Origen and Christian Personalism

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Chapters

Theology of God and individual souls

This is Origen, who lived from 185 to 254 AD, and he studied at Alexandria, Egypt, during the same time as Plotinus. In fact, he knew Plotinus.

But Origen was a Christian and is considered the founder of Christian philosophy. He believed that ultimate reality, which is spiritual, consists of the supreme infinite person, God, as well as individual personalities.

Ultimate reality is the interrelationships of persons with each other and with the infinite person, God. So he differed from Plotinus in the belief that God has personality. Yes, God is personal.

He is also believing personality, father, he says, Plotinus, but his ideas are not very clear. Did he not? Prabhupāda said. He mentioned the father. But that's the father is person. Anyway, we shall discuss this tomorrow.

The what is this? Pillar of what? Origen. Origen. All right. We shall discuss tomorrow. You want to discuss tomorrow? I'm just touching the main points in these.

But since we're not interested in comparative theology, I'm just touching the main philosophical differences in these early Christian theologian-philosophers.

Origen believed that the ultimate reality, which is spiritual, consists of the supreme infinite person, God, as well as individual personalities; ultimate reality is the interrelationships of persons with each other and with the infinite person, God.

So here he differs from the Greeks who were basically impersonal.

Our Vedic conception is almost the same: that the individual souls, living entities, are innumerable and each one of them has an intimate relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead; and in the material condition of life, the living entity has forgotten his relationship, and when by the process of devotional service he comes to his liberated position, at that time he revives his old relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Divine expansions and the cosmic hierarchy

Origen ascribed to the doctrine of the Trinity. In the Trinity, God the Father is supreme.

God the Son, who's called the Logos, L-O-G-O-S, which is Greek for "word", is subordinate to the Father, and he brings the material world into existence. The Son, God the Son, brings the material world into existence.

God the Father is not the direct creator. It is the Son who is the direct creator. The third aspect of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit, and he is in turn subordinate to the Son.

So these... The Holy Spirit might be likened into the Holy Spirit. He's the Son. There's the Father. Father. There's the Son, who is the direct creator of the material, like Brahmā. The Son. Like Brahmā, the perfect Son.

And then there's the Holy Spirit that is all-pervasive. And all three of these aspects are divine and co-eternal. They exist. They've always existed within the Trinity of God. They've always existed simultaneously.

So our conception is, uh, means Vedic conception, that Krishna is the original Personality of Godhead, as it is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā: "ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo", and the origin of everyone.

Either you call the Son or the Holy Ghost, uh, it doesn't matter. But the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the origin. Then He has got expansion. Uh, that expansion is not actually the Son.

Or there are two kinds of expansion: His personal expansions and His expansion as part and parcel. His personal expansion is called viṣṇu-tattva, and the part and parcel expansion is called, uh, jīva-tattva.

In Sanskrit technical words, svāṁśa and vibhinnāṁśa. The personal expansion, there are also many varieties: uh, puruṣa-avatāra, uh, śaktyāveśa-avatāra, manvantara-avatāra, many varieties.

Generally, His personal expansion for creation of this material world are three, also accepted as Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Maheśa.

Viṣṇu is personal expansion, and Brahmā is, uh, expansion of the living entity, or the jīva-tattva, and another expansion via media between the personal expansion and expansion of jīva, the via media expansion is called Śiva.

So the material creation is done by personal expansion primarily, the whole material ingredients.

And then with the ingredients, the guṇa-avatāra Brahmā, he creates, uh, particularly, and Lord Śiva, when the time is, uh, right, he annihilates.

So this creation, material creation, is created, maintained for some time, and again, uh, dissolved or annihilated. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate, this is the nature of the external potency.

There are others, detailed information described in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

Conditioned existence and spiritual liberation

But the jīvas, or the living entity, they are considered as the sons, and they have got two positions: one liberated position, one conditioned position.

Those who are liberated, they are personally associating with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

And those who are fallen in this material world, they have, almost all of them have forgotten and uh, suffering within this material world in different forms of material body, but they can be delivered from this material conditioned life to liberated position by Kṛṣṇa consciousness understanding,

which means that there are śāstras, Vedic knowledge, and the guru, which is fully cognizant of Vedic knowledge and preaches and delivers the conditioned soul on behalf of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

This is the basic concept. I also believe that it is through divine grace and man's free will working together that the individual soul attains perfection.

And perfection consists of attaining a personal relationship with the infinite person. Yes. That is called bhakti-mārga. The Absolute Truth is manifested in three features: Brahman, Paramātmā, and Bhagavān.

Bhagavān is the personal feature, and Paramātmā feature may be compared with the Holy Ghost and situated in everyone's heart. And Brahman is everywhere. By His energy, he is present everywhere.

So the perfection, as perfection of spiritual life, is to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the person, personal feature of the Lord; and when he engages himself, the living entity engages himself in His service, then he is situated in his original constitutional position and is eternally happy and blissful.

