Secrets of the Soul 12

dehino ’smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.13]

The soul is a particle of conscious energy. What kind of energy particle has properties like consciousness? A fragmental particle of the Supreme Consciousness. When Arjuna asked Kṛṣṇa, “How are You controlling the whole cosmos, Your vibhuti, Your power and energies?” Kṛṣṇa explained His energies to Arjuna in detail, but finally He concluded:

atha vā bahunaitena
kiṁ jñātena tavārjuna
viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam
ekāṁśena sthito jagat

“But what need is there, Arjuna, for all this detailed knowledge? With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe.” [Bhagavad-gita 10.42]

The whole material world is sustained by a partial manifestation of Kṛṣṇa’s energies. Ekamsena: this temporary phenomenal material cosmos is only one fourth of God’s total energy. The other three-fourths of His energy is the eternal noumenal spiritual world.

paras tasmāt tu bhāvo ’nyo
’vyakto ’vyaktāt sanātanaḥ
yaḥ sa sarveṣu bhūteṣu
naśyatsu na vinaśyati

“Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is.” [Bhagavad-gita 8.20]

Kṛṣṇa emanates two classes of energies, material nature and spiritual nature. The material manifestation is temporary, but the spiritual nature is described as sanatana or eternal, and para, transcendental to this material nature. The ingredients of material nature are also described in Bhagavad-gita:

bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ
khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca
ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me
bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā

“Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—all together these eight constitute My separated material energies.” [Bhagavad-gita 7.4]

These eight types of material substances—earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intelligence and false ego—comprise material nature. Bhinna prakrtir astadha: the material energies are separated from Kṛṣṇa; in other words, they are of different quality. Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental body is completely spiritual, and is never in contact with material nature.

apareyam itas tv anyāṁ
prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām
jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho
yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat

“Besides these, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature.” [Bhagavad-gita 7.5]

These material energies are inferior, apara. But beyond this apara-prakrti, there is another, superior prakrti. What is that? Jiva-bhutam: the living entity or spirit soul.

So the living entity or soul is the spiritual energy of the Supreme Lord, just as in the example of the sun and the sunshine. Sunshine is the energy emanated by the sun globe. What is the sunshine? It is a flood of very small shining subatomic particles, photons. It looks homogeneous, but actually the sunshine is composed of small individual particles. Similarly, we living entities, are energies emanated by the Supreme Lord. This spiritual energy is composed of many individual small particles of the Supreme Lord. Therefore we are similar to the Lord in quality.

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