Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Brahma-saḿhitā 5.21

sa nityo nitya-sambandhaḥ

prakṛtiś ca paraiva sā

SYNONYMS

saḥ — that (jīva); nityaḥ — eternal; nitya-sambandhaḥ — possessing an eternal relationship; prakṛtiḥ — potency; ca — and; parā — spiritual; eva — certainly; sā — that.

TRANSLATION

The same jīva is eternal and is for eternity and without a beginning joined to the Supreme Lord by the tie of an eternal kinship. He is transcendental spiritual potency.

PURPORT

Just as the sun is eternally associated with his rays so the transcendental Supreme Lord is eternally joined with the jīvas. The jīvas are the infinitesimal particles of His spiritual effulgence and are, therefore, not perishable like mundane things. Jīvas, being particles of Godhead's effulgent rays, exhibit on a minute scale the qualities of the Divinity. Hence jīvas are identical with the principles of knowledge, knower, egoism, enjoyer, meditator and doer. Kṛṣṇa is the all-pervading, all-extending Supreme Lord; while jīvas have a different nature from His, being His atomic particles. That eternal relationship consists in this that the Supreme Lord is the eternal master and jīvas are His eternal servants. Jīvas have also sufficient eligibility in respect of the mellow quality of the Divinity. Apareyam itas tv anyāḿ prakṛtiḿ viddhi me parām. By this verse of the Gītā it is made known that jīvas are His transcendental potency. All the qualities of the unalloyed soul are above the eightfold qualities such as egotism, etc., pertaining to His acit potency. Hence the jīva potency. though very small in magnitude, is still superior to acit potency or Māyā. This potency has another name, viz., taṭasthā or marginal potency. being located on the line demarcating the spheres of the spiritual and mundane potencies. He is susceptible to the influence of the material energy owing to his small magnitude. But so long as he remains submissive to Kṛṣṇa, the Lord of Māyā, he is not liable to the influence of Māyā. The worldly afflictions, births and rebirths are the concomitants of the fettered condition of souls fallen into the clutches of the deluding potency from a time that has no beginning.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness