CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Jñāna-yoga

Material situations and activities appear to be good, passionate or ignorant according to the interaction of the modes of nature. These modes are produced by the illusory potency of the Lord, which is itself not different from its master, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So a devotee of the Lord remains aloof from the illusory, temporary manifestations of material nature. At the same time, he accepts material nature as the potency of the Lord and thus essentially real. The example may be given that modeling clay is shaped by a child into various playful forms such as tigers, men or houses. The modeling clay is real, whereas the temporary shapes it assumes are illusory, not being actual tigers, men or houses. Similarly, the entire cosmic manifestation is modeling clay in the hands of the Supreme Lord, who acts through māyā to shape the glaring temporary forms of illusion, which absorb the minds of those who are not devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

A conditioned soul desires to lord it over material nature and thus criticizes another conditioned soul whom he considers inferior. Similarly, one praises a superior materialist because one aspires to that superior position, in which one may dominate others. Praising and criticizing other materialistic people are thus directly or indirectly based on envy of other living entities and cause one to fall down from sva-artha, one’s real self-interest, Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

The words asaty abhiniveśataḥ, “by absorption in the temporary, or unreal,” indicate that one should not adopt a concept of material duality and praise or criticize other materialistic persons. Rather, one should praise the pure devotees of the Supreme Lord and criticize the mentality of rebellion against the Personality of Godhead, by which one becomes a nondevotee. One should not criticize a low-class materialist, thinking that a high-class materialist is nice. In other words, one should distinguish between the material and the spiritual and should not become absorbed in good and bad on the material platform. For example, an honest citizen distinguishes between the life of civil freedom and that of imprisonment, whereas a foolish prisoner distinguishes between comfortable and uncomfortable prison cells. Just as for a free citizen any situation in prison is unacceptable, for a liberated, Kṛṣṇa conscious devotee any material position is unappealing.

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura indicates that rather than trying to separate conditioned souls by materialistic distinctions, one should bring them together to chant the holy names of the Lord and propagate the saṅkīrtana movement of Lord Caitanya. A nondevotee, or even an envious third-class devotee, is not interested in uniting people on the platform of love of Godhead. Instead he unnecessarily separates them by emphasizing material distinctions like “communist,” “capitalist,” “black,” “white,” “rich,” “poor,” “liberal,” “conservative” and so on. Material life is always imperfect, full of ignorance and disappointing in the end. Rather than praising and criticizing the high and low features of ignorance, one should be absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, on the spiritual platform of eternity, bliss and knowledge.

The material senses are described here as taijasa because they are born of false ego in the mode of passion. Impelled by false ego, one dreams of the material world without the Personality of Godhead and makes plans to lord it over nature, to exploit her resources. Modern atheistic scientists have developed this false ego to a fine art and imagine themselves great heroes conquering the obstacles of nature and moving forward toward inevitable omniscience. Such dreamy materialists are repeatedly stunned by the crushing reactions of the laws of nature, and their arrogant, agnostic civilizations are repeatedly annihilated by world wars, natural disasters and violent shifts of the cosmic situation.

On a simpler level, all conditioned souls are captivated by sex attraction and thus bound to the illusion of material society, friendship and love. They imagine themselves to be wonderful enjoyers of the material nature, which suddenly turns against them and kills them just like the “tamed” animal that suddenly turns on its master and kills him.

The actual truth is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, from whom everything emanates, by whom everything is maintained, and in whom everything merges to rest. Material nature is the reflection of the Absolute Truth, and by the interaction of the material modes of nature the innumerable varieties of matter appear to be separate, independent truths. Māyā, illusion, distracts the conditioned soul from the Absolute Truth and absorbs his mind in the glaring manifestation of matter, which ultimately is nondifferent from the Absolute Truth, being an emanation from Him. The sense of good and bad as separate from the Supreme Lord is like the good and bad dreams experienced by a sleeping person. Good and bad dreams are equally unreal. Similarly, material good and evil have no permanent existence separate from the Personality of Godhead.

The Supreme Lord is the well-wisher of every living entity, and therefore execution of His order is good, whereas disobeying His order is bad. Lord Kṛṣṇa has created a perfect social and occupational system called varṇāśrama-dharma, and the Lord has further given perfect spiritual knowledge in Bhagavad-gītā and other literatures. Execution of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s order will bring complete social, psychological, political, economic and spiritual success to human society. We should not foolishly look for so-called good outside the orders of the Personality of Godhead. Such orders are called the laws of God and constitute the essence, or substance, of religion.

