Fallen Souls Don't Expand Fallen Souls
BY: PATITA PAVANA DAS
Jan 01, 2011 — INDIA (SUN) — Fallen souls don't expand fallen souls. Liberated souls can expand into many forms.
Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana comments in his Govinda Bhasya on Vedanta-sutra 4.4.11 that the liberated soul can manifest many different bodies simultaneously, and quotes Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2 to support this : "The liberated soul is one, he (can) become(s) or is three, five, seven, nine, eleven, one hundred and eleven, twenty thousand". Nimbarkacarya and Ramanujacarya in their Vedanta bhasya also quote Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2 interpreting this enumeration 1, 3.......20,000 as meaning ad infinitum, endless variety; the liberated soul can manifest unlimited bodies.
In "Living Entities Not from an Impersonal Origin", Gauragopala dasa wrote: the liberated soul "first chooses in full consciousness" to fall from Krishna-loka. Thus the soul is fully fallen or falling. Later on he writes "marginal living entities manifest as their inferior secondary baddha-jiva state."
So there is a baddha-jiva or bound soul state of the marginal living entity.
Then he writes that these jivas are projected into the material creation. And those enter Maha-Visnu's body and the impersonal Brahman. Later he repeats this concept again and again. Thus there is a soul, an atma, an I, expanded from the soul who is still in Krishna-loka (somehow as per Gauragopal dasa's dvitiya-atma-patana-vada or ardha-atma-patana-vada (the second half soul or half soul falldown vada - the first half remains in Goloka).
This is not possible according to the Vedanta-sutra commentators quoted above. Only a liberated soul manifests expansions, souls.
Another flaw of this ekatma-patana-dvau-atma-vada (one soul falls of the double soul fall
vada) or ekakala-patana-apatana-vada (simultaneous falldown-non-falldown vada) is that the original soul in the spiritual world is "fully" fallen according to Gauragopala's description.
He writes "there is choice in full consciousness." The soul fully means completely, wholly convinced decides to go away but then the soul is not allowed to go!? And the soul remains serving in its rasa and svarupa in full Krishna consciousness?! Although it fully decides to leave. One soul is 100% demon and 100% lover?! Or he means one soul in Goloka is in Krishna consciousness and one's other self of one's double one- self is in non-Krishna consciousness. Both are vAk-cAturyam, word jugglery.
Then he gives us another theory the manasika-patana-vada (only the mind not the soul falldown vada) (of another self of Gauragopala dasa?) contradictory to his previous one. Only something "subconscious" splits off and leaves the spiritual world. On this point that only the "sub-consciousness falls" Sri Ramanujacarya writes in his Sri Bhasya on Vedanta sutra 1.1.1:
"Consciousness is the attribute of a conscious self. That there exists pure consciousness devoid of a substrate (soul)...is refuted on the ground that of a thing of this kind we have absolutely no knowledge or experience… [As] where there is light it must belong to something as shown by the light of a lamp...words such as consciousness are relative."
The consciousness that falls has a conscious self, soul, atma. According to one of Gauragopala dasa's selves, this soul is not the soul that is in the spiritual world because then this souls would be the sense enjoyer here. But, the nitya baddha consciousness has a soul also. There has been a split in the soul. The soul which is indivisible (Bg 2.24) And when one becomes Krishna-conscious while in the mahat-tattva there is a soul here which is Krishna conscious and my soul there in the spiritual world which was already Krishna conscious. So there were and are 2 souls. And when the soul goes back to Godhead it merges with the soul there, into one double (?!)
Then another of Gauragopala dasa's selves has another, contradictory theory. He writes: the nitya-baddha sub-consciousness originates from the jiva and not from the nitya-siddha svarupa "body".
Who is this jiva apart from the nitya-siddha svarupa "body?" Aren't these the same? One subconscious self of Gauragopala dasa is thinking that there is two souls and another of his selves states it is not two.
He explains(?!): "the nitya-siddha spiritual body and the sub-consciousness are totally separate conditions of the jiva". But the nitya-siddha spiritual body must have or is the soul. How there is then the jiva. There is not "one" jiva. And if the nitya-baddha awareness is the awareness of the soul in the spiritual world then this soul is in the mud of maya to control and enjoy with its consciousness.
We will discuss a few of his different fall of the soul theories.
