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Teachings of Lord Chaitanya
ship with the Supreme Lord. It is concluded, therefore, that the living entities represent one of the energies of the Supreme Lord. Such an infinitesimal part and parcel of the Supreme Lord is called  Jiva . If the Jiva is artificially put onto the same level with the infinite Supreme—because both of them are Brahman, or  spirit —that will certainly lead to bewilderment.
The Mayavadi philosophers are perplexed before a learned Vaishnava philosopher because the Mayavadi cannot explain the cause of bondage of the living entities. They simply say: “It is out of ignorance,” but they cannot explain why the Supreme is covered by this ignorance. The actual solution is that the living entities, although qualitatively one with the Supreme are infinitesimal, and are not infinite. Had they been infinite there would not have been any possibility of being covered by ignorance. But, because the living entities are infinitesimal, they are covered by another, an inferior, energy. We can see their foolishness and ignorance when they try to explain that the infinite is covered by ignorance. It is an offensive attempt to qualify the infinite as subject to the spell of ignorance.
Sankara, although he attempted to cover the Supreme Lord by his Mayavadi philosophy, was doing so only by the order of the Supreme Lord. It is to be understood that his teaching was a timely necessity, but not a permanent fact. In the  Vedanta Sutra  this distinction between energy and the Energetic is accepted from the very beginning. In that  Brahma , or  Vedanta ,  Sutra  the first aphorism,  Janmadyasya , is a clear explanation that the Supreme Absolute Truth is the Origin or Source of all emanation. Therefore the emanations are His energy, whereas He is the Energetic. Sankara has falsely put his argument in this way: that if the transformation of energy is accepted, then the Supreme Absolute cannot remain immutable. But that is not true; in spite of unlimited energy being generated, why not accept that the Supreme Absolute Truth remains always the same, even though there is the emanation of unlimited energies from Him? Sankaracharya has therefore incorrectly and wrongly established the theory of illusion.
In this connection Ramanujacharya has discussed the point very nicely as follows: “If you argue that before the creation of this material world there was only one Absolute Truth, then how is it possible that the living entity emanated from Him? If He was alone, how could He produce or generate the infinitesimal living entities?” In reference to this question the  Vedas  state that everything is generated from the Absolute Truth, everything is being maintained by the Absolute Truth, and, after annihilation, everything enters into Him. From this statement of the  Upanishads , it is clear that the living entities