“Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan” (SB 3.25.19)
Thompson compares a modern appreciation of “space,” to the impersonal concept of Brahman frequently identified with Eastern mysticism. He suggests that, similar to the idea of information flowing unseen through space in the form of radio waves and microwaves that can manifest as television broadcasts or cell phone communications, so too varieties of unmanifested form can subsequently appear within the absolute, undifferentiated Oneness.
TRANSCRIPT: Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 25, Text 19. “Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān.” Alachua – 1997 / (035)
[Text 35]:
Perfection in self-realization cannot be attained by any kind of yogī unless he engages in devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for that is the only auspicious path.
Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda:
That knowledge and renunciation are never perfect unless joined by devotional service is explicitly explained here. Na yujyamānayā means “without being dovetailed.” When there is devotional service, then the question is where to offer that service. Devotional service is to be offered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the Supersoul of everything, for that is the only reliable path of self-realization, or Brahman realization. The word brahma-siddhaye means to understand oneself to be different from matter, to understand oneself to be Brahman. The Vedic words are ahaṁ brahmāsmi. Brahma-siddhi means that one should know that he is not matter; he is pure soul. There are different kinds of yogīs, but every yogī is supposed to engage in self-realization, or Brahman realization. It is clearly stated here that unless one is fully engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead one cannot have easy approach to the path of brahma-siddhi.
In the beginning of the Second Chapter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated that when one engages himself in the devotional service of Vāsudeva, spiritual knowledge and renunciation of the material world automatically become manifest. Thus a devotee does not have to try separately for renunciation or knowledge. Devotional service itself is so powerful that by one’s service attitude, everything is revealed. It is stated here, śivaḥ panthāḥ: this is the only auspicious path for self-realization. The path of devotional service is the most confidential means for attaining Brahman realization. That perfection in Brahman realization is attained through the auspicious path of devotional service indicates that the so-called Brahman realization, or realization of the brahmajyoti effulgence, is not brahma-siddhi. Beyond that brahmajyoti there is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the Upaniṣads a devotee prays to the Lord to kindly put aside the effulgence, brahmajyoti, so that the devotee may see within the brahmajyoti the actual, eternal form of the Lord. Unless one attains realization of the transcendental form of the Lord, there is no question of bhakti. Bhakti necessitates the existence of the recipient of devotional service and the devotee who renders devotional service. Brahma-siddhi through devotional service is realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The understanding of the effulgent rays of the body of the Supreme Godhead is not the perfect stage of brahma-siddhi, or Brahman realization. Nor is the realization of the Paramātmā feature of the Supreme Person perfect, for Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is akhilātmā — He is the Supersoul. One who realizes the Supreme Personality realizes the other features, namely the Paramātmā feature and the Brahman feature, and that total realization is brahma-siddhi.
So, very often one hears about yogis who engage in different practices to attain some higher realization. Typically one finds that these yogis will argue that bhakti is good for self-realization. It's a method of self-realization that is useful. But they will say that ultimately the goal is to attain something other than devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In fact, the usual viewpoint that is presented, is that in the ultimate issue, even though one may say that Kṛṣṇa exists or Viṣṇu exists in some sense, still these are not ultimate entities. But the ultimate reality is what would be called Brahman, which is impersonal, and that the ultimate goal of self-realization is to realize that you are that impersonal reality; and this of course necessitates eliminating the idea of the individual ego. And it will be argued that the individual ego is actually merely some kind of illusion or some kind of idea that exists in that Supreme Brahman, and that if this mistaken idea is eliminated, then you just have that Supreme Brahman. And that is brahma-siddhi. This is the sort of argument that is presented. And typically, this is presented by yogis who will also claim that since they have some superior power to see what exists in the universe and in reality that therefore their report that the ultimate reality is impersonal should be accepted, because after all they've been there and they've seen it.