** "There are really no two states of consciousness...where one's consciousness is placed…there is no secondary self as long as one experiences the full potential of nitya-siddha."**
If one falls away from Krishna lila then one's awareness is placed on two worlds, the spiritual and the material. This Srila Prabhupada describes in a letter (Feb 27, 1972) as a split-personality or schizophrenic soul "There are no 2 personalities. There is only change of mind...from one personality to the other." One is not serving and loving with one's full potential. Such a soul is an imperfection in the spiritual world; the world without birth, death, old age and disease (including mental disease). Such souls are sent to the material world. As Srila Prabhupada explains:
"The yoga processes are simply ways to elevate oneself to enter into that abode. Actually we belong to that abode, but being forgetful, we are put in this material world. Just as a madman becomes crazy and is put into a lunatic asylum, so we, losing sight of our spiritual identity, become crazy and are put into this material world. Thus the material world is a sort of lunatic asylum, and we can easily notice that nothing is done very sanely here. Our real business is to get out and enter into the kingdom of God." (The Perfection of Yoga, ch 3, Yoga as Meditation on KRSNA)
The first position the falling soul takes is the post of Brahma, who is the most sane. Then one becomes Indra. Then one further falls down (see Brahmana and Vaisnava by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, Ch 2, p. 86)
**"The selfish desires of the marginal living entity cover its awareness of nitya-siddha nature."**
Here we learn that:
There is a soul in the mahat-tattva who is in maya. And there is the same soul who is in Krishna loka in full Krishna consciousness. And when that soul in maya becomes Krishna conscious then "it melts away like darkness melts away in the presence of light." But the soul is indestructible and eternal according to Bg 2.20, 21.
After this sentence that the marginal living entities' awareness of nitya-siddha is covered due to selfish desires he contradicts himself, stating that there is only a nitya-baddha consciousness in the mahat-tattva (and not a soul, substantially).
The next sentence he contradicts that theory again by stating "the rebellious marginal living entity becomes overshadowed with the concept of past, present and future……." Now again there is actually a soul in the mahat-tattva.
Then he writes "we will enter Goloka again by becoming aware of our nitya-siddha nature……. beginning to distinguish who we really are separated from nitya-baddha consciousness."
Here again he is combining theories into an impossibility. "We will enter Goloka." And "We are already there, in a perfected form." But there is another I(?!) who is in maya. The same I. But the sentence before that he states that the "I" in Goloka" long ago choose to forget Krishna and nitya-siddha." And thus must leave Goloka. This is not the I now in maya because that I wasn't there yet.
So then he states that the I in Goloka falls in maya.
**"...devotee regains, reestablishes the awareness of nitya-svarupa."**
This means the I in maya has to remember himself who is not in maya(?!) Because there is always at least on of the double soul in Goloka.
**"There are really no two states of consciousness…….there is the extended sub-consciousness of the (one) marginal living entity."**
There is no soul in the mahat-tattva but only a ray of consciousness of the nitya-siddha. A nitya siddha is sometimes for some trillions maha-kalpas a siddha focusing (in) on the sense enjoyment of illusory matter. That soul is also 100% focusing on pleasing Krishna's senses in Goloka and 100% fixed in enjoyment of the mahat tattva(?!) as walking with one body north and south. Or as a cup filled with milk and arsenic simultaneously. This is not a paradox as Gauragopala dasa tries to dress up or cover up this contradiction.
It is a non-existence as the egg of the horse, the son of a barren woman or a sky-flower.
Here also he mixes in his other opposite theory that there is a soul in maya and a soul (the same) in the spiritual world.
"Not really two states of consciousness," because the dreamland of the material world doesn't really exist, according to Gauragopala dasa. This is not so. The dream of Maha Vishnu is factual reality. (SB 1.16.26-30 p) Gauragopala dasa quotes this but here he comes with this svapna-fall-vada (dream).
We quote some ancient acaryas because Gauragopala's ideas come from Buddhist and Mayavada sources which long ago have been successfully battled in our sampradayas.
Gauragopala dasa downloaded these ideas from his sub-consciousness having been sunya or/and mayavadi in previous lives. Our acaryas rejected that we are a dreaming off-shoots of a higher spirituality. Madhvacarya writes in his Sri Tattva-muktavali or Mayavada-satadusani 101:
"The Mayavadis compare material existence to a dream, but in truth it is not at all like a dream. The dreaming condition is full of many faults. In a dream one may eat and drink unlimitedly, but he will never become satiated, although in the waking condition one quickly becomes satiated by eating and drinking. The use of this analogy by the Mayavadis is a great blunder, for the waking condition is not at all like a dream."
And the Vedanta sutra 2.2.29 states – vaidharmyAc ca na svapAdi-vat – it is not like a dream because of the difference. This is from the section refuting the Yogacara Buddhists.
Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana explains the difference (in his Govinda bhasya 2.2.29):
"The objects experienced in a dream and in waking perception are not the same. They are different. In a dream there is a remembering of what was experienced in the past. In waking there is direct perception. In a dream experiences change moment to moment. When one awakens he is immediately convinced that the dream was unreal. The object seen when one is awake do not change from moment to moment, as they do in dream. In the waking state some objects remain virtually unchanged for hundreds of years."
**"We were with Krishna…we forgot Krishna and our nitya-siddha nature…we regain, re-establish our original Krishna consciousness."
But in another place he says that we didn't lose our nitya-siddha original Krishna consciousness. In other words, we left Krishna but we didn't. We go back to Krishna but we are already there.
The soul is stationed in Goloka. Its consciousness is on Sri Sri Radha-Krishna. But also on the dream of Maha Visnu; on one of the clouds-like material forms. Consciousness can have only one objective at one particular moment. So one cannot be conscious of Durga-lila and Krishna-lila at the same time. Assuming the soul in Goloka has the ability to be conscious of Durga lila; the soul is "fully fallen" (as we noted above), an ordinary conditioned soul. And will Goloka allow sense gratifiers? Will a king or queen allow criminals in the palace?
It is one thing to be conscious of Durga lila but, another to actively participate in Durga lila.
Activity has to be done by an atma who is thinking, feeling, willing and activating at that location. We act in this world physically, mentally not from a subconscious self. Without the soul a subconscious self alone cannot act. When we act we act consciously, from a conscious subject, I, atma as Sri Ramanuja defines (see up).
We know we are now here seer, witness and doer, acting. Of course, the Lord is the main doer.
We have free will here now acted out by a conscious person. We are not a robot operated from Goloka. As Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana describes in his purport to Bg 18.14 quoting Prasna Upanisad Esa hi drastA srastA – he is the seer and doer.
This is on the verses of Bg 18.13-14 where Krishna says: "learn from Me the five causes of action." This is about the jiva in this world. Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana makes it clear that there is a jiva in this world and not only a consciousness. He comments:
"The jiva is the substratum of the body, senses and pranas which are supplied by the Lord, and which operate through powers bestowed by the Lord alone. Being the possessor of these bestowed powers, the jiva rules over his body and senses by his own desires alone, for accomplishing his actions. The Supreme Lord, situated within all the jivas, giving His permission for the jiva's action, sets the actions of the jiva in motion."
Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana's purva-paksa opponent says:
"But then at least the liberated jiva should not be the agent, because he no longer has a body, senses and pranas."
Baladeva answers:
"No, that is not so, because the liberated souls have spiritual senses and body, by which to accomplish their (spiritual) desires."
So there was a soul going from the material to the spiritual world.
**"Jaya Vijaya choose to be in material bodies as demons…offense was atoned…they were re-established in their original svarupa in Vaikuntha."**
Again, Gauragopala dasa is wrong. The irony is that what actually happened is very similar to what Gauragopala dasa thinks happens as the fall of the soul from heaven.
Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura states in his Darsini commentary on SB 3.16.29 and SB 8.21.16-17 that they had spiritual bodies in the pastimes of the Lord in the material world:
"The expansions of Jaya and Vijaya fell in to the material world…the original forms remained in Vaikuntha. Their expansions playing the roles of demons stayed in the material world until Krishna liberated them."
"When the 4 Kumaras cursed Jaya and Vijaya, these doorkeepers wept and wailed. The Lord spoke, His heart softened by compassion: "do not fear. May you two have good fortune. Do not go there. Always remain serving me in Vaikuntha.""
"As Garuda sacrificed an expansion of his wing to maintain the inevitability of the thunderbolt's power you should take on the role of demons in one of your expansions and at the same time remain in Vaikuntha in your svarupa."
They could expand a secondary self because they were liberated souls. We cannot do that because we envied Krishna and thus fallen we lose this ability.
What Gauragopala dasa describes about Jaya Vijaya is the Vedic scenario of how we fell
Offence – material bodies –
Atonement – re-established in nitya-svarupa
**"They leave Vaikuntha as their nitya-baddha secondary self"**
Here he states that a secondary self (atma) leaves Vaikuntha, and a (primary) I remains. So there are 2 souls. The secondary self is I. A soul, completely. We have experience of being an I, atma conscious of and different from the body. Not that I am a subconscious entity. I am a conscious entity. Now we learn there is an I in the spiritual world who is (also) me. A co-existing double self who is the same I. but I have no experience of this I, although we are one.
