Exhibit (SB cantos 1 - 3)

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SB Preface and Introduction

SB Introduction:

Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu exhibited His transcendental activities for forty-eight years and then disappeared from this mortal world in the year 1455 Śakābda at Purī.

SB Introduction:

The essence of His preaching is that Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who appeared at Vrajabhūmi (Vṛndāvana) as the son of the King of Vraja (Nanda Mahārāja), is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and is therefore worshipable by all. Vṛndāvana-dhāma is nondifferent from the Lord because the name, fame, form and place where the Lord manifests Himself are all identical with the Lord as absolute knowledge. Therefore Vṛndāvana-dhāma is as worshipable as the Lord. The highest form of transcendental worship of the Lord was exhibited by the damsels of Vrajabhūmi in the form of pure affection for the Lord, and Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu recommends this process as the most excellent mode of worship. He accepts the Śrīmad-Bhāgavata Purāṇa as the spotless literature for understanding the Lord, and He preaches that the ultimate goal of life for all human beings is to attain the stage of premā, or love of God.

SB Introduction:

The Lord visited many important places on the way to Purī. He visited the temple of Gopīnāthajī, who had stolen condensed milk for His devotee Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī. Since then Deity Gopīnāthajī is well known as Kṣīra-corā-gopīnātha. The Lord relished this story with great pleasure. The propensity of stealing is there even in the absolute consciousness, but because this propensity is exhibited by the Absolute, it loses its perverted nature and thus becomes worshipable even by Lord Caitanya on the basis of the absolute consideration that the Lord and His stealing propensity are one and identical. This interesting story of Gopīnāthajī is vividly explained in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī.

SB Introduction:

Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, who was the chief appointed paṇḍita in the court of the King of Orissa, Mahārāja Pratāparudra, was attracted by the youthful luster of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and could understand that such a transcendental trance was only rarely exhibited and only then by the topmost devotees who are already on the transcendental plane in complete forgetfulness of material existence. Only a liberated soul could show such a transcendental feat, and the Bhaṭṭācārya, who was vastly learned, could understand this in the light of the transcendental literature with which he was familiar. He therefore asked the custodians of the temple not to disturb the unknown sannyāsī. He asked them to take the Lord to his home so He could be further observed in His unconscious state. The Lord was at once carried to the home of Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, who at that time had sufficient power of authority due to his being the sabhā-paṇḍita, or the state dean of faculty in Sanskrit literatures. The learned paṇḍita wanted to scrutinizingly test the transcendental feats of Lord Caitanya because often unscrupulous devotees imitate physical feats in order to flaunt transcendental achievements just to attract innocent people and take advantage of them. A learned scholar like the Bhaṭṭācārya can detect such imposters, and when he finds them out he at once rejects them.

SB Introduction:

As long as the Lord remained at Purī, thousands of His devotees used to come to see Him during the Ratha-yātrā car festival of Lord Jagannātha. And during the car festival, the washing of the Guṇḍicā temple under the direct supervision of the Lord was an important function. The Lord's congregational saṅkīrtana movement at Purī was a unique exhibition for the mass of people. That is the way to turn the mass mind towards spiritual realization. The Lord inaugurated this system of mass saṅkīrtana, and leaders of all countries can take advantage of this spiritual movement in order to keep the mass of people in a pure state of peace and friendship with one another. This is now the demand of the present human society all over the world.

SB Canto 1

SB 1.1.3, Purport:

Therefore, the rasas were originally exchanged between the spiritual living being and the spiritual whole, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The spiritual exchange or rasa is fully exhibited in spiritual existence between living beings and the Supreme Lord.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is therefore described in the śruti-mantras, Vedic hymns, as "the fountainhead of all rasas." When one associates with the Supreme Lord and exchanges one's constitutional rasa with the Lord, then the living being is actually happy.

These śruti-mantras indicate that every living being has its constitutional position, which is endowed with a particular type of rasa to be exchanged with the Personality of Godhead. In the liberated condition only, this primary rasa is experienced in full. In the material existence, the rasa is experienced in the perverted form, which is temporary. And thus the rasas of the material world are exhibited in the material form of raudra (anger) and so on.

