Vedic knowledge is not imparted by such defective living entities. It was imparted unto the heart of Brahmā, the first created living being, and Brahmā in his turn disseminated this knowledge to his sons and disciples, as he originally received it from the Lord. The Lord is pūrṇam, all-perfect, and there is no possibility of His becoming subjected to the laws of material nature. One should therefore be intelligent enough to know that the Lord is the only proprietor of everything in the universe and that He is the original creator, the creator of Brahmā. In the Eleventh Chapter the Lord is addressed as prapitāmaha (BG 11.39) because Brahmā is addressed as pitāmaha, the grandfather, and He is the creator of the grandfather. So no one should claim to be the proprietor of anything; one should accept only things which are set aside for him by the Lord as his quota for his maintenance.
ISO Invocation om purnam adah purnam idam... cited (Bks)
Expressions researched:
"Iso invocation"
|"Isopanisad, invocation"
|"Sri Isopanisad, invocation"
|"The Complete Whole, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is the complete Personality of Godhead"
|"The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete"
|"Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself"
|"purnam"
Bhagavad-gita As It Is
BG Preface and Introduction
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 2
The Vedas say that He is so complete that even though the whole complete identity emanates from Him, He still remains the same complete whole (pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation)).
The whole material or even the spiritual creation is a manifestation of the energy of the Lord, just as the light and heat of a fire are different manifestations of the fire's energy. The Lord therefore exists in His impersonal form by such expansion of energy, and the complete creation rests on His impersonal feature. Nonetheless He keeps Himself distinct from such creation as the pūrṇam (or complete), and so no one should wrongly think that His personal feature is not existent due to His impersonal unlimited expansions.
Everything rests on the potency of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and still the Lord is different from and transcendental to all such identities. In the Vedic Puruṣa-sūkta of the Ṛg mantra, this is also confirmed. This philosophical truth of simultaneous oneness and difference was propounded by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and it is known as acintya-bhedābheda-tattva. Brahmā, Nārada and all others are simultaneously one with the Lord and different from the Supreme Lord. We are all one with Him, just as the gold ornaments are one in quality with the stock gold, but the individual gold ornament is never equal in quantity with the stock gold. The stock gold is never exhausted even if there are innumerable ornaments emanating from the stock because the stock is pūrṇam, complete; even if pūrṇam is deducted from the pūrṇam, still the supreme pūrṇam remains the same pūrṇam. This fact is inconceivable to our present imperfect senses. Lord Caitanya therefore defined His theory of philosophy as acintya (inconceivable), and as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā as well as in the Bhāgavatam, Lord Caitanya's theory of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva is the perfect philosophy of the Absolute Truth.
SB Canto 4
The flowing rivers supplied all kinds of tastes—sweet, pungent, sour, etc.—and very big trees supplied fruit and honey in abundance. The cows, having eaten sufficient green grass, supplied profuse quantities of milk, curd, clarified butter and similar other necessities.
If rivers are not polluted and are allowed to flow in their own way, or sometimes allowed to flood the land, the land will become very fertile and able to produce all kinds of vegetables, trees and plants. The word rasa means "taste." Actually all rasas are tastes within the earth, and as soon as seeds are sown in the ground, various trees sprout up to satisfy our different tastes. For instance, sugarcane provides its juices to satisfy our taste for sweetness, and oranges provide their juices to satisfy our taste for a mixture of the sour and the sweet. Similarly, there are pineapples and other fruits. At the same time, there are chilies to satisfy our taste for pungency. Although the earth's ground is the same, different tastes arise due to different kinds of seeds. As Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā (7.10), bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām: "I am the original seed of all existences." Therefore all arrangements are there. And as stated in Īśopaniṣad: pūrṇam idam (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation). Complete arrangements for the production of all the necessities of life are made by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. People should therefore learn how to satisfy the yajña-puruṣa, Lord Viṣṇu. Indeed, the living entity's prime business is to satisfy the Lord because the living entity is part and parcel of the Lord. Thus the whole system is so arranged that the living entity must do his duty as he is constitutionally made. Without doing so, all living entities must suffer. That is the law of nature.