Although shadows, echoes and mirages are mere reflections of real substances, they create strong emotions in persons falsely accepting them as real. In the same manner, a conditioned soul is seized by such emotions as fear, lust, anger and hope because of his illusory perception of himself as the material body, mind and false ego. By practical example it is thus shown that even illusory objects may cause highly emotional reactions. Ultimately our emotions should be absorbed in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is eternal truth. Fear is forever vanquished when one takes shelter of the Lord’s lotus feet. One can then enjoy the pure emotions of liberated life.

The Absolute Truth, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, expands His external potency and thus creates the material cosmos. As with the sun globe and its expanded rays, the Lord and His expanded potency are simultaneously one and different. Although to conditioned souls material duality seems to be based on the modes of nature, the entire material manifestation is actually nondifferent from the Lord and is of one ultimately spiritual nature. The modes of nature create sense objects, demigods, human beings, animals, friends, enemies and so forth. But in reality, everything is simply an expansion of the potency of the Supreme Lord.

Foolishly, the conditioned soul tries to lord it over material nature, but the Lord Himself, being nondifferent from that nature, is its only true proprietor. In several places the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam has given the example of the spider spinning its web by expanding thread from its own mouth. Similarly, through His own potency the Lord manifests the material world, maintains it and eventually withdraws it within Himself. Although the Lord is the unique Supreme Personality of Godhead, above everyone and everything, He is simultaneously and inconceivably nondifferent from everything. Therefore it is the Lord Himself who is manifested when the Lord creates, it is the Lord Himself who is maintained when the Lord maintains, and it is the Lord Himself who is withdrawn at the time of annihilation.

Although the Lord is nondifferent from both His spiritual abode and His material creation, still the spiritual abode, Vaikuṇṭha, is always superior to the material manifestation. Both matter and spirit are energies of the Lord, yet the spiritual energy is molded into the eternal forms of bliss and knowledge, whereas the temporary forms of matter are symbols of ignorance and frustration for the conditioned souls who covet them. The Supreme Lord is Himself the reservoir of all pleasure and is thus dear to His devotees. The presumption that the Lord cannot give us complete pleasure is due to our misidentifying Him as a product of the material modes of nature. As a result, we pursue false happiness in the deadly embrace of māyā and thus deviate from our eternal loving relationship with Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Every living entity emanates from the Supreme Lord and is thus naturally full of realized knowledge. But when one becomes attached to praising or criticizing material good and bad for one’s personal sense gratification, one’s expert knowledge of the Lord becomes covered. A pure devotee should neither love nor hate any aspect of material illusion; he should rather accept whatever is favorable for serving Kṛṣṇa and reject whatever is unfavorable, following the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master.

According to Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, there are two main material dualities. The first duality is that one sees material good and bad, beautiful and ugly, rich and poor, and so on. The second is that one sees the entire material world as separate from or independent of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The first duality, that of opposites, is subject to dissolution by the influence of time, and the second duality, that of separateness, is merely a hallucination. One who is firmly convinced of the temporary, illusory nature of this world moves about freely, without attachment. Although engaging in all types of devotional service for the Lord, such a person is never entangled and remains cheerful and satisfied in spiritual consciousness.

Since the living entity is pure spirit soul, innately full of perfect knowledge and bliss, and since the material body is a biochemical machine without knowledge or personal consciousness, who or what is actually experiencing the ignorance and anxiety of this material existence? The conscious experience of material life cannot be denied, and thus Uddhava asks Lord Kṛṣṇa this question to elicit a more precise understanding of the process by which illusion occurs.

The words anāvṛtaḥ and agni-vat are significant here. Fire can never be covered with darkness because by nature fire is illuminating. Similarly, the spirit soul is svayaṁ-jyotiḥ, or self-luminous, and thus the soul is transcendental — he can never be covered by the darkness of material life. On the other hand, the material body, like firewood, is by nature dull and unilluminated. In itself it does not have any awareness of life. If the soul is transcendental to material life and the body is not even conscious of it, the following question arises: How does our experience of material existence actually take place?

Here the word sannikarṣaṇam indicates that the pure spirit soul voluntarily connects himself with the material body, considering this a most fruitful arrangement. Actually, the situation is apārtha, useless, unless one uses one’s embodied situation to engage in the loving service of the Lord. At that time one’s connection is actually with Lord Kṛṣṇa, not with the body, which becomes a mere instrument for executing one’s higher purpose.