SB 1.1.20, Purport:

So knowledge of the transcendental nature of the birth and deeds of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is sufficient for liberation. In the Bhāgavatam, the transcendental nature of the Lord is described in nine cantos, and in the Tenth Canto His specific pastimes are taken up. All this becomes known as one's reading of this literature progresses. It is important to note here, however, that the Lord exhibited His divinity even from the lap of His mother, that His deeds are all superhuman (He lifted Govardhana Hill at the age of seven), and that all these acts definitely prove Him to be actually the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Yet, due to His mystic covering, He was always accepted as an ordinary human child by His so-called father and mother and other relatives. Whenever some herculean task was performed by Him, the father and mother took it otherwise. And they remained satisfied with unflinching filial love for their son. As such, the sages of Naimiṣāraṇya describe Him as apparently resembling a human being, but actually He is the supreme almighty Personality of Godhead.

SB 1.3.22, Translation:

In the eighteenth incarnation, the Lord appeared as King Rāma. In order to perform some pleasing work for the demigods, He exhibited superhuman powers by controlling the Indian Ocean and then killing the atheist King Rāvaṇa, who was on the other side of the sea.

SB 1.3.22, Purport:

He even challenged the authority of Śrī Rāma, the Personality of Godhead, and kidnapped His wife, Sītā. Of course, Lord Rāma had come to chastise such atheists, answering the prayer and desire of the demigods. He therefore took up the challenge of Rāvaṇa, and the complete activity is the subject matter of the Rāmāyaṇa. Because Lord Rāmacandra was the Personality of Godhead, He exhibited superhuman activities which no human being, including the materially advanced Rāvaṇa, could perform. Lord Rāmacandra prepared a royal road on the Indian Ocean with stones that floated on the water. The modern scientists have done research in the area of weightlessness, but it is not possible to bring in weightlessness anywhere and everywhere. But because weightlessness is the creation of the Lord by which He can make the gigantic planets fly and float in the air, He made the stones even within this earth to be weightless and prepared a stone bridge on the sea without any supporting pillar. That is the display of the power of God.

SB 1.3.28, Purport:

The Lord's empowered incarnation Nārada and plenary incarnation Varāha, as well as indirectly empowered Lord Buddha, created faith in the mass of people. The incarnations of Rāma and Dhanvantari displayed His fame, and Balarāma, Mohinī and Vāmana exhibited His beauty. Dattātreya, Matsya, Kumāra and Kapila exhibited His transcendental knowledge. Nara and Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣis exhibited His renunciation. So all the different indirectly or directly empowered incarnations of the Lord manifested different features, but Lord Kṛṣṇa, the primeval Lord, exhibited the complete features of Godhead, and thus it is confirmed that He is the source of all other incarnations. And the most extraordinary feature exhibited by Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa was His internal energetic manifestation of His pastimes with the cowherd girls. His pastimes with the gopīs are all displays of transcendental existence, bliss and knowledge, although these are manifested apparently as sex love. The specific attraction of His pastimes with the gopīs should never be misunderstood. The Bhāgavatam relates these transcendental pastimes in the Tenth Canto. And in order to reach the position to understand the transcendental nature of Lord Kṛṣṇa's pastimes with the gopīs, the Bhāgavatam promotes the student gradually in nine other cantos.

SB 1.3.43, Purport:

The Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa appeared before us just a little prior to the beginning of Kali-yuga, and He returned to His eternal home practically at the commencement of Kali-yuga. While He was present, He exhibited everything by His different activities. He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā specifically and eradicated all pretentious principles of religiosity. And prior to His departure from this material world, He empowered Śrī Vyāsadeva through Nārada to compile the messages of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and thus both the Bhagavad-gītā and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam are like torchbearers for the blind people of this age. In other words, if men in this age of Kali want to see the real light of life, they must take to these two books only, and their aim of life will be fulfilled. Bhagavad-gītā is the preliminary study of the Bhāgavatam. And Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the summum bonum of life, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa personified. We must therefore accept Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam as the direct representation of Lord Kṛṣṇa. One who can see Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam can see also Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa in person. They are identical.

