Supreme Soul (CC and Other Books)

Expressions researched:
"Supreme Soul" |"Supreme Soul's" |"Supreme souls"

CC Adi-lila

CC Adi 2.37, Purport:

As the vast earth is the source for the ingredients of all earthen pots, so the Supreme Soul is the source for the complete substance of all individual living entities. The cause of all causes, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the cause of the living entities. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.10), where the Lord says, bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām ("I am the seed of all living entities"), and in the Upaniṣads (Kaṭha Up. 2.2.13), which say, nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām ("the Lord is the supreme leader among all the eternal living beings").

CC Adi 2.37, Purport:

The material world, full of conditioned souls trying to lord it over matter, is a manifestation of the external energy of the Supreme Lord, and the spiritual world, full of perfect servitors of the Lord, is a manifestation of His internal energy. Since all living entities are minute sparks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is the Supreme Soul in both the material and spiritual worlds. The Vaiṣṇavas following Lord Caitanya stress the doctrine of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, which states that the Supreme Lord, being the cause and effect of everything, is inconceivably, simultaneously one with His manifestations of energy and different from them.

CC Madhya-lila

CC Madhya 6.169, Purport:

Factually, the devotional service of the Lord is described in the Vedānta-sūtra, but the Māyāvādī philosophers, the Śaṅkarites, prepared a commentary known as Śārīraka-bhāṣya, in which the transcendental form of the Lord is denied. The Māyāvādī philosophers think that the living entity is identical with the Supreme Soul, Brahman. Their commentaries on the Vedānta-sūtra are completely opposed to the principle of devotional service. Caitanya Mahāprabhu therefore warns us to avoid these commentaries. If one indulges in hearing the Śaṅkarite Śārīraka-bhāṣya, he will certainly be bereft of all real knowledge.

CC Madhya 6.235, Purport:

Actually, they are not liberated, but they think that they have become liberated and have become Nārāyaṇa Himself. Although they have apparently realized that they are not the material body but spirit soul, they nonetheless neglect the duty of the spirit soul, which is to render service to the Supreme Soul. Therefore their intelligence remains unsanctified. Unless one's intelligence is sanctified, one cannot apply it to understanding devotional service. Devotional service begins when the mind, intelligence and ego are completely purified. Māyāvādī sannyāsīs do not purify their intelligence, mind and ego, and consequently they cannot engage in the service of the Lord or expect the causeless mercy of the Lord. Although they rise to a very high position by executing severe austerities and penances, they still hover in the material world without the benediction of the lotus feet of the Lord.

CC Madhya 15.108, Purport:

The more one is freed from material identification, the more one can realize that the spirit soul is qualitatively as good as the Supreme Soul. At such a time, when one is situated on the absolute platform, one can understand that the holy name of the Lord and the Lord Himself are identical. At that stage of realization, the holy name of the Lord, the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, cannot be identified with any material sound. If one accepts the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra as a material vibration, he falls down. One should worship and chant the holy name of the Lord by accepting it as the Lord Himself. One should therefore be initiated properly according to revealed scriptures under the direction of a bona fide spiritual master. Although chanting the holy name is good for both the conditioned and liberated soul, it is especially beneficial to the conditioned soul because by chanting it one is liberated. When a person who chants the holy name is liberated, he attains the ultimate perfection by returning home, back to Godhead. In the words of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta (CC Adi 7.73):

CC Madhya 20.108-109, Purport:

Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains these verses as follows: Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmī asked Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, "Who am I?" In answer, the Lord replied, “You are a pure living entity. You are neither the gross material body nor the subtle body composed of mind and intelligence. Actually you are a spirit soul, eternally part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore you are His eternal servant. You belong to Kṛṣṇa's marginal potency. There are two worlds—the spiritual world and the material world—and you are situated between the material and spiritual potencies. You have a relationship with both the material and the spiritual world; therefore you are called the marginal potency. You are related with Kṛṣṇa as one and simultaneously different. Because you are spirit soul, you are one in quality with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but because you are a very minute particle of spirit soul, you are different from the Supreme Soul. Therefore your position is simultaneously one with and different from the Supreme Soul.

CC Madhya 25.36, Translation:

“"O supreme one, the transcendental form I am now seeing is full of transcendental bliss. It is not contaminated by the external energy. It is full of effulgence. My Lord, there is no better understanding of You than this. You are the Supreme Soul and the creator of this material world, but You are not connected with this material world. You are completely different from created form and variety. I sincerely take shelter of that form of Yours which I am now seeing. This form is the original source of all living beings and their senses."

