Category:Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 02 Chapter 05 Purports - The Cause of All Causes
Pages in category "Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 02 Chapter 05 Purports - The Cause of All Causes"
The following 336 pages are in this category, out of 336 total.
A
- A bewildered human being is described as mudha, or grossly ignorant, because he is unable to understand the transcendental form of the Lord as being unborn and unchangeable
- A frog, when informed of the gigantic length and breadth of the ocean, first of all does not believe that there is such an ocean
- A godless civilization is exclusively conducted by such false ideas, and such persons, without any factual realization of God, accept a false God or falsely declare themselves to be God to mislead persons who are already bewildered by the deluding energy
- A liberated soul is never bewildered by a mistaken idea, so why did Naradaji ask all those questions just like an ordinary man with a poor fund of knowledge? There was such bewilderment in Arjuna also, although he is eternally the associate of the Lord
- A material assessment may be gradually extended, and the attempt may reach to the highest limit of Brahmaji, who is the topmost living being within the universe and has a duration of life unimaginable to the material scientist
- A perfect yogi can have command over death and quit the body at the right moment, when he is competent to transfer himself to a suitable planet
- A pure devotee is not aloof from the Lord even for a moment
- A responsible personality like Brahmaji refuses to be addressed as the Supreme Lord by his disciples or subordinates, but foolish persons praised by men of the nature of dogs, hogs, camels and asses feel flattered to be addressed as the Supreme Lord
- A scientist can work with the help of such an awarded brain, but it is not possible for the scientist to create his own or a similar brain. No one is independent in the matter of any creation, nor is such creation automatic
- A spiritual master in the line of disciplic succession from Brahma and Narada has no demand for dollars and cents. A bona fide student has to satisfy him by sincere service to obtain knowledge of the relation and nature of the soul and the Supersoul
- Above Bhurloka is Bhuvarloka, and the topmost planetary system is called Satyaloka. These are the upper seven lokas, or planetary systems
- According to Bhagavad-gita, the Lord is the source of everything (aham sarvasya prabhavah), and thus the end of all knowledge (Vedanta) is to know the Lord, to know our relationship with Him and to act according to that relationship only
- According to Srila Jiva Gosvami, this Brahmaloka is the loka or abode of Brahman, or the Supreme Lord. In the spiritual sky all the planets are as good as the Lord Himself
- According to the Vedanta-sutras (sastra-yonitvat), the Supreme Lord is the author of all revealed scriptures, and all revealed scriptures are for knowing the Supreme Lord. Veda means knowledge that leads to the Lord
- After each annihilation of the material creation, all the living entities are merged within the body of the Lord, and after creation they are again impregnated within the material energy
- Afterwards the mode of passion, being generated in due course by material activities of different varieties, becomes prominent, and the living entities are thus involved more and more in ignorance
- Ahangrahopasana may be one of the processes for transcendental realization, but the ahangrahopasita can never be God Himself. No one becomes God by undergoing a process of transcendental realization
- All different kinds of sacrifice are performed just to satisfy Lord Narayana with a view to reach Him, and the best sacrifice recommended in this age of Kali is sankirtana-yajna, the mainstay of the devotional service of a narayana-para devotee
- All living beings are stated to be the parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, and how they are so is explained in this verse - SB 2.5.37
- All luminaries in the sky are creations of the sun, the sun is the creation of the brahmajyoti, and the brahmajyoti is the effulgence of the Lord. Thus the ultimate cause of creation is the Lord
- All phenomenal manifestations, as well as the effulgence of the body of Vasudeva, are His impersonal features, whereas He eternally exists in His transcendental form called sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah distinct from all conceptions of the material ingredients
- All variegatedness in the spiritual planets is also one with the Lord, and the Vedic aphorism ekam evadvitiyam is fully realized in that sanatana atmosphere of spiritual variegatedness
- Although the Supreme Lord maintains everything created by His expansion of energy, He always remains separate. This is accepted even by Sankaracarya, the great advocate of the impersonal form of the Absolute
- Although the universal form, as imagined by the great philosophers, is one of the features of the Lord, it is more or less imaginary
- Any book of knowledge (science or art) must lead to the knowledge of Narayana; otherwise it must be rejected. That is the way of advancement of knowledge
- Anyone who is not a devotee cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Only by attainment of a service attitude in the transcendental position can one enter into the kingdom of Godhead
- Arjuna agreed to satisfy the senses of the Lord, and thus he fought the Battle of Kuruksetra, as the Lord desired. The Vedas instruct us to get out of the existence of darkness and go forward on the path of light - tamasi ma jyotir gama
- Arjuna wanted first of all to satisfy his own senses by his decision not to fight with his kinsmen and friends, but Lord Sri Krsna taught him the Bhagavad-gita just to purify Arjuna's decision for sense gratification
- Arjuna was then advised by God to fight and take credit; otherwise the party of Duryodhana would be killed anyway by the will of the Lord. Arjuna was advised just to become the agent and take the credit for killing great generals like Bhisma and Karna
- As the decision of the supreme court of a state is final, similarly the judgment of Brahmaji, the supreme authority in the universe, is final in the Vedic process of acquiring knowledge
- As the officers of a kingdom are respected due to their relation to the king, the demigods are worshiped due to their relation to the Lord
- As the rainy season appears and disappears regularly, the creation takes place and is again annihilated under the control of the Lord
- As the sun is ever increasingly unaffected by a spot of cloud, so also the unlimited Lord is unaffected by the spot of material energy manifested at times in the unlimited span of the Lord's rays of brahmajyoti
- As we get information from the most authentic book of knowledge, the Bhagavad-gita (BG 8.17), Brahmaji's one day and night is calculated to be some hundreds of thousands of years on our planet
- Astanga-yoga is practice in concentrating the mind, releasing oneself from all engagements by the regulative processes of meditation, concentration, sitting postures, blocking the movements of the internal circulation of air, etc
- At the same time, the mouth, the legs, the arms and the thighs are all component parts of the body. These limbs of the body of the Lord are meant to serve the complete whole
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- Because Brahma is the firstborn living being, naturally he is supposed to know everything about creative functions
- Because of a poor fund of knowledge, less intelligent persons sometimes mistake the conditions of the shadow world to be equivalent to those of the spiritual world
- Because they are between the internal and external potencies, the eternally transcendental living entities are called the marginal potency of the Lord
