Evolution of love

Souls

This is the story of how and from where souls manifest, and their evolution through the material realm and liberation from it. Sometimes there are questions from people regarding the means by which the innumerable spiritual living beings are created or manifested from God. And how are we eternal, or how did we end up in this material creation? So many living beings are seen in the material world in the large variety of species of animals, plants, insects, aquatics, birds, and human beings. If we really understood the oneness of the source from which all of us have appeared, there would be no question that not only are we all related, but spiritually speaking, we are all the same. We may look different according to the forms of material bodies that we wear. But if we could keep this spiritual understanding of reality in mind, it would make the reasons why there is so much quarrel and war in the material worlds look all the more foolish.

THE ORIGINS OF THE JIVAS

To begin with, it is explained in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (2.2.20) that, “As tiny sparks fly from a fire, so all the individual souls have come from the Supreme.” Thus, the individual souls come from the Supreme Being as sparks come from a fire, or as rays of light come from the sun. However, as the rays of light are both different and the same as their source, so the individual souls are different in power and size, yet the same in quality with the Supreme.

In this line of thought, learned scholars of the Vedic spiritual topics, such as the Gosvamis of Vrindavana, have analyzed that the Supreme Personality has sixty-four principle attributes. Sri Krishna is the possessor of all these attributes, while His incarnations and the avataras possess up to 93 percent of these spiritual characteristics. Lord Shiva possesses up to 84 percent of these transcendental qualities. The jiva souls possess only up to the limit of 78 percent of these spiritual attributes, in minute degrees, varying in terms to the level of piety in which the living beings exist.1 This is how jiva souls are similar in quality to the Lord but different in quantity and power.

One of the big differences is that the Lord is the controller of all energies, including the illusory potency, maya, while the individual souls can come under the influence of this illusory energy.2

We can also explain it this way: The Supreme Being, Sri Krishna, is like the blazing fire or sun. The chit-shakti, or the thinking potency or power of complete knowledge, is present in the center of that sun. A great expanse is illuminated by the sunlight. The rays of this light, or the effulgence of the Supreme, are manifested by the chit-shakti. The rays that come from that effulgence are the particles of His internal potency, the svarupa-shakti. Those atomic particles that make up the rays of His potency are the individual spirit souls. It is the internal or spiritual potency, the svarupa-shakti, that is the core or cause of this blazing fire of the Supreme Being. The individual souls or particles of light that are manifested from that fire, or in the rays of the effulgence, are manifested by the Lord’s potency known as the jiva-shakti. This is how the Lord’s spiritual potencies work together to manifest the jiva-shakti sunlight. This sunlight or illumination shines on the borderline, or tata, in between the spiritual and material worlds. In this way, the spirit souls are generated in the region between the spiritual and material energies known as the tatastha-shakti.

So herein we can also understand that the jivas are not created like something we produce in the material world. They are manifested from the eternal Lord and co-exist in the same way as the sunshine co-exists with the sun. However, the sunshine is dependent on the sun the same as the individual souls are dependent on the Supreme Soul. Thus, as we do not say the sun creates the rays of the sun because there is no beginning to the process, the jiva souls are also said to be eternal as is the Supreme Being. We are emanated from the Lord, and just as the Lord is eternal, so are His emanations, the jiva souls. So, the spirit souls are originally from beyond time and, thus, eternal.

The Svetashvatara Upanishad (4.10) explains “The Lord has got three principle potencies viz. 1) Svarupa-shakti, or essential potency; 2) jiva-shakti or tatastha-shakti, or marginal potency; and 3) maya-shakti or external potency. So the phenomenal world is manifested by His external potency, and the wielder of this maya is the great God Himself. And the whole world is pervaded with beings who are emanated from the marginal potency, otherwise known as His vibhannamsa [separated parts].”

In the Vishnu Purana (6.7.61) it is also described that an energy or shakti called the kshetrajna-shakti is the tatastha or jiva-shakti, which is the marginal energy. From this energy countless jivas are generated.

So the Vedic literature explains that it is this tatastha-shakti from which the jiva souls are generated. The spiritual world is a manifestation of the Lord’s internal and superior energy, while the material world is a product of the Lord’s external or inferior energy. But the living beings are a product of the Lord’s marginal energy or tatastha-shakti. The living entities are part of that tatastha-shakti, so they are energy, not the energetic. It is the Supreme Lord who is the Supreme Energetic, or source of all energies.

This is further confirmed by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in his purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam (3.7.9) in which he states: “According to Vishnu Purana, Bhagavad-gita, and all other Vedic literatures, the living entities are generated from the tatastha energy of the Lord, and thus they are always the energy of the Lord. . .”

The tatastha-shakti is located on the boundaries between the material and spiritual energies. Tatastha means “in between”. It also means that it is sometimes manifested and sometimes not manifested, like the material energy. Yet the potency is always there since it exists within the Supreme Lord.

Lord Krishna Himself explains His energies in the Bhagavad-gita this way: “The whole cosmic order is under Me. By My will it is manifested again and again, and by My will it is annihilated at the end. (Bg. 9.8) Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego–altogether these eight comprise My separated material energies. Besides this inferior nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which are all living entities who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe.” (Bg. 7.4-5) This means that the living beings are an energy of the Lord that are superior to the material or external energy. Yet, they are still subordinate to the Lord.

The jiva’s constitutional position is that he is an eternal servant of the Lord Krishna. The jiva is the marginal energy of the Lord, which means he is one yet different from the Supreme Being. So the jiva is eligible to enter both the spiritual or material energies, and, thus, also known as tatastha, marginal.

