Eternal time (SB, Cantos 8-12)
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 8
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is certainly not known to everyone, but He is very powerful and influential. Therefore, although the serpent of eternal time, which is fearful in force, endlessly chases everyone, ready to swallow him, if one who fears this serpent seeks shelter of the Lord, the Lord gives him protection, for even death runs away in fear of the Lord. I therefore surrender unto Him, the great and powerful supreme authority who is the actual shelter of everyone.
No one can say, "I do not fear death." This is a false proposition. Everyone fears death. However, one who seeks shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead can be saved from death. One may argue, "Does the devotee not die?" The answer is that a devotee certainly must give up his body, for the body is material. The difference is, however, that for one who surrenders to Kṛṣṇa fully and who is protected by Kṛṣṇa, the present body is his last; he will not again receive a material body to be subjected to death. This is assured in Bhagavad-gītā (4.9). Tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so'rjuna: a devotee, after giving up his body, does not accept a material body, but returns home, back to Godhead. We are always in danger because at any moment death can take place. It is not that only Gajendra, the King of the elephants, was afraid of death. Everyone should fear death because everyone is caught by the crocodile of eternal time and may die at any moment. The best course, therefore, is to seek shelter of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and be saved from the struggle for existence in this material world, in which one repeatedly takes birth and dies. To reach this understanding is the ultimate goal of life.
Greed is generated from His lower lip, affection from His upper lip, bodily luster from His nose, animalistic lusty desires from His sense of touch, Yamarāja from His eyebrows, and eternal time from His eyelashes. May that Supreme Lord be pleased with us.
All learned men say that the five elements, eternal time, fruitive activity, the three modes of material nature, and the varieties produced by these modes are all creations of yogamāyā. This material world is therefore extremely difficult to understand, but those who are highly learned have rejected it. May the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the controller of everything, be pleased with us.
O lord, you are the original source of Vedic literature. You are the original cause of material creation, the life force, the senses, the five elements, the three modes and the mahat-tattva. You are eternal time, determination and the two religious systems called truth (satya) and truthfulness (ṛta). You are the shelter of the syllable oṁ, which consists of three letters a-u-m.
O father of all planets, learned scholars know that fire is your mouth, the surface of the globe is your lotus feet, eternal time is your movement, all the directions are your ears, and Varuṇa, master of the waters, is your tongue.
Someone may possess full knowledge of religion but still not be kind to all living entities. In someone, whether human or demigod, there may be renunciation, but that is not the cause of liberation. Someone may possess great power and yet be unable to check the power of eternal time. Someone else may have renounced attachment to the material world, yet he cannot compare to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore, no one is completely freed from the influence of the material modes of nature.
Bali Mahārāja replied: All those present on this battlefield are certainly under the influence of eternal time, and according to their prescribed activities, they are destined to receive fame, victory, defeat and death, one after another.
If one is victorious on the battlefield, he becomes famous; and if one is not victorious but is defeated, he may die. Both victory and defeat are possible, whether on such a battlefield as this or on the battlefield of the struggle for existence. Everything takes place according to the laws of nature (prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27)). Since everyone, without exception, is subject to the modes of material nature, whether one is victorious or defeated he is not independent, but is under the control of material nature. Bali Mahārāja, therefore, was very sensible. He knew that the fighting was arranged by eternal time and that under time's influence one must accept the results of one's own activities. Therefore even though Indra threatened that he would now kill Bali Mahārāja by releasing the thunderbolt, Bali Mahārāja was not at all afraid. This is the spirit of a kṣatriya: yuddhe cāpy apalāyanam (BG 18.43). A kṣatriya must be tolerant in all circumstances, especially on the battlefield. Thus Bali Mahārāja asserted that he was not at all afraid of death, although he was threatened by such a great personality as the King of heaven.
When I finished performing mystic yoga for one thousand years, you asked me upon whom I was meditating. Now, here is that Supreme Person to whom time has no entrance and who the Vedas cannot understand.
Eternal time enters anywhere and everywhere, but it cannot enter the kingdom of god. Nor can the Vedas understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is an indication of the Lord's being omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.