- Beginning from Brahma, the topmost intelligent living entity within the universe, down to the smallest ant, every living entity's intelligence is overseen by the Lord in His transcendental position as the witness of all actions
- Beginning from Satyaloka, the topmost planet of the universe, situated just below the eternal Brahmaloka, as described above (SB 2.5.40-41), all the planets are material
- Behind the material manifestations, there are adhibhuta, adhyatma and adhidaiva actions, which the conditioned soul in the mode of ignorance cannot see
- Brahma cannot create the seeds, but he can manifest the seed into a tree, just as a gardener helps plants and orchards to grow by the watering process
- Brahma creates all forms of living beings of different shapes in terms of different desires within the universe. He also creates the sun, moon and other demigods
- Brahma is the direct creator of the manifested universe and everything within the universe. He therefore knows what happened in the past, what will happen in the future, and what is happening at present
- Brahma is the representation of the mode of passion, and Visnu is the representation of the mode of goodness, while the mode of ignorance is represented by Lord Siva, the father of material activities
- Brahmaji clears up the wrong impression held by the less intelligent and affirms that he creates the universal variegatedness after the potential creation by the glaring effulgence of Lord Sri Krsna
- Brahmaji is conscious of his actual position, and he knows how less intelligent persons, bewildered by the illusory energy of the Lord, whimsically accept anyone and everyone as God
- Brahmaji refuses to be called this (Supreme Lord), and he directly offers his respectful obeisances unto Lord Vasudeva, or Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead, as he has already offered the same respects to Him in the Brahma-samhita
- Brahmaji, being so questioned by Naradaji, congratulated him, for it is usual for the devotees to become very enthusiastic whenever they are questioned concerning the Almighty Personality of Godhead. That is the sign of a pure devotee of the Lord
- By a slight cultivation of the mode of goodness, a glimpse of spiritual nature is perceived, but due to the prominence of the mode of passion, the mode of goodness becomes adulterated
- By the covering power of the material energy, the material scientist cannot look beyond the material causes
- By the kindness of the Lord, for the Father is kind to His sons, the individual living beings are given a little freedom to act according to their will to lord it over the material nature
- By the omnipotency of the Supreme Lord, the whole material creation evolves by the process of transformation and reactions one after another, and by the same omnipotency, they are wound up again one after another and conserved in the body of the Supreme
- By the will of the Lord, the impersonalist, even after knowing the Brahman and Paramatma features of the Lord, remains ignorant of His eternal personal feature as ever-existent Narayana, transcendental to all material creation
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- Deluding books of knowledge, not having Narayana as their aim, are not at all knowledge, but are the playgrounds for crows who are interested in the rejected refuse of the world
- Devotees like Brahma and Arjuna do not do anything on their own account, but as fully surrendered souls they always await indications from the Lord; therefore they attempt to do something which appears very wonderful to ordinary vision
- Discourses on the transcendental activities of God purify the atmosphere in which such discussions are held, and the devotees become enlivened while answering such questions. It is purifying both for the questioners and for one who answers the questions
- Discoveries of progressive scientific achievements are not independent. The scientist has to attain the knowledge of a thing already existing by means of the wonderful brain made by someone else
- Diseases of the body take place due to derangement of air within the earthly body of the living beings. Mental diseases result from special derangement of the air within the body, and as such, yogic exercise is especially beneficial
- Due to this false ego of lording it over the material creation, ingredients are generated for the false enjoyment of the living being
- Duration of life with a proportionate quantity of bliss and knowledge may be increased from one planet to another. One can increase the duration of life to thousands & hundreds of thousands of years in different planets, but nowhere is there eternal life
E
- Even Brahma, the creator of the universe, admits that he is not the actual creator but is simply inspired by the Lord Narayana and therefore creates under His superintendence those things already created by Him, the Supersoul of all living entities
- Every living entity is a spiritual spark, part and parcel of the Supreme Being
- Everyone wants the eternal life of bliss and knowledge. In the material world an eternal life of bliss & knowledge is progressively realized in the upper planets but after reaching there one is inclined to achieve progress along the path back to Godhead
F
- First the tan-matra sound is created and then the sky, and in this verse (SB 2.5.25) it is confirmed that actually it is so, but sound is the subtle form of the sky, and the distinction is like that between the seer and the seen
- Following in the footsteps of Sri Narada Muni, one should not blindly accept his spiritual master as God Himself. A spiritual master is duly respected on a par with God, but a spiritual master claiming to be God Himself should at once be rejected
- Food, shelter, defense and sense gratification are all needs in material existence. Otherwise, in his pure, uncontaminated state of original life, the living entity has no such needs. The needs are therefore artificial
- For human intelligence it is very difficult to conceive how the whole creation rests on His (the Lord's) expansion of energy, but the Lord has given a very good example in the Bhagavad-gita
H
- He (God) expands Himself by His different energies, as well as by His plenary portions. In a corner of the spiritual sky of brahmajyoti a spiritual cloud sometimes appears, and the covered portion is called the mahat-tattva
- He (God) is not directed by the dictation of the senses, but the conditioned souls or the individual living entities are servants of the senses
- He (Narada) represented himself as less intelligent and yet intelligently presented a doubt to be cleared by the supreme authority so that the uninformed might take note of it and be rightly informed about the intricacies of the creation and the creator
- He (Sankaracarya) says narayanah paro 'vyaktat, or Narayana exists separately, apart from the impersonal creative energy
- However much the impersonalist may be engaged in studying the Vedanta. The fact is that impersonalists are covered by the above-mentioned three modes of material nature; therefore, they are unable to approach the transcendental Personality of the Lord
- Human energy is spoiled, because human energy is primarily meant for purifying the senses in order to engage them in satisfying the senses of the Supreme Lord
- Human society primarily requires food for subsistence, shelter for sleeping, defense for protection, and commodities for satisfaction of the senses
I
- If someone assures him that there is such a thing the frog begins to measure it by imagination by means of pumping its belly as far as possible, with the result that the tiny abdomen bursts and the poor one dies without any experience of the actual ocean
- If the Lord takes a form or material shape from His original impersonal feature, then it means that He is born and changeable from impersonal to personal. But He is not changeable. Nor does He ever take a new birth like a conditioned soul
