5. Differences Among the Four Vaishnava Sampradayas
The four Vaishnava sampradayas all agree that Vishnu is the cause, but they explain His relationship with His creation differently. In visistadvaita, the material world is said to be the body of Vishnu, the Supreme Soul. But the dvaita school does not agree that matter is connected to Vishnu as body is to soul, because Vishnu, God, is transcendental to matter. The world of matter is full of misery, but since Vedanta-sutra 1.1.12 defines God as anandamaya (abundantly blissful), how can nonblissful matter be His body? The truth, according to the dvaita school is that matter is ever separate from Vishnu but yet is eternally dependent upon Vishnu; by God's will, says the dvaita school, matter becomes the ingredient cause of the world. The suddhadvaita school cannot agree with the dvaita school that matter is the ingredient cause, because matter has no independent origin apart from God. Matter is actually not different from God in the same way an effect is not different from its cause, although there is an appearance of difference. The example of the ocean and its waves is given by suddhadvaita philosophers to illustrate their argument that the cause (the ocean) is the same as the effect (the waves). The dvaitadvaita school agrees that God is both the cause and effect but is dissatisfied with the suddhadvaita school's standpoint that there is really no difference between God and the world. The dvaitadvaita school says that God is neither one with nor different from the world --He is both. A snake, the dvaitadvaita school argues, can neither be said to have a coiled form nor a straight form. It has both forms. Similarly, God's "coiled form" is His transcendental nonmaterial aspect, and His "straight form" is His mundane aspect. But this explanation is not without problems. If God's personal nature is eternity, knowledge, and bliss, how can the material world, which is temporary, full of ignorance, and miserable, be said to be just another form of God?
6. Reconciliation of the Four Vaishnava Viewpoints
The Chaitanya school reconciles these seemingly disparate views of God's relationship to the world by arguing that the Vedic scriptures testify to God's acintya-shakti, "inconceivable powers." God is simultaneously the cause of the world in every sense and yet distinct from and transcendental to the world. The example given is of a spider and its web. The web emanates from the spider's body, so the spider may be taken as the ingredient cause of the web. But that does not make the spider and the web one and the same. The spider is always a separate and distinct entity from its web. Yet again, while the spider never is the web, the existence of the web cannot be separated from the spider.
There is a further lesson to be learned from this example: while the spider is clearly different from its web-creation, it nonetheless is acutely conscious of every corner of it. In philosophical terms, we could say the spider is transcendental to the web by its identity, yet simultaneously immanent throughout the web by its knowledge. This is a simple yet powerful demonstration of acintya-bhedabheda-tattva. Lord Krishna, in Bhagavad-gita 9.4 and 5, says He pervades the whole universe by His complete awareness of the spiritual and material energies that make up the creation. Yet at the same time, in His identity as the source of everything, He stands apart from the cosmic manifestation.
The web is compared to God's maya-shakti (power of illusion), which emanates from the Real but is not real itself. "Not real" means that the features of maya (the tri-guna, or three modes of material nature: goodness, passion, and ignorance) are temporary. "Not real" does not mean the material world does not exist. The essential ingredient (vastu) of the world is real, because it is the energy of God. But the form this energy takes at the time of cosmic creation is temporary. Therefore the maya-shakti is said to be unreal. Reality is that which is eternal: God and God's svarupa-shakti (spiritual energy). The temporal features of the material world are manifestations of the maya-shakti, not of God Himself. These features of maya bewilder the souls of this world, but they cannot bewilder God. God appears within this material world as the supreme person, yet He is not bound by this world, exactly as a spider moving anywhere in its web-creation is not bound by it.