brahme, Ä«Å›vare sÄyujya dui ta' prakÄra
brahma-sÄyujya haite Ä«Å›vara-sÄyujya dhikkÄra

 brahme - in the Brahman effulgence; Ä«Å›vare - in the body of the Lord; sÄyujya - merging; dui - two; ta' - indeed; prakÄra - varieties; brahma-sÄyujya - merging into the Brahman effulgence; haite - than; Ä«Å›vara-sÄyujya - merging into the body of the Lord; dhikkÄra - more abominable.


Text

SÄrvabhauma Bhaá¹­á¹­ÄcÄrya continued, “There are two kinds of sÄyujya-mukti: merging into the Brahman effulgence and merging into the personal body of the Lord. Merging into the Lord’s body is even more abominable than merging into His effulgence.â€

Purport

According to the opinion of the MÄyÄvÄdÄ« VedÄntists, the living entity’s ultimate success is to merge into the impersonal Brahman. The impersonal Brahman, or bodily effulgence of the Supreme Lord, is known as Brahmaloka or Siddhaloka. According to the Brahma-saá¹hitÄ (5.40), yasya prabhÄ prabhavato jagad-aṇá¸a-koá¹­i: the material universes are generated from the bodily rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. YogÄ«s who follow the principles of Patañjali accept the personality of the Absolute Truth, but they want to merge into the transcendental body of the Supreme Lord. That is their desire. Being the greatest authority, the Supreme Lord can easily allow many millions of living entities to merge into His body. The origin of everything is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, BhagavÄn, and His bodily effulgence is known as the brahmajyoti, Brahmaloka or Siddhaloka. Thus Brahmaloka or Siddhaloka is a place where many sparklike living entities, parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, are assembled. Because these living entities do not wish to keep their individual existences, they are combined and allowed to remain in Brahmaloka like so many atomic particles of sunshine emanating from the sun.

The word siddha is very significant. Siddha refers to one who has realized the Brahman effulgence and who has complete knowledge that the living entity is not a material atom but a spiritual spark. This understanding is described in the Bhagavad-gÄ«tÄ as brahma-bhÅ«ta. In the conditioned state, the living entity is known as jÄ«va-bhÅ«ta, or “the living force within matter.†Brahma-bhÅ«ta living entities are allowed to stay in Brahmaloka or Siddhaloka, but unfortunately they sometimes again fall into the material world because they are not engaged in devotional service. This is supported by the verse in ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam beginning ye ’nye ’ravindÄká¹£a. (BhÄg. 10.2.32) These semiliberated souls falsely claim to be liberated, but unless one engages in devotional service to the Lord, he is still materially contaminated. Therefore these living entities have been described as vimukta-mÄninaḥ, meaning that they falsely consider themselves liberated although their intelligence is not yet purified. Although these living entities undergo severe austerities to rise to the platform of Siddhaloka, they cannot remain there perpetually, for they are bereft of Änanda (bliss). Even though these living entities attain the brahma-bhÅ«ta stage and realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead through His bodily effulgence, they nonetheless fall down due to neglecting the Lord’s service. They do not properly utilize whatever little knowledge they have of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Not attaining Änanda, or bliss, they come down to the material world to enjoy. This is certainly a falldown for one who is actually liberated. The bhaktas consider such a falldown equal to achieving a place in hell.

The followers of the Patañjali yoga system actually want to merge into the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This indicates that they do not want to engage in His service despite their knowledge of Him, and thus their position is even more abominable than that of those who want to merge into the Lord’s effulgence. These yogÄ«s meditate on the four-handed Viṣṇu form of the Lord in order to merge into His body. The Patañjali system describes the form of the Lord as kleÅ›a-karma-vipÄkÄÅ›ayair aparÄmṛṣṭaḥ puruá¹£a-viÅ›eá¹£a Ä«Å›varaḥ: “The Supreme Personality of Godhead is a person who does not partake of a miserable material life.†The yogÄ«s accept the eternity of the Supreme Person in one of their mantras — sa pÅ«rveá¹£Äm api guruḥ kÄlÄnavacchedÄt: “Such a person is always supreme and is not influenced by the element of time.†The followers of the Patañjali system therefore accept the eternity of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, yet, according to them, puruá¹£Ärtha-śūnyÄnÄá¹ pratiprasavaḥ kaivalyaá¹ svarÅ«pa-pratiṣṭhÄ vÄ citi-Å›aktir iti. They believe that in the perfectional stage, the conception of puruá¹£a is vanquished. According to their description, citi-Å›aktir iti. They believe that when one becomes perfect, he cannot remain a person. This yoga system is therefore abominable because its final conception is impersonal. In the beginning, these yogÄ«s accept the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but they ultimately give up this idea in order to become impersonal. They are most unfortunate because although they have a personal conception of the Absolute Truth, they neglect to render devotional service to the Lord and thus fall down again into the material world. As mentioned above, this idea is supported by ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam 10.2.32: aruhya ká¹›cchreṇa paraá¹ padaá¹ tataḥ patanty adho ’nÄdá¹›ta-yuá¹£mad-aá¹…ghrayaḥ. Due to neglecting the lotus feet of the Lord, these yogÄ«s again fall down into the material existence (patanty adhaḥ). Consequently this path of yoga is more abominable than the impersonalists’ path. This conclusion is also supported by Lord Kapiladeva in the following verse from ÅšrÄ«mad-BhÄgavatam (3.29.13).