What is the difference between part and separated energy?

From: Sumit

Lord says in Bg that we, living entities are His part and parcel and earth,water air,etc are  His separated energies. how this difference and being part and separated energy is to be understood?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Bhagavad Gita that we living entities are his part and parcel and earth, water, air are his separated energies. How is this difference between being part and being a separated energy to be understood? Answer.
At one level, everything is connected to the Lord because everything emanates from the Lord. Everything is sustained by the Lord and everything will return to him after destruction also to take shelter within him. This is what Krishna tells in the verse immediately after the one which you have quoted.
7.3, 7.4. In 7.4 and 7.5, he talks about the material energy, then about the spiritual energy. And in 7.6 he says, that everything that is existing in this universe is a combination of matter and spirit. And I am its shelter after destruction during maintenance and even before it is created.
So, of course, matter itself is not created. Matter is also eternal. The material forms are created and they are destroyed.
Souls are eternal, but their bodies are created and they are destroyed. So, first point to understand is everything is forever connected with Krishna in the sense that it is always dependent on Krishna for existence and sustenance. Everything is connected with Krishna as the energy is connected to the energetic.
Now within the energies of Krishna, Vishnu Purana mentions that there are three kinds of energies. Vishnu Purana says that there are three energies. One is the Parashakti, that is the entire spiritual energy.
Kshetrajna is the energy of consciousness, that is the living entities, all of us who can be conscious of the fields of either our body or our surroundings, because we have the property of consciousness. And there is material energy, which puts the soul into avidya and makes him do material activities. So, material energy is separated from Krishna in the sense that it does not have consciousness by which it can directly be offered to Krishna.
So, because it does not have consciousness and although at one level Krishna is all-pervasive, existing everywhere as the super-soul, as the Brahmajyoti, but at another level Krishna is existing in the spiritual world where he is reciprocating love with his devotees. So, the material energy is separated from Krishna in the sense that it does not have all the properties of Krishna. That means Krishna is eternal, but matter is, at least its manifestations, its forms are temporal, temporary.
So, in Vedic philosophy it is often the question, how can this world of matter, which has characteristics so opposite to the characteristics of God, if God is blissful, this world is a place of suffering, how can it come from God? So, the explanation based on the Bhagavad Gita as given by the Gaudiya Vaishnava Acharyas is that, yes, this world comes from God, but this world is an energy of God and as the energy of God it is separated from God. So, when Sri Prabhupada was asked this question by a young lady in America, Sri Prabhupada, if God is good, then why is this world bad? Why does it have so much suffering in it? Sri Prabhupada gave a blunt answer. Sri Prabhupada said that, you are beautiful, but why is your stool foul smelling? She was shocked by the bluntness of the question and then Prabhupada replied, because it is your separated energy.
So, the separated energy does not necessarily reflect all the characteristics of the source from which it comes. So, in that sense, although the matter is coming from Krishna, matter is not conscious, matter is not eternal, matter is not blissful, Sat-Chit-Ananda, these three defining characteristics of Brahman, of the absolute truth, are absent in matter and this is because it is separated energy of Krishna. Now, for all of us, Krishna tells we are his parts and parcels.
mamayvamsho jiva-loke jiva-kutah sanatana mayvamsho, you are my part. So, now, just the word part may give the idea that, just as there is a piece of wood and we cut off one piece of wood and the cut piece of wood lies far away and the whole wood is elsewhere. So, that may be conveyed by the idea of just the word part.
Sri Prabhupada often had to use new religions, new word usages, even had to coin some word so that he could convey the subtle connotations that were involved in the philosophical concepts behind certain Sanskrit words. That’s why Sri Prabhupada did not translate Bhagavan just as God, he translated it as a supreme personality of Godhead. Similarly, Prabhupada translated this amsa generally as part and parcel.
So, part indicates that we have a relationship of being minute whereas God is infinite, we are infinitesimal, we are Anu-Krishna is Vibhuv, but that is not the only relationship that we have. We are also forever connected with him. So, the part indicates that we are fractional to his existence, he is Satchitananda in the infinite, we are Satchitananda in a finite way.
But there is also a further connection. The connection is that we have consciousness and by consciousness we are attracted to Krishna. Either we are attracted to Krishna directly as it happens in the spiritual world or we are attracted to Krishna indirectly through his material energy as it happens to most of us in the material world.
So, either way we are attracted to Krishna and in that sense our consciousness is always connected. Of course, when we are directly attracted to Krishna, the result is joyful. When we are indirectly attracted to Krishna through maya, then the result is painful because we are not conscious of Krishna and forgetfulness of Krishna becomes the cause of misdirected attachments and suffering thereof.
But essentially, the parcel aspect indicates that we are forever connected with Krishna. The part indicates that we have a relationship as a fraction has to a whole, but we also have a connection through our consciousness. So, Krishna is Satchitananda, we are also Satchitananda and that is indicated by the Vishal Prabhupada’s use of the word parcel along with part.
So, the souls in this world, they are Krishna’s superior energy. Superior energy in one sense that they have consciousness by which they can manipulate matter and they can to some extent control water, but more in the superior energy in the sense that we originally have consciousness just as Krishna has. So, of course, our position is not just that we are superior energy, but we are marginal energy.
We have consciousness, but we also have the tendency to get attracted to matter and get controlled by matter when we just get attracted. So, we are called as Tatastha Shakti, that which exists on the coast. So, the coast can sometimes be wet when there is high tide, sometimes dry, relatively speaking, or not covered with water when there is low tide.
Similarly, when our Krishna consciousness is high, we get influenced by Krishna and we are attracted to him and we are flush with Krishna consciousness. But when our Krishna consciousness goes down, then we become predominated, attracted and controlled by maya. So, either way we are part and parcel of Krishna in both situations, but one situation is a situation of happiness and the other is a situation of distress.
That’s why Krishna accompanies this word Amsha in the 15.7 Vedas saying that Jiva Bhuta Sanatana, eternally his part and parcel. So, to summarize, the separated energy does not have all the properties of God. In fact, it has to some extent opposite properties of God.
God is Achitananda and the matter is Asat, Achit, Nirananda. That is why it is connected with Krishna as his energy, but because its properties are often opposite, so it is considered a separated energy. Whereas we, because we have free will and we have our own independence, so we are not one in existence with Krishna.
That separateness of our existential identity from Krishna is conveyed by the fact that we are parts of Krishna. But our separateness in terms of our individual free will is not that we can have independent separate existence. We are forever connected with Krishna either through his maya energy or through the attraction to him directly.
So, that connection with Krishna is conveyed by the word parcel.