- If we scrutinize the characters who took part in the Battle of Kuruksetra, we may find that Maharaja Yudhisthira was no less a pious king than Lord Ramacandra, and by character study Maharaja Yudhisthira was a better moralist than Lord Krsna
- Ignorance of the personal feature of the Lord is due simply to ignorance of the mixture of different modes. The impersonalist thus cannot conceive of the Lord's eternal spiritual form of eternal knowledge, bliss and existence
- In addition to there being no influence of time, the planets in, Brahmaloka, due to being spiritual, are never annihilated
- In all circumstances, neither the material ingredients nor the spiritual parts and parcels are independent of the Personality of Godhead Vasudeva
- In each and every universal globe, the same Maha-visnu enters again as Garbhodakasayi Visnu and lies there on the serpentlike Sesa incarnation. From His navel sprouts a lotus stem, and on the lotus, Brahma, the lord of the universe, is born
- In human society the human being is considered to be the superior living being, and amongst the human beings there are also different varieties: good, bad, equal, etc
- In material existence the material energy is seemingly the mother of the living entities, and the Lord is the father
- In meditation, there are two systems of yoga, namely astanga-yoga and sankhya-yoga
- In order to rectify this great anomaly of materialistic civilization, based on the principles of dravya-sakti & kriya-sakti, one has to adopt the process of devotional service of God by adoption of principles of karma-yoga, mentioned in the Bhagavad-gita
- In other words, no one within this universe is without a relationship with the Lord
- In the age of Kali material activities of different varieties, in the name of advancement of human civilization, take place, and the living entities become more and more involved in forgetting their real identity - the spiritual nature
- In the diseased condition of the senses there is too much engagement of the senses in increasing material needs
- In the fire there are sound, touch and shape, and in the water there is taste also, along with the other perceptions, namely sound, touch and shape. In the earth there are all the above-mentioned qualities with an extra development of odor also
- In the material world the living entity is enticed by deluding nescience, but in the spiritual world he is in the normal condition of spiritual existence without any delusion. The living entity is known as the marginal potency of the Lord
- In the phenomenal world three things are factually observed by any intelligent man: the living beings, the manifest world, and the ultimate control over them
- In the previous chapter (SB 2.4) it has been established that Brahmaji, the firstborn living entity, received knowledge directly from the Supreme Lord, and the same knowledge was imparted to Narada, the next disciple
- In the Vedic writings such as the Katha Upanisad, the Lord is described as the sarva-bhuta-antaratma, or the Personality of Godhead who resides in everyone's body and who directs everything for one who is a soul surrendered unto Him
- In this verse it is clearly mentioned that the Supreme Personality of Godhead exerts His different energies in the creation; it is not that He Himself is transformed into material creations
- In those planets (the planets in the kingdom of God) there is no difference between the body and the soul, nor is there any influence of time as we experience it in the material world
- Increasing the artificial needs, as is the standard of material civilization, or advancing the economic development of human society, is a sort of engagement in darkness, without knowledge. By such engagement, human energy is spoiled
- Intelligence to counteract the hard struggle for existence is assisted by the senses for acquiring knowledge, and the living energy maintains himself by manipulating the active organs, like the hands and legs
- It is said that although the air and the atoms rest within the huge expansion of the sky, which is like the resting reservoir of everything materially created, still the sky remains separate and unaffected
- It is said that Columbus discovered the Western Hemisphere, but actually the tract of land was not created by Columbus. The vast tract of land was already there by the omnipotency of the Supreme Lord
- It is said that the seven upper planetary systems are situated above the waist of the universal form, whereas the lower planetary systems are situated below His waist
- It is understood from the revealed scriptures that the Brahmaji of this universe is younger than all the other Brahmas in charge of the many, many universes beyond this, but none of them can be equal to the Personality of Godhead
- It was known to Sri Narada Muni that Lord Brahma attained creative energy by undergoing severe austerities. As such, he could understand that there was someone else superior to Brahmaji who invested Brahma with the power of creation
J
- Just as a father gives some playthings to the crying child to satisfy him, the whole material creation is made possible by the will of the Lord to allow the bewildered living entities to lord it over things as they desire
- Just as the small seed of a banyan fruit has the potency to create a big banyan tree, the Lord disseminates all varieties of seeds by His potential brahmajyoti (sva-rocisa), and the seeds are made to develop by the watering process of persons like Brahma
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- Liberation, as contemplated by the speculative philosophers and the mystics, is possible only when one becomes a devotee of the Lord
- Living entities are apt to be attracted to the material creation, actively and subjectively, they are therefore different from the Lord
- Lord Brahma is a great devotee of the Lord; therefore he has been empowered or inspired by the Lord to create such a universe as the one manifested before us. The Lord also inspired Arjuna to fight in the field of Kuruksetra
- Lord Brahmaji said to Narada that his impression that Brahma was not the supreme authority in the creation was correct. Sometimes less intelligent men have the foolish impression that Brahma is the cause of all causes
- Lord Caitanya has instructed us that in the holy name of the Lord, as sound representation of the Lord, all the potencies of the Lord are invested
- Lord Krsna asked Maharaja Yudhisthira to lie, but Maharaja Yudhisthira protested. But that does not mean that Maharaja Yudhisthira could be equal to Lord Ramacandra or Lord Krsna
- Lord Krsna is described in the Brahma-samhita as the cause of all causes, and this is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita
- Lord Krsna is the background of the brahmajyoti (brahmano hi pratisthaham). In the Nirukti, or Vedic dictionary, the import of pratistha is mentioned as "that which establishes
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- Manufacture of the "necessities of life" in factories and workshops, excessively prominent in the age of Kali, or in the age of the machine, is the summit stage of the quality of darkness
- Manufacturing enterprises by human society are in the mode of darkness because factually there is no necessity for the commodities manufactured
- Many times in these pages we have discussed the spiritual planets situated beyond the material sky, and the description is corroborated in this verse - SB 2.5.39
- Material creations of every description are more or less due to the development of the mode of passion (rajas). The mahat-tattva is the principle of material creation
- Material nature is called the mother, and the initiator for materialistic life is the father, Lord Siva. All material creation by the living entities is therefore initiated by the mode of passion
- Materialistic ego, or the sense of identification with matter, is grossly self-centered, devoid of clear knowledge of the existence of God
