What happens to the Supersoul after death and after liberation?
Transcribed by: Argha Maji
Question: What happens to the Supersoul after death and after liberation?
Answer: After death the Supersoul of course accompanies the soul or rather we should say the soul is guided by the Supersoul in the next journey. So both the soul and Supersoul leave this body and go to the next body. We have the example of two birds in the tree, so when the tree falls, both the birds go to the next tree. So its how the Supersoul accompanies life after life the soul and then when the soul gets liberated. Every manifestation of the Lord has a particular purpose. And when that purpose is served then that manifestation becomes unmanifest. So the Supersoul’s primary purpose is to guide the soul in material existence and when the soul is no longer in material existence, when the soul is going back to the spiritual world, the Supersoul becomes manifest.
In general I have not seen any reference in the scripture about what happens exactly when the Lord expansions become unmanifest. For example, when Krishna expands to be with all the gopis when he is performing rasa lila. So it is described that he was there with each gopi. So the same Krishna expanded, but then at the end of rasa lila , what happened? Now it is not explicitly mentioned that all the Krishna entered into the original Krishna. So although there is no statement explicitly like that, but we do know from Brahma vimohan lila, that the same one Krishna manifested not just other Krishnas, innumerable but he manifested many Vishnu forms. He manifested all the gopas, although those who appeared to be gopas were he himself. And then after that what happened? So Brahmaji was observing. He saw Krishna with his gopas and then he suddenly saw Krishna surrounded by Vishnus and then he saw devtas and everybody is praising and then Brahmaji got bewildered. He then immediately looked in the cave and saw all the gopas are still there and then he came back and he saw the gopas are here and gopas are there and the gopas have become Vishnu. And then he was completely bewildered and then he understood and came and offered obeisances and then what happened? That vision became unmanifest. So now how Krishna does that exactly, whether those forms withdraw back into his own form. When we talk about expansion, Krishna expands, it is a mystical experience which we cannot understand with our normal logic.
Even the yogis. Mahabharata describes the battle between Ghatotkacha and Karna. So it is described that Karna was suddenly seeing Ghatotkacha in fifty places and Karna couldn’t make out which was the real Ghatotkacha. Even the yogis have the capacity to expand into many forms. So, they are in many places and then suddenly when he shoots some weapon, then all others disappear and the real remains. In this case we know that there were fifty Ghatotkachas. There is only one and the rest are illusions which are created. But when all fifty seem to be attacking, so how the expansion happens and how the expansion becomes unmanifest, even when a soul does it, there is a mystical element to it. What to speak when the Supreme Lord does it who have the supreme amount of mystical potency. Generally the idea is the Lord expands. And then he withdraws himself or those expansions become unmanifest.
Generally when we use the word incarnation, it refers to descending from higher level to this level, so from spiritual to material level. Expansions generally refer to the same level.
So there is one Krishna who manifests to 16,108 Krishnas to dance with gopis. And then when that pastime gets over then Krishna becomes unmanifest. Now how exactly he becomes unmanifest, whether there is process of withdrawing or process of disappearance, that is not mentioned in scripture. I do not know anywhere explicitly stated that the Supersoul, that Kshīrodakaśāyī Vishnu who is in a particular soul’s body that Kshīrodakaśāyī Vishnu enters into the original Kshīrodakaśāyī Vishnu or something like that. So generally we understand that, that manifestation had a particular purpose and when that purpose is served then that manifestation becomes unmanifest. Thank you.