Srimad Bhagavatam 11.11.1 | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | ISKCON Chennai | 20 April 2021
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda
Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare
Reading from Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 11 Chapter 11 Verse 1.
ŚB 11.11.1
śrī-bhagavān uvāca
baddho mukta iti vyākhyā
guṇato me na vastutaḥ
guṇasya māyā-mūlatvān
na me mokṣo na bandhanam
Synonyms
śrī-bhagavān uvāca — the Supreme Personality of Godhead said; baddhaḥ — in bondage; muktaḥ — liberated; iti — thus; vyākhyā — the explanation of the living entity; guṇataḥ — due to the modes of material nature; me — which are My potency; na — not; vastutaḥ — in reality; guṇasya — of the modes of material nature; māyā — My illusory energy; mūlatvāt — because of being the cause; na — not; me — of Me; mokṣaḥ — liberation; na — nor; bandhanam — bondage.
Translation
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Uddhava, due to the influence of the material modes of nature, which are under My control, the living entity is sometimes designated as conditioned and sometimes as liberated. In fact, however, the soul is never really bound up or liberated, and since I am the Supreme Lord of māyā, which is the cause of the modes of nature, I also am never to be considered liberated or in bondage.
Purport
In this chapter the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, explains the different characteristics of conditioned and liberated life, the symptoms by which one can recognize saintly persons, and the various processes of devotional service to the Lord. In the previous chapter, Uddhava inquired from the Lord how conditioned and liberated life are possible. The Lord now replies that Uddhava’s question is somewhat superficial, since the pure spirit soul is never entangled in the material energy of the Lord. The living entity imagines a false connection with the three modes of nature and accepts the material body as the self. The living entity therefore suffers the consequences of his own imagination, just as one suffers the illusory activities of a dream. This does not indicate that the material world is illusory in the sense that it is nonexistent. The material world is certainly real, being the potency of the Personality of Godhead, and the living entity, being the superior potency of God, is also real. But the living entity’s dream of being part and parcel of the material world is an illusion that drags him into the contradictory state called material conditioned life. The living entity is never actually baddha, or bound up, since he merely imagines a false connection with the material world.
Because there is ultimately no permanent connection between the living entity and matter, there is no actual liberation. The living entity, being eternally transcendental to the inferior material energy of the Lord, is eternally liberated. Lord Kṛṣṇa reveals that in one sense the living entity is factually not bound up and thus cannot be liberated. But in another sense, the terms bondage and liberation can be conveniently applied to indicate the particular situation of the individual soul, who is the marginal potency of the Lord. Although the individual soul is never actually bound to matter, he suffers the reactions of material nature because of false identification, and thus the term baddha, or “bound up,” may be used to indicate the nature of a living entity’s experience within the inferior energy of the Lord. Since baddha describes a false situation, freedom from such a false situation may also be described as mokṣa, or liberation. Therefore the terms bondage and liberation are acceptable if one understands that such terms only refer to temporary situations created by illusion and do not refer to the ultimate nature of the living entity. In this verse Lord Kṛṣṇa states, guṇasya māyā-mūlatvān na me mokṣo na bandhanam: the terms liberation and bondage can never be applied to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, since He is the Absolute Truth and the supreme controller of everything. Lord Kṛṣṇa is eternally the supreme transcendental entity, and He can never be bound by illusion. It is the duty of the illusory potency of the Personality of Godhead to attract the living entities to ignorance by creating the false impression of a blissful existence separate from Lord Kṛṣṇa. The illusory conception of existence apart from the Personality of Godhead is called māyā, or material illusion. Since Lord Kṛṣṇa is the supreme absolute controller of māyā, there is no possibility that māyā could have any influence over the Personality of Godhead. Thus the term bandhanam, or “bondage,” cannot be applied to the eternal, blissful and omniscient Personality of Godhead. The term mokṣa, or “liberation,” indicating freedom from bandhana, is equally irrelevant to the Lord.
Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura has commented on this verse as follows. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is endowed with great spiritual potencies. Because of mundane concoction, the conditioned soul imagines that the Absolute Truth is devoid of variegated spiritual potencies by which He may enjoy blissful life. Although the living entity is the spiritual potency of the Lord, he is presently situated in the inferior, illusory potency, and by engaging in mental speculation he becomes bound in conditioned life. Liberation means that the living entity should transfer himself to the spiritual potency of the Lord, which can be divided into three categories — hlādinī, the potency of bliss; sandhinī, the potency of eternal existence; and saṁvit, the potency of omniscience. Since the Personality of Godhead is eternally endowed with a pure existence of bliss and knowledge, He is never conditioned or liberated. The living entity, however, being entangled in the Lord’s material potency, is sometimes conditioned and sometimes liberated.
