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Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta
TRANSLATION
Just as the external energy consists of two parts—the efficient cause [nimitta] and the material cause [upādāna], māyā being the efficient cause and pradhāna the material cause—so Lord Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, assumes two forms to create the material world with the efficient and material causes.
PURPORT
There are two kinds of research to find the original cause of creation. One conclusion is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the all-blissful, eternal, all-knowing form, is indirectly the cause of this cosmic manifestation and directly the cause of the spiritual world, where there are innumerable spiritual planets known as Vaikuṇṭhas as well as His personal abode, known as Goloka Vṛndāvana. In other words, there are two manifestations—the material cosmos and the spiritual world. As in the material world there are innumerable planets and universes, so in the spiritual world there are also innumerable spiritual planets and universes, including the Vaikuṇṭhas and Goloka. The Supreme Lord is the cause of both the material and spiritual worlds. The conclusion, of course, is that this cosmic manifestation is caused by an inexplicable unmanifested void. This argument is meaningless.
The first conclusion is accepted by the Vedānta philosophers, and the second is supported by the atheistic philosophical system of the Sāṅkhya  smṛti , which directly opposes the Vedāntic philosophical conclusion. Material scientists cannot see any cognizant spiritual substance that might be the cause of the creation. Such atheistic Sāṅkhya philosophers think that the symptoms of knowledge and living force visible in the innumerable living creatures are caused by the three qualities of the cosmic manifestation. Therefore the Sāṅkhyites are against the conclusion of Vedānta regarding the original cause of creation.
Factually, the supreme absolute spirit soul is the cause of every kind of manifestation, and He is always complete, both as the energy and as the energetic. The cosmic manifestation is caused by the energy of the Supreme Absolute Person, in whom all energies are conserved. Philosophers who are subjectively engaged in the cosmic manifestation can appreciate only the wonderful energies of matter. Such philosophers accept the conception of God only as a product of material energy. According to their conclusions, the source of the energy is also a product of the energy. Such philosophers wrongly observe that the living creatures within the cosmic manifestation are caused by the material energy, and they think that the supreme absolute conscious being must similarly be a product of the material energy.
Since materialistic philosophers and scientists are too much engaged with their imperfect senses, naturally they conclude that the living force is a product of a material combination. But the actual fact is just the opposite. Matter is a product of spirit. According to  Bhagavad-gītā , the supreme spirit, the Personality of Godhead, is the source of all energies. When one advances in research work by studying a limited substance within the limits of space and time, one is amazed by the various wonderful cosmic manifestations, and naturally one goes on hypnotically accepting the path of research work or the inductive method. Through the deductive way of