This same verse and other very similar verses occur elsewhere in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: Third Canto, Chapter Twenty-seven, verse 4; Fourth Canto, Chapter Twenty-nine, verses 35 and 73; and Eleventh Canto, Chapter Twenty-two, verse 56. In fact, this verse completely explains the essence of illusion.

Even a liberated soul must observe material objects while living in this world. But being awake to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he understands that sensory pains and pleasures, like dreams, are without substance. Thus the liberated soul is not bewildered by illusion.

False ego is the pure soul’s illusory identification with the subtle material mind and the gross material body. As a result of this illusory identification, the conditioned soul feels lamentation for things lost, jubilation over things gained, fear of things inauspicious, anger at the frustration of his desires, and greed for sense gratification. And so, bewildered by such false attractions and aversions, the conditioned soul must accept further material bodies, which means he must undergo repeated births and deaths. One who is self-realized knows that all such mundane emotions have nothing to do with the pure soul, whose natural propensity is to engage in the loving service of the Lord.

False ego, which causes the living entity to suffer material existence, is here described in detail as the illusory identification with the material body, senses, life air and mind. The word kāla refers directly to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who imposes the limiting segments of time upon the conditioned souls, keeping them tightly bound under the laws of nature. Liberation is not an impersonal experience; liberation is attainment of one’s eternal body, senses, mind and intelligence in the association of the Personality of Godhead. We can revive our eternal, liberated personality, free from the contamination of false ego, by dedicating ourselves to the loving service of the Lord in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. When the pure spirit soul accepts the false ego, he must undergo material suffering. One automatically conquers the false ego by accepting oneself, in pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness, to be the eternal servant of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

The word bahu-rūpa-rūpitam, “perceived in many forms,” also indicates that the false ego is manifest in the belief that one is a demigod, a great man, a beautiful lady, an oppressed worker, a tiger, a bird, an insect and so on. By the influence of false ego, the pure soul accepts some material covering to be his ultimate self, but such ignorance can be removed by the process described in this verse.

Material scientists and philosophers are desperately searching for the ultimate material cause or principle, which is described here as kāla, the time factor. The material process of cause and effect takes place entirely within a sequence of time; in other words, the time factor is the motivating impetus for material cause and effect. This time factor is a manifestation of the Supersoul, the form of the Supreme Lord that pervades and supports the cosmic manifestation. The method for acquiring knowledge is scientifically described here, and those who are serious, reasonable scholars will take advantage of the transcendental epistemology revealed here by the Lord.

Gold is manufactured into many types of jewelry, as well as into coins and other luxurious products. But at each stage — before manufacture, during manufacture, during utilization and afterward — the essential reality is gold. In the same way, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the essential reality — both the dynamic and the ingredient cause of everything. All throughout the material creation, the Lord is simply setting into motion His own potency, which is not different from Him.

As stated in Kaṭha Upaniṣad (2.2.15), tam eva bhāntam anubhāti sarvaṁ/ tasya bhāsā sarvam idaṁ vibhāti: “Everything radiates its illumination in pursuance of His original illumination; His light illuminates everything in this universe.” As thus described, the entire range of perception, cognition and sensitivity is an insignificant expansion of the perception, cognition and sensitivity of the Personality of Godhead.

Although all material products, such as our own bodies, are temporary and thus ultimately false, the material world is a real manifestation of the Lord’s potency. The basic substance, or reality, of this world is the Personality of Godhead Himself, whereas the temporary designations imposed by the conditioned souls are illusion. Thus we consider ourselves American, Russian, British, German, Indian, black, white, Hindu, Muslim, Christian and so forth. In fact, we are the marginal potency of the Supreme Lord, but by attempting to exploit the Lord’s inferior material potency we have become entangled in illusion. Everything should be properly defined in terms of the Personality of Godhead, who is the essential reality of this and all other worlds.

The total material nature, pradhāna, is originally undifferentiated and inert, but later it undergoes transformation when the Supreme Lord, through His time agent, glances upon it and activates the mode of passion. Material transformation thus takes place and is exhibited as the Lord’s inferior energy. In contrast, the Supreme Lord’s personal abode possesses eternal variety, which is the self-luminous, internal opulence of the Absolute Truth and is not subject to material creation, transformation or annihilation. The material world is in this way simultaneously one with and different from the Absolute Truth.

A pure devotee of the Lord is considered eternally liberated, because he has perfectly understood the Lord’s transcendental personality and abode and is always engaged in serving the Lord’s mission within this world. Although superficially such a devotee may appear agitated by events in the material world while engaged in the Lord’s mission, this does not change his exalted status as the Lord’s eternal servitor, just as the exalted status of the sun is not changed even when the sun is apparently covered by clouds.