SB 1.5.16, Purport:

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is the topmost theological science, and therefore it can react on the laymen as medicinal doses. Because it contains the transcendental activities of the Lord, there is no difference between the Lord and the literature. The literature is the factual literary incarnation of the Lord. So the laymen can hear the narration of the activities of the Lord. Thereby they are able to associate with the Lord and thus gradually become purified from material diseases. The expert devotees also can discover novel ways and means to convert the nondevotees in terms of particular time and circumstance. Devotional service is dynamic activity, and the expert devotees can find out competent means to inject it into the dull brains of the materialistic population. Such transcendental activities of the devotees for the service of the Lord can bring a new order of life to the foolish society of materialistic men. Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His subsequent followers exhibited expert dexterity in this connection. By following the same method, one can bring the materialistic men of this age of quarrel into order for peaceful life and transcendental realization.

SB 1.5.34, Purport:

This service attitude will induce the great souls to be more favorable in bestowing their mercy, which injects the neophyte with all the transcendental qualities of the pure devotees. Gradually this is developed into a strong attachment to hearing the transcendental pastimes of the Lord, which makes him able to catch up the constitutional position of the gross and subtle bodies and beyond them the knowledge of pure soul and his eternal relation with the Supreme Soul, the Personality of Godhead. After the relation is ascertained by establishment of the eternal relation, pure devotional service to the Lord begins gradually developing into perfect knowledge of the Personality of Godhead beyond the purview of impersonal Brahman and localized Paramātmā. By such puruṣottama-yoga, as it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, one is made perfect even during the present corporeal existence, and one exhibits all the good qualities of the Lord to the highest percentage. Such is the gradual development by association of pure devotees.

SB 1.5.39, Purport:

Communion with the Lord by transmission of the transcendental sound is nondifferent from the whole spirit Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. It is a completely perfect method for approaching the Lord. By such pure contact with the Lord, without offense of material conceptions (numbering ten), the devotee can rise above the material plane to understand the inner meaning of the Vedic literatures, including the Lord's existence in the transcendental realm. The Lord reveals His identity gradually to one who has unflinching faith, both in the spiritual master and in the Lord. After this, the devotee is endowed with mystic opulences, which are eight in number. And above all, the devotee is accepted in the confidential entourage of the Lord and is entrusted with specific service of the Lord through the agency of the spiritual master. A pure devotee is more interested in serving the Lord than in showing an exhibition of the mystic powers dormant in him. Śrī Nārada has explained all these from his personal experience, and one can obtain all the facilities which Śrī Nārada obtained by perfecting the chanting process of the sound representation of the Lord. There is no bar for chanting this transcendental sound by anyone, provided it is received through Nārada's representative, coming down by the chain of disciplic succession, or the paramparā system.

SB 1.6.21, Purport:

The Personality of Godhead is described in the Bhagavad-gītā as the most pure, the Supreme and the Absolute Truth. There is no trace of a tinge of materiality in His person, and thus one who has the slightest tinge of material affection cannot approach Him. The beginning of devotional service starts from the point when one is freed from at least two forms of material modes, namely the mode of passion and the mode of ignorance. The result is exhibited by the signs of being freed from kāma (lust) and lobha (covetousness). That is to say, one must be freed from the desires for sense satisfaction and avarice for sense gratification. The balanced mode of nature is goodness. And to be completely freed from all material tinges is to become free from the mode of goodness also. To search the audience of God in a lonely forest is considered to be in the mode of goodness. One can go out into the forest to attain spiritual perfection, but that does not mean that one can see the Lord personally there. One must be completely freed from all material attachment and be situated on the plane of transcendence, which alone will help the devotee get in personal touch with the Personality of Godhead.

SB 1.7.4, Purport:

The external energy is compared to darkness because it keeps the living entities in the darkness of ignorance. The word apāśrayam suggests that this energy of the Lord is under full control. The internal potency or superior energy is also called māyā, but it is spiritual māyā, or energy exhibited in the absolute realm. When one is under the shelter of this internal potency, the darkness of material ignorance is at once dissipated. And even those who are ātmārāma, or fixed in trance, take shelter of this māyā, or internal energy. Devotional service, or bhakti-yoga, is the function of the internal energy; thus there is no place for the inferior energy, or material energy, just as there is no place for darkness in the effulgence of spiritual light. Such internal energy is even superior to the spiritual bliss attainable in the conception of impersonal Brahman. It is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that the impersonal Brahman effulgence is also an emanation from the Absolute Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa. The parama-puruṣa cannot be anyone except Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself, as will be explained in the later ślokas.

