o here is the statement of the Supreme Person. We have to believe it. We cannot go out of it. If we don't believe it, then we are loser. If we don't believe it, then we are loser. He is the perfect being who is eternal and all-pervading. Just see, all-pervading. That means, although you can see Him as a person... Just like you are present before me as a person, but you are absent in your residence. Is it not? But God is not like that. God is, although He's present, Kṛṣṇa, although He's present just before Arjuna, instructing him, but He's all-pervading at the same time. A crude example. Just like at twelve o'clock in the midday, you see that the sun is above your head. And five thousand miles away, if you ask any friend, "Where is the sun?" he'll say, "It is on my head." Five thousand miles this way, that way, you inquire, and everyone will say, "The sun is on my head." So if a material thing... Sun is a material thing. If a material entity can be so all-pervading, at one and the same time, so is it not that the supreme spiritual being, He'll not be all-pervading? He is, certainly. He must be. He must be.
So here you see that He is the perfect being who is eternal... And eternal. Eternal means that... Eternal means everything. Eternal in consciousness. Now, Kṛṣṇa says that "You and Myself and all these beings were like this" because He has got eternal consciousness. He has actually experienced what I was. But because my consciousness is not eternal, I have forgotten what I was in my previous birth. Neither I can say what I shall be in my next birth. These are the distinctions. If we falsely claim that "I am God, I am that supreme consciousness," it is our lunacy. It is our lunacy. We should not indulge in that way, and anyone teaching in that way, that is a cheating. It is not possible. Here is an authoritative book. He is the perfect being who is eternal and all-pervading, omnipotent, omniscient. All individual selves are more or less subject to the affliction of ignorance. We are, all living entities except God, everyone, everyone, they are subjected to ignorance, forgetfulness. That's a fact. Ignorance, egoism. Egoism means that without having the qualification, one declares that "I am God." This is egoism. Without having the qualification of God, if one declares that "I am God," a foolish man, that is called egoism. Egoism, desire, aversion and dread of death. They have to do various kinds of work, good, bad, and indifferent, and reap the consequences thereof. That means they are subjected to the acts of your, I mean to say, reaction of their acts. If you do some good thing, then you reap the good result. If you do some bad thing, then you reap the bad result. And because we are defective, therefore we do something good, sometimes bad.
The best thing is, therefore, that God is all-good. If we follow God, then we become good. If we follow God or God's representative, then we also become good. Because God is always good. A good cannot give you bad direction. Therefore devotional service... It is incumbent that everyone should be followers. Everyone should be followers of the instruction of God. That is devotional service. Nobody should be deviated from the service of the Lord. The whole Bhagavad-gītā... This is the beginning, and at the end, Lord will instruct, I mean to say, Arjuna, that sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja: (BG 18.66) "You just surrender unto Me"; and ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ: "And I shall protect you, give you protection from all reactions of sinful life." The best thing is, if we want to be all-good, then we have to follow the instruction of all-good. We have to mold our life in such a way that what is advised by the all-good... That will make our life perfect. Next we shall... (end)