Just as man's free will brought about his fall, man's free will can also bring about his salvation.

By becoming detached from matter, man can return to God, but this detachment from matter is brought about by the assistance of the Christ. Yes.

That is our conception also, that the fallen soul is rotating within this material world, within this universe, up and down, in different forms of life; and in his developed condition of understanding, he is enlightened by God, as it is instructed in the Bhagavad-gītā, and the spiritual master gives him full enlightenment and what he says.

But yes, pleasing situation with God, paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate. When you understand the transcendental pleasing situation of his life, he automatically gives up this material bodily attachment; that is his freedom.

And when he is actually in his spiritual identity, engaged in the service of the Lord, that is his normal position. This is the continuation of Origen.

Spiritual identity versus material body

Origen believed that all the elements that are found in the material body are also found in the spiritual body, which he called the interior man.

He says, "God created man not taking the dust of the earth like the second time, but He created him after the image of God, that is initially."

This being after the likeness of God was immaterial, superior to any corporeal hypothesis.

There are thus two men in each one of us: as a man can be found under this name in the interior man, so that for every corresponding sense that we have in the exterior body, there's a corresponding sense in the interior or the spiritual body which exists within — basically, this though is within this material body.

But the spirit soul has no material body originally. There is the spiritual body of the spiritual, eternally existing. And the material body is simply coating on the spiritual body.

This material body is considered as coating, shirt-coat. It is cut according to the... Just ordinarily we can see the tailor makes the shirt and coat according to the shape of the body.

Similarly, these material elements — earth, water, fire, etc., mixed together — becomes like a clay, and it is coated over the spiritual body. The spiritual body has no connection with the material body.

So because the spiritual body has got shape, the material body also takes a shape. That is understanding: material body has nothing to do with the spiritual body. It is simply external coating.

Or it is a kind of contamination for suffering of the spirit soul.

As soon as he is coated with this material contamination, he identifies himself with the coating and he forgets his real spiritual body; that is called māyā, ignorance.

And this ignorance continues so long he is not fully Krishna conscious. When one becomes fully Krishna conscious, then he understands that this material body is the external coating. He is

detached from this material body. That condition, that uncontaminated understanding, is called brahma-bhūta. The spirit soul is Brahman. He was under the illusion of bodily concept of life; that is called jīva-bhūta.

And when he understands that he is not this body, he is the spirit soul within the body, that is called brahma-bhūta. So when one comes to this understanding of his spiritual identity, he becomes joyful.

Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati. He has no more any hankering or lamentation. In that position, he sees all other living entities as spirit soul. He does not see the outward covering.

Even in a dog, he sees the spirit soul covered by the body of a dog. And similarly, a learned brāhmaṇa, he also sees the spirit soul covered by the material body designated as learned brāhmaṇa.

Therefore, in the Bhagavad-gītā, this conception is summarized: «vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ».

So, to the animal bodily concept of life, one is unable to understand his spiritual identity.

Social duty and scriptural interpretation

But in the civilized form of life, when the society is divided into eight divisions, varṇa and āśrama — four varṇas and four āśramas: brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra (four varṇas); brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha, and sannyāsī.

So a brāhmaṇa from this social status, when he becomes elevated to the position of sannyāsī, that is the highest perfectional stage in this material world, and at that stage only he can realize his original constitutional position and he acts accordingly, and thus he becomes delivered, which is called mukti.

Mukti means to understand his own constitutional position and act accordingly. And conditional life means to identify with the body and act accordingly.

So in the mukti state, the activities are different from the conditional state. Therefore, the devotional service is the activity of the liberated stage.

So anyone who is engaged in devotional service, he maintains his spiritual identity, and therefore he is called liberated, even though in this conditional material body.

Origen believed that the interior man, or the spiritual body, also has the spiritual senses, which enable the soul to taste, see, touch, and contemplate the things of God. That is the most important thing.

During his lifetime, Origen was a great teacher and was very much in demand. For him, preaching simply meant explaining the words of God and no more.

He believed that first of all the preacher must be a man of prayer and must be in contact. Preacher, uh, that is explained in the basic literature: śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam.

First of all, he becomes perfect by hearing; this is called śravaṇam.

And when he is perfectly situated in spiritual life, by hearing perfectly from the perfectly authorized person, then his next stage begins: kīrtana, that is preaching.

Uh, that's śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam. Everyone is hearing in this material world; everyone is hearing, even this material educationist.

He also hears from the material person, professor. Uh, that hearing is there, then he acts when he's, uh, grown out, passed his exam, and sometimes acts as professor.

The same process: if one hears from the perfect spiritual person, he becomes perfect. Then he becomes actual preacher.

Preaching śravaṇaṁ kīrtanam about Viṣṇu, not for any other person within this material world, uh, the Supreme Person, transcendental Personality of Godhead, to hear about Him and to preach about Him, that is the uh, duty of a liberal soul.