[6:13]
So, this kind of philosophy is given, but Śrīla Prabhupāda is pointing out here... of course this verse is directly saying that perfection of self-realization cannot be attained by a yogi unless he engages in devotional service. But still you can say, “Well, devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead is a useful path, but the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not the ultimate thing.” So you engage in devotional service, then eventually you come to a higher level and you go beyond devotional service. So of course, this means that you cannot actually engage in devotional service, because if you're thinking that ultimately the object of devotion has some sort of intermediate level of existence, and that you are merely engaging in devotion for the purpose of coming to a higher platform, then necessarily that's not actually devotion to that object of worship. In other words, it's like being a friend of somebody in order to get something from them or in order to obtain some goal. Actually, we have experience of that in the material world: A person will be very friendly and very devoted, but actually they're trying to get something. And as soon as they get it, then you get the boot in the face.
So this experience is there, but that's not really friendship or devotion. So we have sort of a paradox here, that one may say that the path of devotional service is a good method of self-realization. But unless it is actual devotional service with a proper philosophical understanding, then it's not really devotional service. So, in other words, how can you simply use devotional service as a method to attain something else? So Śrīla Prabhupāda is, of course, pointing out here that realization of the brahmajyoti is not the ultimate level of realization. The ultimate reality is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Of course in the Bhagavān... Bhāgavatam says that there are three aspects to the Supreme: Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān. And Śrīla Prabhupāda is pointing out that Bhagavān is the ultimate reality, and Paramātmā and the brahmajyoti or Brahman are aspects of that ultimate reality. So, then what can one say about this? There are a number of interesting points that you could make. It is interesting that from the point of view of, let us say physics and engineering, you can make some observations that shed some light on the issue of the ultimate reality. The basic concept... well, one has to look at the question of what is the origin of different things – where do things come from?
[9:56]
So here we are in the material world and we have this matter, which is everywhere; and we have the experience that an intelligent being can mould matter into different shapes and configurations and produce different kinds of useful objects, such as this microphone and so forth. But we don't see that matter ultimately just organizes itself. In fact, we see that the nature of matter is that once it's organized, it tends to disintegrate, if it's left to itself, and go into a less organized state. So one can say, “Well, you have intelligent beings, namely people, who are made out of matter and they're organizing matter into various complex shapes and so forth.” But where did the people come from? So, one explanation is: well, they just came out of disorganized matter. The way it worked was that: well, you can start with atoms, that's a good enough starting point. Some atoms happen to collide together and formed a certain configuration, which was able to act as a living cell. And those living cells divided and functioned as rather complicated machines. And by chance various changes occurred to them and they became little organisms that swim around. And this kept on happening until finally you got human beings, without any intelligent guidance or control.
So this argument is not actually very good. If you look at it in detail, you can find that there are a lot of problems with it. Basically, it really doesn't work, but I won't go into that in detail right now. But one can draw an analogy – you can ask, “Well, what is the ultimate cause?” Well, I use the phrase ‘ultimate cause’ – what is the ultimate? Well, one thing is more ultimate than another if it stands in relation to that first thing as the cause to the effect. In other words, we would say that something is more fundamental or more ultimate if it is the cause of the lesser manifestation. So, looking at it in that way, of course, the human creator is the cause of the microphone. The human creator put the microphone together. And of course, the evolutionary theory says that: okay, things such microphones and locomotives and so on are put together by a superior cause, namely the human designers. But the humans ultimately came about through no cause at all, because ultimately the explanation in this theory of evolution is what is called ‘chance’. And ‘chance’ means something that occurs without any cause – it just happens.
So I'm saying this is not a very satisfactory explanation. But now if we apply this in the area of Vedic philosophy, what you have is the idea that: well, the world is created by demigods, by Brahmā, and so forth. And Brahmā is manifested from Viṣṇu. Viṣṇu perhaps is expanded ultimately from Kṛṣṇa, and all this is real. But the ultimate is actually something else, namely this Brahman, which is considered to be totally impersonal. So, that is like saying that the fairly complex and remarkable things that we have in this world are created by something even more remarkable, more complex. This is ultimately created by, let's say, Viṣṇu, who is even more remarkable. But Viṣṇu comes out of nothing. So... or Viṣṇu comes out of something which is devoid of qualities, one has to look at the typical explanation of this Brahman, the way that this is analyzed by the philosophers is the process called neti neti, which exists in in Western philosophy also. It's called via negativa – one distinguishes between spirit and matter by eliminating all the material qualities. And the idea is, once you eliminate everything material, then you're left with something that's purely spiritual.
