Question: In a recent class, the speaker stated that “there is Paramatma even in the spiritual world.” When asked to support this statement, the speaker replied “this is mentioned by Jiva Goswami in Paramatma Sandarbha.” I never heard this before. Is this statement correct?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
Since Radhika Raman Prabhu did his Ph.D. thesis at Oxford University on Paramatma Sandarbha, I reached out to him to verify my understanding and my response to the above question. Much of my reply below is drawn from him.
In the attached file (Paramatma_in_Vaikuntha3), you will find three different translations of Text 1 of Paramatma Sandarbha, which seems to be the Jiva Goswami reference mentioned within the question.
The literal meaning of the word “Paramatma” is “the Supreme Soul”.
In Vaikuntha, the Supreme Soul is Narayana, who manifests the Bhagavan feature of the Absolute Truth. In this context, we may correctly address Narayana as the Param Atma, with the intention of describing Narayana as the Supreme Soul.
However, if we are referring to Paramatma as a portion of Bhagavan, as the one who guides the living entities through three gunas, as the one who controls and directs and enlivens prakriti, then Paramatma only exists in the material world, which is the land of the gunas and prakriti and conditioned jivas.
Since within the entire balance of Paramatma Sandarbha Jiva Gosvami defines and describes Paramatma as the inner controller of material nature, how could Paramatma exist in the Vaikuntha, where there is no material nature? Any notion of Paramatma in Vaikuntha must refer to Bhagavan Narayana.
Logic:
Let us hypothetically suppose that Paramatma exists in Vaikuntha. What would he do?
Maintain the creation by his presence? No, because everything is already sat (eternal), and so requires no maintenance.
In what sense would there be Paramatma in Vaikuntha? Only as a synonym for Bhagavan.
