Pure consciousness becomes polluted by material modes; Krishna consciousness is the purifying process restoring the soul's original state.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Prabhupāda: ...jāgaraṇaṁ svapnaḥ suṣuptir iti vṛttayaḥ tā yenaivānubhūyante so 'dhyakṣaḥ puruṣaḥ paraḥ [SB 7.7.25] [Nothing is unobtainable for devotees who have satisfied the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the cause of all causes, the original source of everything. The Lord is the reservoir of unlimited spiritual qualities. For devotees, therefore, who are transcendental to the modes of material nature, what is the use of following the principles of religion, economic development, sense gratification and liberation, which are all automatically obtainable under the influence of the modes of nature? We devotees always glorify the lotus feet of the Lord, and therefore we need not ask for anything in terms of dharma, kāma, artha and mokṣa.] Buddher—intelligence.
By exercise, by proper use of intelligence one who can understand the different status or different positions. Just like awakening and dreaming or sleeping and almost unconscious. In all these stages the person who is living, that is soul, or that is God. Not the soul is God, but God and soul is of the same quality.
God is managing the gigantic body, the universal body and a soul is managing a small body. The function and the qualities are the same. The Māyāvāda philosophy, the Māyāvādī philosophers they, they understand. Any intelligent man can understand, but they persist on this point, that God and the individual living being, there is no difference.
In māyā he is thinking that he is different but when he is liberated he becomes one. Actually the position of the Māyāvādī philosopher is [coughs] they want sāyujya-mukti. Sāyujya-mukti, to merge into the existence of the Supreme. Sāyujya-mukti is there, according to śāstra. Sāyujya, sārūpya, sālokya, sāmīpya, sārṣṭi.
But Vaiṣṇavas they do not prefer such liberation, to merge into the existence. Merging into the existence of the Supreme means merging into the impersonal Brahma effulgence as a, as a particle of spirit. He remains a particle, it is not homogeneous, he remains. Just like the sunshine, they are all combination of molecular particles of shining elements, but you can not distinguish.
Just like any matter is combination of small atoms. They are different in constitution. Similarly Brahma effulgence means combination of innumerable living entities appearing to be homogeneous, impersonal. But that sāyujya-mukti is not very safe. Safe means not at all safe. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adho [SB 10.2.32] [[Someone may say that aside from devotees, who always seek shelter at the Lord's lotus feet, there are those who are not devotees but who have accepted different processes for attaining salvation. What happens to them? In answer to this question, Lord Brahmā and the other demigods said:] O lotus-eyed Lord, although nondevotees who accept severe austerities and penances to achieve the highest position may think themselves liberated, their intelligence is impure. They fall down from their position of imagined superiority because they have no regard for Your lotus feet.] That is the version we get from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. That these persons, after severe penance and austerities, they rise up to the impersonal paraṁ padaṁ.
Paraṁ padaṁ means the ultimate goal. Ultimate goal: Brahma, Paramātmāand Bhagavān. So that is also paraṁ padaṁ, to merge into the Brahma, impersonal Brahma, that is also paraṁ padaṁ. To realize Paramātmā, that is also paraṁ padaṁ and to realize the Supreme Person, that is also paraṁ padaṁ but each one of these status is more clear than the other.