Question: In the 3rd Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada regularly says that the virat-rupa is a material manifestation. Yet in some places it is said that it is manifested from the Lord’s internal potency (Srimad Bhagavatam 3.6.35). I thought the internal potency was completely spiritual. Can you please clarify this?
Answer by Romapada Swami: Material energy, or maya, which bewilders all conditioned souls, is simply a partial expansion of the Lord’s spiritual energy or yogamaya. Krishna thus refers to this deluding material energy as “this Divine energy of Mine”. (See Bhagavad Gita 7.14)
The relationship between these two energies is elaborately explained in the description of how Yogamaya becomes Durgadevi and bewilders Kamsa, as follows. In the Narada Pancaratra it is stated that the Supreme Personality has one potency, Yogamaya, who in her partial expansion becomes Durga or Mahamaya and bewilders the conditioned souls. As Yogamaya she transfers the pregnancy of Devaki to Rohini, bewildering all parties concerned into thinking that Devaki had a miscarriage and that Rohini’s son is Balarama. Then she appears as the daughter of Yasoda, then she is transferred by Vasudeva to the side of Devaki, then presenting herself before Kamsa as Mahamaya, for Kamsa can have no access to see or touch Yogamaya. [see Appendix to Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 10 Ch 1]
The Brahma Samhita describes “chayeva yasya bhuvanani bibharti durga“: The external potency Maya, is of the nature of the “shadow” of the cit potency, and is worshiped by all people as Durga. [Brahma Samhita 5.44] The Mahamaya-sakti, however, is a partial expansion of Yogamaya, who serves to keep unqualified jivas from directly confronting and offending Krishna, and thus she is called the covering potency. In conclusion, bewildering the conditioned souls (indirectly through her shadow expansion) and liberating the devotees (directly, through the agency of devotional service to Krishna) are both functions belonging to Yogamaya.
Thus the virat rupa, although a temporary manifestation and not one of the Lord’s eternal forms in the spiritual sky and therefore can be understood as material, it can still be considered as manifested from the Lord’s internal potency in the above sense – as a form exhibited for the conditioned souls.
Srila Prabhupada sums this up in the following purport quoted below, drawing somewhat of a parallel with the arca vigraha of the Lord within the material world, that Krishna’s manifestation in these forms is the inconceivable performance by the internal potency of the Lord. “In spite of their material touch, such forms of the Lord as the virat and arca are all non-different from His eternal form as Lord Krishna.” (Srimad Bhagavatam 3.6.4)