As far as seeming contradictions and seeming absurdities in Scripture are concerned, Origen considered these as stumbling blocks allowed by God to exist in order for man to go beyond the literal meaning. He says in some cases

no useful meaning attaches to the obvious interpretation. But everything in Scripture has a spiritual meaning, but not all of it has a literal meaning.

Literal... generally every word in the scripture, there is literal meaning, but one who cannot understand properly because one does not hear from the proper person, he makes some interpretation.

But there is no need of interpretation in the words of God.

It may be that the words of God sometimes cannot be understood by ordinary persons; therefore he requests to understand through the via media of transparent guru. Guru is fully cognizant of the word spoken by God.

One has to accept, therefore, guru to go through this scripture properly.

Generally there is no ambiguity in the words of God, but due to our lack of perfect knowledge we sometimes cannot understand and try to interpret, but this is... in this interpretation is, uh, not at all, uh, feasible, because an imperfect person interpreting means whatever he interprets, that is imperfect.

So the proper import of the words of scripture or words of God should be understood from a person who has realized God.

Rebirth and the eternal soul

For Origen, there are two rebirths. One is a baptism, which is something like an initiation. And then there's a complete purification, a rebirth in the spiritual world with Christ.

So baptism is compared to a shadow of the ultimate rebirth. And when the soul is reborn with Christ, it receives a spiritual body like Christ and beholds Christ face to face.

Christ behold... the individual soul can then see Christ face to face when he attains his spiritual body. Describe anything.

Well, not around in... the position of Christ is that he is seated at the right hand of the Father. That he is in the spiritual sky with the Father. No, here when Christ was present, so many persons saw him.

So what is the position? But with the position of those people...

Well, those who saw him were very special people, but they saw him in many different ways, just as they saw Krishna in different ways when he was on this earth. Different people saw him differently. This is it.

Is this clear? Uh, no, I am talking to you.

Uh, so different persons... that is all right. According to the status of the person, he sees another person in that... that is all right. Uh, so Christ is in a full spiritual body, that is the idea. That's the idea.

We also think like that. Uh, he didn't believe that the individual soul existed from all eternity. It was created. The rational natures that were made in the beginning did not always exist.

They came into being when they were created. That is not correct. Uh, the living entity is eternally existing. As God is eternally existing, the living entity is a part and parcel of God.

But the living entity, as we have several times said, being a small spark, sometimes the illumination is extinguished or stopped for the time being, but he is eternally existing, changing the body. Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre: after the destruction

of the body. The material life means the body is destructive, one body after another. But the living, uh, being is eternally existing. Na hanyate.

Transmigration and the cycle of life

He uses, uh, this metaphor. He writes: "The human body has unity because its various members are all made for specific functions in it, and it is bounded by a single soul."

In the same way, it seems to me the whole immense gigantic world should be regarded as one being kept alive by God's power and Logos as by a single soul. But single soul is created, he says.

But the single soul, uh, spiritual, uh, identity is never created. That is the difference between matter and spirit. Anything material, that is created. Spiritual is never created.

At the same time... you go and wash your face with water, Prabhu. At the same time, Origen differed from the later church tradition in his belief in the transmigration of the soul.

Although he believed that the soul was originally created, he believed that it transmigrated.

And it transmigrated because the soul, the individual soul, could always refuse to give itself to God, although he believed that ultimately the time will come when everyone will return and God's rule will be restored to its original integrity.

This differed from later Christian tradition, which said that the choice one made in this one lifetime was decisive for all eternity. Origen doesn't believe this.

He believes that you can be reincarnated at the end of this lifetime if you don't attain the ultimate goal, to be reincarnated in some other form. Yes.

That is our, um, tathā dehāntara-prāptir, where unless he is liberated or goes to the kingdom of God, he, uh, repeats, transforms or transmigrates from one material body to another. Because material body is not eternal.

You can enter one material body, uh, the material body grows, uh, it remains for some time, then it becomes old and then it is useless for any purpose; you have to give up this material body and enter again into a new material body.

Then you continue or fulfill your desire in that body. Again it becomes old and again you have to give up and again you have to accept another new body.

Because everything material deteriorates and the soul, being eternal, it cannot remain in the deteriorated body to function materially. Therefore transmigration of the soul is essential.

As the example is given that when you have got a certain material coat, when it is old enough, it cannot be used, you have to throw it out and accept another new certain coat. The material condition of life is like that.

That is called transmigration. It's interesting that Origen did not reject transmigration, neither did Christ reject transmigration.

But it wasn't until later, until the next philosopher that we take up, Augustine, that the idea of transmigration is rejected. In fact, the example is very nicely given in the Bhagavad-gītā.

With dress — as a person cannot continue the same dress perpetually. The dress becomes old, useless and he has to change his dress.

So the living being is eternal, but he has to accept a material body for material sense gratification, but the body cannot endure perpetually.

Therefore it is very natural to understand that he has to change the body, exactly like he has to change the dress. So that's the conclusion of Origen.