Teachings of Lord Caitanya

Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 3:

In the Bhagavad-gītā we are informed that the constitutional nature of the individual entity is spirit soul. He is not matter. As spirit soul, he is part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead. We also learn that it is the duty of the spirit soul to surrender to the Supreme Soul, for only then can he be happy. The last instruction of the Bhagavad-gītā is that the spirit soul should surrender completely unto the Supreme Soul, Kṛṣṇa, and in that way realize happiness.

Here also, Lord Caitanya, answering the questions of Sanātana, repeats the same truth. There is a difference, however. Here Lord Caitanya does not give the information about the spirit soul that is already described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Rather, He begins from the point where Kṛṣṇa ended His instruction. It is accepted by great devotees that Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa Himself, and, as such, He begins His instruction to Sanātana from the point where He ended His instructions to Arjuna in the Gītā.

Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 16:

"O supremely virtuous one, O original Personality of Godhead, just see how these bees are following You, glorifying Your transcendental fame and thus worshiping You. Actually, these bees are not as they appear: they are great sages who are taking this opportunity to worship the Supreme Soul. Although You are not knowable by ordinary persons, they know You, and they are following and glorifying You."

In the next verse in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.15.7) Kṛṣṇa describes the similar reception given to Balarāma by the peacocks and cuckoos of Vṛndāvana: “O worshipable one, just see how the peacocks returning to their nests are receiving You with full pleasure. These peacocks are just like the damsels of Vraja. The cuckoos on the branches of the trees are also receiving You in their own way.

Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 20:

There is no need to ask, therefore, why God created the infinitesimal portions: they are simply the complementary side of the Supreme. It is doubtlessly essential for the infinite to have infinitesimal portions which are inseparable parts and parcels of the Supreme Soul. Because the living entities are infinitesimal parts and parcels of the Supreme, there is a reciprocation of feelings between the infinite and the infinitesimal. Had there been no infinitesimal living entities, the Supreme Lord would have been inactive, and there would not be variegatedness in spiritual life. There would be no meaning to a king if there were no subjects, and there would be no meaning to the Supreme God if there were no infinitesimal living entities. How can there be meaning to the word "lord" if there is no one to rule?

Nectar of Devotion

Nectar of Devotion 3:

He knows that the spirit soul, being subordinate and finite, should always dovetail himself with the infinite and supreme soul, Kṛṣṇa. That is the relationship of the wise man with Kṛṣṇa.

It can be concluded that a person who is freed from the bodily concept of life is an eligible candidate for pure devotional service. It is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā that after Brahman realization, when one is freed from material anxieties and can see every living entity on an equal level, he is eligible to enter into devotional service.

As stated before, there are three kinds of happiness-material, spiritual and devotional. Devotional service and the happiness due to its execution are not possible as long as one is materially affected. If someone has desire for material enjoyment or for becoming one with the Supreme, these are both considered material concepts. Because the impersonalists cannot appreciate the spiritual happiness of association and the exchange of loving affairs with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, their ultimate goal is to become one with the Lord.

Nectar of Devotion 21:

Persons who are desiring to become great souls cannot be without any of the above qualities, so we can know for certain that these qualities are found in Lord Kṛṣṇa, the supreme soul.

Besides all of the above-mentioned fifty qualities, Lord Kṛṣṇa possesses five more, which are sometimes partially manifested in the persons of Lord Brahmā or Lord Śiva. These transcendental qualities are as follows: (51) changeless; (52) all-cognizant; (53) ever fresh; (54) sac-cid-ānanda (possessing an eternal blissful body); (55) possessing all mystic perfections.

Kṛṣṇa also possesses five other qualities, which are manifest in the body of Nārāyaṇa, and they are listed as follows. (56) He has inconceivable potency. (57) Uncountable universes generate from His body. (58) He is the original source of all incarnations. (59) He is the giver of salvation to the enemies whom He kills. (60) He is the attractor of liberated souls. All these transcendental qualities are manifest wonderfully in the personal feature of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Nectar of Devotion 29:

I am always suffering from my desires, but still my senses are never satisfied with material enjoyments. Somehow or other, by Your grace, I am now in a peaceful condition because I have taken shelter of Your lotus feet, which are always free from all lamentation, fear and death. O supreme protector, O supreme soul! O supreme controller! Kindly give me Your protection. I am so much embarrassed." This statement by Mucukunda is an instance of humility resulting from a severely miserable condition of material existence.

