The Multifarious Display of God's Potencies
Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is never inactive; He is the dynamic source of all energies. By studying his instructions, we can understand the three principal categories of His potencies, how they operate without His direct physical endeavor, how His full power is present in His holy name, and the vast manifestations of His expansions and all-pervasive energies.
The Three Principal Energies
The Absolute Truth is the reservoir of unlimited energies. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that to understand the vastness of the Lord's power, these multifarious energies are broadly classified into three main categories: the internal spiritual energy, the external material energy, and the marginal living entities.
- The almighty Personality of Godhead has three potencies - internal, external and marginal.
- He (Krsna) is the Lord of the three principal potencies, namely cit-sakti, maya-sakti and tatastha-sakti, and He is the complete master of six kinds of fortune - wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation.
- The primary potencies of the Absolute Truth are mentioned to be three: internal, external and marginal.
- Out of many potencies of the Omnipotent, there are three features of His internal potency - namely samvit, sandhini and hladini.
Effortless Supreme Will
Because the Lord is supremely complete, He does not have to toil like a conditioned soul. Śrīla Prabhupāda highlights that the Lord simply wills an action, and His perfect, flawless potencies immediately execute the task without Him directly intervening in the material world.
- He (God) has nothing to do personally, for since His potencies are perfect, everything is immediately done by His will.
- The Lord's potencies are so numerous that everything is nicely done. Therefore, He is naturally still and is not directly the doer of anything in this material world.
- Everything is a manifestation of His (Krsna) potency as part and parcel. The potency and the potent are nondifferent, so the conception of duality is at once mitigated by attainment of perfect knowledge.
- In the Svetasvatara Upanisad (6.8) it is clearly said, parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate: (CC Madhya 13.65, purport) "The Absolute Truth has multipotencies."
The Potency of the Holy Name
In the absolute realm, there is no difference between the person and His name. Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that out of His supreme mercy, Kṛṣṇa has invested all of His transcendental potencies into His holy names, making the chanting process non-different from direct association with God.
- All potencies are invested in the holy vibration of the holy name of the Lord. There is no doubt that the holy name of the Lord, or omkara, is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself.
- Caitanya Mahaprabhu says that the holy name, or omkara, the transcendental representation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has all the potencies of the Personality of Godhead.
- Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in His Siksastaka, declares clearly that the holy name of the Lord has all the potencies of the Lord and that He has endowed His innumerable names with the same potency.
- By chanting the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, consisting of names of the Supreme Lord, we find that the name has all the potencies of the person. The Lord's activities are many, and according to His activities He has many names.
The Bewilderment of the Atheists
The inconceivable operations of the Lord's potencies often baffle the mundane mind. Śrīla Prabhupāda observes that demons and atheists attribute the complex workings of the universe to blind chance or accident, unable to accept that the Supreme Lord is orchestrating everything through His divine energies.
- Demons cannot understand that God, by His multifarious potencies, can work so wonderfully that He can be present everywhere and still remain in His eternal abode, Goloka Vrndavana.
- The demons do not understand the potency of the Lord, when wonderful things are done, the demons think that they are accidental.
- Param bhavam ajanantah: fools, rascals and demons cannot realize the supreme potency of the Lord, but He can do anything and everything; indeed, He can do whatever He likes.
- The most wonderful puzzle for the mundane wranglers is that while they remain calculating the length and breadth of the unlimited potency of the Supreme Person, His faithful devotees are set free from the bondage of material encagement.
The Immeasurable Nature
The human brain is severely limited by material conditioning and cannot comprehend the infinite. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Lord’s potencies are completely inconceivable and immeasurable, and therefore the only way to understand them is through submissive devotion rather than mathematical calculation.
- A common brain in the conditioned state cannot conceive of how He (the Supreme Personality of Godhead) is the master of both manifest and potential powers, and how contradictory potencies can abide in Him.
- All this was possible by the unlimited power of the Lord, and therefore the Lord is described here as aprameya, for not even the best human brain can estimate His powers and potencies by mathematical calculation.
- Since Arjuna was unable to estimate the length and breadth of the potency of the Lord, who else would be able to do so? One may only indulge in miscalculation like the frog-philosopher.
