Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, renowned for his spiritual teachings, focused extensively on selfless karma and devotion. He offered deep insights into the workings of the mind and the profound practice of devotion to Radha Krishna. Through his enlightening discourses, he continues to influence seekers worldwide, guiding them toward spiritual fulfillment and the path of divine love. His teachings on karma are particularly revered for their clarity and transformative impact on spiritual seekers.
The Divine Souls. In the last speeches, we learned about the consequence of actions, our own destiny, how is it governed by our past actions, and how our present actions will govern the future Destiny. We also learn that there are three main classes of actions: good, bad, and devotional. And those actions mainly govern the destiny of your own Planet collectively. The collective good, bad, and devotional actions of the souls, all the souls living on this Earth planet, they influence the destiny of the planet – we also learn that thing.
The topic for today is now the supreme power. There are only three powers: Soul, Maya, and God. No fourth power. We Are All Souls on this Earth. All living beings, wherever we see life, they are all souls. It might be vegetation, plant trees, whatever they are, they all live souls. Souls are uncountable.
This Cosmic expansion, this is all mayic expansion, and the supreme power, God. Maya is also Supreme, because it is endless. There’s no beginning and no end of this mayic phenomenon;time-wise and space-wise.There cannot be a beginning and end. Space-wise and time-wise, there was no beginning and there would be no end. This will go on and on and on, life after death and death after life – like that. Just like death and life of a human being, so is death and life of your planet, death and life of the Galaxy, and death and life of this whole universe. This is a cycle. The supreme power does not actually control the consequences. It simply ignites the mayic power and mayic power on its own evolves into this form of universe.
And it is being run according to its own good and bad nature, which we call satvik, rajas, tamas. Pious, selfish, evil. Pious is satvik, selfish is rajas, evil is tamas. And there are three more laws of nature: movement in the motion, change, and attraction.
According to these laws of nature, it is being run on its own but it’s controlled – not exactly controlled by God – you learned that our own karmas become our own destiny and even the destiny of your planet. Suppose there is a big disaster, a physical disaster. Who is going to suffer? Human beings, other beings. So why do they suffer? Because of their own destiny.
So what makes that physical disaster happen? People’s own karmas.People’s own karmas. they make their disaster happen or they have made that disaster happen because they had done those bad karmas in past and because of the past collective karmas, this physical disaster was supposed to happen.
So, mainly the consequence of karmas is either your physical bad destiny or collective bad destiny. So no one actually controls, only God just ignites, starts, or you can say, makes it possible to fructify your karmas. So you are responsible for any kind of personal or collective disaster. You see, your own karmas (cause) collective disaster, collective karmas, personal disaster, personal karmas.
God simply keeps the record of every being, whatever he is doing, whatever he is thinking. So he is called “Paramatma”. Parmatma keeps all the records of all the thoughts and actions and activities of every soul from uncountable lifetimes. And he keeps it ready at hand. That is the work of Paramatma, the part of supreme power.
So we see this world and our destiny is not actually governed by God. It is governed by our own actions, but it is simply ignited or the consequence is made possible with the help of God’s power. Because if God’s power does not help Maya, the whole Cosmos would come to a stand still because it is dead, lifeless mayic power.
Take for instance, you switch on your refrigerator and the refrigerator was damaged by someone. It won’t work. Electricity simply gave it life, but if your unit is wrong, defective, damaged, the electricity is not going to correct it. So similarly, God simply gives its power to make the whole phenomena run, that is all. He is not responsible for any good or any bad or any devotional. He simply gives power to make this whole thing run, that is all. And the whole thing is being run according to your own personal and collective karmas.
So now coming to the supreme power. God is supreme. He has many kinds of powers. (Examples of God’s powers as described in scriptures.) He has many powers, many kinds of powers, he has. (Gyan, Iksha, Kriya, Ahladhini, Anand.)These are the main powers.
Gyan: his perfect knowledge; hisperfect divine mind. Iksha: he has a will, he has a mind, he has a will. Kriya: action. Mind, will, action. We also have the same thing, we have mind, we have will, we have action. Mind will action – we also have. And mind, will, action, God also has. But our mind, will, and action they are part of mayic power because our mind is material. So our will is material, so our actions become material.
It can be a good material or bad material. Which means it can besatvikor tamasor rajas. Satvik means pious; good thoughts, good actions, devotional thoughts, devotional actions, but they are all satvik, within the control of maya. So soul has mayic mind, will, and action.
So soul’s mind, way, and action are very little, mind and understanding (are) very little. If I ask you what you did 10 days ago at that particular time, you will forget.“I don’t remember”, you say. Why, just 10 days ago?“Yes, I forgot.”Unless there was some particular event. This is our memory – we keep forgetting. Our understanding is so little. We cannot understand perfectly the images of our own thoughts, how they are coming, why they are coming, what is going to happen.
So our understanding is very little. And so are our actions – very limited. If you have to sit for 5 hours in one posture, “Oh it’s very difficult.” Five hours one posture sitting -very difficult. Any of our actions; you have to run 40 miles an hour “Oh it is impossible.”So see your actions… I mean as compared to the universe.
So our will, our actions, everything…our mind, is very limited and it is material. Just opposite of this, God is Divine. His everything is unlimited and of unlimited capacity and of unlimited power so his will is also. Unlimited power.His actions – unlimited, and his mind – unlimited. His everything – unlimited.
