Diverse Energies

“One who has diverse energies and activities and a wonderful brain is known as the sahasra-shirshnah. This qualification is applicable only to the Personality of Godhead, Shri Krishna, and no one else.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Shrimad Bhagavatam, 3.13.5 Purport)

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Only the Supreme Personality of Godhead has the combination of a wonderful brain that utilizes diverse energies and participation in diverse and wonderful activities. This fact means that anyone can share His company at any time. Whether they are high or low in stature, whether they are very wise or not too up to speed with what is going on around them, the Supreme Lord is not too far away. And of all the people with whom one can connect, why not choose the most powerful?

Does the ordinary living entity have diverse energies?

I have my ability to act. I can do work, which is karma. I can also use my brain to increase my knowledge, which is jnana. Perhaps I can take up difficult yoga practice and thus acquire mystic perfections, or siddhis. These are the different ways I can use my singular energy. I have no ability to take part of my essence outside of me and place it somewhere else to act at my direction.

The living being can extend its influence through people working in tandem. It can also generate byproducts, and in that sense keep their family line going. But in all such cases the energies are completely separate. The person working at the office is an extension of the company leader’s energy, but the boss can’t control everything that they do. Once the employee leaves, that extended influence of the boss is gone.

It is known that the Supreme Lord has diverse energies based on the mere fact that we are part of those energies. We are a singular force, while He has multiple energies. We can be considered part of the singular energy that is Brahman, or pure spirit, but God is Parabrahman. He generates Brahman. In the Vedas Brahman is considered to be the light shining off His forever luminous body. His body is so bright that in the original spiritual realm there is no need for external lighting. Neither a sun, nor a lamp, nor electricity is required there.

“That abode of Mine is not illumined by the sun or moon, nor by electricity. One who reaches it never returns to this material world.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 15.6)

For the purpose of our understanding, the Lord has three main energies. There is the internal potency, which directly represents Him. There is the external potency, which still emanates from Him but is not directly under His interest. Then there is the marginal potency, to which we belong. We are marginal because we can choose between the internal and the external for shelter. The internal is the wise choice, because that is where we originally belong. The external is the material land, where ignorance can increase to the point that the internal potency is completely forgotten. The person who thinks that they can do whatever they want without worshiping God suffers from this ignorance. They don’t realize that they can’t create anything on their own and that everything they have will eventually be destroyed.

Though there are three energies, they are still all controlled by the Supreme Lord. If it weren’t for His sanction, none of the results within the external potency could manifest. The marginal potency can choose to act in different ways, but first the Supreme Lord, as the Supersoul residing within the heart, must give His permission. He grants the results to action because He does not force the marginal potency to associate with Him.

Using His internal potency, the Supreme Lord takes part in diverse activities. Sometimes He is resting comfortably with His closest associates. Sometimes He is running through a field with His friends who are in childhood spiritual bodies. Sometimes He is fighting with demons. The combat does not take place in His realm, for the conditions of the place make it impossible. No one in the original spiritual realm holds envy towards the Supreme Lord. Thus there is no concept of a demon there. It’s like if I lived my whole life around my friends. Then I wouldn’t know what an enemy is. Someone could try to explain it to me, but I would have no experience to use in trying to understand them.

Demons exist in the external potency. Using His internal potency, the Supreme Lord either appears Himself or in a non-different expansion form to battle these demons. His activities are amazing. Sometimes He lifts a massive hill and holds it above His head for seven days. Sometimes He fights with ghoulish creatures who use black magic. Sometimes He even outsmarts the demons, as He did with Vrikasura. This demon received a boon from Lord Shiva that allowed him to kill anyone by placing his hand on their head. The demon tried to then kill Shiva, but Vishnu intervened. Vishnu didn’t have to kill the demon directly, either. Vishnu, who is non-different from the Supreme Lord, used His wonderful brain to trick the demon into testing the boon on his own head. Thus the fool killed himself.

“But if you have faith still in the words of Lord Shiva, my dear king of the demons, then why don't you make an experiment by putting your hand on your head? If the benediction proves false, then you can immediately kill this liar, Lord Shiva, so that in the future he will not dare to give out false benedictions.” (Lord Narayana in the guise of a mendicant speaking to Vrikasura, Krishna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vol 2, Ch 33)

Because He has all-attractive features that are displayed in His diverse activities, the best name to describe the Supreme Lord is Krishna. This name addresses a spiritual form, the origin of all potencies. Krishna’s wonderful brain was also on display on the battlefield of Kurukshetra some five thousand years ago, where He delivered the famous Bhagavad-gita to a distressed warrior named Arjuna. Faced with the toughest challenge of his life, Arjuna took shelter of Krishna. He accepted the Lord’s words of wisdom. This instruction helped both himself and future generations of man.

Krishna’s diverse activities are wonderfully documented in the voluminous Vedic texts. There is such a wealth of information available that one couldn’t consume all of it in a single lifetime. His association is available even to the illiterate and those who don’t have time to read. They can connect with the person of diverse energies through using sound: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. This sound is so potent that it is considered the best way to connect with God for all people. This sound vibration is itself the internal potency, which is powerful enough to lift anyone out of the pit of the material existence.

In Closing:

As controller of universe,

Krishna of energies diverse.

 

Activities and also a wonderful brain,

For friends pleasure, for demons pain.

 

This combination in man not found,

Singular potency can’t disperse around.

 

Of Krishna’s energies we are a part,

So from this day on devotion start.