Living entities are Krishna's superior spiritual energy, eternally distinct yet inseparable from Him as energetic source.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Bhagavad-gītā 7.4–5 — March 30, 1971, Bombay 710330BG-BOMBAY [37:20 Minutes] Bg-07.04–05_710330BG-BOMBAY Prabhupāda: ...to the common understanding how Kṛṣṇa is everything. Kṛṣṇa, sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam. īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ anādir ādir govindaḥ sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam [Bs. 5.1] So now He's explaining Himself, how He is sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam. bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā [Bg. 7.4] We materialistic persons, materialist scientists, they can study all these material elements, bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ kham... And then, little higher than that, material scientists, there are psychologists or philosophers, they study mano buddhir ahaṅkāra, thinking, feeling, willing—different stages of the mind. But Kṛṣṇa says that itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā, "These eight kinds of material elements, they are separated energy from Me." Separated energy you can understand very easily.
Just like I am speaking and it is being recorded in the tape recorder. When the tape recorder is replayed again, you'll find that I am speaking again. But that speaking and my present speaking is different. Therefore that speaking is separated energy.
Now I am speaking directly. That is not separated. But when it is transferred to another matter, that is separated energy. So this material world is separated energy from Kṛṣṇa, but it is energy, His energy—His energy, acting under His direction. But this material energy is not independent.
The material scientists, they are thinking that there is no God; matter is working by actions and reactions. But that is not the fact. Matter is dependent on the direction of the Supreme Lord. That will be stated in the Tenth Chapter: mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram [Bg. 9.10]: "This prakṛti, this material energy, is acting under My superintendence." How material energy can act independently?
That is not very good understanding. Suppose this electric fan is running on; but it is not running on independently. There is electric energy, there is powerhouse, there is the superintending engineer in the powerhouse. So at the end there is living force.
Matter cannot work independently. We have no such experience. Anything you take, matter, material, it has no power to work independently. Behind that, there is spiritual existence. Now, Kṛṣṇa says, bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ [Bg. 7.4].
When we cannot accommodate that how from a person all these material manifestation, the gigantic sky, the innumerable planets with different varieties of energies, how it is possible that it is produced from a person... Therefore, those who are in poor fund of knowledge, they think just the opposite way. Because personally, how it is possible? Therefore they think of the Supreme Absolute Truth as imperson.