Spider

Expressions researched:
"spider" |"spider's" |"spiders"

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)

SB 11.7.33-35, Translation:

O King, I have taken shelter of twenty-four gurus, who are the following: the earth, air, sky, water, fire, moon, sun, pigeon and python; the sea, moth, honeybee, elephant and honey thief; the deer, the fish, the prostitute Piṅgalā, the kurara bird and the child; and the young girl, arrow maker, serpent, spider and wasp. My dear King, by studying their activities I have learned the science of the self.

Just as from within himself the spider expands thread through his mouth, plays with it for some time and eventually swallows it, similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead expands His personal potency from within Himself.

SB 11.9.21, Translation:

Just as from within himself the spider expands thread through his mouth, plays with it for some time and eventually swallows it, similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead expands His personal potency from within Himself. Thus, the Lord displays the network of cosmic manifestation, utilizes it according to His purpose and eventually withdraws it completely within Himself.

Just as a spider brings forth from its heart its web and emits it through its mouth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead manifests Himself as the reverberating primeval vital air, comprising all sacred Vedic meters and full of transcendental pleasure.

SB 11.21.38-40, Translation:

Just as a spider brings forth from its heart its web and emits it through its mouth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead manifests Himself as the reverberating primeval vital air, comprising all sacred Vedic meters and full of transcendental pleasure. Thus the Lord, from the ethereal sky of His heart, creates the great and limitless Vedic sound by the agency of His mind, which conceives of variegated sounds such as the sparśas. The Vedic sound branches out in thousands of directions, adorned with the different letters expanded from the syllable oṁ: the consonants, vowels, sibilants and semivowels. The Veda is then elaborated by many verbal varieties, expressed in different meters, each having four more syllables than the previous one. Ultimately the Lord again withdraws His manifestation of Vedic sound within Himself.

My Lord, although You create this universe and then assume many transcendental forms to protect it, You also swallow it up, just like a spider who spins and later withdraws its web.

SB 12.8.41, Translation:

O Supreme Personality of Godhead, these two personal forms of Yours have appeared to bestow the ultimate benefit for the three worlds—the cessation of material misery and the conquest of death. My Lord, although You create this universe and then assume many transcendental forms to protect it, You also swallow it up, just like a spider who spins and later withdraws its web.

CC Adi-lila

As a spider secretes saliva and weaves a web by its own movements but at the end winds up the web within its body, so Lord Viṣṇu produces this cosmic manifestation from His transcendental body and at the end winds it up within Himself.

CC Adi 6.14-15, Purport:

“This cosmic manifestation is one of the diverse energies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As a spider secretes saliva and weaves a web by its own movements but at the end winds up the web within its body, so Lord Viṣṇu produces this cosmic manifestation from His transcendental body and at the end winds it up within Himself. All the great sages of the Vedic understanding have accepted that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the original creator.

CC Madhya-lila

Similarly, in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (1.1.7) it is stated, yathorṇa-nābhiḥ sṛjate gṛhṇate ca: "(The Lord creates and destroys the cosmic manifestation) as a spider creates a web and draws it back within itself."

CC Madhya 6.172, Purport:

The first verse of the Brahma-sūtra is athāto brahma jijñāsā: "We must now inquire into the Absolute Truth." The second verse immediately answers, janmādy asya yataḥ: "The Absolute Truth is the original source of everything." Janmādy asya yataḥ does not suggest that the original person has been transformed. Rather, it clearly indicates that He produces this cosmic manifestation through His inconceivable energy. This is also clearly explained in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.8), where Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: "From Me, everything emanates." This is also confirmed in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (3.1.1): yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante. "The Supreme Absolute Truth is that from which everything is born." Similarly, in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (1.1.7) it is stated, yathorṇa-nābhiḥ sṛjate gṛhṇate ca: "(The Lord creates and destroys the cosmic manifestation) as a spider creates a web and draws it back within itself." All of these sūtras indicate the transformation of the Lord's energy.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures

The spider, suppose it is eternal, but the cobweb made by the spider, that is not eternal.

Lecture on SB 1.15.42 -- Los Angeles, December 20, 1973:

In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that "This prakṛti," means nature, "will be wound up, again come to Me within." Just like the spider. The spider makes a cobweb. From the saliva from him, he can work—he knows how to work on it—and again he can wound it up. That is practical example. Similarly, the material nature... Here is the point of creation. The energy is conserved. Energy is never lost, avyaya. But this prakṛti, this material nature, is not eternal. It is temporary. The same example, the spider. The spider, suppose it is eternal, but the cobweb made by the spider, that is not eternal. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). It is created and again wound up. Similarly, the point of creation comes from God.

The spider, suppose it is eternal, but the cobweb made by the spider, that is not eternal.