- God's qualities are always inconceivable, and all processes of self-realization inquire into the potencies, energies and qualities of the SP of Godhead. However, the devotees of the Lord immediately accept the inconceivable position of the Lord.
Expansions and Incarnations
The Supreme Lord expands into innumerable forms to execute His cosmic will and enjoy transcendental pastimes. Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies that while Kṛṣṇa is the original source, all His direct plenary expansions possess the exact same full potency, whereas other incarnations may exhibit only a specific percentage of His power.
- All the plenary expansions of the Personality of Godhead are equally potent, as confirmed in the Brahma-samhita (BS 5.38): The Lord expands Himself as the flames of a fire expand one after another.
- Sadaisvarya-purna. Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is always full in all potencies, regardless of whether He is present in this form or that. His potencies are always full.
- Incarnations exhibit only a certain percentage of the potencies of Godhead; the complete Godhead is Krsna Himself, who appeared as the eighth son of Devaki.
- Actually, the Lord's birth is never ordinary. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is already situated within the core of everyone's heart as antaryami, the Supersoul. Thus because He was present in full potency in Devaki's heart, He was also able to appear outside her body.
The All-Pervasive Presence
Although the Supreme Lord eternally resides in His spiritual abode, He is never absent from His creation. Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that the Lord is all-pervasive specifically through His divine potencies, residing within every atom and within the heart of every living entity as the Supersoul.
- Isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese "rjuna tisthati: (BG 18.61) He (the Supreme Personality of Godhead) is also present within the heart of all living entities. This is His all-pervasive potency.
- He (God) is aloof from all these interactions of the external and marginal potencies. In the Bhagavad-gita (BG 9.4) it is confirmed that by His potencies alone He is present everywhere and anywhere.
- Since the Lord is all-pervasive, He exists in everything, and everything exists in Him. Therefore even worship of the Lord's weapons or ornaments has the same potency as worship of the Lord.
- Since the Lord's potency is distributed everywhere, a pure soul, or devotee of the Lord, can see everything in relationship with the Lord, and therefore he has no affection for the outer coverings.
The Illusory Material Energy
The material world is governed by a specific energy designed to bewilder those who wish to live independently of God. Śrīla Prabhupāda points out that this external energy, māyā, is also a divine potency of the Lord, acting to test the conditioned souls and keep them in illusion until they surrender.
- In the Vedas it is said that the potencies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are called by different names, such as yogamaya and mahamaya. Ultimately, however, the Lord's potency is one, exactly as electric potency is one although it can act both to cool and to heat.
- A living being forgets his constitutional position and wants to become either a lord or a mendicant, but such illusions are arrangements of Maya, the Lord's illusory potency.
- In the material world, this (God's) potency, working as mahamaya, acts upon the conditioned souls to deprive them more and more of devotional service.
- As stated in the Vedas, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the source of material energy. Consequently He is sometimes called maya-maya, or the Supreme person, who can create His pastimes through His potency known as the material energy.
Conclusion
Śrīla Prabhupāda thoroughly demystifies the nature of the Absolute Truth by describing the operation of His multifarious potencies. God is not a stagnant entity, but the supreme energetic center of all existence, governing everything through His internal (cit-śakti), external (māyā-śakti), and marginal (taṭastha-śakti) energies. Because these potencies act perfectly according to His divine will, the Supreme Lord never has to exert personal physical effort to maintain the cosmic manifestation; He remains aloof, enjoying His eternal pastimes. Furthermore, He exhibits His absolute power by expanding into innumerable equally potent forms and existing everywhere simultaneously as the Supersoul. Unfortunate atheists and mental speculators remain bewildered by these inconceivable energies, attempting to explain the complexities of the universe or the illusions of māyā through mundane calculation. In stark contrast, the faithful devotees embrace the absolute nature of the Lord and recognize that He has invested His complete, unlimited potency into the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, offering the most direct and potent method to cross over the ocean of material ignorance and attain His eternal association.
Dive Deeper into Śrīla Prabhupāda's Vani
Śrīla Prabhupāda lives within his instructions. This article is a summary of the profound truths found in the Vaniquotes category God's Potencies. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.