The neutral, original state of the three modes of nature is called māyā. When the three modes of nature interact, one of them will become powerful, subordinating the other two modes until another mode becomes prominent. In this way, the three can be distinguished in their variety of manifestation. Although the threefold material potency expands from the Personality of Godhead, the Lord Himself in His personal form is the actual abode of the three spiritual potencies, namely eternality, bliss and knowledge. If one desires to become free from the entanglement of conditioned life within the material sky, called the kingdom of māyā, one must come to the spiritual sky, wherein the living entities are filled with bliss, possess eternal spiritual bodies and engage in the loving devotional service of the Lord. By developing one’s eternal, spiritual form in the loving service of the Lord, one immediately transcends the duality of conditioned life and impersonal liberation and can directly experience the spiritual potencies of the Lord. At that time there is no possibility of false identification with the material world.
Realizing oneself to be eternal spirit soul, the living entity can understand that he is never truly connected to matter, because he is part of the superior energy of the Lord. Therefore, both material bondage and liberation are ultimately meaningless within the reality of the spiritual sky. The living entity is the marginal potency of the Lord and should exercise his free will to engage in the pure devotional service of the Lord. By reviving one’s eternal, spiritual body one can understand oneself to be a minute particle of the spiritual potency of the Lord. In other words, the living entity is a minute particle of eternity, bliss and omniscience, and thus in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness there is no possibility of his being carried away by the illusion of the three modes of nature. In conclusion, it may be stated that the individual living entity is never actually entangled in matter and is thus not liberated, although his illusory state may be accurately described as entangled and liberated. On the other hand, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is eternally situated in His own spiritual potencies and can never be described as being bound up, and thus there is no meaning to the concept of the Lord’s freeing Himself from such a nonexistent condition.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj:
So here we have a very long purport discussing this verse, which talks about no bondage and no liberation. So in terms of the Supreme Lord, obviously we know that He’s never in bondage, so therefore He can never get liberated from bondage. However, in relation to the jiva, we often talk about the nitya-baddha and the nitya-mukta, and the nitya-baddha, if he does bhakti, then he gets liberated. So this looks a little difficult to understand how the jiva is not bound up or liberated. However, we can explain that by saying that, by constitution the jiva is spiritual. The jiva is completely different from matter and material gunas. So that nature of the jiva never changes. But we say the jiva gets covered by maya. So what this means is, the jiva’s consciousness can alter. So the consciousness definitely can change. And the jiva can be in ignorance. And this causes bondage. In that sense, yes, bondage is real.
Matter is also real. And if the jiva does bhakti or jnana or whatever, then he can destroy that ignorance. And we call that liberation. But in this statement here, it says there’s no bondage or liberation for the jiva. So what that means is the jiva never changes from his being a conscious particle. And therefore we cannot speak of being in bondage or in liberation.
Previously I mentioned that the jiva is called tatastha shakti and even if he goes to the spiritual world, he is tatastha shakti. And this tatastha shakti is very distinct from maya shakti and also from Supreme Lord. So those conditions are eternal for the jiva. However, I also mentioned that the jiva, because he is a small particle, and he’s called the tatastha by nature, he can be influenced by ignorance. Even with ignorance, the jiva never loses his consciousness. He never loses his nature as a small particle. But definitely there is a difference between the jiva in the material world and the jiva in the spiritual world.
In one sense, impersonalists can get very great pleasure in such statements they say in the Bhagavatam. And if we analyze the statement, no bondage, no liberation for the jiva, then we can also conclude the material world doesn’t even exist. It’s all illusory. So this goes even beyond mayavadi philosophy, it goes more towards Buddhism. Maya does not exist, material world does not exist, jiva does not exist. So there is no bondage, no liberation. For the mayavadis, of course, they do accept that Brahman, somehow or other, a portion of Brahman gets covered by ignorance. So that is bondage. But they can also argue, it’s not real bondage, it’s an illusion only. But we call that illusion, bondage. But for the mayavadi, once liberation is achieved, the jiva is no longer a jiva. So this is quite different from our philosophy. For us, we have to tatastha shakti and jivas are always jivas. And for the mayavadi, the jiva is an illusion. And ultimately when the illusion ends, then he realizes he is Brahman.
So there is no bondage and liberation for a jiva because the jiva actually doesn’t exist.
But they do have a problem because part of Brahman falls under illusion. Of course, the Buddhists will say, no that’s not true, nothing exists. So there is no bondage and liberation at all. So the mayavadi will have to say that part of Brahman falls under illusion or bondage and then gets liberated. But the Vaishnavas say, no, the Supreme Brahman is never in bondage and never liberated. He is always in a, completely pure. However, through the tatastha shakti of the Lord, the jivas, they can fall into bondage and they can also be liberated. But in their liberated state, they do not change. They are still a jiva. So in the liberated state, the jiva does not become the Supreme Lord.