The word ahaṁ-mateḥ here indicates the conditioned living entity, who becomes manifest with the false ego of a particular material body. By contrast, the Personality of Godhead is unaffected by the modes of nature, and thus He is never covered by a material body and never subject to false ego. As described here, the Lord is eternally infallible and pure.

The word tathāpi in this verse indicates that even though the material nature is nondifferent from the Supreme Lord (as elaborately described in this chapter), one who has yet to conquer material desire should not artificially associate with material things, declaring them to be nondifferent from the Lord. Thus one aspiring to be Kṛṣṇa conscious should not loosely associate with women, claiming them to be nondifferent from the Personality of Godhead, for by such imitation of the most advanced devotees one will become a sense gratifier. A neophyte devotee who presumes himself liberated is impelled by the mode of passion to become falsely proud of his position, and thus he neglects the actual process of devotional service to the Lord. One must have firm and steady engagement in the loving service of the Lord, under the direction of higher authorities; then advancement in Kṛṣṇa consciousness will be easy and sublime.

Sarva-saṅgam refers to one’s stubborn attachment to material objects of so-called enjoyment, such as children, wife, money, nation and friends. One who increases his attachment to children, wife and so on, although supposedly performing devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa, is understood to be either a kuyogī, as described in this verse, or a bewildered neophyte who has failed to properly treat the disease of the heart called material attachment. If one has repeated relapses into material attachment, he has failed to eradicate the darkness of ignorance from his heart.

Sometimes sannyāsīs and other spiritual teachers are bewildered by flattering followers and disciples sent by the demigods to embarrass spiritual leaders who are lacking complete spiritual knowledge. Similarly, spiritual progress is sometimes checked by attachment to one’s bodily relatives. Although an imperfect transcendentalist may fall down from yoga practice in this life, he will resume it in the next life on the strength of his accumulated merit, as described in the Bhagavad-gītā. The words na tu karma-tantram indicate that a fallen transcendentalist does not have to pass through the lower stages of fruitive activity and gradually be promoted to the practice of yoga. Rather, he will immediately resume his yoga practice at that point at which he left it. Of course, one should not presume to fall back on the facility offered here but should try to become perfect in this lifetime. Sannyāsīs, especially, should remove the knot of lust from their hearts and should avoid falling into the clutches of flattering followers or female disciples sent by the demigods to expose a so-called spiritual leader who is imperfect in Kṛṣṇa conscious knowledge.

By sexual association with women, a man is driven to enjoy the female form again and again, and indeed he remains lusty up to the moment of death. Similarly, through association with family and friends the knot of material attachment becomes very tight. Thus the reactions of fruitive work bind one more and more in the cycle of material defeat. But a learned person, one who is in touch with the Supreme Lord within his heart, realizes the ultimate frustration of material work and the danger of entering the womb of a pig or dog in a future life as the result of sinful activities. One on the platform of self-realization does not regard himself as an enjoyer of the world. Rather, he regards the entire cosmos as simply an insignificant expansion of the Lord’s potency — and himself as the Lord’s humble servant.

A sane person can clearly distinguish between a dream experience and his real life. Similarly a manīṣī, or intelligent person, can clearly perceive polluted material sense objects to be creations of the Lord’s illusory energy and not factual reality. This is the practical test of realized intelligence.

It is emphasized here that the eternal self is never assumed or imposed as a material designation, nor is it ever abandoned. As explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, the soul is eternally the same and does not undergo transformation. The modes of nature, however, create the gross material body and subtle mind as a result of one’s previous fruitive activities, and these gross and subtle bodies are imposed upon the soul. Thus the living entity can neither assume nor reject the soul, which is an eternal fact. Rather, he should give up the gross ignorance of material consciousness by cultivating spiritual knowledge, as indicated here.

The Supreme Lord is self-luminous, self-manifested, whereas the individual living entity is manifested by Him. The Lord is unborn, but the living entity, because of material, designative coverings, takes birth in conditioned life. The Lord is immeasurable, being all-pervasive, whereas the living entity is localized. The Supreme Lord is mahānubhūti, the totality of consciousness, whereas the living entity is a tiny spark of consciousness. The Lord is sakalānubhūti, omniscient, whereas the living entity is aware only of his own limited experience. The Supreme Lord is one, whereas the living entities are innumerable. Considering all these contrasts between the Lord and ourselves, we should not waste time like the foolish material scientists and philosophers, who struggle to find the origin of this world by their insignificant mental speculation and word jugglery. Although one may discover some of the gross laws of material nature through material research, there is no hope of achieving the Absolute Truth by such petty endeavors.