My Lord, due to Your illusory energy, all living beings in this material world have forgotten their real constitutional position, and out of ignorance they are always desirous of material happiness in the form of society, friendship and love. Therefore, please do not ask me to take some material benefits from You, but as a father, not waiting for the son's demand, does everything for the benefit of the son, please bestow upon me whatever You think best for me.
It is the duty of the son to depend upon his father without asking anything from him. The good son has faith that the father knows best how to benefit him. Similarly, a pure devotee does not ask anything from the Lord for material benefit. Nor does he ask anything for spiritual benefit. The pure devotee is fully surrendered unto the lotus feet of the Lord, and the Lord takes charge of him, as stated in Bhagavad-gītā (18.66): ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi. The father knows the necessities of the son and supplies them, and the Supreme Lord knows the necessities of the living entities and supplies them sumptuously. Therefore the Īśopaniṣad states that everything in this material world is complete (pūrṇam idam (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation)). The difficulty is that due to forgetfulness the living entities create unnecessary demands and entangle themselves in material activities. The result is that there is no end to material activities, life after life.
The devotees enjoy the Lord's beauty because it is a collection of all kinds of beauties. Therefore the word sarva-saundarya-saṅgraham is used. No one can say that the body of the Lord is wanting in beautiful parts. It is completely pūrṇam. Everything is complete: God's creation, God's beauty and God's bodily features. All these are so complete that all one's desires can become fully satisfied when one sees the beauty of the Lord.
SB Canto 6
(She should then pray to the Lord as follows.) My dear Lord, You are full in all opulences, but I do not beg You for opulence. I simply offer my respectful obeisances unto You. You are the husband and master of Lakṣmīdevī, the goddess of fortune, who has all opulences. Therefore You are the master of all mystic yoga. I simply offer my obeisances unto You.
A devotee knows how to appreciate the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
- oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ
- pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
- pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
- pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
- (Īśo Invocation)
"The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. 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. Whatever a devotee needs will be supplied by the complete Supreme Personality of Godhead (teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham (BG 9.22)). Therefore a pure devotee will not ask anything from the Lord. He simply offers the Lord his respectful obeisances, and the Lord is prepared to accept whatever the devotee can secure to worship Him, even patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26)-a leaf, flower, fruit or water. There is no need to artificially exert oneself. It is better to be plain and simple and with respectful obeisances offer to the Lord whatever one can secure. The Lord is completely able to bless the devotee with all opulences.
SB Canto 7
Both God and the living entity are fully conscious. As living entities, we are conscious of our bodily existence. Similarly, the Lord is conscious of the gigantic cosmic manifestation. This is confirmed in the Vedas. Yasmin dyauḥ pṛthivī cāntarīkṣam. Vijñātāram adhikena vijānīyāt. Ekam evādvitīyam. Ātma-jyotiḥ samrāḍ ihovāca. Sa imān lokān asṛjata. Satyaṁ jñānam anantam. Asaṅgo hy ayaṁ puruṣaḥ. pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation). All these Vedic injunctions prove that both the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the minute soul are individual. One is great, and the other is small, but both of them are the cause of all causes—the corporally limited and the universally unlimited.
SB Canto 8
My Lord, You are the cause of all causes, but You Yourself have no cause. Therefore You are the wonderful cause of everything. I offer my respectful obeisances unto You, who are the shelter of the Vedic knowledge contained in the śāstras like the Pañcarātras and Vedānta-sūtra, which are Your representations, and who are the source of the paramparā system. Because it is You who can give liberation, You are the only shelter for all transcendentalists. Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto You.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is described herein as the wonderful cause. He is wonderful in the sense that although there may be unlimited emanations from the Supreme Personality of Godhead (janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1)), He always remains complete (pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation)). In our experience in the material world, if we have a bank balance of one million dollars, as we withdraw money from the bank the balance gradually diminishes until it becomes nil. However, the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, is so complete that although innumerable Personalities of Godhead expand from Him, He remains the same Supreme Personality of Godhead. Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate. Therefore He is the wonderful cause. Govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi **.
- īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ
- sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
- anādir ādir govindaḥ
- sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam
"Kṛṣṇa, who is known as Govinda, is the supreme controller. He has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin, for He is the prime cause of all causes." (Bs. 5.1)
The manifest, the unmanifest, false ego and the beginning, maintenance and annihilation of this cosmic manifestation all come from You, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But because You are the Absolute Truth, the supreme absolute spirit soul, the Supreme Brahman, such changes as birth, death and sustenance do not exist in You.
According to the Vedic mantras, yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante: everything is an emanation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As stated by the Lord Himself in Bhagavad-gītā (7.4):
- bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ
- khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca
- ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me
- bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā
"Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—all together these eight comprise My separated material energies." In other words, the ingredients of the cosmic manifestation also consist of the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This does not mean, however, that because the ingredients come from Him, He is no longer complete. pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate: (Īśo Invocation) "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. Unless we accept the Absolute Truth as acintya-bhedābheda, simultaneously one and different, we cannot have a clear conception of the Absolute Truth. The Lord is the root of everything. Aham ādir hi devānām: (Bg 10.2) He is the original cause of all the devas, or demigods. Ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavaḥ: (BG 10.8) everything emanates from Him. In all cases—nominative, objective, positive, negative and so on—whatever we may conceive of in this entire cosmic manifestation is in fact the Supreme Lord. For Him there are no such distinctions as "this is mine, and this belongs to someone else," because He is everything. He is therefore called avyaya—changeless and inexhaustible. Because the Supreme Lord is avyaya, He is the Absolute Truth, the fully spiritual Supreme Brahman.
SB Canto 10.1 to 10.13
By His Vāsudeva feature, Kṛṣṇa simultaneously expanded Himself into the exact number of missing cowherd boys and calves, with their exact bodily features, their particular types of hands, legs and other limbs, their sticks, bugles and flutes, their lunch bags, their particular types of dress and ornaments placed in various ways, their names, ages and forms, and their special activities and characteristics. By expanding Himself in this way, beautiful Kṛṣṇa proved the statement samagra-jagad viṣṇumayam: "Lord Viṣṇu is all-pervading."
As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.33):
- advaitam acyutam anādim ananta-rūpam
- ādyaṁ purāṇa-puruṣaṁ nava-yauvanaṁ ca
Kṛṣṇa, paraṁ brahma, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is ādyam, the beginning of everything; He is ādi-puruṣam, the ever-youthful original person. He can expand Himself in more forms than one can imagine, yet He does not fall down from His original form as Kṛṣṇa; therefore He is called Acyuta. This is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Sarvaṁ viṣṇumayaṁ jagat. Sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. Kṛṣṇa thus proved that He is everything, that He can become everything, but that still He is personally different from everything (mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni na cāhaṁ teṣv avasthitaḥ (BG 9.4)). This is Kṛṣṇa, who is understood by acintya-bhedābheda-tattva philosophy. pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate: (Īśo Invocation) Kṛṣṇa is always complete, and although He can create millions of universes, all of them full in all opulences, He remains as opulent as ever, without any change (advaitam). This is explained by different Vaiṣṇava ācāryas through philosophies such as viśuddhādvaita, viśiṣṭādvaita and dvaitādvaita. Therefore one must learn about Kṛṣṇa from the ācāryas. Ācāryavān puruṣo veda: one who follows the path of the ācāryas knows things as they are. Such a person can know Kṛṣṇa as He is, at least to some extent, and as soon as one understands Kṛṣṇa (janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ (BG 4.9)), one is liberated from material bondage (tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so 'rjuna).