SB 1.7.30, Purport:

The heat created by the flash of a brahmāstra resembles the fire exhibited in the sun globe at the time of cosmic annihilation. The radiation of atomic energy is very insignificant in comparison to the heat produced by a brahmāstra. The atomic bomb explosion can at utmost blow up one globe, but the heat produced by the brahmāstra can destroy the whole cosmic situation. The comparison is therefore made to the heat at the time of annihilation.

SB 1.7.34, Purport:

Both Arjuna and Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa are described here in an angry mood, but Arjuna's eyes were like balls of red copper whereas the eyes of the Lord were like lotuses. This means that the angry mood of Arjuna and that of the Lord are not on the same level. The Lord is Transcendence, and thus He is absolute in any stage. His anger is not like the anger of a conditioned living being within the modes of qualitative material nature. Because He is absolute, both His anger and pleasure are the same. His anger is not exhibited in the three modes of material nature. It is only a sign of His bent of mind towards the cause of His devotee because that is His transcendental nature. Therefore, even if He is angry, the object of anger is blessed. He is unchanged in all circumstances.

SB 1.7.52, Purport:

Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa had two arms, and why He is designated as four-armed is explained by Śrīdhara Svāmī. Both Bhīma and Draupadī held opposite views about killing Aśvatthāmā. Bhīma wanted him to be immediately killed, whereas Draupadī wanted to save him. We can imagine Bhīma ready to kill while Draupadī is obstructing him. And in order to prevent both of them, the Lord discovered another two arms. Originally, the primeval Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa displays only two arms, but in His Nārāyaṇa feature He exhibits four. In His Nārāyaṇa feature He resides with His devotees in the Vaikuṇṭha planets, while in His original Śrī Kṛṣṇa feature He resides in the Kṛṣṇaloka planet far, far above the Vaikuṇṭha planets in the spiritual sky. Therefore, if Śrī Kṛṣṇa is called caturbhujaḥ, there is no contradiction. If need be He can display hundreds of arms, as He exhibited in His viśva-rūpa shown to Arjuna. Therefore, one who can display hundreds and thousands of arms can also manifest four whenever needed.

SB 1.8.4, Purport:

And under the dictation of māyā, we fight with one another to protect these false possessions. By cultivating spiritual knowledge, we can realize that we have nothing to do with all this material paraphernalia. Then at once we become free from material attachment. This clearance of the misgivings of material existence at once takes place by association with the Lord's devotees, who are able to inject the transcendental sound into the depths of the bewildered heart and thus make one practically liberated from all lamentation and illusion. That is a summary of the pacifying measures for those affected by the reaction of stringent material laws, exhibited in the forms of birth, death, old age and disease, which are insoluble factors of material existence. The victims of war, namely, the family members of the Kurus, were lamenting the problems of death, and the Lord pacified them on the basis of knowledge.

SB 1.8.19, Purport:

In the Bhagavad-gītā Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa affirms that less intelligent persons mistake Him to be an ordinary man like us, and thus they deride Him. The same is confirmed herein by Queen Kuntī. The less intelligent persons are those who rebel against the authority of the Lord. Such persons are known as asuras. The asuras cannot recognize the Lord's authority. When the Lord Himself appears amongst us, as Rāma, Nṛsiṁha, Varāha or in His original form as Kṛṣṇa, He performs many wonderful acts which are humanly impossible. As we shall find in the Tenth Canto of this great literature, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa exhibited His humanly impossible activities even from the days of His lying on the lap of His mother. He killed the Pūtanā witch, although she smeared her breast with poison just to kill the Lord. The Lord sucked her breast like a natural baby, and He sucked out her very life also. Similarly, He lifted the Govardhana Hill, just as a boy picks up a frog's umbrella, and stood several days continuously just to give protection to the residents of Vṛndāvana.

SB 1.8.21, Purport:

Therefore Lord Kṛṣṇa is more merciful than Lord Rāma. He was undoubtedly very kind to Kuntī's brother Vasudeva and the family. Had He not become the son of Vasudeva and Devakī, Queen Kuntī could not claim Him to be her nephew and thus address Kṛṣṇa in parental affection. But Nanda and Yaśodā are more fortunate because they could relish the Lord's childhood pastimes, which are more attractive than all other pastimes. There is no parallel to His childhood pastimes as exhibited at Vrajabhūmi, which are replicas of His eternal affairs in the original Kṛṣṇaloka, described as the cintāmaṇi-dhāma in the Brahma-saṁhitā (Bs. 5.29). Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa descended Himself at Vrajabhūmi with all His transcendental entourage and paraphernalia. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu therefore confirmed that no one is as fortunate as the residents of Vrajabhūmi, and specifically the cowherd girls, who dedicated their everything for the satisfaction of the Lord. His pastimes with Nanda and Yaśodā and His pastimes with the cowherd men and especially with the cowherd boys and the cows have caused Him to be known as Govinda. Lord Kṛṣṇa as Govinda is more inclined to the brāhmaṇas and the cows, indicating thereby that human prosperity depends more on these two items, namely brahminical culture and cow protection. Lord Kṛṣṇa is never satisfied where these are lacking.

SB 1.8.27, Purport:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead has no direct connection with material activities. All His acts and deeds, which are exhibited even in this material world, are spiritual and without affection for the modes of material nature. In the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that all His acts, even His appearance and disappearance in and out of the material world, are transcendental, and one who knows this perfectly shall not take his birth again in this material world, but will go back to Godhead.

SB 1.9.19, Purport:

Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, one of the great ācāryas in the modern age, explains that anubhāva, or the glory of the Lord, is first appreciated by the devotee in ecstasy manifesting the symptoms of perspiring, trembling, weeping, bodily eruptions, etc., which are further enhanced by steady understanding of the glories of the Lord. Such different understandings of bhāvas are exchanged between Yaśodā and the Lord (binding the Lord by ropes) and in the chariot driving by the Lord in the exchange of love with Arjuna. These glories of the Lord are exhibited in His being subordinated before His devotees, and that is another feature of the glories of the Lord. Śukadeva Gosvāmī and the Kumāras, although situated in the transcendental position, became converted by another feature of bhāva and turned into pure devotees of the Lord. Tribulations imposed upon the devotees by the Lord constitute another exchange of transcendental bhāva between the Lord and the devotees. The Lord says "I put My devotee into difficulty, and thus the devotee becomes more purified in exchanging transcendental bhāva with Me."

SB 1.9.21, Purport:

Similarly, the Lord is distributed by His different energies. He is Paramātmā, or the Supersoul, present in everyone as the supreme guidance, and therefore He is already the chariot driver and counsel of all living beings. When He, therefore, exhibits Himself as chariot driver of Arjuna, there is no change in His exalted position. It is the power of devotional service only that demonstrates Him as the chariot driver or the messenger. Since He has nothing to do with the material conception of life because He is absolute spiritual identity, there is for Him no superior or inferior action. Being the Absolute Personality of Godhead, He has no false ego, and so He does not identify Himself with anything different from Him. The material conception of ego is equibalanced in Him. He does not feel, therefore, inferior by becoming the chariot driver of His pure devotee. It is the glory of the pure devotee that only he can bring about service from the affectionate Lord.

SB 1.9.33, Purport:

Transcendental relation with the Lord in any one of the different rasas (humors) is relishable by the respective devotees in the highest ecstasy. Less intelligent mundaners who want to make a show of being transcendentally related with the Lord artificially jump at once to the relation of conjugal love, imitating the damsels of Vrajadhāma. Such a cheap relation with the Lord exhibits only the base mentality of the mundaner because one who has relished conjugal humor with the Lord cannot be attached to worldly conjugal rasa, which is condemned even by mundane ethics. The eternal relation of a particular soul with the Lord is evolved. A genuine relation of the living being with the Supreme Lord can take any form out of the five principal rasas, and it does not make any difference in transcendental degree to the genuine devotee. Bhīṣmadeva is a concrete example of this, and it should be carefully observed how the great general is transcendentally related with the Lord.

SB 1.9.44, Purport:

Bhīṣmadeva, as a pure devotee of the Lord, entered the spiritual realm in one of the Vaikuṇṭha planets where the Lord in His eternal form of Pārtha-sārathi predominates over the unconditioned living beings who are constantly engaged in the service of the Lord. The love and affection which bind the Lord and devotee are exhibited in the case of Bhīṣmadeva. Bhīṣmadeva never forgot the Lord in His transcendental feature as the Pārtha-sārathi, and the Lord was present personally before Bhīṣmadeva while he was passing to the transcendental world. That is the highest perfection of life.