One more thing, because as I explained Maya has good and bad qualities, so our mind has good and bad qualities. But God is all good, so his actions are all good; you can say all divine. Because He is beyond good and bad so his will, his actions, his mind, his understanding, his intelligence, it is all divine, unlimited. So one of his actions is to make note (of) the thoughts and actions of every being in this universe.
Imagine the greatness, how great he would be. You see, for instance, in the atmosphere, say in this room, how many souls are in this room? Although they are not uncountable, they are uncountable for any scientist. In a glass of water, there are billions of souls, life factors, bacteria, lots of things in one glass of water. The atmosphere is all full of souls. Although they are not unlimited, they are unlimited for us because we don’t know.
So imagine uncountable worlds, uncountable galaxies, uncountable clusters of galaxies, no limit of this universe; and all the souls – from when did they start? When there was no time, they never started. From uncountable years, and he keeps this in front of his mind.
Suppose he wants to know about this particular soul who is now a worm: What is the record of his action? 100 billion, billion, billion lifetimes ago, at that particular time; he knows. He knows at hand. Just like you have a map in front of you and you see at a glance everything that is in that map – roughly. So like this, he knows every action of every soul all the time, and it is at hand. That great, he is. That’s why he’s called the Great. That’s why he is God.
Because God is beyond our imagination. That’s why he’s God. If we could imagine God, he wouldn’t be God. He would be within our understanding limit. Because he is beyond our understanding limit, for that reason, he’s God. So God is absolute; he is Supreme. His one little power (not the whole personality of God), this work of Paramatma (knowing the actions of all souls), is done by one power of God. Just a fraction of a power of his will; a fraction. Not the whole thing, just a fraction. And that fraction is called Paramatma.
So, how does supreme God know all these things? He has to stay, how could he know? So he stays with every soul, and souls are everywhere. So he is everywhere. Because every soul has a mind, and soul and mind are all together always. So soul, mind, and Paramatma, you can say all three live together. But Paramatma is one. One single Paramatma, one single God, a fraction of his power called Paramatma, and that power stays with every individual soul in this cosmos, in this whole of the universe. So that just keeps the record, and he always stays, never leaves. This is the function of that power, Paramatma.
Then there are some more powers of God. When we come to scriptures, say for instance, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he describes that Krishna, a supreme form of Godhead, or the Godhead, He has three main powers: jiva shakti, maya shakti, and chit shakti. Because supreme God covers everything, engulfs everything – everything is within God. If it’s not within God, it can be out of the range of God. So the range of God is absolute. Within the absolute range of God, all the souls and maya live. So God is supreme, so maya and souls are also a part of God. They cannot be apart; they are part of God because they live within God.
You see, suppose maya lives here, God lives here, then this is neither maya, and this is neither God. Why? Because there’s a demarcation.From here to here: maya, from here to here: God. No, maya is also unlimited, and God is supreme unlimited. So within God, this maya lives, and within maya, all the souls live. This is the situation. It means, within God, this maya lives, and within the maya range, all the souls live. Sosoul and maya, they both live within God. But they have their own personal character. So for that reason, Mahaprabhuji says that soul is also a power of God, and maya is also a power of God, and God has his own personal chit power.
So maya power, jiva power, and chit power. Maya power as I explained, is all material power, maya. Just like a thorn in a rose plant. A thorn is a useless thing in the rose plant. You like the rose, you don’t like the thorns. But thorns are in the rose plant. So something like this; it’s called the external potency of God’s personality, external potency. You can say, use a word, just like the thorn in a rose plant. And souls, they are neutral potency. Neutral means they can move to either side, towards maya or towards God, so they are neutral. They are in between. And again, maya is mindless, lifeless, and soul has a mind and life. And again, maya is pure maya, just maya, but soul is not pure maya. Soul, I mean all the beings, they have mind and initial soul. So soul is spiritual and mind is material. So it’s a combination of material and spiritual. This is soul. So it’s a very peculiar figure, soul. So all the souls collectively is called “soul power” of supreme God. And maya is the mayic(material) power of supreme God. So these two are powers of supreme God. One external, one neutral. And then he has personal power that is called chit shakti, personal power.
Sochit shakti, maya shakti, jiva shakti – three powers. Maya and jiva we know – jiva means soul – and chit shakti, his personal power. Chit shakti is all blissful. That is his personal form of God personality. So a part of chit is paramatma. A part of chit shakti is Paramatma, and that Paramatma lives with every soul. Paramatma is not a part of maya or any other thing; it is a part of supreme God’s personal chit power. So his personal chit power, you can say, that is supreme God. So supreme God is chit God. ChitBrahm, you can say. ChitBrahm – supreme God.And what is within chit Brahma?Sat-chit-ananda.Sat-chit-ananda.These three are main characters of God’s personal self. In his personal self, satmeans all the divine actions in the divine world.Chit (means) all the knowledge, and ananda(means) all the bliss. So the bliss of God, all the actions of God, all the activities, all the knowledge; so bliss, knowledge, activities is anand chit, sat. So sat-chit-ananda is the personal form of Godhead personality, and that is the supreme Godhead personality. The more detail I’ll explain from tomorrow. That’s all for today.