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Adi-lila
The word "aṅga" indeed refers to plenary portions. Such manifestations should never be considered products of material nature, for they are all transcendental, full of knowledge and full of bliss.
In the material world, if a fragment is taken from an original object, the original object is reduced by the removal of that fragment. But the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not at all affected by the actions of māyā. The Īśopaniṣad says:
- oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ
- pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
- pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
- pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
"The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. 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." (Śrī Īśopaniṣad, Invocation)
There is no such rule as cause and effect outside of the material world. Therefore the understanding of cause and effect cannot approach the full, transcendental, complete expansions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Vedic literature proves this:
- oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
- pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
- (Īśo Invocation)
"The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the complete whole is also complete by itself. Because He is the complete whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance." (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 5.1) It is most apparent that nondevotees violate the rules and regulations of devotional service to equate the whole cosmic manifestation, which is the external feature of Viṣṇu, with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the controller of māyā, or with His quadruple expansions. Equating māyā with spirit, or māyā with the Lord, is a sign of atheism. The cosmic creation, which manifests life in forms from Brahmā to the ant, is the external feature of the Supreme Lord.
In the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (5.1.1) it is said, pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate. This indicates that the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is spiritual, for even though He expands in many ways, He remains the same. In the Bhagavad-gītā (10.8) the Lord says, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: "I am the origin of all. Everything emanates from Me." Māyāvādī philosophers materialistically think that if the Supreme Truth expands Himself in everything, He must lose His original form. Thus they think that there cannot be any form other than the expansive gigantic body of the Lord. But the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad confirms, pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate: "Although He expands in many ways, He keeps His original personality. His original spiritual body remains as it is." Similarly, elsewhere it is stated, vicitra-śaktiḥ puruṣaḥ purāṇaḥ: "The Supreme Personality of Godhead, the original person (puruṣa), has multifarious energies." And the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad declares, sa vṛkṣa-kālākṛtibhiḥ paro ’nyo yasmāt prapañcaḥ parivartate ’yaṁ dharmāvahaṁ pāpanudaṁ bhageśam: "He is the origin of material creation, and it is due to Him only that everything changes. He is the protector of religion and annihilator of all sinful activities. He is the master of all opulences." (Śvet. Up. 6.6) Vedāham etaṁ puruṣaṁ mahāntam āditya-varṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt: "Now I understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be the greatest of the great. He is effulgent like the sun and is beyond this material world." (Śvet. Up. 3.8) Patiṁ patīnāṁ paramaṁ parastāt: "He is the master of all masters, the superior of all superiors." (Śvet. Up. 6.7) Mahān prabhur vai puruṣaḥ: "He is the supreme master and supreme person." (Śvet. Up. 3.12) Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate: "We can understand His opulences in different ways." (Śvet. Up. 6.8 (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport)) Similarly, in the Ṛg Veda it is stated, tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padaṁ sadā paśyanti sūrayaḥ: "Viṣṇu is the Supreme, and those who are actually learned think only of His lotus feet." In the Praśna Upaniṣad (6.3) it is said, sa īkṣāṁ cakre: "He glanced over the material creation." In the Aitareya Upaniṣad (1.1.1–2) it is said, sa aikṣata—"He glanced over the material creation"—and sa imāl lokān asṛjata—"He created this entire material world."
In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad there is the following mantra: aitad-ātmyam idaṁ sarvam. This mantra indicates without a doubt that the entire world is Brahman. The Absolute Truth has inconceivable energies, as confirmed in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport)), and the entire cosmic manifestation is evidence of these different energies of the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord is a fact, and therefore whatever is created by the Supreme Lord is also factual. Everything is true and complete (pūrṇam), but the original pūrṇam, the complete Absolute Truth, always remains the same. Pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya (Īśo Invocation). The Absolute Truth is so perfect that although innumerable energies emanate from Him and manifest creations which appear to be different from Him, He nevertheless maintains His personality. He never deteriorates under any circumstances.