SB 1.10.25, Purport:

When He descends, He exhibits superhuman acts just to prove His supreme right, and materialists like Rāvaṇa, Hiraṇyakaśipu and Kaṁsa are sufficiently punished. He acts in a manner which no one can imitate. For example, the Lord, when He appeared as Rāma, bridged the Indian Ocean. When He appeared as Kṛṣṇa, from His very childhood He showed superhuman activities by killing Pūtanā, Aghāsura, Śakaṭāsura, Kāliya, etc., and then His maternal uncle Kaṁsa. When He was at Dvārakā He married 16,108 queens, and all of them were blessed with a sufficient number of children. The sum total of His personal family members amounted to about ten million, popularly known as the Yadu-vaṁśa. And again, during His lifetime, He managed to vanquish them all. He is famous as the Govardhana-dhārī Hari because He lifted at the age of only seven the hill known as Govardhana. The Lord killed many undesirable kings in His time, and as a kṣatriya He fought chivalrously. He is famous as the asamaurdhva, unparalleled. No one is equal to or greater than Him.

SB 1.10.32, Purport:

Natural defensive measures are horses and elephants combined with chariots and men. Horses and elephants are trained to move to any part of the hills or forests and plains. The charioteers could fight with many horses and elephants by the strength of powerful arrows, even up to the standard of the brahmāstra (similar to modern atomic weapons). Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira knew well that Kṛṣṇa is everyone's friend and well-wisher, and yet there were asuras who were by nature envious of the Lord. So out of fear of attack from others and out of affection also, he engaged all varieties of defensive forces as bodyguards of Lord Kṛṣṇa. If required, Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself was sufficient to defend Himself from the attack of others who counted the Lord as their enemy, but still He accepted all the arrangements made by Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira because He could not disobey the King, who was His elder cousin. The Lord plays the part of a subordinate in His transcendental sporting, and thus sometimes He puts Himself in the care of Yaśodāmātā for His protection in His so-called helplessness of childhood. That is the transcendental līlā, or pastime of the Lord. The basic principle for all transcendental exchanges between the Lord and His devotees is exhibited to enjoy a transcendental bliss for which there is no comparison, even up to the level of brahmānanda.

SB 1.11.21, Purport:

The Supreme Lord Personality of Godhead is neither impersonal nor an inert object unable to reciprocate the feelings of His devotees. Here the word yathā-vidhi, or "just as it behooves" is significant. He reciprocates "just as it behooves" with His different types of admirers and devotees. Of course, the pure devotees are of one type only because they have no other object for service but the Lord, and therefore the Lord also reciprocates with such pure devotees just as it behooves, namely, He is always attentive to all the matters of His pure devotees. There are others who designate Him as impersonal, and so the Lord also does not take any personal interest. He satisfies everyone in terms of one's development of spiritual consciousness, and a sample of such reciprocation is exhibited here with His different welcomers.

SB 1.12.2, Purport:

The king of Hastināpura (now Delhi) used to be the emperor of the world, at least till the time of the son of Emperor Parīkṣit. Mahārāja Parīkṣit was saved by the Lord in the womb of his mother, so he could certainly be saved from an untimely death due to the ill will of the son of a brāhmaṇa. Because the age of Kali began to act just after the assumption of power by Mahārāja Parīkṣit, the first sign of misgivings was exhibited in the cursing of such a greatly intelligent and devoted king as Mahārāja Parīkṣit. The king is the protector of the helpless citizens, and their welfare, peace and prosperity depend on him. Unfortunately, by the instigation of the fallen age of Kali, an unfortunate brāhmaṇa's son was employed to condemn the innocent Mahārāja Parīkṣit, and so the King had to prepare himself for death within seven days.

SB 1.14.8, Purport:

The expansions execute differential activities. When the Lord, however, appears in His person as Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, His other plenary portions also join in Him by His inconceivable potency called yogamāyā, and thus the Lord Kṛṣṇa of Vṛndāvana is different from the Lord Kṛṣṇa of Mathurā or the Lord Kṛṣṇa of Dvārakā. The virāṭ-rūpa of Lord Kṛṣṇa is also different from Him, by His inconceivable potency. The virāṭ-rūpa exhibited on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra is the material conception of His form. Therefore it should be understood that when Lord Kṛṣṇa was apparently killed by the bow and arrow of the hunter, the Lord left His so-called material body in the material world. The Lord is kaivalya, and for Him there is no difference between matter and spirit because everything is created from Him. Therefore His quitting one sort of body or accepting another body does not mean that He is like the ordinary living being. All such activities are simultaneously one and different by His inconceivable potency. When Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira was lamenting the possibility of His disappearance, it was just in pursuance of a custom of lamenting the disappearance of a great friend, but factually the Lord never quits His transcendental body, as is misconceived by less intelligent persons. Such less intelligent persons have been condemned by the Lord Himself in Bhagavad-gītā, and they are known as the mūḍhas. That the Lord left His body means that He left again His plenary portions in the respective dhāmas (transcendental abodes), as He left His virāṭ-rūpa in the material world.