- Modern enterprisers (the astronauts who travel in space) may take information from Srimad-Bhagavatam that in space there are fourteen divisions of planetary systems. The situation is calculated from the earthly planetary system, which is called Bhurloka
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- Narada asked to receive the knowledge, and Brahmaji imparted it upon being asked. Therefore, asking for transcendental knowledge from the right person and receiving it properly is the regulation of the disciplic succession
- Narada compared the position of Brahma 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
- Narada Muni accepted Brahma as the Supreme due to Lord Brahma's wonderful acts in creation, but doubts arose in him when he saw that Lord Brahma also worshiped some superior authority
- Narada Muni thought of Brahmaji as the Supreme Person, but when he saw Brahmaji engaged in the process of transcendental realization, doubts arose in him. So he wanted to be clearly informed
- Narada Muni took for granted that none of them (human beings) has any source of generation besides his father, Brahmaji. Therefore he wanted to know all about them from Lord Brahma
- Narada wanted to clear the matter (of Brahma being or not the supreme authority in the creation) by the statements of Brahmaji, the supreme authority in the universe
- Naradaji is one of the liberated souls, and after his liberation he was known as Narada; otherwise, before his liberation, he was simply a son of a maidservant
- Naradaji was a liberated soul; therefore, he was not one of the less intelligent men who accept a false god or gods in their own ways
- Nescience is behind the Personality of Godhead, where she is powerful enough to mislead the living beings, and the primary symptom of bewildered persons is that they talk nonsense
- No one is different from the Lord. The mouth of the body and the legs of the body are nondifferent constitutionally, but the mouth or the head of the body is qualitatively more important than the legs
- Nonetheless He (God) keeps Himself distinct from such creation as the purnam (or complete), and so no one should wrongly think that His personal feature is not existent due to His impersonal unlimited expansions
- Nonsensical talks are not supported by the principles of Vedic literatures, and first-grade nonsense talk is "It is I, it is mine
O
- On the earth there is a full display of variegatedness of life, which is originally started with the basic principle of air
- On the whole, the struggle for existence is an exertion of the mode of passion. Therefore all the sense organs, headed by intelligence and the living energy, prana, are different products and by-products of the second mode of nature, called passion
- One can get complete liberation from all the above-mentioned material pangs when one enters into the eternal Brahmaloka sanatana atmosphere, the kingdom of God
- One can immediately enjoy the association of the Lord by the pure vibration of the sound representation of His holy name, and the concept of the Lord is immediately manifested before the pure devotee
- One cannot transcend the limits of the material modes, and therefore realization of the Lord, who is always transcendental to the modes of material nature, becomes very difficult for the living entities
- One of the Lord's names is Urukrama, or one whose actions are very wonderful and are beyond the imagination of the living being, so the actions of His devotees sometimes appear very wonderful due to the direction of the Lord
- One should not be misled when people worship a great man as God after his death as a matter of hero worship
- One should not expect the Lord to create like a blacksmith with a hammer and other instruments. The Lord creates by His potencies. He has His multifarious potencies
- One should not wrongly conclude that the Lord was formerly unmanifested and has now manifested Himself in the human form
- One who can reach the highest planet, that of Brahma, can aspire to reach the planets in the spiritual sky, where life is eternal
- One who is able to associate with the Lord is sure to be delivered from the darkness of the created world, which is a product of false ego
- One's situation in any of the many material planets is still subject to the laws of material nature, namely birth, death, old age and disease
- Oneness with the impersonal brahmajyoti is not ultimate liberation; superior to that is the sublime association of the Personality of Godhead in one of the innumerable spiritual planets in the Vaikuntha sky
- Only because of the darkness of ignorance do the yogis and jnanis deny the senses of the Lord and thus artificially try to control the activities of the diseased senses
- Originally these (varieties of products and by-products of the activities of the material world) are all due to the Supreme Lord. The Vedanta-sutras and the Bhagavatam thus begin with the Absolute Truth as the beginning of all creations
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- Sankhya-yoga is meant to distinguish the truth from ephemerals
- Save and except the Lord, no one can be called the enjoyer, but the living entity falsely desires to become the enjoyer. This is the origin of false ego
- Sometimes a materially powerful man is accepted as God or the incarnation of God without any knowledge of the factual God
- Sometimes Satyaloka, the planet in which Brahma resides, is also called Brahmaloka. But the Brahmaloka mentioned here is not the same as the Satyaloka planetary system
- Sound representation of the Lord, in terms of His characteristics, is the complete form of the Lord, as was seen by Vasudeva and Maharaja Dasaratha, the fathers of Lord Krsna and Lord Rama
- Srila Sridhara Svami rightly commenting on this verse (SB 2.5.39), says that the Brahmaloka mentioned here is Vaikuntha, the kingdom of God, which is sanatana, or eternal, and is not exactly like the material creations described above
- Such bewilderment in Arjuna or in Narada takes place by the will of the Lord so that other, nonliberated persons may realize the real truth and knowledge of the Lord
- Such is the wonderful action of maya (the covering of maya makes the conditioned soul eternally ignorant), or external energy manifested as if materially produced
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- The adhibhuta manifestation entails repetitions of births and deaths with old age and diseases, the adhyatma manifestation conditions the spirit soul, and the adhidaiva manifestation is the controlling system
- The administrative class is meant for protecting the living beings so that they can serve this purpose - broadcasting the knowledge of our relationship with the Lord
- The ahangrahopasita, or the one who worships himself with the idea of becoming God Himself, is misleading, but the intelligent disciple can at once detect that the Supreme God does not need to worship anyone, including Himself, in order to become God
- The atheists put forward many self-made theories without any touch of cause and effect. The manifested world, as well as the spirit soul, is still unexplained by the godless atheists through the medium of experimental knowledge
- The Battle of Kuruksetra, or any other battle at any place or at any time, is made by the will of the Lord, for no one can arrange such mass annihilation without the sanction of the Lord
- 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
- The bhakti-yogi surpasses all the yogis because, by dint of his devotional service, he is promoted to the region beyond the material sky and is placed in one of the planets in the spiritual sky by the supreme will of the Lord the controller of everything
- The brahmajyoti is not independent or self-sufficient. Lord Sri Krsna is ultimately the creator of the brahmajyoti, mentioned in this verse (SB 2.5.11) as sva-rocisa, or the effulgence of the transcendental body of the Lord
