The Lord’s impersonal and all-pervading energy is called Brahman. And Bhagavan is the personal form of the Lord, who is the energetic source and never under the influence of illusion. For e.g. The form of the sun as a planet and the formless sunlight can never be separated, as they exist simultaneously. They are different aspects of the sun. Similarly, there are two different schools of transcendentalists who focus of different aspects of the same truth. The impersonalists strive to attain liberation in the Lord’s impersonal, formless light, while the personalists strive for the eternal loving service to the Lord’s all attractive form. There is no contradiction.
Similarly, the soul is part and parcel of the Lord, simultaneously one with God and different from God. Qualitatively we are one with God, being eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. But quantitatively, we are always but a part, just as the sunray is but a tiny part of the sun and yet has the same qualities as the sun. We are both one with God and different from God. God is the independent controller, but when the soul misuses his God-given independence, he forgets his relation to the Lord and falls into illusion and subsequent suffering.
The two schools, personalists and impersonalists, both approach different aspects of One God.
Question answered by His Holy Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada
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