230 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

The conditioned soul is the marginal potency, overpowered by the external
potency. When the marginal potency, however, comes under the spiritual
potency, the marginal potency becomes eligible for love of Godhead. The
Supreme Lord enjoys with six kinds of opulences and nobody can establish
that He is Formless or that He is without energy. If somebody says that, it
is completely against the Vedic instruction. Actually, the Supreme Personality
of Godhead is the Master of all energies. The living entity, being an infinitesi-
mal part and parcel, becomes overpowered by the material energy.

In the Mundaka Upanishad it is stated that two birds of the same feather
are sitting on one tree. One of them is eating the fruit of the tree, and the other
is not eating the fruit of the tree, but is witnessing the activities of the other
bird. When the bird eating the fruit of the tree looks on the other bird, he
becomes freed from all anxieties. This is the position of the infinitesimal living
entity. So long as he is forgetful of the Supreme Personality of Godhead,
he is subjected to the threefold miseries; but when he looks to the Supreme
Lord, or becomes a devotee of the Supreme Lord, he becomes free from all
anxieties and miseries of material existence.

This position of the living entity means that he is eternally subordinate
to the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord is always the Master of all energies,
whereas the living entities are always under the energies of the Supreme Lord.
The living entity, although qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord, has a
tendency to lord it over the material Nature; but, being infinitesimal, the
living entity has the tendency to be controlled by material Nature. This
qualification of the living entity is called marginal potency. Because the living
entity has a tendency for being controlled by the material Nature, he cannot
at any stage of life become One with the Supreme Lord. Ifa living entity were
equal to the Supreme Lord then there would be no chance of his being con-
trolled by the material energy. In Bhagavad Gita, the living entity has been
described as one of the energies of the Supreme Lord. Energy, although insepar-
able from the energetic, is still energy, and cannot be equal with the energetic.
In other words, the living entity is simultaneously one and different from the
Supreme Lord. The Bhagavad Gita, in the Seventh Chapter, verses 4-5, clearly
states that earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego are
the eight different elementary energies of the Supreme Lord. All these energies
are of inferior quality, whereas the living entity has energy of superior quality.
Therefore Vedic instruction confirms the transcendental Form of the Supreme
Lord as eternal, blissful, and full of knowledge.

The conception of impersonalism is the opposite of the transformations
