of Godhead who expands Himself all over the creations and is transcendental to material energy. You have cast away the effects of the material energy by dint of Your spiritual potency. You are always situated in eternal bliss and transcendental knowledge."
Prabhupāda:So, we have to know the Supreme Personality of Godhead through authority, not by speculation. Speculation is no use.
Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that "I enter into each planetary system, each universe, and by My power I hold it. It is floating." Why it is floating? Because Kṛṣṇa is there. The atheist may not believe it, but it is a fact. It is a fact. How? Just like an animal or a man, while he is living, he can float in the air or in the water. That everyone has seen. But if the man is dead, it will not float. It will fall down. Is it not a fact? So why it is floating? Because a very small particle of Kṛṣṇa's spiritual potency is there. That is living entity. Big, big... An elephant, he can also float in the water, and the horses, elephant, and what to speak of man? This is practical. Because a small particle of the Supreme is there within this body... Dehino 'smin yathā dehe (BG 2.13).
So, so many things, these rascals they do not believe, atheists. When things are described about God which is not conceivable by us, they say, "It is mythology, it is imagination." But that is not the fact. The fact is that Kṛṣṇa or Kṛṣṇa's incarnation, they have got spiritual expansion. Sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā (BG 4.6). Ātma-māyā. Kṛṣṇa said, "I appear in My spiritual potency." We... Our body is not ātma-māyayā. It is given by māyā.
So these associates of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, they are nitya-siddha. You cannot avoid any one of them and make your imagination, that "I shall simply worship..." (break) Kṛṣṇa has appeared—Panca-tattva. Kṛṣṇa is īśa, and Nityānanda Prabhu, He is prakāśa, the first expansion of God. God has many expansion. Advaita acyuta anādi ananta-rūpam ādyaṁ purāṇa-puruṣam. He has got thousands and thousands exp... So first expansion is Baladeva-tattva, Nityānanda; and His incarnation, Advaita; and His spiritual potency, Gadādhara; and His marginal potency, Śrīvāsa. So Caitanya Mahāprabhu has appeared with pañca..., pañca-tattvātmakam. You cannot neglect anything.
Guru cannot be self-made. No. There is no such single instance throughout the whole Vedic literature. And nowadays, so many rascals, they are becoming guru without any authority. That is not guru. You must be authorized. Evaṁ paramparā-prāptam imaṁ rā... (BG 4.2). As soon as the paramparā is lost, sa kālena yoga naṣṭo parantapa, immediately finished. The spiritual potency finished. You can dress like a guru, you can talk big, big words, but it will never be effective.
You cannot manufacture your own prayers unless you follow the footprints of mahājanas. They are mahājanas. This Brahmā, mahājana; Lord Śiva, mahājana; Kumāra, mahājana. Lakṣmīdevī is the potency, spiritual potency of Lord Viṣṇu, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa, Nārāyaṇa's potency, and she's always engaged in massaging the lotus feet of Nārāyaṇa. You have seen the picture. Śrī-sampradāya. Śrī. She is known as Śrī. Śrī means opulence, fortune, beauty. So she is the reservoir of all these things. So she has got... It is called Śrī-sampradāya. The Rāmānuja-sampradāya, they are called Śrī-sampradāya. They worship Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa. Everyone worships the Lord and His potency, spiritual potency. Just like we worship Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, similarly, the Rāmānuja-sampradāya, they worship Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa or Sītā-Rāma. So we should follow the sampradāya.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Lectures
If I am creator of something, so I cannot be under the, that particular thing which is created. It is logical. So therefore, because the Supreme Brahman, or Bhagavān, is the creator of this material nature, He cannot be under the control of māyā. He is... And that is also stated in Bhagavad-gītā, many places. Sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā (BG 4.6). Ātma-māyayā. Not this māyā. Māyā means potency. So we have got the experience of this potency, material potency, but there is another potency which is called spiritual potency. So spiritual potency is the internal energy of Kṛṣṇa, and material potency is the external energy. So Kṛṣṇa says that "Whenever I come," yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata (BG 4.7), "whenever there is discrepancies in the discharging of religious principles," adharmasya abhyutthānam abhyutthānam adharmasya, "and there is great predominance of irreligiosity," tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmy aham, "I, at that time, I come." Paritra... Why? Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām: (BG 4.8) "Just to save the pious and the righteous and to vanquish the impious."
Caitanya Mahāprabhu is going to explain the potency of the Lord—three potencies: spiritual potency and material potency and the marginal potency. How they are acting, throughout the whole cosmic manifestation, beyond that also, that very simple word, everyone can understand. The light is here, the bulb is here, localized, but the illumination is spread. And we can take advantage of the illumination. By the sun's illumination we see practically how trees are growing their leaves, their color. Everything is due to the sunshine, we have got practical experience.
