God Is The Complete Whole - The Inexhaustible Absolute Truth
Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Absolute Truth is not a fragmented or formless energy, but the ultimate complete whole. Based on the profound Vedic aphorism oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ, we understand that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is perfectly complete, and everything emanating from Him is also complete. To achieve true peace, the living entity must understand their position as a minute part and parcel meant to serve this complete whole.
The Inexhaustible Balance
The arithmetic of the spiritual world differs from the material world. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the Supreme Lord has immense potencies, and even though He expands into innumerable universes and living entities, He never diminishes.
- Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the complete whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance. Therefore, to take shelter of the Supreme Lord is required.
- Purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavasisyate: "Because He is the complete whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance." Thus the Lord is called avyaya, inexhaustible.
- The reason the Lord uses these words param avyayam is that although He permeates everything by means of His transcendental energies, He remains eternally unchanged and the complete whole.
- Since the complete whole, or the Absolute Truth, is the source of everything, nothing is independent of Him. Everything exists within the body of the Absolute Truth.
Incomplete Realizations
To understand God only as a pervasive energy or a localized manifestation is to miss the full picture. Śrīla Prabhupāda clarifies that impersonal Brahman and Paramātmā are merely partial aspects of the complete whole, Bhagavān.
- The Complete Whole, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is the complete Personality of Godhead. Realization of impersonal Brahman or of Paramatma, the Supersoul, is incomplete realization of the Absolute Complete.
- Impersonal Brahman is incomplete realization of the absolute whole, and so also is the conception of Paramatma in the Twelfth Chapter.
- Neither of these partial realizations of the Complete Whole can help one realize ananda, or complete bliss. Without such realization of ananda, knowledge of the Absolute Truth is incomplete.
- The Complete Whole must contain everything both within and beyond our experience; otherwise He cannot be complete.
The Duty of the Part and Parcel
A part of the body, like a finger, has no independent value unless it serves the whole body. Similarly, Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that the individual soul can only find true satisfaction by serving the complete whole.
- Krsna consciousness movement means to train people to come to his original constitutional position. What is that? Every living entity is part and parcel of God. Therefore the duty of the part and parcel is to serve the whole.
- Self-realization is when you actually engage yourself in the service of the Lord. That is your self-realization. Because you are part and parcel, your duty is to serve the whole. If you think yourself, "I am whole," that is wrong conception.
- The Lord is the whole, and the devotee is the part or fractional part. That is the relationship between the Lord and the devotee.
- Neither the impersonalists nor the yogi can have real peace and satisfaction, but the devotee can become fully peaceful and satisfied because of his association with the complete whole.
Dovetailing All Activities
Materialistic activities, no matter how grand they appear, are ultimately flawed if they lack a connection to the Supreme. Śrīla Prabhupāda asserts that all societal efforts must be centered around the complete whole to be truly successful.
- All services in this world - whether social, political, communal, international or even interplanetary - will remain incomplete until they are dovetailed with the Complete Whole.
- If in this human life of full consciousness the living entity does not realize his completeness in relation to the Complete Whole, he loses the chance to realize his completeness and is again put into the evolutionary cycle by the law of material nature.
- All of these taken completely form the complete whole, and the complete whole is called the Supreme Absolute Truth.
- Every part and parcel of the Complete Whole is endowed with some particular energy to act according to the Lord's will.
Conclusion
To perceive the Absolute Truth as a formless void is to deny His absolute completeness. Śrīla Prabhupāda concludes that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the complete whole, possessing perfect form, intelligence, and endless spiritual potencies. Because the material universes and all living entities emanate from Him, nothing can exist independently of His supreme arrangement. The conditioned soul suffers only when falsely attempting to act as an independent whole, forgetting their natural, subordinate position. By understanding the profound science of oṁ pūrṇam, a sincere living entity abandons artificial material endeavors and happily dovetails their entire existence in the loving service of Bhagavān, thereby realizing their own completeness in connection with the complete whole.
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Śrīla Prabhupāda lives within his instructions. This article is a summary of the profound truths found in the Vaniquotes category God Is The Complete Whole. We invite you to visit this link to study the complete compilation and experience Śrīla Prabhupāda's teachings in their direct, verbatim form.