[14:56]
So, all forms of differentiation or variety that we know of are material, so you eliminate all of that and you're left with something that's purely spiritual, but it is totally devoid of any variety or differentiation. This is the argument of neti neti. So the question is, can something that is completely devoid of variety produce things that have variety? Well, we don't see that in practice and that's the whole question then again of evolution. The microphone has a certain complex structure; it's based on certain principles – it was produced by something that can understand those things. So before the microscope the microphone existed physically, it existed in somebody's mind in the form of ideas, which contain all the details that eventually go into that microphone. Or to give another example, recently, IBM managed to increase its... the value of its stock by building a computer that could beat the world chess champion. So, now what would you find inside the computer? That is, how is the computer able to play chess well enough to beat the world chess champion? Well, there's a lot of stuff inside the computer and people worked very hard to put it there. In fact, they had a team of people at IBM working day and night for years, a great expense, using all the best computer engineering techniques and the best software and the deepest knowledge of the game of chess that they could gather. And put this all together and built this machine that finally beat the champion.
So, there's a lot in the machine. Now you could ask, “Well, could you have a chess-playing computer which was totally devoid of all variety or differentiation?” It's all one. No part of it is different from any other part. Well, I think it would be a little bit difficult to beat the champion with a machine like that, at least within our experience. So, one can see then the problem of saying that something comes out of nothing or something comes out of something less than what it is. So that problem is there with the idea that Kṛṣṇa is real, if you like. But Kṛṣṇa ultimately comes out of Brahman, which is totally devoid of all variety. It really doesn't make a great deal of sense. So, the philosophy presented in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is that actually it's the other way around, the most complex and highly developed entity is the ultimate entity which is the cause of everything else. So, from this ultimate cause, you have lesser entities arising. By the action of an ultimate cause that has within itself more than the variety, complexity, sophistication, and so forth, of all the different effects that are produced. So that is Bhagavān.
Now this... you might say: well, the Bhāgavatam recognizes the existence of Brahman after all, speaks of Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān. So the Bhāgavatam is recognizing the existence of this undifferentiated entity, but one could observe that the undifferentiated Brahman is... you could call that the Brahman of the philosophers. It's not the actual Brahman that really exists. The actually existing Brahman is not in fact undifferentiated. In fact, one can make an analogy here also to engineering. Consider the transmission of television. So, what you have with television is there's a transmitter on the one hand, TV station; and there's a receiver, which is your television set; and in between there's a field which can be energized by the television transmitter. And when this field is energized, if you have a receiver within the energized region – within some number of miles of the transmitter – you can pick up the station and you can see the show on your television. So, what happens is the transmitter, through its antenna and so forth, energizes this field with a pattern of vibration if you like, which contains information. In fact, it's the information of the television show. And engineers can analyze this in terms of what is called “information theory,” which was invented by a fellow named Claude Shannon, in terms of bits of information per second, and so on and so forth.
[20:33]
So, the point though is, that this field that is there between the transmitter and the receiver, although it looks like empty space or just air you might say – it doesn't look like anything is really there. Still, there's this vibrational pattern which contains information. And so, the receiver can pick up that information and display that on the screen and you see the TV show. So, now what could you eliminate in this picture? If you eliminate the transmitter, then you're not going to have the field being energized and there's not going to be any reception of the TV show. It is conceivable that you could eliminate the receiver. Well, at least to a certain extent you can; ultimately you need the conscious being who's going to perceive the TV show – that's another topic that we could go into: Consciousness. Basically consciousness is individualized. In this picture it certainly is, because you have the person watching the TV and that is different from the people at the station who are working on transmitting the program.