When Uttarā was attacked by the brahmāstra of Aśvatthāmā, she became afraid of losing her child, Mahārāja Parīkṣit, who was still within the womb. She immediately surrendered to Kṛṣṇa and said, "My dear Lord, kindly save my child! I do not mind if I myself must be killed by the brahmāstra of Aśvatthāmā." This is an instance of humility caused by fear.

Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead

Krsna Book 3:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is directly and indirectly existing everywhere; He is outside this material creation, and He is also within it. He is within this material creation not only as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu; He is also within the atom. The existence of the atom is due to His presence. Nothing can be separated from His existence. In the Vedic injunctions we find that the Supreme Soul, or the root cause of everything, has to be searched out because nothing exists independently of the Supreme Soul. Therefore the material manifestation is also a transformation of His potency. Both inert matter and the living force—the soul—are emanations from Him. Only the foolish conclude that when the Supreme Lord appears He accepts the conditions of matter. Even if He appears to have accepted a material body, He is still not subjected to any material condition. Kṛṣṇa has therefore appeared and defeated all imperfect conclusions about the appearance and disappearance of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Krsna Book 14:

And yet this temporary existence of the material world appears to be pleasing and dear on account of its having evolved from Your body, which is eternal and full of bliss and knowledge.

“My conclusion is, therefore, that You are the Supreme Soul, the Absolute Truth, and the supreme original person; and although by Your inconceivable transcendental potencies You have expanded Yourself in so many Viṣṇu forms, and also in the living entities and other energies, You are the supreme one without a second, the supreme Supersoul. The innumerable living entities are simply like sparks of the original fire, Your Lordship. The conception of the Supersoul as impersonal is wrong, because I see that You are the original person. Persons with a poor fund of knowledge may think that because You are the son of Mahārāja Nanda You are not the original person, that You are born just like a human being. They are mistaken.

Krsna Book 14:

Therefore to cross over the ocean of material nescience, an intelligent person takes shelter of Your lotus feet and is easily transferred to the spiritual world.

“There are many so-called meditators who do not know that You are the Supreme Soul. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, You are the Supreme Soul present in everyone's heart. Therefore there is no necessity of one's meditating on something beyond You. One who is always absorbed in meditation on Your original form of Kṛṣṇa easily crosses over the ocean of material nescience. But persons who do not know that You are the Supreme Soul remain within this material world in spite of their so-called meditation. If, by the association of Your devotees, a person comes to the knowledge that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the original Supersoul, then it is possible for him to cross over the ocean of material ignorance.

Krsna Book 23:

They began to condemn themselves after seeing the faith and devotion of their wives. They regretted very much that, although their wives were elevated to the platform of pure devotional service, they themselves could not understand even a little bit of how to love and offer transcendental loving service to the Supreme Soul. They began to talk among themselves: "To hell with our being born brāhmaṇas! To hell with our learning all the Vedic literatures! To hell with our performing great sacrifices and observing all the rules and regulations! To hell with our family! To hell with our expert service in performing the rituals exactly according to the description of the scriptures! To hell with it all, for we have not developed transcendental loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is beyond the speculation of the mind, body and senses."

Krsna Book 27:

“My dear Lord, You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead. I offer my respectful obeisances unto You because You are the Supreme Person and the Supreme Soul. You are the son of Vasudeva, and You are the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa, the master of all pure devotees. Please accept my prostrated obeisances. You are the personification of supreme knowledge. You can appear anywhere, according to Your desire, in any one of Your eternal forms. You are the root of all creation and the Supreme Soul of all living entities. Due to my gross ignorance, I created a great disturbance in Vṛndāvana by sending torrents of rain and a heavy hailstorm. I acted out of severe anger caused by Your stopping the sacrifice which was to be held to satisfy me.

Krsna Book 40:

Akrūra fell down before the Lord and said, “My dear Lord, Your transcendental, eternal form is full of knowledge. Simply by concentrating one's mind upon Your form, one can understand in full knowledge everything that be, because You are the original source of all knowledge. You are the supreme powerful, possessing all kinds of energies. You are the Supreme Brahman and the Supreme Person, supreme controller and master of the material energies. I offer my respectful obeisances unto You because You are Vāsudeva, the resting place of all creation. You are the all-pervading Supreme Personality of Godhead, and You are also the Supreme Soul residing in everyone's heart and giving direction to act. Now, my Lord, I am completely surrendered unto You. Please give me Your protection.”

