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TEXT 23 upadrastanumanta ca
SYNONYMS  upadrasta--overseer;
anumanta--permitter; ca--also; bharta--master; bhokta--supreme
enjoyer; maha-isvarah--the Supreme Lord; parama-atma--Supersoul;
iti--also; ca--and; api uktah--is said; dehe--in
this body; asmin--this; purusah--enjoyer; parah--transcendental.
TRANSLATION Yet in this
body there is another, a transcendental enjoyer who is the Lord, the supreme
proprietor, who exists as the overseer and permitter, and who is known
as the Supersoul.
PURPORT It is stated
here that the Supersoul, who is always with the individual soul, is the
representation of the Supreme Lord. He is not an ordinary living entity.
Because the monist philosophers take the knower of the body to be one,
they think that there is no difference between the Supersoul and the individual
soul. To clarify this, the Lord says that He is the representation of Paramatma
in every body. He is different from the individual soul; He is parah,
transcendental. The individual soul enjoys the activities of a particular
field, but the Supersoul is present not as finite enjoyer nor as one taking
part in bodily activities, but as the witness, overseer, permitter and
supreme enjoyer. His name is Paramatma, not atma, and He is transcendental.
It is distinctly clear that the atma and Paramatma are different.
The Supersoul, the Paramatma, has legs and hands everywhere, but the individual
soul does not. And because He is the Supreme Lord, He is present within
to sanction the individual soul's desiring material enjoyment. Without
the sanction of the Supreme Soul, the individual soul cannot do anything.
The individual is bhakta, or the sustained, and the Lord is bhukta,
or the maintainer. There are innumerable living entities, and He is staying
in them as a friend.
The fact
is that individual living entities are eternally part and parcel of the
Supreme Lord, and both of them are very intimately related as friends.
But the living entity has the tendency to reject the sanction of the Supreme
Lord and act independently in an attempt to dominate the supreme nature,
and because he has this tendency, he is called the marginal energy of the
Supreme Lord. The living entity can be situated either in the material
energy or the spiritual energy. As long as he is conditioned by the material
energy, the Supreme Lord, as his friend, the Supersoul, stays with him
just to get him to return to the spiritual energy. The Lord is always eager
to take him back to the spiritual energy, but due to his minute independence,
the individual entity is continually rejecting the association of spiritual
light. This misuse of independence is the cause of his material strife
in the conditioned nature. The Lord, therefore, is always giving instruction
from within and from without. From without He gives instructions as stated
in the Bhagavad-gita, and from within He tries to convince him that
his activities in the material field are not conducive to real happiness.
"Just give it up and turn your faith toward Me. Then you will be happy,"
He says. Thus the intelligent person who places his faith in the Paramatma
or the Supreme Personality of Godhead begins to advance toward a blissful
eternal life of knowledge.
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