So in this analogy you have Bhagavān as the original source, let's say, of the universal programming. Then Brahman corresponds to the energized field, you might say, through which different programs are being transmitted. And then here in the material universe you have different persons. Their bodies and the different paraphernalia of their senses and so forth, represent a sort of receiver. There's a bit more to it than that. You can ask the question: could the receiver be created from the energized field, just to pursue the analogy a bit further. And this is also possible. Although I don't know if engineers of today can quite come to that stage, but there is something known as a hologram. Now a hologram is an image that you can see floating in space. And it's three-dimensional – you can look around on either side of it. So you can see that it's there in space in three dimensions. And a good quality hologram looks reasonably impressive; it could be an image let's say of an automobile. So you see the automobile in detail, from different angles. So somehow an automobile has been projected into a region of space, and this is done by the basis... on the basis of interference of light. Light is a wave or a vibrational pattern and by adding together different waves, adjusting the frequency and what is called the phase of the wave correctly, you can create out of that light any desired shape, which can then be seen by an individual, who has eyes to see it. So that's called a hologram.
So holograms look a little bit mysterious because the interference pattern in the light is typically produced using a sheet of transparent material on which a microscopic pattern has been produced. So when you shine light through that microscopic pattern, by interacting with the pattern, different wave patterns of light are produced. These then interfere in a region of space out in front of that transparent sheet, and so then you see this image hovering in space. And that's the holographic image. So this is all done with interference of light. So now you can go a step further and consider that matter itself, according to modern physics, is a wave phenomenon. An electron, for example, is a kind of wave; a proton is also a kind of wave, and so forth. So all of this matter that we see is a wave phenomenon.
[25:09]
So if you could arrange for interference of arrangements of matter waves, then you could produce a hologram, which would be a solid material object. At least by analogy this is possible. In fact, the only obstacle to actually doing this, as far as engineering is concerned, is that the frequency for the matter waves is extremely high. Light... frequency of light waves is much lower and so it's practical to deal with them. The apparatus you need only has to have a certain degree of precision corresponding to the frequency of the light that you're dealing with. But if you wanted to interfere with matter waves in order to create a matter hologram, which would be an actual object, you'd be dealing with extremely high frequency waves; and it sort of intuitively makes sense that you can't do that with matter, which is such a wave pattern, anyway. You'd need something finer than matter as we know it, in order to focus matter waves and create a matter hologram. Well, of course that finer something does exist. Ultimately, that would be Bhagavān that we've been talking about.
So the idea is that the material universe is ultimately manifested from Brahman and the analogy here shows how that could work. Namely, this Brahman is energized with information, which produces a pattern which is ultimately the material world as we see it. So the material world as we see it then is a kind of vibrational pattern or matter hologram. And it is produced from this energized field, which you could call Brahman. But you still have to have the transmitter. This energized field would not be energized with all the complex data, or bitstream if you like, using some computer terminology, which is needed to produce this particular matter hologram, which is the universe that we see with all its variety and different complex forms and entities and so forth. So you still need the transmitter. The point then is, we can see that the receiver, or at least the receiving apparatus, can be generated from this energized field of Brahman. But still there has to be a transmitter, somewhere in the background. And that is Bhagavān, according to this analogy.
So you have then – of course I haven't talked about Paramātmā – but you have Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān. And Bhagavān is the ultimate source, or the ultimate in the sense of being the cause of everything else; and in particular Bhagavān is the cause of the actual variegatedness that exists in Brahman. In other words, the real Brahman is not devoid of all quality and variety, but it's also variegated. So, let's see, there are a few observations about this topic. Are there any questions or comments? Yeah?
Question: [unclear]
Answer: Yes, it's undifferentiated in one sense, but in another sense it is differentiated. Namely just like with the television example, the radio waves propagating through space look pretty undifferentiated. In other words, it looks simply like empty space. But actually, they are differentiated. So, ultimately Brahman contains variety. There's another aspect of variety also contained in Brahman, namely innumerable spirit souls, because in Brahman there are numerous innumerable spirit souls in a state of Brahman realization. So, they're there, but we know that they're ultimately individual. To make another analogy, because Śrīla Prabhupāda makes this analogy of the sun and the atomic particles of sunlight, so that's another interesting way to illuminate this. Namely, that you have the sun that's the transmitting source, and around the sun you have this field of radiant energy; and the light, Śrīla Prabhupāda is saying, is made of little molecular parts of the sun, which have the same quality as the sun. So actually that sunlight is variegated – it's made of little molecular parts. It's interesting that he says that, because actually in physics it is said that light is made of photons, which is another digression we could go into. But a photon is like a little particle of light. So, how can light be a wave and a particle at the same time? Well, that's the great mystery of quantum mechanics. Yeah?
