The Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, is compared to a blazing fire, and the innumerable living entities are compared to sparks emanating from that fire. Although both the Supreme Lord and the living entities are qualitatively fire, there is yet a distinction. Viṣṇu, the Supreme, is infinite, whereas the living entities, which are but sparks, are infinitesimal. The infinitesimal living entities are emanations from the original infinite spirit. In their constitutional position as infinitesimal spirits, there is no trace of matter.
The living entities are not as great as Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, who is beyond this material creation. Even Śaṅkarācārya accepts Nārāyaṇa to be beyond the material creation. Since neither Viṣṇu nor the living entity are of the material creation, someone may inquire, "Why were the small particles of spirit created at all?" The answer is that the Supreme Absolute Truth is complete in His perfection when He is both infinite and infinitesimal. If He were simply infinite but not infinitesimal, He would not be perfect. The infinite portion is the viṣṇu-tattva, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the infinitesimal portion is the living entity.
Due to the infinite desires of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the spiritual world exists, and due to the infinitesimal desires of the living entity, the material world exists. When the infinitesimal living entities are engaged in trying to fulfill their infinitesimal desires for material enjoyment, they are called jīva-śakti, but when they are dovetailed with the infinite, they are called liberated souls. There is no need to ask, therefore, why God created the infinitesimal portions: they are simply the complementary side of the Supreme. It is doubtlessly essential for the infinite to have infinitesimal portions which are inseparable parts and parcels of the Supreme Soul. Because the living entities are infinitesimal parts and parcels of the Supreme, there is a reciprocation of feelings between the infinite and the infinitesimal. Had there been no infinitesimal living entities, the Supreme Lord would have been inactive, and there would not be variegatedness in spiritual life. There would be no meaning to a king if there were no subjects, and there would be no meaning to the Supreme God if there were no infinitesimal living entities. How can there be meaning to the word "lord" if there is no one to rule? The conclusion is that the living entities are expansions of the energy of the Supreme Lord and that the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is the energetic.