So actually God is there, and His system is going on in three potencies. In the Vedas we learn, parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). Para, the Supreme Absolute Truth, has many potencies, and all the potencies have been summarized into three. That is stated here: cic-chakti, jīva-śakti and māyā-śakti. Cic-chakti means spiritual potency, and jīva-śakti, living entities. We are also śakti, prakṛti; we are not puruṣa. Puruṣa means enjoyer, and prakṛti means enjoyed. We cannot be the enjoyer; that is not possible.
He is the original cause of everything. So he has got... He is working the whole cosmic manifestation is exhibited by His potency. That is described here: viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā proktā (CC Madhya 6.154). That is spiritual potency.
Originally the God's potency, Kṛṣṇa's potency—cit-śakti, sat-cit-ānanda. God is sat, eternal; cit, full of knowledge; and ānandamaya. Ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). You'll never see Kṛṣṇa nirānandamaya. Even if He is killing a demon, He is smiling. That is also ānanda. So the potencies of God, Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu-viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā—they are not these ordinary potencies, material potency. Spiritual potency. Viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā proktā kṣetrajñaḥ (CC Madhya 6.154). Ksetrajña means jīva. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā. Kṣetra-kṣetrajñaḥ. The living soul is kṣetrajña, and this body is kṣetra. Kṣetra-kṣetrajñayor jñānam, yad jñānaṁ tad jñānaṁ mataṁ mama. If anyone understands what is this kṣetra and kṣetrajña and what is their relationship—kṣetra-kṣetrajñayor jñānam—that is jñāna, not this material jñāna. That is spiritual jñāna. So kṣetrajñākhyā tathā parā. As God's potency is parā... Parā and aparā. Originally everything is parā. And aparā means forgetfulness. This material world we forget Kṛṣṇa; therefore it is called aparā. But there is another parā. That is spiritual potency.
Kṛṣṇera svarūpa ananta. The transcendental forms of Kṛṣṇa, innumerable, vaibhava, and His opulence, that is also innumerable. Nobody can estimate. How many forms are there of Kṛṣṇa or how much opulent He is, nobody can estimate; nobody can measure. This is inconceivable. The first proposition. Cic-chakti māyā-śakti jīva-śakti āra. And His potencies are also unlimited, out of which, three potencies are generally accepted: cit-śakti, spiritual potency; material potency; and marginal potency. These three potencies I have described many times. Cit-śakti, the spiritual potency, is a manifestation of the spiritual world, and material potency is a manifestation of this material world, and the marginal potency, we are, we living entities. We are marginal potency. Why it is marginal? Because although we belong to the spiritual potency, but we have got tendency to come into contact of this material potency. Therefore it is called marginal, "this way or that way." That a slight independence which is there in every living entity, he can use that, and he may select either to live in the spiritual potency or in the material potency. Therefore the living entities are called marginal potency. So parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). Although the energies of the Supreme Lord are innumerable—nobody can count or measure—but they are divided into three.
So out of three transcendental propensities of the Supreme Lord, icchā-śakti, jñāna-śakti and kriyā-śakti, the kriyā-śakti, that is represented by, or the controller of the kriyā-śakti is, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Balarāma. And with that potency, kriyā-śakti potency, the creation, both material creation and spiritual creation, are effected.
- ahaṅkārera adhiṣṭhātā kṛṣṇera icchāya
goloka, vaikuṇṭha sṛje cic-chakti-dvārāya
Cic-chakti-dvārāya. The spiritual potency is manifested in the spiritual world, Goloka Vṛndāvana and spiritual planets.
Triśakti means three kinds of energies. When it is materially conceived, the three kinds of energies are the modes of goodness, the modes of passion and the modes of ignorance. And when they are spiritually conceived, the same three kinds of energies are manifested as spiritual potency, material potency and marginal potency. So anyway, the Lord is always full with different kinds of energies, of which these three are main divisions.
Suppose somebody calling me in my apartment, "Swamijī." Swamijī is here. The response cannot be. Just like in telephone. Yesterday Raymond was calling us by phone three thousand miles away. As soon as we took the, I mean to say, hanger, we could immediately hear him. If by material ways we can be touch in so swiftly, just see how much spiritual potency has Kṛṣṇa. Although He's not present before us, He can be present in so many ways. He can be present by His name. Otherwise, all these great ācāryas, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, would not have bothered themselves simply by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare. There is actually presence of Kṛṣṇa.