- The brahmanas are required to know the Vedas, or the ultimate source of knowledge. Veda means knowledge, and anta means the end of it
- The cause of such gross ignorance is constant engagement by the materialistic man in the matter of artificially increasing material demands. To realize the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one has to purify the materialistic senses by devotional service
- The chief engineer of the material creation is the Lord Himself, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (BG 9.10). It is He only who directs the material nature to produce all sorts of moving and nonmoving creations
- The conclusion is that Narayana, or the Personality of Godhead, is the ultimate destination for all kinds of yoga systems as well as all kinds of liberation
- The conditioned soul may take a form birth after birth due to his conditional existence in matter, but the self-centered impersonalists, by their gross ignorance, accept the Lord as one of them because of self-centered egoism
- The conditioned souls or the individual living entities are servants of the senses. They are conducted by the direction or dictation of the senses, and therefore material civilization is a kind of engagement in sense gratification only
- The creation and annihilation of the material worlds is a regular action of God just to allow the conditioned souls to play and create their own fate of being differently created again in terms of their independent desires at the time of annihilation
- The creation of the material world, wherein the conditioned souls are allowed to act subordinately by the Supreme Lord, takes place again and again after being repeatedly annihilated. The material creation is something like a cloud in the unlimited sky
- The creation takes place at a historical date - as we are accustomed to think of everything which has a beginning in our tiny experience
- The devotee feels satisfied when such an opportunity (to broadcast the information to others) is offered to him. This is the basic principle of missionary activities
- The devotees are above the yogis and the jnanis because pure devotees do not deny the senses of the Lord; they want to satisfy the senses of the Lord
- The devotees of the Lord do not try to deny the senses of the Lord, nor do they artificially stop the actions of the senses. But they do voluntarily engage the purified senses in the service of the master of the senses, as was done by Arjuna
- The devotees of the Lord who are transcendental to the above-mentioned three modes of material nature can see the all-blissful transcendental form of the Lord with their vision of love in the attitude of pure devotional service
- The different types of bodily construction of the living entities are exactly like different types of motorcars manufactured by assembling the allied motor parts. When the car is ready, the driver sits in the car and moves it as he desires
- The direct manager is supposed to know everything of actions and reactions, as one knows about a walnut within the grip of one's palm
- The direct manufacturer of a particular thing is supposed to know how he learned the art of manufacturing, where he got the ingredients, how he set it up and how the products in the manufacturing process are being turned out
- The doubt arising in the mind of Narada about Brahmaji's becoming all-powerful is a lesson for the frogs in the well, that they may not be bewildered in misconceiving the identity of the Personality of Godhead
- The example cited here (SB 2.5.11) of the sun is very appropriate. In the material world the sun is the cause of all illumination: fire, electricity, the rays of the moon, etc
- The expansions of the planetary systems within each and every universe are situated in the different parts of the virat-rupa (universal form) of the Lord
- The five elements, namely sky, air, fire, water and earth, are all but different qualities of the darkness of false ego. This means that the false ego in the sum total form of mahat-tattva is generated from the marginal potency of the Lord
- The foolish, childlike materialists cannot reach beyond the conception of the maidservant, material nature
- The four divisions of human society, namely the intelligent class (the brahmanas), the administrative class (the ksatriyas), the mercantile class (the vaisyas), and the laborer class (the sudras), are all in different parts of the body of the Lord
- "The frog in the well" logic illustrates that a frog residing in the atmosphere and boundary of a well cannot imagine the length and breadth of the gigantic ocean
- The great authorities have estimated Maharaja Yudhisthira to be a pious man, but they have accepted Lord Rama or Krsna as the Personality of Godhead
- The gross matters are adhibhutam, their maintenance is adhidaivam, and the initiator of material activities is called adhyatmam
- The holy name of God, as recommended in the sastras - Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare - may be constantly chanted by the devotee aspiring to be constantly in touch with the Supreme Lord
- The human life is especially meant for this purpose, namely to know the factual relationship of every living being with the Supreme Lord. Without knowing this relationship, the human life is spoiled
- The idea impressed is that the Supreme Lord is conscious of every part of His body, and nowhere in the creation is there anything beyond His control
- The illusory potency of the Lord bewilders the less intelligent to accept Brahmaji, or for that matter any other person, as the Supreme Lord
- The impersonal Brahman effulgence is only a part of the Personality of Godhead. Impersonal Brahman is situated on the person of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and as such, Brahman is the glorification of the personality of the Godhead
- The impersonal expansion is a manifestation of His (God's) energy, and He is always in His personal feature despite His innumerable unlimited expansions of impersonal energies
- The impersonalist, who gives more importance to the transcendental rays of the Lord as brahma-jyotir & who concludes that the Absolute Truth is ultimately impersonal & only manifests a form at a time of necessity, is less intelligent than the personalist
- The individual living entities, being parts and parcels of the Lord, are sometimes described as atma, qualitatively one in spiritual constitution
- The ingredients, namely earth, water, fire, air and sky, as well as the conception of material identity, intelligence and the mind, are produced of the external energy of the Lord
- The inquiries by Narada Muni on the basis of factual cause and effect appear very reasonable
- The inquiries made by Narada Muni are very important for everyone concerned
- The inquisitive student must approach a qualified spiritual master to receive transcendental knowledge by surrender, submissive inquiries and service. Knowledge received by submissive inquiries and service is more effective than in exchange for money
- The intelligent class in society must speak on behalf of the body, as well as accept foodstuff to satisfy the hunger of the body. The hunger of the Lord is to accept the fruits of sacrifice
- The intelligent class of men, the brahmanas, are especially responsible for broadcasting this knowledge of our relationship with the Lord and leading the general mass of people to the right path
- The intelligent grown-up sons of the Lord know well that all the acts of material nature are controlled by the Lord, just as a maidservant is under the control of the master, the father of the undeveloped children
- The intelligent man can see that neither the living entity nor the phenomenal world are creations of chance
- The invincibly powerful deluding energy of the Personality of God, or the third energy, representing nescience, can bewilder the entire world of animation, but still she is not strong enough to be able to stand in front of the Supreme Lord