Krsna Book 47:

You have attained the highest perfectional stage of life. It is a great boon for you that you have fixed your minds upon Kṛṣṇa and have decided to have Kṛṣṇa only, giving up your families, homes, relatives, husbands and children for the sake of the Supreme Personality. Because your minds are now fully absorbed in Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Soul, universal love has automatically developed in you. I think myself very fortunate that I have been favored, by your grace, to see you in this situation.”

When Uddhava said that he had a message from Kṛṣṇa, the gopīs were more interested in hearing the message than in hearing about their exalted position. They did not very much like being praised for their high position. They showed their anxiety to hear the message Uddhava had brought from Kṛṣṇa. Uddhava said, "My dear gopīs, I am especially deputed to carry this message to you, who are such great and gentle devotees. Kṛṣṇa has specifically sent me to you because I am His most confidential servitor."

Krsna Book 60:

I have therefore accepted Your lotus feet not without consideration but after mature and deliberate decision. My dear Lord, You are the master of the three worlds. You can fulfill all the desires of all Your devotees in this world and the next because You are the Supreme Soul of everyone. I have therefore selected You as my husband, considering You to be the only fit personality. You may throw me in any species of life according to the reactions of my fruitive activities, and I haven’t the least concern for this. My only ambition is that I may always remain fast to Your lotus feet, for You can deliver Your devotees from illusory material existence and are always prepared to distribute Yourself to Your devotees.

Krsna Book 84:

“Dear Lord, the Vedic knowledge is the representation of Your pure heart. Austerities, study of the Vedas, and meditative trances lead to different realizations of Your Self in Your manifested and nonmanifested aspects. The entire phenomenal world is a manifestation of Your impersonal energy, but You Yourself, as the original Personality of Godhead, are not manifested there. You are the Supreme Soul, the Supreme Brahman. Persons who are situated in brahminical culture, therefore, can understand the truth about Your transcendental form. Thus You always hold the brāhmaṇas in respect, and You are considered to be the topmost of all followers of brahminical culture. You are therefore known as brahmaṇya-deva. Our dear Lord, You are the last word in good fortune and the last resort of all saintly persons; therefore we all consider that we have achieved the perfection of our life, education, austerity and acquisition of transcendental knowledge by meeting You. Factually, You are the ultimate goal of all transcendental achievements.

Krsna Book 84:

“Our dear Lord, there is no end to Your unlimited knowledge. Your form is transcendental, eternally existing in full bliss and knowledge. You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Supreme Brahman, the Supreme Soul. Being covered by the spell of Your internal potency, yogamāyā, You are now temporarily concealing Your unlimited potencies, but still we can understand Your exalted position, and therefore all of us offer You our respectful obeisances. Dear Lord, You are enjoying Your pastimes in the role of a human being, concealing Your real character of transcendental opulence; therefore, none of the kings present here, even the members of the Yadu dynasty, who constantly mingle with You, eat with You and sit with You, can understand that You are the original cause of all causes, the soul of everyone, the original cause of all creation.

Krsna Book 85:

The two features of this material world, the predominator and the predominated, are also You, and You are the supreme transcendental controller who stands above them. Therefore, You are beyond the perception of our senses. You are the Supreme Soul, unborn and unchanging. You are not affected by the six kinds of transformations which occur in the material body. The wonderful varieties of this material world are also created by You, and You have entered as the Supersoul into all of them, down to the atom. You are the vital force of all these manifestations and also their supreme cognition. As such, You are the maintainer of everything.

Krsna Book 85:

She could adjust the events only by thinking that Lord Kṛṣṇa can perform anything wonderful in His pastimes because His potencies are all inconceivable. Without accepting the inconceivable, unlimited potencies of the Lord, one cannot understand that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Soul. By His unlimited potencies He performs unlimited pastimes, and no one can describe them in full, nor can anyone know them all. Sūta Gosvāmī, speaking Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam before the sages of Naimiṣāraṇya, headed by Śaunaka Ṛṣi, gave his verdict in this connection as follows.

“Great sages, please understand that the transcendental pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa are all eternal. They are not ordinary narrations of historical incidents. Such narrations are identical with the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Anyone, therefore, who hears such narrations of the Lord's pastimes is immediately freed from the contamination of material existence.

