God Is The Supreme Enjoyer - The Ultimate Beneficiary of All
Śrīla Prabhupāda teaches that everyone in the material world is madly seeking enjoyment, yet lasting satisfaction remains elusive. This frustration occurs because we have forgotten our actual constitutional position. The Vedic literatures clearly declare that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the original puruṣa, the supreme enjoyer, and all other living entities are meant to assist in His divine enjoyment.
The Ultimate Puruṣa
In Vedic terminology, the word puruṣa refers to the male, the controller, and the enjoyer. Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasizes that while living entities may temporarily play the part of enjoyers, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the only actual, eternal puruṣa.
- The Lord is purusa, or the supreme enjoyer. Not only is He the enjoyer when He appears as a manifested incarnation, but He is the enjoyer since time immemorial, from the very beginning, and eternally.
- The Lord is parama-purusa, the supreme form. He is everlastingly the supreme enjoyer.
- Visnu is the supreme enjoyer of everything that be, and thus none of us, however great we may be, can be the enjoyer of the universe and its paraphernalia.
- Here it is clearly stated that the supreme enjoyer is the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His different manifestations and plenary expansions as Narayana, Vasudeva, and so on.
The Peace Formula
Global and personal peace cannot be achieved through political arrangements or material accumulation. Śrīla Prabhupāda constantly preached that true tranquility is found only when human society accepts the peace formula given by Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā.
- God is the supreme proprietor, the supreme enjoyer, and He is the supreme friend. That is the statement of the Bhagavad-gita.
- In the Bhagavad-gita the Lord says that He is the supreme enjoyer, the supreme proprietor of everything and anything within this creation, and the supreme friend of everyone. When one knows these things perfectly, he is always satisfied.
- Simply by understanding these three facts that the Supreme, Visnu, is the proprietor of the entire creation, that He is the best well-wishing friend of all living entities, and that He is the supreme enjoyer of everything one becomes peaceful and happy.
- A preacher should personally understand these truths that God is the supreme enjoyer, He is the proprietor of everything, and that He is the best well-wisher and preach them to everyone. Then there will be peace and tranquillity all over the world.
The Position of the Living Entities
Because God is the supreme enjoyer, it logically follows that the living entities are the enjoyed. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that our eternal identity is not to act as independent masters, but to serve and assist the Lord.
- Factually we are related to the Supreme Lord in service. The Supreme Lord is the supreme enjoyer, and we living entities are His servitors. We are created for His enjoyment.
- Lord Visnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is clearly described in this passage. He is the supreme enjoyer, and all others are working as His servants.
- The Lord is the supreme enjoyer, and the living entities are meant to assist the Lord in His enjoyment and thus participate in the transcendental enjoyment of everyone.
- This is the natural position of the Lord as the proprietor and the supreme enjoyer, and the natural position of the living being is to surrender unto Him.
Transcendent and Spiritual Enjoyment
The spiritual world is not an empty void devoid of pleasure; it is the realm of original, pure enjoyment. Śrīla Prabhupāda notes that the activities of the spiritual sky are full of variegatedness, all centered entirely around the satisfaction of the Supreme Lord.
- Although the Lord is not of the material world, He is much more than simply a negation of material variegatedness. He is positively the supreme enjoyer of spiritual variegatedness, of which Laksmi, the internal potency, is the fountainhead.
- In the spiritual sky there are the very same varieties of pleasure as in the material world, but they are all meant for the Lord. There the Lord alone is the supreme enjoyer and beneficiary, and all others are enjoyed by the Lord.
- In the spiritual world, the Lord is the sublime enjoyer of everything, and the living entities there are all engaged in His transcendental loving service without any contamination of the modes of material nature.
- This endless enjoyment of the yogis is because their enjoyment is in relation to the supreme enjoyer, Sri Krsna. Bhagavan Sri Krsna is the real enjoyer, and Bhagavad-gita confirms this.
Conclusion
The fundamental ignorance of material existence is the tiny living entity's attempt to artificially act as the supreme master and enjoyer of nature. Śrīla Prabhupāda repeatedly clarifies that as long as we try to usurp the position of the supreme enjoyer, we will only find frustration and anxiety. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa, is the absolute proprietor and the original puruṣa. All living entities are constitutionally female (prakṛti), meaning they are designed to be enjoyed by and to render service to the Lord. When the conditioned soul abandons this false ambition to enjoy independently and instead dovetails their energy into assisting the supreme enjoyer, they immediately taste the highest transcendental bliss. By applying this simple peace formula from the Bhagavad-gītā, human society can transform the present struggle for existence into an eternal, joyous life of spiritual variegatedness and pure devotion.
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