This inferior energy, the material things, they are subordinate to the spiritual energy

Expressions researched:
"this inferior energy, the material things, they are subordinate to the spiritual energy"

Lectures

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

So many things, material things, we saw. But who has made it? The living entities. The matter has not come into so many forms without the touch of the living entity. Everyone can understand. The big, big ships, how it has come into existence? Because a living entity planned, engineered how to do it, and he brought material things, and he manufactured it. Therefore this inferior energy, the material things, they are subordinate to the spiritual energy.

730410 - Lecture SB 01.08.18 - New York:

Another understanding is that because Kṛṣṇa is controller beyond this material nature, therefore He is not a product of this material nature. The Māyāvādī philosophers, they cannot understand. Their poor fund of knowledge . . . if God has created this material world, then He must not be anything of this material world. Because before creation He was existing, and after creation, after annihilation, He will remain, then how He can be anything of this material world? Material world, anything has got a beginning and end. But God is beyond this material world. He was existing . . . He said, "Let there be creation," just like in your Bible it is said. So there was creation. So how He can be one of the created beings? By His wish there was creation. And another thing is then His desires, His wish, they are nothing of this material world. They are spiritual. Prakṛteḥ para means "superior to this material world."

In the Bhagavad-gītā you understand there are two kinds of nature: parā and aparā. So this material nature is aparā, apareyam itas tu viddhi me prakṛtiṁ para. Apareyam. Bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ (BG 7.4). The land, water, fire, air, sky, these five elements, they are described in the Bhagavad-gītā, bhinnā me prakṛtir aṣṭadhā: "They are separated energy, inferior quality energy. But beyond this inferior quality energy, I have got another, superior quality of energy." What is that? Jīva-bhūta. You can understand that jīva-bhūta, the living entity. Yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat (BG 7.5).

Because jīva-bhūta, we living entities, we are superior than the matter because we are controlling the matter. Just like we have been in the riverside, so many things, material things, we saw. But who has made it? The living entities. The matter has not come into so many forms without the touch of the living entity. Everyone can understand. The big, big ships, how it has come into existence? Because a living entity planned, engineered how to do it, and he brought material things, and he manufactured it. Therefore this inferior energy, the material things, they are subordinate to the spiritual energy.

Therefore Kṛṣṇa, when He's prakṛteḥ para. He's beyond this material nature. His body, His activities, His pastimes, His name, His form, everything, it is not material. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, janma karma me divyaṁ yo jānāti tattvataḥ (BG 4.9). If anyone simply tries to understand Kṛṣṇa as He is in truth, then he becomes liberated, simply by understanding Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. You try to understand Kṛṣṇa not by speculation, but as Kṛṣṇa says, as God says, or a Kṛṣṇa devotee says. Just like Kuntī. Kuntī is a devotee of Kṛṣṇa. She says that "You are prakṛteḥ para. She is authority. She is authority, because devotee, every devotee, pure devotee, they are confidential. Otherwise how Kṛṣṇa has accepted to become her nephew? Just like Kṛṣṇa has accepted to become the son of Yaśodāmāyi or Devakī, similarly, She (He) has has accepted to become a nephew of Kuntīdevī.