So we have Supreme Lord who is completely perfect, jiva, who can fall into ignorance and get into bondage and also can get liberated. But because the jiva always remains a jiva, in that sense we can say there is no bondage and liberation. So the mayavadi will say, the bondage means part of Brahman falls into illusion and when we get rid of the illusion, then, that part of Brahman becomes Brahman again, no illusion. The liberation for the mayavadi means that the jiva is in illusion and in liberation, jiva becomes Brahman. So we say no, that’s not true. That type of liberation does not exist for the jiva. And that type of bondage where a piece of Brahman falls into ignorance, that also does not exist. The jiva is completely distinct from the Supreme. But jivas can have illusion and they can also get rid of that illusion.
Hare Krishna!
Q & A :
1.) Maharaj, if I have understood right, so if jiva’s tatastha nature does not change even in the spiritual world, isn’t there a danger because the nature is still there of falling back because the nature remains there, tatastha nature?
Well, one we have the promise of the Lord, you come to Me, you do not return to the material world. However, He also makes us an arrangement. A portion of the shakti, that is hladini and samvit shakti become an eternal part of the jiva. So with that endowment of the samvit shakti which is knowledge, we cannot fall into ignorance anymore. And the hladini shakti gives bliss to that jiva. Because of that experience, continual experience of spiritual bliss, the jiva would not consider anything else.
Devotee: Maharaj, we see the Paramatma does not have any function when a living entity gets into the spiritual world. So, like that why not there be this tatastha shakti also goes away, like Paramatma does not stay with the jiva anymore?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: The jiva is no longer a jiva, then there is no bhakti. He becomes the Supreme Lord, then there is only Supreme Lord and no devotees.
Devotee: Maharaj, you were mentioning about the tatastha shakti Maharaj, the marginal nature.
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Yeah.
Devotee: So I was saying like, the Paramatma does not function in the spiritual world, there is no function, like the marginal nature alone does it not go away? It’s of the jiva?
HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj: Well, he never loses his nature as being tatastha. He is always a servant of the Lord. In other words, the shakti always remains shakti, it does not become shaktiman. But, even though he is tatastha, he is quite different from the jivas in the material world. So, he has a permanent addition of the cit shakti.
2.) Maharaj mentioned that the jiva is ever conscious even in the mode of ignorance. What happens to the jivas, who due to some health issues get into coma, what is the level of consciousness in that situation Maharaj?
Well, consciousness is in different levels. In different species of life, we have lower consciousness plants. They do not have senses, brains, etc at all. So, their response is very limited. Animals have more development, human being has more. And then when they go into coma, then they lose a lot of their sense functions. So the external functions have stopped but certain bodily functions are still going on due to the consciousness of the jiva. If the jiva withdraws his consciousness from even the internal organs, then the person dies and the jiva goes out of the body to another body.
3.) Maharaj, yesterday you have mentioned that, these nitya-siddhas come to the material world only when the Lord comes. But we see in our sampradaya that our Acharyas like Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Bhaktivinoda Thakur come alone. Does it mean they are not nitya-siddhas because we also hear in our sampradaya that they are Manjaris in the spiritual world. How to understand this?
They never claim they are nitya-siddhas. And when we talk about Manjari, usually we associate as far as identifying them with certain Manjaris, that is because their Guru gave them an identity in raga bhakti as a Manjari. So, we identify with that. So, as he was in sadhana, and of course, by perfecting that, then they become that associate in the spiritual world, which is eternal. It’s only in that sense.
4.) What is wrong with serving material energy as it is also the divine energy of the Lord? And we can utilize the material energy in the service of the Lord.
Well, we can do that. That we call yukta vairagya.
5.) In spiritual world, the soul gets the spiritual body, or the dimensions of the soul itself have spiritual form.
Well, we talk about dimension etc. This is rather a concept from the material world. How big is the jiva? Is he five millimeters, one millimeter, 0.000 millimeter, we cannot really measure the jiva or the Supreme Lord. That is spiritual. Of course, probably you can only say that jiva has a size of a body. Something like the Supreme Lord’s size in the spiritual world [Laughs]. You can’t say it’s five feet tall or one inch tall or one millimeter or whatever. It’s irrelevant. So that form develops by the service of the devotee to the Lord. If he doesn’t do any service to the Lord. He doesn’t need a body.
6.) Maharaj, you said that a conditioned soul has never been in the spiritual world. Does it mean that when a soul attains prema and goes to the spiritual world, is he seeing the spiritual world for the very first time?
Even without going to the spiritual world, if a devotee attains prema in this lifetime, then he enters in the spiritual world. And once he enters there, there is no time. So therefore, there is no time when he was not there.
Devotees: Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai!!! HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj ki jai!!! Srila Prabhupada ki jai!!! Nitai Gaura premanande Hari Haribol!!!