- The laborer class, who are neither intelligent nor powerful, can help by physical services to the other higher classes and thus be benefited by their cooperation
- The law of creation is as mentioned in the Vedic literatures, that it is created at certain intervals and is again annihilated by the will of the Lord
- The less intelligent material scientist cannot understand the process of assembling the parts of the body, namely the senses, the mind and the qualities of the material modes
- The living being is practically the dominating factor over the material elements as the enjoyer, though the background is the Supreme Lord
- The living condition in material existence depends more or less on one's intelligence and powerful living energy
- The living entities are exactly like small children playing the material field under the control of the maidservant of the Lord - nature
- The living entities are not meant to be conditioned by material energy but due to their being affected by the false sense of lording it over material energy they come under the influence of potency & become conditioned by the 3 modes of material nature
- The living entities are not the bodies; they are separate from the cars of the body
- The living entities are subjected by those qualities, although originally the living entities are qualitatively one with the Lord
- The living entity who enjoys the interaction of the above gross and subtle ingredients, as set up by eternal time, is an offshoot of internal potency, with freedom to remain either in the material world or in the spiritual world
- The lokas, or different planets, are attractive because they have different varieties of life and bliss partially representing the sac-cid-ananda-vigraha
- The Lord as Garbhodakasayi Visnu or Hiranyagarbha Supersoul enters into each and every universe and causes it to be animated by begetting the living entities within the womb of the material nature, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita
- The Lord exists in His impersonal form by such expansion of energy, and the complete creation rests on His impersonal feature
- The Lord inspires the individual soul to create what is already created by the Lord, and by the good will of the Lord a discoverer of something in the world is accredited as the discoverer
- The Lord is a different identity in all circumstances, and no idea of anthropomorphism can be applied to Him. The Lord is always the Lord, and a common living being can never be equal to Him
- The Lord is all spirit, and His name, fame, glories, qualities, pastimes, etc., are all nondifferent from Him because He is absolute. As such, the planets in the kingdom of God are also nondifferent from Him
- The Lord is described here as the jiva because He is the leader of all other jivas (living entities). In the Vedas He is described as the nitya, the leader of all other nityas
- The Lord is eternally manifested by His internal potency or spiritual energy just like the sun and its rays in the clear sky, but at times He creates the material energy, as the sun creates a cloud in the clear sky
- The Lord is not approachable by everyone because He is curtained by His yogamaya potency
- The Lord then, by His plenary portion as Maha-Visnu, lies down within the water of the mahat-tattva, and the water is called the Causal Ocean - Karana-jala
- The Lord's relation with the living entities is like that of the father with the sons. The sons and the father are qualitatively equal, but the father is never the son, nor is the son ever the father who begets
- The Lord, being situated in the heart of every individual living entity, knows very well the tendency of such conditioned souls in terms of past, present and future, but the bewildered conditioned soul hardly can know Him in His eternal form
- The lower systems are called Bhurloka, the middle systems are called Bhuvarloka, and the higher planetary systems, up to Brahmaloka, the highest planetary system of the universe, are called Svarloka. And all of them are situated on the body of the Lord
- The mahat-tattva cloud of the material creation, in which the conditioned souls, who want to lord it against the will of the Lord, are put into play as they desire under the control of the Lord by the agency of His external energy
- The manifested world is full of varieties of created beings in 8,400,000 species of life, and some of them are superior and inferior to others
- The material modes of nature, being products of the energy of the Lord, are certainly connected with the Lord, but the connection is just like that between the master and the servants
- The material scientists also want to challenge the inconceivable potency of the Lord by measuring Him with their froglike brains and their scientific achievements, but at the end they simply die unsuccessfully, like the frog
- The mercantile class is meant for producing food grains and distributing them to the complete human society so that the whole population is given a chance to live comfortably and discharge the duties of human life
- The mercantile class is required to give protection to the cows in order to get sufficient milk and milk products, which alone can give the proper health and intelligence to maintain a civilization perfectly meant for knowledge of the ultimate truth
- The mode of goodness, or the brahminical culture recommended in the Vedic literatures, is helpful to spiritual realization, the jnana-sakti stage of the conditioned soul is comparatively better than the other two stages, namely dravya-sakti & kriya-sakti
- The modern astronauts can travel only a few thousand miles away from the earth, and therefore their attempt to travel in the sky is something like child's play on the shore of an expansive ocean
- The moon is situated in the third status of the upper planetary system, and in the Fifth Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam we shall be able to know the distant situation of the various planets scattered over the vast material sky
- The mouth is meant for speaking and eating, the arms are meant for the protection of the body, the legs are meant for carrying the body, and the waist of the body is meant for maintaining the body
- The needs are artificial, and in the pure state of life there are no such needs
- The parts of the body are related to the body; similarly, the living being must know his relationship with the Lord
- The parts of the body, such as the senses, are the creation of the mahat-tattva, and when they are assembled by the will of the Lord, the material body comes into existence, and the living entity is allowed to use it for further activities
- The party of Duryodhana insulted Draupadi, a great devotee of Krsna, and she appealed to the Lord as well as to all the silent observers of this unwarranted insult
- The path of light is to satisfy the senses of God. Misguided men, or less intelligent men, follow the path of self-realization without any attempt to satisfy the transcendental senses of God by following the path shown by Arjuna and other devotees of God
- The perfection of the parampara system, or the path of disciplic succession, is further confirmed
- The potential seed of all creation is the brahma-jyotir, and the same brahma-jyotir, unlimited and unfathomed, is established by the Lord. Therefore the Lord Sri Krsna is ultimately the supreme cause of all creation
- The process of creation and annihilation is called anadi, or without reference to date regarding the time the creation first took place, because the duration of even a partial creation is 8,640,000,000 years
- The progressive journey from one planet to another culminates in reaching the supreme planet of the Lord (mad-dhama), where life is eternal and full of bliss and knowledge
- The pure devotees are not only satisfied by knowing everything about the Lord, but are also eager to broadcast the information to others, for they want to see that the glories of the Lord are known to everyone