This is apasiddhanta. Only liberated souls have many forms as we have above quoted Chandogya Upanisad 7.26.2 confirmed by all our four sampradayas: Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana, Sri Nimbarkacarya, Sri Ramanujacarya and Sri Madhvacarya.
**"The impersonal brahmajyoti…is souls in their baddha-jiva feature."**
Baddha jiva means a soul bound by the tri-guna, the three modes or qualities of material nature. But there are no material qualities in the brahmajyoti. Thus no baddha-jivas either.
"Nitya siddha and nitya-baddha are 2 characteristics of each (one) individual marginal living entity."
We here discussing persons are "characteristics" of liberated souls in the spiritual world. We are not souls, persons. This is only for speculation's sake. In reality Srila Prabhupada taught us 1000's of times the ABCD: "we are not the body, but spirit soul, Hari bol!
Now Gauragopala dasa changes his theory: that there are two souls as we wrote above already. He can deny that that there are two souls or that he didn't mean it like that, but he does write it. Again and again. With this new theory he writes "nitya baddha consciousness is trapped in a material body." Consciousness is never without a subject as Srila Ramanujacarya writes (see above). This subject is not the liberated soul in Goloka because we here now have the experience and knowledge that we are in maya, in the mahat-tattva as a soul the subject of consciousness. And that we are not in Goloka as conscious subject located there and controlling, enjoying, hearing, tasting, smelling, thinking, knowing (doing all sensual activities) from there to here (Gauragopala dasa's secondary self theory). So there are 2 souls, or subjects of consciousness. Also scripture teaches there is a soul in the heart:
isvarah sarva-bhutanam
hrd-dese arjuna tisthati
bhramayan sarva-bhutani
yantrarudhani mayaya
"The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wandering of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy." BG 18.61
dva suparna sayuja sakhaya
samanam vriksham praishasvajate
tayor anyah pippalam svadv atty
anashnann anyo 'bhicakashiti
"In the individual spirit soul and the Supersoul, Supreme Personality of Godhead, are like two friendly birds sitting on the same tree. One of the birds (the individual atomic soul) is eating the fruit of the tree (the sense gratification afforded by the material body), and the other bird (the Supersoul) is not trying to eat these fruits, but is simply watching His friend.
Shvetashvatara Upanishad (4.6-7)
**"The nitya-siddha is the full perpetual expression and potential of the marginal living entity."
Then, if an extended sub-secondary consciousness falls into the mahat-tattva there is no more full perpetual expression and potential on or in the Krishna-consciousness of the nitya siddha jiva. The center of the non Krishna consciousness present in the mahat tattva is in Goloka. Part of the nitya-siddha'a potencies are in the rebellion in the mahat-tattva.
** "the nitya-siddha Krishna conscious soul in Goloka and the expansion non-Krishna consciousness are totally separate." **
How can that be? The source of the non Krishna-consciousness branch is in Goloka. The non Krishna-conscious secondary self gets illuminated from the soul in the Goloka.
O son of Bharata, as the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness. (Bg 13.34)
If the soul and consciousness are totally separated and have no relation at all than whose consciousness is it when the consciousness gets withdrawn back to Goloka when it becomes Krishna conscious?
**"when one again becomes aware of the nitya siddha…they are in their original position in Goloka."**
Gauragopala states: "One again becomes Krishna conscious." But this "One" can only be a person, a soul. So there is a soul who becomes Krishna conscious. "Characteristics," "sub-consciousness" don't become Krishna conscious. These are not conscious. They cannot change themselves. Only a conscious subject, doer can do that. Gauragopala dasa concluded that the centre of consciousness is in Goloka. In this conscious I, the states of consciousness are witnessed and registered. That soul was "fully, perpetually" Krishna conscious but here we learn that this soul has "to again become Krishna conscious" and had become "non Krishna conscious" or maybe partially "non-Krishna conscious.
**"come down as their subconscious dream state known as the baddha jiva. Baddha jiva souls become impregnated in the Mahat-tattva."**
Here again the theory he rejected is formulated: "baddha-jiva."jiva means soul. And then "baddha-jiva souls" and "the marginal living entity foolishly chooses to leave Vaikuntha." This is the plain truth mother Sarasvati mercifully put in his mind. But then he is immediately grasped by asuri Asarasvati and writes in the next sentence: awareness is placed into the mahat-tattva.