How the Supreme Personality of Godhead remains as He is, never changing, is explained in the Īśopaniṣad: pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation). God is complete. Even if a complete manifestation is taken away from Him, He continues to be complete. The material creation is manifested by the energy of the Lord, but He is still the same person. His form, entourage, qualities and so on never deteriorate. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, in his Paramātma-sandarbha, comments regarding the vivarta-vāda as follows: “Under the spell of vivarta-vāda one imagines the separate entities, namely the cosmic manifestation and the living entities, to be one with Brahman. This is due to complete ignorance regarding the actual fact. The Absolute Truth, or Para-brahman, is always one and always the same.
In the Upaniṣads it is said:
- oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
- pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
- (Īśo Invocation)
This verse, which is mentioned in the Īśopaniṣad, Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad and many other Upaniṣads, indicates that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is full in six opulences. His position is unique, for He possesses all riches, strength, influence, beauty, knowledge and renunciation. Brahman means the greatest, but the Supreme Personality of Godhead is greater than the greatest, just as the sun globe is greater than the sunshine, which is all-pervading in the universe. Although the sunshine that spreads all over the universes appears very great to the less knowledgeable, greater than the sunshine is the sun itself, and greater than the sun is the sun-god. Similarly, impersonal Brahman is not the greatest, although it appears to be so. Impersonal Brahman is only the bodily effulgence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the transcendental form of the Lord is greater than both the impersonal Brahman and localized Paramātmā. Therefore whenever the word "Brahman" is used in the Vedic literature, it is understood to refer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
CC Madhya-lila
Although Śrī Gopāla ate everything offered, still, by the touch of His transcendental hand, everything remained as before.
The atheists cannot understand how the Supreme Personality of Godhead, appearing in the form of the Deity, can eat all the food offered by His devotees. In the Bhagavad-gītā (9.26) Kṛṣṇa says:
- patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati
- tad ahaṁ bhakty-upahṛtam aśnāmi prayatātmanaḥ
"If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I will accept it." The Lord is pūrṇa, complete, and therefore He eats everything offered by His devotees. However, by the touch of His transcendental hand, all the food remains exactly as before. It is the quality that is changed. Before the food was offered, it was something else, but after it is offered the food acquires a transcendental quality. Because the Lord is pūrṇa, He remains the same even after eating. Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate (Īśo Invocation). The food offered to Kṛṣṇa is qualitatively as good as Kṛṣṇa; just as Kṛṣṇa is avyaya, indestructible, the food eaten by Kṛṣṇa, being identical with Him, remains as before.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Renunciation Through Wisdom
One should avoid making the mistake of thinking that because Brahman, the Supreme Absolute Truth, pervades the entire cosmic manifestation, therefore He cannot possess a definitive form or personality. The heat radiating from a fire spreads in all directions, yet the fire remains unchanged. Similarly, the sun has been emanating light and heat since time immemorial, yet it has not lost any of its potency. And the sun possesses but a minuscule fraction of the Supreme Lord's inexhaustible potency. So what question is there of the Lord's potency being either transformed or decreased? The Lord's energies, like a fire's heat and light, spread everywhere, yet His energies can never diminish at any time. Thus in the Bhagavad-gītā He describes Himself as param avyayam, inexhaustible, the supreme energetic principle. The Vedas describe Him in the following way:
- pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
- pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate
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. (Īśopaniṣad, Invocation)
We should understand that those passages in the Gītā which describe Para-brahman as akṣara ("indestructible") are references to Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Controller Godhead. Not once is Lord Kṛṣṇa equated with the kṣara, the conditioned jīvas. Not only big philosophers like Dr. Radhakrishnan, but even mighty demigods like Lord Brahmā and Lord Indra are in the category of kṣara. The Lord maintains the entire cosmic manifestation merely by His separated energy. Just as fire, though situated in one place, spreads its light and heat in all directions, so the unborn Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa, while maintaining His full personality, eternality, and imperishability, expands Himself into countless Viṣṇu forms, jīvas, and internal and external potencies. Expanding Himself in this way never diminishes or in any way affects His status as the Absolute Whole. As the Īśopaniṣad, Invocation declares, pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate:
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.
