Spider

Expressions researched:
"spider"

SB Canto 2

Nārada compared the position of Brahmā to the self-sufficiency of the spider, who creates its own field of activities without any other's help by employment of its own energetic creation of saliva.

SB 2.5.5, Translation and Purport:

As the spider very easily creates the network of its cobweb and manifests its power of creation without being defeated by others, so also you yourself, by employment of your self-sufficient energy, create without any other's help.

The best example of self-sufficiency is the sun. The sun does not require to be illuminated by any other body. Rather, it is the sun which helps all other illuminating agents, for in the presence of the sun no other illuminating agent becomes prominent. Nārada compared the position of Brahmā to the self-sufficiency of the spider, who creates its own field of activities without any other's help by employment of its own energetic creation of saliva.

The web is created by the spider, and it is maintained by the spider, and as soon as the spider likes, the whole thing is wound up within the spider.

SB 2.9.28, Translation and Purport:

O master of all energies, please tell me philosophically all about them. You play like a spider that covers itself by its own energy, and Your determination is infallible.

By the inconceivable energy of the Lord, every creative element has its own potencies, known as the potency of the element, potency of knowledge and potency of different actions and reactions. By a combination of such potential energies of the Lord there is the manifestation of creation, maintenance and annihilation in due course of time and by different agents like Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara. Brahmā creates, Viṣṇu maintains, and Lord Śiva destroys. But all such agents and creative energies are emanations from the Lord, and as such there is nothing except the Lord, or the one supreme source of different diversities. The exact example is the spider and spider's web. The web is created by the spider, and it is maintained by the spider, and as soon as the spider likes, the whole thing is wound up within the spider. The spider is covered within the web. If an insignificant spider is so powerful as to act according to its will, why can't the Supreme Being act by His supreme will in the creation, maintenance and destruction of the cosmic manifestations? By the grace of the Lord, a devotee like Brahmā, or one in his chain of disciplic succession, can understand the almighty Personality of Godhead eternally engaged in His transcendental pastimes in the region of different energies.

SB Canto 3

When the cobweb is manufactured by the saliva of the spider, the spider does not become impersonal.

SB 3.21.19, Translation and Purport:

My dear Lord, You alone create the universes. O Personality of Godhead, desiring to create these universes, You create them, maintain them and again wind them up by Your own energies, which are under the control of Your second energy, called yogamāyā, just as a spider creates a cobweb by its own energy and again winds it up.

In this verse two important words nullify the impersonalist theory that everything is God. Here Kardama says, "O Personality of Godhead, You are alone, but You have various energies." The example of the spider is very significant also. The spider is an individual living entity, and by its energy it creates a cobweb and plays on it, and whenever it likes it winds up the cobweb, thus ending the play. When the cobweb is manufactured by the saliva of the spider, the spider does not become impersonal. Similarly, the creation and manifestation of the material or spiritual energy does not render the creator impersonal. Here the very prayer suggests that God is sentient and can hear the prayers and fulfill the desires of the devotee. Therefore, He is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1), the form of bliss, knowledge and eternity.

SB Canto 4

SB 4.6.43, Translation:

My dear lord, you create this cosmic manifestation, maintain it, and annihilate it by expansion of your personality, exactly as a spider creates, maintains and winds up its web.

SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)

"As a web is expanded and withdrawn by a spider, as plants grow from the earth, and as hair grows from a living person's head and body, so this universe is generated from the inexhaustible Supreme."

SB 10.87.36, Purport:

ccording to the testimony of numerous śruti-mantras, the entire material universe is but a temporary emanation of the Supreme Truth; the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, for one, says:

yathorṇa-nābhiḥ sṛjate gṛhṇate ca

yathā pṛthivyām oṣadhayaḥ sambhavanti

yathā sataḥ puruṣāt keśa-lomāni

tathākṣarāt sambhavatīha viśvam

"As a web is expanded and withdrawn by a spider, as plants grow from the earth, and as hair grows from a living person's head and body, so this universe is generated from the inexhaustible Supreme." (Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.1.7)