This means the following hodge-podge:
The personality center is again in Goloka, this soul is 100% Krishna conscious, in full knowledge and bliss. But not 100% also (?!); he is also aware of himself having gone off into the cloud of maya roaming around there to control and enjoy." And the awareness of the soul is not longer absorbed on the svarupa vigraha" i.o.w 100% aware and 0% aware in one soul.
"The jiva in the spiritual world is the body. This we can realize even now while trapped in our lower nitya-baddha dreaming self if one again turns to Krishna consciousness."
Here again the theory of a "double one soul" which he denied earlier to be correct. We or a soul here in the mahat-tattva becomes again Krishna conscious. We remain in the material tabernacle. We are situated in our svarupa vigraha, spiritual body. This is called jivan-mukta. There is a soul here in the mahat-tattva and there was all the time a soul, the same (!?) in Goloka.
In the next line he confirms this same as true what he thinks a foolish faulty theory.
Gauragopala dasa: "the rebellious marginal living entity trapped in their selfishness can't realize…if they continue to choose to remain nitya-baddha…"
There is a soul in the mahat-tattva because the soul is "rebellious…can't realize…chooses to remain nitya baddha." That is not the soul in Goloka because this soul is according to Gauraopala dasa always unblemished. But these are descriptions only applicable to a soul.
Again his other theory when he copies over and writes "as soon as the (material) dream is over the seen (nitya baddha mundane conscoisness-surrogate) disappears. But the seer (nitya-siddha body) remains."
The seer is the liberated soul in Goloka who sees and enjoys the sense objects. There is no person, soul, witness, conscious subject in that place in the mahat-tattva in the surrogate in the material world.
It is a long distance operation from Goloka. The soul stationed in Goloka is enjoying sense gratification through its agency or extended senses (there is no soul in the agency in maya's world) in the mahat-tattva.
**Another impossibility he writes 2 paragraphs later: "the living entity is fresh and youthful forever…even if their awareness of reality is off dreaming."**
Now the soul‘s consciousness is "off," away from Goloka. No more loving service. The soul is enjoying matter. The soul in Goloka has no consciousness of Goloka and Krishna but is dreaming. In the dream going on here in the mahat-tattva we see this soul trying to be the Lord of all he surveys. So the soul in Goloka must be on a bed, horizontal. Gauragopala dasa may say this is a "foolish belief" but this is what he depicts: no consciousness of Krishna loka, but conscious of and enjoying the sense objects of the mahat-tattva (because consciousness can have only one object).
The soul is in Goloka. There is no spiritual substance as atma in maya's domain. The soul in Goloka is enjoying but the senses are out/off with the sense objects in the mahat-tattva through some extended nerve channel from Goloka to devi dhama.
**"One's nitya spiritual body is eternally in Goloka…nitya badda consciousness possesses a material body."**
Material bodies have souls not "consciousness." It is not that the soul of that consciousness is in Goloka.
Srila Prabhupada in Bg 2.20/22 purports: "Consciousness is the symptom of the soul…the soul is situated in the heart…it is the source of energy from the heart."
Consciousness is all over the body and the source of that consciousness is the soul in the heart. Not that this consciousness in the body comes from the soul in Goloka.
Then Srila Prabhupada writes in Bg 2.24 purport: "After liberation from matter, the atomic soul may prefer to remain as spiritual spark in the rays of Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the intelligent souls enter into the spiritual planets to associate with the Personality of Godhead."
Not that the soul was already in the spiritual planets, nor that the consciousness only leaves or is withdrawn to the soul in the spiritual planet.
In the Bhagavad Gita 2.12 Srila Prabhupada purports on a spirit soul, atma, present in the body. This soul doesn't dissolve and will not lose its individual existence. Nor we only think of individuality in the conditioned state.
Here again the "double but one soul fallacy," a fallacy according to Gauragopal dasa himself but here it is written again as true:
**"Some living entities have manifested as their inferior secondary baddha jiva state are send into matter."**
The souls in their bound soul state are send into matter: there is a soul going into matter. Not just some elongated connected nerve tube and sense but a spiritual spark. Then he again confirms: "many baddhajivas enter Maha Visnu's body or Brahman."
Gauragopala dasa quotes Srila Prabhupada to substantiate this "dream fall vada" but nowhere does Srila Prabhupada literary states the wordings and terminology of this "only the subconscious falls vada."
"A ‘lower subconscious self,' ‘secondary consciousness' falls a ‘nitya-siddha body' remains in Krishna loka." "A ‘characteristic or disposition bloops,' not the atma." Where are these words in the Vedabase? And it is rejected in the Vedanta sutra 1.1.1 and 4.4.11.