- The qualities of sense perception are fully represented in the earth, and they are manifested in other elements to a lesser extent. In the sky there is sound only, whereas in the air there are sound and touch
- The quality of sense perception is also evolutionary, namely generated from sound, then touch, and from touch to form. Taste and odor are also generated along with the gradual development of sky, air, fire, water and earth
- The questions may be asked why Naradaji was not aware of the Supreme Lord and why he mis-conceived Brahmaji to be the Supreme Lord, although factually he was not
- The real sky is the spiritual sky, eternally filled with the rays of the brahmajyoti, and a portion of this unlimited sky is covered by the mahat-tattva cloud of the material creation
- The reason is that the Lord reserves the right of not exposing Himself to the nondevotee who, even after a thorough study of literature like the Bhagavad-gita, remains an impersonalist simply by obstinacy
- The self-centered impersonalist, without a clear conception of the Personality of Godhead, concludes in his own way that the Personality of Godhead takes a material shape from His original impersonal spiritual existence for a particular mission
- The senses are never to be stopped in their engagements, but one should purify them by engaging them in the pure service of sense gratification of the master of the senses. This is the instruction of the whole Bhagavad-gita
- The senses are the practical signs of life. Human civilization is meant for purifying the senses, and objects of sense satisfaction should be supplied as much as absolutely required, but not for aggravating artificial sensory needs
- The sound is the representation of the actual object, as the sound produced speaking of the object gives an idea of the description of the object. Therefore sound is the subtle characteristic of the object
- The sound representation of the Lord is nondifferent from the Lord Himself because the Lord and His representation in sound are absolute knowledge
- The speculative philosophers, as well as the mystics, must first of all be attracted to the devotional cult before they can factually attain liberation
- The standard of human civilization should be to cure the disease of sense gratification, and one can do this simply by becoming an agent for satisfying the spiritual senses of the Lord
- The subtle presence of the Lord is felt by the intelligent man who can study the psychic effects of thinking, feeling and willing
- The Supersoul is the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead, whereas the individual soul is the eternal servitor of the Lord
- The Supreme is supreme, and He (God) has no worshipable superior
- The Supreme Lord is always the Supreme, and as we have tried to establish many times in these purports, no living being, even up to the standard of Brahma, can claim to be one with the Lord
- The Supreme Lord is the controller of the material energy, whereas the living entities, who are entangled in the material world, are neither masters nor controllers. Rather, they become subordinate to or controlled by such energy
- The Supreme Lord is the master of the external energy manifested by the three material modes, namely goodness, passion and ignorance, and as master of this energy He is ever unaffected by the influence of such bewildering energy
- The Supreme Lord very kindly invites the intelligent human beings to return home, back to Godhead, in the following verse of the Bhagavad-gita - BG 8.16
- The Supreme Lord, being the supreme possessor of spiritual senses, is the master of the senses, Hrsikesa. Hrsika means the senses, and isa means the master. The Lord is not the servant of the senses
- The supreme worshipable Deity is Narayana. The demigods are recommended secondarily for worship in relation to Narayana because the demigods are assisting hands in the management of the universal affairs
- The three divisions of the complete planetary systems are here (SB 2.5.42) mentioned; fourteen are imagined by others, and that is also explained
- The universe is a complete unit in relationship with the Lord, and without this relationship with the Lord the whole human society is disturbed and is without any peace and prosperity. This is confirmed in the Vedas
- The Vedas are made just to revive the forgotten consciousness of the conditioned souls, and any literature not meant for reviving God consciousness is rejected at once by the narayana-para devotees
- The virat universal form of the Lord is an imagination for the material world. It has nothing to do with the spiritual world, or the kingdom of God
- The whole creation merges within the body of transcendental Narayana at the time of annihilation, and the creation emanates from His body again with the same unchanging categories of fate and individual nature
- The whole material civilization is manifested by a huge accumulation of materials, or, in other words, raw materials for industrial purposes, and the industrial enterprises (kriya-sakti) are all due to gross ignorance of spiritual life
- The whole material or even the spiritual creation is a manifestation of the energy of the Lord, just as the light and heat of a fire are different manifestations of the fire's energy
- The whole process of creation is an act of gradual evolution and development from one element to another, reaching up to the variegatedness of the earth as so many trees, plants, mountains, rivers, reptiles, birds, animals and varieties of human beings
- The word kalpayanti, or "imagine," is significant. The virat universal form of the Absolute is an imagination of the speculative philosophers who are unable to adjust to the eternal two-handed form of Lord Sri Krsna
- The word sanatana is significant. This very idea of eternity is expressed in the Bhagavad-gita (BG 8.20), where it is said that beyond the material creation is the spiritual sky, where everything is eternal
- There are 7 lower planetary systems, known as Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Talatala, Mahatala, Rasatala and Patala lokas. All these planetary systems are scattered over the complete universe, which occupies an area of two billion times two billion square miles
- There are fourteen spheres of planetary systems within this universe
- There are innumerable universes beyond the one in which we are put, and all these material universes cover only an insignificant portion of the spiritual sky, which is described above as sanatana Brahmaloka
- There are two modes of material creation: the creation of the collective universes done by the Maha-Visnu, and the creation of the single universe. Both are done by the Lord, and thus the universal shape, as we can see, takes place
- There were many kings like Lord Ramacandra, the King of Ayodhya, but none of them are mentioned as God in the revealed scriptures
- These (adhibhuta, adhyatma and adhidaiva actions) are the material manifestations of cause and effect and the sense of responsibility of the conditioned actors
- These activities (of the material world) may be taken up as the natural instinct of each and every living being, or even of the inert objects, and after the manifestation of activities there are varieties of products and by-products of the same nature
- These three principles (adhibhutam, adhidaivam, and adhyatmam) act as prominent features, namely as raw material, its regular supplies, and its use in different varieties of material creations for sense enjoyment by the bewildered entities
- They (adhibhuta, adhyatma and adhidaiva actions) are, after all, manifestations of the conditioned state, and the human being's freedom from such a conditioned state is the highest perfectional attainment
- They (devotees) do voluntarily engage the purified senses in the service of the master of the senses, as was done by Arjuna, thereby easily attaining the perfection of satisfying the Lord, the ultimate goal of all perfection