O my Lord, You are the beginning, the manifestation and the ultimate dissolution of the three worlds, and You are celebrated in the Vedas as the reservoir of unlimited potencies, the Supreme Person. O my Lord, as waves attract branches and leaves that have fallen into deep water, You, the supreme eternal time factor, attract everything in this universe.
SB Canto 10.1 to 10.13
Taking the boat of Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, my grandfather Arjuna and others crossed the ocean of the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, in which such commanders as Bhīṣmadeva resembled great fish that could very easily have swallowed them. By the mercy of Lord Kṛṣṇa, my grandfathers crossed this ocean, which was very difficult to cross, as easily as one steps over the hoofprint of a calf. Because my mother surrendered unto Lord Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet, the Lord, Sudarśana-cakra in hand, entered her womb and saved my body, the body of the last remaining descendant of the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas, which was almost destroyed by the fiery weapon of Aśvatthāmā. Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, appearing within and outside of all materially embodied living beings by His own potency in the forms of eternal time—that is, as Paramātmā and as virāṭ-rūpa—gave liberation to everyone, either as cruel death or as life. Kindly enlighten me by describing His transcendental characteristics.
Everyone is searching after the truth. That is the philosophical way of life. The demigods give information that the Supreme Absolute Truth is Kṛṣṇa. One who becomes fully Kṛṣṇa conscious can attain the Absolute Truth. Kṛṣṇa is the Absolute Truth. Relative truth is not truth in all the three phases of eternal time. Time is divided into past, present and future. Kṛṣṇa is Truth always, past, present and future. In the material world, everything is being controlled by supreme time, in the course of past, present and future. But before the creation, Kṛṣṇa was existing, and when there is creation, everything is resting in Kṛṣṇa, and when this creation is finished, Kṛṣṇa will remain. Therefore, He is Absolute Truth in all circumstances, If there is any truth within this material world, it emanates from the Supreme Truth, Kṛṣṇa. If there is any opulence within this material world, the cause of the opulence is Kṛṣṇa. If there is any reputation within this material world, the cause of the reputation is Kṛṣṇa. If there is any strength within this material world, the cause of such strength is Kṛṣṇa. If there is any wisdom and education within this material world, the cause of such wisdom and education is Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa is the source of all relative truths.
As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.52):
- yac-cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ
- rājā samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ
- yasyājñayā bhramati saṁbhṛta-kāla-cakro
- govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
"The sun is the king of all planetary systems and has unlimited potency in heat and light. I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, under whose control even the sun, which is considered to be the eye of the Lord, rotates within the fixed orbit of eternal time." Although we see the cosmic manifestation as gigantic and wonderful, it is within the limitations of kāla, the time factor. This time factor is also controlled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram (BG 9.10)). Prakṛti, the cosmic manifestation, is under the control of time. Indeed, everything is under the control of time, and time is controlled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore the Supreme Lord has no fear of the onslaughts of time. Time is estimated according to the movements of the sun (savitā). Every minute, every second, every day, every night, every month and every year of time can be calculated according to the sun's movements. But the sun is not independent, for it is under time's control. Bhramati saṁbhṛta-kāla-cakraḥ: the sun moves within the kāla-cakra, the orbit of time. The sun is under the control of time, and time is controlled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore the Lord has no fear of time.
SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)
When the annihilation of the material elements is imminent, the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His form of eternal time withdraws the manifest cosmos, consisting of gross and subtle features, and the entire universe vanishes into nonmanifestation.
Although the mighty wind blows clouds and storms across the sky, the sky is never implicated or affected by these activities. Similarly, the spirit soul is not actually changed or affected by contact with the material nature. Although the living entity enters within a body made of earth, water and fire, and although he is impelled by the three modes of nature created by eternal time, his eternal spiritual nature is never actually affected.
Until his pious results are used up, the performer of sacrifice enjoys life in the heavenly planets. When the pious results are exhausted, however, he falls down from the pleasure gardens of heaven, being moved against his desire by the force of eternal time.
| Page Title: | Eternal time (SB, Cantos 8-12) |
| Compiler: | Labangalatika |
| Created: | 07 of May, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=16, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 16 |