Krsna Book 87:

If by the evolutionary process of philosophical life one happens to reach the platform of intellectual life and understands that he is not this material body but a spiritual soul, he is situated in the vijñāna-maya stage. Then, by evolution in spiritual life, he comes to the understanding of the Supreme Lord, or the Supreme Soul. When one develops his relationship with Him and executes devotional service, that stage of life is called Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the ānanda-maya stage. Ānanda-maya is the blissful life of knowledge and eternity. As it is said in the Vedānta-sūtra, ānanda-mayo ’bhyāsāt. The Supreme Brahman and the subordinate Brahman, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the living entities, are both joyful by nature. As long as the living entities are situated in the lower four stages of life— anna-maya, prāṇa-maya, mano-maya and vijñāna-maya—they are considered to be in the material condition of life, but as soon as one reaches the stage of ānanda-maya, he is a liberated soul.

Krsna Book 87:

Therefore, a person who is actually learned and sane does not claim to be God but tries to understand God, making distinctions between spirit and matter. By such careful discrimination, one can clearly understand that the Supreme Soul is transcendental to both the superior and inferior energies, although He has a direct connection with both. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kṛṣṇa explains that although everything is resting on His energy, He is different or separate from the energy.

Nature and the living entities are sometimes designated as prakṛti and puruṣa respectively. The whole cosmic manifestation is an amalgamation of prakṛti and puruṣa. Nature is the ingredient cause, and the living entities are the effective cause. These two causes combine together, and the effect is this cosmic manifestation.

Renunciation Through Wisdom

Renunciation Through Wisdom 1.9:

By contrast, when the fruitive worker dies, whatever wealth and education he has acquired, along with the endeavor that went into acquiring them, all become null and void. As for the pure karma-yogī, or devotee, his devotional activities are all beyond the level of mind and body. They are related to the soul and the Supreme Soul, and hence his activities become the wealth of his pure, eternal soul. Just as the soul is never destroyed with the disintegration of the body, so this wealth of devotional service is never devalued. Thus the Bhagavad-gītā says that the karma-yogī always works for the benefit and elevation of his soul, and that this endeavor and its results remain permanent spiritual assets in this life and the next. These spiritual assets are never liquidated. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (6.40),

Son of Pṛthā, a transcendentalist engaged in auspicious activities does not meet with destruction, either in this world or in the spiritual world; one who does good, My friend, is never overcome by evil.

Renunciation Through Wisdom 2.6:

Remembrance of Lord Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet destroys everything inauspicious and awards the greatest good fortune. It purifies the heart and bestows devotion for the Supreme Soul, along with knowledge enriched with realization and renunciation.

Therefore, to remain beyond the reach of delusion and duality, one has to always remember and meditate on the beatific form of Lord Kṛṣṇa, who has a darkish complexion and is playing His flute. One must also remember and chant the holy name of Kṛṣṇa, which is nondifferent from Him, its nature being eternal, perfect, pure, and independent. In the Bhagavad-gītā (8.6-7) Lord Kṛṣṇa explains the importance of remembering Him always:

Renunciation Through Wisdom 3.5:

"Among all the eternal, conscious living entities, there is one supreme conscious being who supplies all others with their necessities." Therefore, to deny that these qualities are inherent in all conscious beings, and in this way to equate both the minute living entities and the Supreme Soul with dead matter, results in complete confusion and certainly demonstrates a severe lack of insight. The Māyāvādīs are confused as to whether refuting the existence of consciousness or accepting it will give them contentment. The conscious beings always control inert matter. A simple example proves this point: we see how a puny conscious being like a crow defecates fearlessly on the head of a stone statue of some hero, thus demonstrating the conquest of dynamic spirit over dead matter. Only those with stonelike intelligence will try to make the supreme conscious being into an unfeeling, formless object. Such an attempt is utter foolishness.

Renunciation Through Wisdom 5.1:

Better that we continue to perform our duties in a regulated way, with patience and enthusiasm; then undoubtedly we will receive the Lord's full mercy.

Both the Vedas and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describe the conditioned soul with the same analogy: On the tree-like human body reside two similar birds. One is the Supreme Soul, the Paramātmā feature of the Supreme Lord, and the other is the jīva soul. One bird, the jīva, is enjoying the fruits of material existence, while the other remains aloof, replete with all His transcendental potencies. The jīva soul must surrender to the Supreme Soul and relish the fruits given to him by the Lord.

The Lord says that His external potency—Mahā-māyā, or Kālī-serves Him in the form of the internal, spiritual potency. The jīva must allow this spiritual potency to influence him freely, without interference from the false ego, which makes the him think he is the doer. Thus surrendering to the Lord is the method prescribed to reach the highest stages of devotional service.