Lecture on SB 1.15.42 -- Los Angeles, December 20, 1973:

In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that "This prakṛti," means nature, "will be wound up, again come to Me within." Just like the spider. The spider makes a cobweb. From the saliva from him, he can work—he knows how to work on it—and again he can wound it up. That is practical example. Similarly, the material nature... Here is the point of creation. The energy is conserved. Energy is never lost, avyaya. But this prakṛti, this material nature, is not eternal. It is temporary. The same example, the spider. The spider, suppose it is eternal, but the cobweb made by the spider, that is not eternal. Bhūtvā bhūtvā pralīyate (BG 8.19). It is created and again wound up. Similarly, the point of creation comes from God. God is not created.

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

There are ants, there are spider, there are so many.

Morning Walk -- April 19, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: :For the dead body means, that is a particular dead body. It is not the life energy. That is individuality. The life-energy—producing chemicals are already there. But that particular individual living entity has left. Just like I live in a room. So I leave this room. You cannot find me. But there are many other living entities there. There are ants, there are spider, there are so many. So that does not mean because I have left that room, it is lacking the accommodations. The accommodation is there. Other living entities are living there. I have left. I am individual. I have left. Therefore the individual soul is proved.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

So that lady spider and lord spider, that is everywhere.

Arrival Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, Washington, D.C.:

Vipina: I heard a nice example given the other day about how living entities are suffering. A black widow, male and female black widow spiders, have sex life. After the sex life the female spider consumes the male spider, eats him alive.

Prabhupāda: What's that? Spider.

Vipina: Black widow. She will eat him after sex, kill him.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) So we are also killing by and by, and she kills immediately. That is the difference.

Vipina: Yes, little by little. (laughter)

Prabhupāda: Tulasī dāsa has said that. Din kā dakinī rāt kā bāghinī pālak pālak rahu cuse, duniya sab barakhobe gara gara bhagilipu sei.(?) That there is an animal who is at daytime a witch and at nighttime she's tigress. So her only business is to suck the blood. But people are so mad that everyone keeping that tigress. Duniya sab bo rakhe gara gara bhagini.(?) Every home, there is a tigress like that.

Hari-śauri: That's their wife.

Rūpānuga: Their best friend.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) At daytime, witch, and nighttime, tigress. This is her picture. But people know it, and still, they keep one tigress at home. Duniya sab barakhobe gara gara bhag(?)... So that lady spider and lord spider, that is everywhere. But here gradually, and they are immediately. That is the difference. The process is the same. People want to enjoy by sex, by seminal discharge, but what is this? His blood. By fifteen drops of blood, or something like that, one drop of semina is created.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Yes. Spider, big, big spider.

Room Conversation -- July 17, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: And if we miss and don't get Kṛṣṇa, again glide down. Mām aprāpya mṛtyu-saṁsāra. Again you fall down. I'll eat you; you eat me. And the aquatic, 900,000 species, varieties of life. The same struggle, one fish eating another fish. Struggle within the water. A small fish can understand three miles away a big fish is coming. It is all stated in the Bhāgavata. This struggle is going on. Then in the jungle animals. The man-eater trees are there in Africa. Trees, man, eat man.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: How do they do that?

Prabhupāda: You go, and if you are in touch on that tree, then you cannot get out. You'll die and you'll become dead.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They eat you?

Prabhupāda: Yes, the tree.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They eat through the roots.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Spider, big, big spider.

1968 Correspondence

A great devotee would prefer to become an insignificant living creature like an ant or spider in the house of a great devotee, then to become Brahma, who has got the inclination of becoming powerful in the material world.

Letter to Jadurani -- Montreal 9 July, 1968:

Your questions about Lord Brahma: "Brahma is a great devotee of Lord Krishna and Brahma Samhita, etc., reveal his knowledge of the Lord. So are these 2 stories (namely, 1. He doubted Krishna became a cowherds Boy and stole His cows, etc.; 2. Krishna showed him the 1/4 part of His creation after Brahma had to designate himself as 4-headed Brahma.), are these 2 stories just examples to we conditioned souls, who think we can put God under restrictions?" Brahma is not among the great devotees, but he is a devotee of Krishna. All the great devotees of Krishna are in the Krishna loka, constant companions of Krishna at Vrindaban. They are actually great devotees of Krishna. Brahma is great devotee in the sense that he wants to serve Krishna the best with some material power. That means that he has a tendency to enjoy some material opulence. So Krishna has made him the number 1 living creature within this universe. But a great devotee does not want even the position of a Brahma. He would prefer to become an insignificant living creature like an ant or spider in the house of a great devotee, then to become Brahma, who has got the inclination of becoming powerful in the material world. The great devotees are always liberated from all material desires, big or small. That is the sign of great devotees.