- They (godless atheists) have put forward many theories manufactured by their fertile brains. Contrary to such mental speculative theories of creation, however, Narada Muni wanted to know all the facts of creation in truth, and not by theories
- They (misguided men) artificially try to stop the activities of the senses (yoga system), or they deny the transcendental senses of the Lord - jnana system
- They (the living entities) accept the maya, or the maidservant, as all in all and thus wrongly conceive the Supreme Truth to be feminine - goddess Durga, etc
- They (the universes) stay only during the breathing period of Maha-Visnu
- They are (sky, air, fire, water and earth) all mutually the cause and effect of one another, but the original cause is the Lord Himself in plenary portion, as Maha-Visnu lying in the causal water of the mahat-tattva
- They mistake the Lord and His pastimes in the material world to be one with the conditioned souls and their activities. The Lord condemns such less intelligent persons in the Bhagavad-gita
- This (impersonal Brahman is situated on God) is confirmed both in the Bhagavad-gita and in the Matsya Purana. Gati refers to the ultimate destination, or the last word in liberation
- This ability is also awarded by God according to one's willingness to render service unto God. One must be voluntarily willing to render service unto the Lord, and He will empower the doer in proportion to his surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord
- This brahma-jyotir is all-pervading, and all creation is made possible by its potential power; therefore the Vedic hymns declare that everything that exists is being sustained by the brahma-jyotir (sarvam khalv idam brahma)
- This Brahmaloka is eternal, whereas the Satyaloka planetary system is not eternal. And to distinguish between the two, the adjective sanatana has been used in this case
- This external energy of the Lord covers up the pure knowledge of the living entities eternally existing with Him, but the covering is so constant that it appears that the conditioned soul is eternally ignorant
- This is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita: the living entity is as if seated on the machine of the body, and the car of the body is moving by the control of material nature, just as the railway trains are moving under the direction of the controller
- This long duration of life (Brahma's) may not be believed by "the frog in the well," but persons who have a realization of the truths mentioned in the BG accept the existence of a great personality who creates the variegatedness of the complete universe
- This material world is only a shadow phantasmagoria of the spiritual kingdom of God, and because it is a shadow it is never eternal; the variegatedness in the material world of duality (spirit and matter) cannot be compared to that of the spiritual world
- This misconception of the formlessness of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is due to the yogamaya curtain of the Lord and can be removed only by the Supreme Will, as soon as the conditioned soul surrenders unto Him
- This misleading conception of the Supreme Lord by the self-centered impersonalist continues, even though he is seen to be very interested in the Vedic literatures such as the Brahma-sutras and other highly intellectual sources of knowledge
- This mode of passion is the product of the air element
- This obstinacy is due to the action of yogamaya, a personal energy of the Lord that acts like an aide-de-camp by covering the vision of the obstinate impersonalist
- This phenomenal world is impersonally the representation of Vasudeva because the ingredients of its creation, their interaction and the enjoyer of the resultant action, the living being are all produced by the external and internal energies of Lord Krsna
- This process (asking for transcendental knowledge from the right person and receiving it by disciplic succession) is recommended in the Bhagavad-gita (BG 4.2)
- This self-centered egoism of the materialistic living entities is the cause of their being conditioned by the other paraphernalia and continuing their bondage of material existence. In the Bhagavad-gita this self-centered egoism is very nicely explained
- Those who are before God and who surrender unto Him, cannot be influenced by the deluding energy; they are free from the misconception of "It is I, it is mine," and therefore they do not accept a false God or pose themselves as equal to the Supreme Lord
- Those who are not surrendered souls are put under the care of the material nature (bhramayan sarva-bhutani yantrarudhani mayaya (BG 18.61)); they are allowed to do things on their own account and suffer the consequences themselves
- Three principal items, namely the living being, the phenomenal world and the controller, are all in continuous action - past, present and future
- To be a good king is not necessarily the qualification for being Lord Rama, but to be a great personality like Krsna is the qualification for being the Personality of Godhead
- To speak for the Supreme Lord means to glorify the Lord by means of propagating the knowledge of the Lord as it is, broadcasting the factual nature of the Lord and the factual position of all other parts of the whole body
- Transcendental knowledge regarding the soul and the Supersoul includes knowledge of the phenomenal world and the basis of its creation
- Two identities of soul, the Supersoul and the individual soul, are admitted to be in the living entity, even by Lord Brahma, the greatest authority of the universe
- Two identities of soul, the Supersoul and the individual soul, are admitted to be in the living entity, even by the greatest authority of the universe
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- When it is (the mahat-tattva) agitated by the will of the Supreme at first the modes of passion and goodness are prominent
- When one comes to see the disadvantage of aggravating the sense activities, one is called a jnani, and when one tries to stop the activities of the senses by the practice of yogic principles, he is called a yogi
- When one is fully aware of the transcendental senses of the Lord and tries to satisfy His senses, one is called a devotee of the Lord
- When the animation takes place, the living entities revive their own natural activities under the spell of time and energy, and thus the varieties of living beings are manifested. The Lord is ultimately the cause of all animation in the material world
- When the bewildered living being desires this, the shadow elements are generated by the will of the Lord, and the living entities are allowed to run after them as after a phantasmagoria
- Whenever the Lord incarnates, He does so in His full internal potency (atma-maya), and less intelligent persons mistake Him to be one of the material creations
- Whether products of the external internal or marginal potencies of God are simply displays of the same effulgence of God just as light heat & smoke are displays of fire. None of them are separate from the fire all of them combine together to be fire
- While Maha-visnu sleeps within the Causal Ocean, innumerable universes are generated along with His breathing. These universes are floating, and they are scattered all over the Causal Ocean
- Why such persons take pleasure in being addressed as God, or why such persons are addressed as God by foolish admirers, is explained in the following verse - SB 2.5.13
- With the advancement of the duration of life in a particular millennium, the different modes act by gradual development
- Without the Lord's relation, worship of the demigods is unauthorized (avidhi-purvakam), just as it is improper to water the leaves and branches of a tree without watering its root. Therefore the demigods are also dependent on Narayana