[31:00]
Q: [unclear]
A: Well, it's a question of what is real and what you're aware of. Oh! He's asking... oh yeah, I'm supposed to repeat the questions. Yes, he's asking: well, we are told that the soul in Brahman does not have the manifestation of the cit potency, or knowledge. There's only sat there – being, eternality – but there is no variegated experience and so there's no knowledge. So how can that be if I'm saying that the Brahman is actually variegated? The answer would be that it's a question of the state of consciousness of the individual soul. The individual soul is always eternal, and individual, and has the qualities of sat-cit-ānanda – those are inherent qualities that the soul always has – but it's a question of realization at any given moment. In other words, the soul floating in Brahman isn't aware of all that information that's there. Just as right now, after all, all these television stations are broadcasting right through us. I don't know what it ultimately does to the body, but it's all going through us right now, but we're not aware of it because of our particular state of consciousness. But if we were able to properly alter our state of consciousness, maybe we could pick up the TV stations even while sitting here. This is not such a good prospect. So, yeah?
Q: [unclear]
A: Does the living entity play any part in modifying this matter hologram? Well, the answer would be yes, because... of course the living entity does not directly have the power to control matter, but the Supersoul controls matter in accordance with the desires of the living entity. That's the aspect I didn't really discuss here, namely, Paramātmā. So it is said, for example in Bhagavad-gītā, that we're not the doer. Well, if we're not the doer, then why are we held responsible for what is done, you might ask. So, the answer... and why... and if Kṛṣṇa is the doer, why does He say in Bhagavad-gītā that I'm not responsible for what happens? Is this fair? So, the answer would be that Kṛṣṇa is agreeing to do things in accordance with the desires of the of the spirit soul. So, the soul desires and Kṛṣṇa manipulates the energy accordingly. But then the soul has to take responsibility for that, because after all he's getting his desire. It's not that Kṛṣṇa desired all these things, including World War II and the whole gamut of material events. So that would be the situation, that indirectly the living entity does manipulate the matter through the agency of Paramātmā satisfying his desires. Yeah?
[35:34]
Q: [unclear]
A: I haven't either, experienced seeing the four-armed form of Viṣṇu in my heart. Well, that is one meditation of yogis. Of course, we're not being advised to try to do that, but that presumably is possible. And certain yogis engage in that meditation, focusing their attention, visualizing Lord Viṣṇu within the heart. And ultimately then He reveals Himself and they actually see that. So, that does exist. Yeah?
Q: [unclear]
A: Well, there's so many things to do, but no, I don't know if Śrīla Prabhupāda advised us specifically to sit down and try and do that, although it certainly is described in the Bhāgavatam. But then I don't know anything against it.
Q: [unclear]
A: Well as I understand it, worship... that meditation on Viṣṇu within the heart, it's very much analogous to deity worship in the sense that initially what you are meditating on is a mental image. Because... unless you're so advanced that you immediately see Paramātmā the moment you try to see Him. So initially what you're doing is meditating on a mental image. So that is essentially an arcā-vigraha, it's a form of the Lord, which you're worshipping, which originally is made from material substance. In other words, we worship the Deity on the altar, so after all the Christian would say, “Well, that's idolatry, you're worshiping something made of stone or plastic or something like that. So how can you worship something material as God?” Well, actually you're worshipping God, but you're being aided by the material thing. But the ultimate reality is that that is God, because God is the ultimate basis of everything. (This term ultimate again.) So, when you come to a higher stage of realization, the Deity is actually Kṛṣṇa and you actually realize that, as far as I can see, worship of Paramātmā within the heart would be a similar thing, namely initially what you're... anything you can visualize as a mental image after all. But when you come to a stage of realization, you actually see Viṣṇu. Jaya. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!