To explain further, the jivas have the inherent quality of knowledge. They are conscious, transcendental, birthless, and immutable. In their original identity, all jivas are equal, infinitesimal, eternal, inexhaustible, indestructible, and naturally enjoy spiritual bliss. In their original positions they are servants of the Supreme Lord. (Jiva Gosvami’s Paramatma Sandarbh 19, from the Padma Purana)

In explaining the tatastha-shakti, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta writes in his book, Sri Caitanya’s Teachings (Part Two, Chapter One, p. 365-6, 391-2, Third edition), that all human souls are emanations from the Lord’s tatastha-shakti, which is the region found between the eternal (spiritual) and temporal (material) worlds. It is by this potency that God manifests human souls. . . The tatastha has the power to associate with both the material or eternal spiritual planes of existence. Souls coming from this region have free will, which they can use properly or improperly. In the tatastha region, souls do not show any activity, but are in an indolent stage until they choose which direction they wish to go. However, with this independence, the jiva may choose to engage in one of two fields of activity. When he feels like enjoying, or that he is the predominating Lord of the energy he surveys, the jiva soul is in a fallen condition and enters the field of maya. When the soul shows the aptitude for serving the Supreme, he is freed from the illusory influence of maya and can engage in the eternal service of the Supreme Being.

So the tatastha region is in between the spiritual and material worlds, and is where the living beings are manifested. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (4.3.9 & 18) describes it like so: “A person has two places: the spiritual world and the place where the spiritual world meets another world. There is also a third place, a place of dreams [the material domain]. Standing between them, the soul sees on one side the spiritual world and on the other the place of dreaming. . . As a large fish in a river may go to one shore or the other, so a person may go to one world or another. He may go to a world where he is awake, or may go to a world made of dreams.”

The tatastha region is further explained by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur in his Jaiva Dharma (Volume Three, Chapter 15, page 70-1) as follows:

The place where a river’s waters meet with the land of the shore is called the “tata.” The “tata” is then the place where the water meets land. What is the nature of this “tata”? It is like the thinnest of threads that runs along the boundary of land and water. A “tata” is like the finest of lines, so small that the gross material eyes cannot even see it. In this example the spiritual world is like the water and the material world is like the land. The thin line that separates them is the “tata.” That boundary place is the abode of the individual spirit souls. The individual souls are like the atomic particles of sunlight. The souls can see both the spiritual world and the material world created by maya. The Lord’s spiritual potency, chit-shakti, is limitless, and the Lord’s material potency, maya-shakti, is gigantic. Standing between them, the individual spirit soul is very tiny.

The individual spirit souls are manifested from the tatastha-shakti of Lord Krishna. Therefore the souls are naturally situated on the boundary (tatastha) of matter and spirit.

The “tatastha” nature of the souls refers to the fact that they must be under the control of one of these two potencies. The actual place of the “tata” (shore) may change. What was once dry land may be covered with water, and what was once covered by water may again become dry land. If he [the jiva soul] turns his gaze upon Lord Krishna, the soul comes under the shelter of Lord Krishna’s spiritual potency. But if he turns away from Krishna and turns his gaze to the material potency, maya, then the soul is caught in maya’s trap. That is what is meant by “the soul’s tatastha nature.”

The spirit souls are completely spiritual. However, because they are atomic in size, the souls are not very strong. That is why maya can dominate them. However, in the soul’s nature there is not the slightest scent of maya.

From this description we can understand that the tatastha region is also a tendency or freedom of the individual spirit soul to independently choose the plane of existence in which he wishes to associate. However, it is the natural sentiment of the living being to serve God. This is why it is also described above that there is no maya whatsoever in the nature of the soul. This is further explained by Bhaktivinoda Thakura in his Sri Caitanya Shikshamrita (pp.156-7), in which he relates that just as God has His svarupa-vigraha, or essential and eternal form, so the jiva also has his chit-vigraha, or eternal form with complete knowledge. That chit body is manifested in Vaikuntha, the spiritual domain, not in the material realm. However, while in the material worlds, the jiva’s chit body is hidden under the two coverings of the subtle and gross physical bodies. The chit body of the soul, in which is the natural mood of serving the Lord, was in existence prior to its contact with matter. However, due to its contact with maya, the consciousness of the soul becomes transformed to consider itself a servant of matter, meaning the mind, senses, and the physical body. In this way, the jiva soul becomes entrapped in maya, and its spiritual nature and identity become hidden.

Ramanujacharya explains the hidden identity of the soul while in the material realm in his commentary on the Vedanta-sutra (4.4.3). He describes the soul’s pure qualities as being shrunk while in the material world, and then being expanded into pure knowledge, bliss, etc., upon liberation when the karmic bondage is destroyed. Thus, the soul was always pure from the start. Only from the contamination of consciousness while in association with matter does the soul appear to be misdirected.

Therefore, maya has nothing to do with the creation nor the identity of the spirit souls. The individual souls are small and weak, and can be influenced by maya, but they are superior to it.4 Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur also explains in his book, Brahmana and Vaishnava (Chapter Two, p. 86), that before acquiring any material designations, the living entity is supremely pure.

This leads to the point that the jiva soul is eternal and ever-existing, and so is his function, or dharma, which is to love and serve God, especially in the form of Sri Krishna. When the soul becomes purified from its association with matter, his spiritual identity and devotion to God become revived and expanded.