Purport

The Supreme Lord, Who is the Absolute Personality of Godhead, is not knowable even to the greatest philosopher through mental speculation. He can be known only by His devotees through His mercy. In The Brahma Samhita it is said that the non-devotee philosopher who can travel at the speed of the mind, or at the velocity of the air, and who can travel in space for hundreds of years, will find the Absolute still far, far away from Him. As described in the Upanishads, the Absolute Personality of Godhead has His transcendental Abode, known as Krishna Loka, where He remains, engaged in His Pastimes. But by His inconceivable potency He can simultaneously reach every part of the creative energy. In The Vishnu Purana this potency is compared with the light and heat of the fire. The fire can distribute its light and heat from one place, and similarly the Absolute Personality of Godhead, although fixed up in His transcendental Abode, can diffuse His different energies everywhere.

Such energies are innumerable, but principally they are classified into three: the internal potency, the marginal potency, and the external potency. In each and every one of them, there are hundreds and millions of sub-headings. The dominating demigods who are empowered to have control over the administration of natural phenomena such as the air, light, rain, etc. are all classified within the marginal potency of the Absolute Person. The living beings, including humans, are also products of the marginal potency of the Lord. The material world is the creation of the external potency of the Lord, and the spiritual sky, where the kingdom of God is situated, is the manifestation of His internal potency.

The different energies of the Supreme Lord are represented everywhere by His different potencies. Although there is no difference between Him and His energies, still one should not mistake the energy for the Supreme Truth. The Supreme Lord expands Himself by His different energies, but one should not wrongly conclude that the Supreme Lord, being thus distributed everywhere, has His Personal existence solely in the impersonal Brahman. Men are accustomed to reach conclusions only according to their own capacity to understand. But the Supreme Lord is not subject to our limited capacity to understand Him. It is for this reason that the Upanishads warn us that no one can approach the Lord by his own limited potency.

In The Bhagavad-gita, the Lord says that no one, not even the great rishis and suras, can know Him. So what is there to say of the asuras, who are not even qualified to understand the ways of the Lord? All these words mentioned in Mantra Four of Sri Ishopanishad suggest very clearly that the Absolute Truth is ultimately the Absolute Person; otherwise there would have been no necessity of mentioning so many varied things in support of His personal features.

Individual parts and parcels of the potencies of the Lord, although having all the symptoms of the Lord Himself, have limited spheres of activities, and therefore are all limited. The parts and parcels are never equal to the whole. Therefore the parts and parcels cannot appreciate the full potency of the Lord. Foolish and ignorant living beings who are parts and parcels of the Lord, under the influence of the material energy, try to make a conjecture on the transcendental position of the Lord. Sri Ishopanishad warns them not to make any mental speculation about the identity of the Lord. Try to know the Transcendence from the superior source of the Vedas, which is already in knowledge of the Transcendence.

Every part of the Complete Whole is endowed with some particular energy to act, and forgetfulness by that part of his particular activities is called Maya, Illusion. Sri Ishopanishad has therefore, from the very beginning, warned us that we should be careful to play the part designated for us by the Lord. This, however, does not mean that the individual soul has no initiative of his own. Because he is the part and parcel of the Lord he must have the initiative of the Lord as well. Proper use of one's initiative, active nature, with intelligence to understand that everything is but the potency of the Lord, can lead one to the revival of his original consciousness, which was lost on account of association with Maya, the external energy.

All power is obtained from the Lord, and therefore each particular power must be utilized to execute the will of the Lord, and not otherwise. The Lord can be known by one who has adopted a submissive attitude. Perfect knowledge means to know the Lord in all His features, to know about His potencies and how such potencies are working by His will. These things are exclusively described by the Lord in The Bhagavad-gita, which is the essence of all the Upanishads.