524 Sri Caitanya-caritamrta

TRANSLATION

Just as the external energy consists of two parts—the efficient cause [nimitta]
and the material cause [upadana] , maya being the efficient cause and pradhana the
material cause—so Lord Visnu, 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 con-
clusion 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 Vaikunthas as well as His personal abode, known as Goloka Vrndavana. 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 Vaikunthas and Goloka. The Supreme Lord is the cause of both the material
and spiritual worlds. The other conclusion, of course, is that this cosmic manifes-
tation is caused by an inexplicable unmanifested void. This argument is meaningless.

The first conclusion is accepted by the Vedanta philosophers, and the second is
supported by the atheistic philosophical system of the Sankhya smrti, which
directly opposes the Vedantic philosophical conclusion. Material scientists cannot
see any cognizant spiritual substance that might be the cause of the creation. Such
atheistic Sankhya 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 Sankhyites are against the conclusion of
Vedanta regarding the original cause of creation.

Factually, the supreme absolute spirit soul is the cause of every kind of manifes-
tation, 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 ma-
terial combination. But the actual fact is just the opposite. Matter is a product of
spirit. According to Bhagavad-gitd, 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