As explained in verse 33 of this chapter, the eternal self is neither assumed nor lost, since every living entity is an eternal reality. The word vikalpa, or “duality,” here refers to the mistaken idea that the spirit soul is partly composed of matter in the form of the gross body or subtle mind. It is thus that foolish persons consider the material body or mind to be an intrinsic or fundamental component of the self. In fact the living entity is pure spirit, without any tinge of matter. Consequently the false ego, which is generated by the false identification with matter, is a mistaken identity imposed upon the pure spirit soul. The sense of ego, or “I am” — in other words, the sense of one’s individual identity — comes from the spirit soul, because there is no other possible basis for such self-awareness. By studying one’s false sense of ego, one can analytically understand that there is a pure ego, which is expressed by the words ahaṁ brahmāsmi, “I am pure spirit soul.” One can easily understand in a similar way that there is a supreme spirit soul, the Personality of Godhead, who is the omniscient controller of everything. Such understanding in Kṛṣṇa consciousness constitutes perfect knowledge, as described here by the Lord.

Material names and forms, subject as they are to creation and annihilation, have no permanent existence and so do not constitute essential, fundamental principles of reality. The material world consists of variegated transformations of the potency of God. Although God is real and His potency is real, the particular forms and names that temporarily or circumstantially appear have no ultimate reality. Gross ignorance occurs when the conditioned soul imagines himself to be material or a mixture of matter and spirit. Some philosophers argue that the eternal soul in contact with matter is permanently transformed and that the false ego represents a new and permanent reality of the soul. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī replies that spirit is the living, superior energy of the Lord, whereas matter is the inferior, unconscious energy of the Lord, and that these two energies thus possess opposite qualities, as with light and darkness. The superior living entity and inferior matter therefore cannot possibly merge into a common existence, since they eternally possess opposite and incompatible characteristics. The hallucination of a mixture of matter and spirit is called illusion; it becomes specifically manifest as false ego, which identifies with a specific material body or mind created by illusion. Clearly those scientists or philosophers who are embedded in gross ignorance cannot be real scientists and philosophers. The simple criterion of spiritual self-awareness unfortunately eliminates a huge percentage of modern so-called scientists and philosophers, who bury their foolish noses in the Lord’s material energy, without any knowledge of or interest in the Lord Himself.

Having described the process of cultivating knowledge, the Lord now gives instructions to the yogī whose body may be disturbed by disease or other impediments. Those inferior yogīs who are attached to the body and bodily exercises are often incomplete in their realization, and thus the Lord here offers them some assistance.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, by meditation on the Supreme Lord one can overcome lust and other mental disturbances, and by following in the footsteps of great transcendentalists one can overcome hypocrisy, false pride and other types of mental imbalance.

The process described here is meant to fulfill one’s material desires, not to bring one transcendental knowledge. Therefore this process cannot be accepted as devotional service to the Lord, according to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. Despite all such mystic perfections, the material body will ultimately die. Actual eternal youth and happiness are available only on the spiritual platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

The example given here is of a tree that seasonally bears fruit. The fruit exists for a very short time, whereas the tree may exist for thousands of years. Similarly, the spirit soul is eternal, whereas the material body, even when preserved as long as possible, is destroyed relatively quickly. The body should never be equated with the eternally existing spirit soul. Those who are actually intelligent, who actually have spiritual knowledge, are not interested in material mystic perfections.

A devotee of the Lord keeps his body fit by eating nourishing Kṛṣṇa prasādam, by maintaining a clean and regulated life, free from unnecessary anxiety, and by chanting and dancing before the Deity of the Lord. When a devotee is sick, he accepts medical treatment by normal methods, but beyond this there is no need to absorb one’s mind in the physical body in the name of so-called yoga practice. Ultimately one must accept the destiny that has been ordained by the Lord.

According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the Supreme Lord has briefly described to Uddhava the essential wisdom of all the Upaniṣads, with the conclusion that pure devotional service to the Lord is the real means of ultimate liberation. In this regard Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura emphasizes that although haṭha-yogīs and rāja-yogīs try to make progress along their prescribed paths, they confront obstacles and often fail to achieve their desired goals. However, one who surrenders to the Supreme Lord will certainly be victorious on his spiritual path back home, back to Godhead.