Sri Brahma-samhita Lectures
Kṛṣṇa is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. His form is eternity, blissful and full of knowledge. So all His paraphernalia in the Goloka Vṛndāvana, that is His expansion of that quality, eternity, blissfulness and knowledge. Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhis. His gopīs, His consorts, His father, His mother, His friends, His trees, His flowers, His calves and cows—everything is spiritual, expansion from Him. Everything... The... We are also expansion from Him. We are marginal potency. And this is spiritual potency. So everything is expansion. Therefore the Vedic literatures say, sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma: "Everything is Brahman." We are now combination of two energies, marginal energy and the external energy.
Kṛṣṇa is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. His form is eternity, blissful, and full of knowledge. So all His paraphernalia in the Goloka Vṛndāvana, that is His expansion of that quality—eternity, blissfulness and knowledge. Ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhiḥ. His gopīs, His consorts, His father, His mother, His friends, His trees, His flowers, His calves and cows—everything is spiritual expansion from Him. Everything... We are also expansion from Him. We are marginal potency, and this is spiritual potency. So everything is expansion. Therefore the Vedic literature says, sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma: "Everything is Brahman."
Festival Lectures
So Lord Kṛṣṇa for this reason has appeared. He wants to call the conditioned souls back to Godhead. He wants us to realize that He is the source of the whole universe, He is the owner of the universe, He is the supreme enjoyer, the supreme knower of everything, and that we are always welcome to associate with Him by the grace of His devotees, by the grace of a spiritual master. And so He has appeared, and we are now celebrating the Janmāṣṭamī day, the day when Lord Kṛṣṇa came to this conditioned plane out of His own transcendental power, with His full spiritual potency, in order to reveal the supreme nature of sac-cid-ānanda vigrahaḥ (Bs. 5.1), eternal knowledge, consciousness, and bliss, to all the conditioned souls so that they might be attracted to Him, and so that they might come out of the miseries of material existence and of ignorance.
Just like even from material example we can see that the sun planet diffusing... I do not know how much temperature, what is the degree of that temperature, diffusing for millions and millions of years. Still, the temperature is the same. If it is possible to a material thing which is an insignificant creation of God, if the sun is so much omnipotent... Not omnipotent. The sun's light or the sunshine is from, derived from Kṛṣṇa's spiritual potency. But we can see that it is so much potent that diffusing sunshine for millions of years. There is no decrease of temperature. So vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19) means Vāsudeva expands Himself in so many universes, so many planets, so many paraphernalia, still, He is in Goloka Vṛndāvana. That is stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā. Goloka eva nivasaty akhilātmā bhuto (Bs. 5.37). He is enjoying in His planet Goloka Vṛndāvana, and still, He is all-pervasive. mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam jagat avyakta-mūrtinā (BG 9.4).
Initiation Lectures
Pradyumna: Because that spiritual name has..., because the name of Kṛṣṇa, a name of Hari, has the spiritual potency; therefore we use the name of Hari as much as possible. Haridāsa...
Prabhupāda: Dāsa. Not that name, but the name's servant. Dāsa. When one is named Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa dāsa, he is servant of Kṛṣṇa. Not that Kṛṣṇa. If he thinks, "I have become Kṛṣṇa," that is Māyāvāda. Kṛṣṇa dāsa.
General Lectures
So therefore the Vedic information is the Supreme Absolute Truth is a person. He's not impersonal. The impersonal realization of God is realization of His different potencies. Just like this material world, this is the manifestation of one of the potencies of God. He has got many potencies. So all the many potencies have been grouped into three: the material potency, the spiritual potency, then the marginal potency, between the material and spiritual. The spiritual potency we can understand. Just like I am speaking. I am speaking means I am spiritual being. I am speaking. This material body is my covering, just like shirt and coat. So the... Now I'm existing. Somehow or other, I've been encaged in this material body, but I am spirit soul. That is spiritual potency. And as this material world is made of material ingredients, similarly, there is another world. That information you can get from Bhagavad-gītā.
The same māyā Just like the same government laws acting in the prison house differently, and acting in the university differently. But the potency is the same. If we take protection of the civil laws, then you are happy. And if we take protection of the criminal laws then you are unhappy. That's all. So Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is that you have to take shelter of one of the potencies of Kṛṣṇa. Better take the shelter of the spiritual potency. Then you become happy. You cannot be free. That is not possible. Just like you cannot defy the government laws. That is not possible. If you defy civil laws then you become subjected to the criminal law. You cannot say that "I defy government." That is not possible. Similarly, you cannot defy Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa's potencies. Better you take shelter of Kṛṣṇa's spiritual potency and be happy. Mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ (BG 9.13), that is mahātmā, who takes shelter of the spiritual potency of Kṛṣṇa. And what is the sign? Bhajanty ananya-manaso. That is mahātmā. He has no other business than to serve Kṛṣṇa twenty-four hours. Then he is immediately mukta. That is not difficult.
| Page Title: | Spiritual potency (Lectures) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Sureshwardas |
| Created: | 30 of Jun, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=27, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 27 |