The Lord is the eternal Supreme Person, and therefore His name, form, qualities, pastimes, and so on are all eternal. The Sanskrit word puruṣa means "enjoyer." An enjoyer can never be a formless, impersonal, impotent being. Certainly Lord Kṛṣṇa is without material qualities, yet He is the enjoyer and possessor of all spiritual qualities.
Sri Isopanisad
The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. 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.
The Complete Whole, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is the complete Personality of Godhead. Realization of impersonal Brahman or of Paramātmā, the Supersoul, is incomplete realization of the Absolute Complete. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1). Realization of impersonal Brahman is realization of His sat feature, or His aspect of eternity, and Paramātmā realization is realization of His sat and cit features, His aspects of eternity and knowledge. But realization of the Personality of Godhead is realization of all the transcendental features—sat, cit and ānanda, bliss. When one realizes the Supreme Person, he realizes these aspects of the Absolute Truth in their completeness. Vigraha means "form." Thus the Complete Whole is not formless. If He were formless, or if He were less than His creation in any other way, He could not be complete. The Complete Whole must contain everything both within and beyond our experience; otherwise He cannot be complete.
The Complete Whole, the Personality of Godhead, has immense potencies, all of which are as complete as He is. Thus this phenomenal world is also complete in itself. The twenty-four elements of which this material universe is a temporary manifestation are arranged to produce everything necessary for the maintenance and subsistence of this universe. No other unit in the universe need make an extraneous effort to try to maintain the universe. The universe functions on its own time scale, which is fixed by the energy of the Complete Whole, and when that schedule is completed, this temporary manifestation will be annihilated by the complete arrangement of the Complete Whole.
All facilities are given to the small complete units (namely the living beings) to enable them to realize the Complete Whole. All forms of incompleteness are experienced due to incomplete knowledge of the Complete Whole. The human form of life is a complete manifestation of the consciousness of the living being, and it is obtained after evolving through 8,400,000 species of life in the cycle of birth and death. 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.
Because we do not know that there is a complete arrangement in nature for our maintenance, we make efforts to utilize the resources of nature to create a so-called complete life of sense enjoyment. Because the living entity cannot enjoy the life of the senses without being dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the misleading life of sense enjoyment is illusion. The hand of a body is a complete unit only as long as it is attached to the complete body. When the hand is severed from the body, it may appear like a hand, but it actually has none of the potencies of a hand. Similarly, living beings are part and parcel of the Complete Whole, and if they are severed from the Complete Whole, the illusory representation of completeness cannot fully satisfy them.
The completeness of human life can be realized only when one engages in the service of the Complete Whole. All services in this world—whether social, political, communal, international or even interplanetary—will remain incomplete until they are dovetailed with the Complete Whole. When everything is dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the attached parts and parcels also become complete in themselves.
Since the Lord is pūrṇam, all-perfect, there is no possibility of His being subjected to the laws of material nature, which He controls. However, both the living entities and inanimate objects are controlled by the laws of nature and ultimately by the Lord's potency. This Īśopaniṣad is part of the Yajur Veda, and consequently it contains information concerning the proprietorship of all things existing within the universe.
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
The Lord, being pūrṇam or all-perfect, there is no chance of His becoming subjected to the laws of material nature. One should therefore be intelligent enough to know that except the Lord, nobody is the proprietor of anything within the universe.
| Page Title: | ISO Invocation om purnam adah purnam idam... cited (Bks) |
| Compiler: | MadhuGopaldas |
| Created: | 10 of Feb, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=1, SB=11, CC=7, OB=5, Lec=1, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 25 |