SB 1.14.28-29, Purport:

But expansions of the jīva-śakti, the category of the ordinary living beings, are not at all equal with the Lord. One who considers the jīva-śakti and the viṣṇu-tattva to be on an equal level is considered a condemned soul of the world. Śrī Rāma, or Balarāma, is the protector of the devotees of the Lord. Baladeva acts as the spiritual master of all devotees, and by His causeless mercy the fallen souls are delivered. Śrī Baladeva appeared as Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu during the advent of Lord Caitanya, and the great Lord Nityānanda Prabhu exhibited His causeless mercy by delivering a pair of extremely fallen souls, namely Jagāi and Mādhāi. Therefore it is particularly mentioned herein that Balarāma is the protector of the devotees of the Lord. By His divine grace only one can approach the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and thus Śrī Balarāma is the mercy incarnation of the Lord, manifested as the spiritual master, the savior of the pure devotees.

SB 1.14.32-33, Purport:

The jīva-tattvas are infinitesimal potential particles of the Lord, and therefore they require the protection of the Lord at all times. And to the eternal servitors of the Lord, the Lord is pleased to give all protection at all times. The liberated souls never, therefore, think themselves as free as the Lord or as powerful as the Lord, but they always seek the protection of the Lord in all circumstances, both in the material world and in the spiritual world. This dependence of the liberated soul is constitutional, for the liberated souls are like sparks of a fire that are able to exhibit the glow of fire along with the fire and not independently. Independently the glow of the sparks is extinguished, although the quality of fire or the glowing is there. Thus those who give up the protection of the Lord and become so-called lords themselves, out of spiritual ignorance, come back again to this material world, even after prolonged tapasya of the severest type. That is the verdict of all Vedic literature.

SB 1.15.12, Purport:

The present attempts to enter into the heavenly planets by the modern scientists will certainly prove futile because such scientists are not on the level of Arjuna. They are ordinary human beings, without any assets of sacrifice, charity or austerities. The material body is influenced by the three modes of material nature, namely goodness, passion and ignorance. The present population is more or less influenced by the modes of passion and ignorance, and the symptoms for such influence are exhibited in their becoming very lusty and greedy. Such degraded fellows can hardly approach the higher planetary systems. Above the heavenly planets there are many other planets also, which only those who are influenced by goodness can reach. In heavenly and other planets within the universe, the inhabitants are all highly intelligent, many more times than the human beings, and they are all pious in the higher and highest mode of goodness. They are all devotees of the Lord, and although their goodness is not unadulterated, still they are known as demigods possessing the maximum amount of good qualities possible within the material world.

SB 1.15.16, Purport:

Later he was picked up by Adhiratha, and he and his wife Rādhā brought him up as their own offspring. Karṇa was very charitable, especially toward the brāhmaṇas. There was nothing he could not spare for a brāhmaṇa. In the same charitable spirit he gave in charity his natural bangles and earrings to Indradeva, who, being very much satisfied with him, gave him in return a great weapon called Śakti. He was admitted as one of the students of Droṇācārya, and from the very beginning there was some rivalry between him and Arjuna. Seeing his constant rivalry with Arjuna, Duryodhana picked him up as his companion, and this gradually grew into greater intimacy. He was also present in the great assembly of Draupadī's svayaṁvara function, and when he attempted to exhibit his talent in that meeting, Draupadī's brother declared that Karṇa could not take part in the competition because of his being the son of a śūdra carpenter. Although he was refused in the competition, still when Arjuna was successful in piercing the fish target on the ceiling and Draupadī bestowed her garland upon Arjuna, Karṇa and the other disappointed princes offered an unusual stumbling block to Arjuna while he was leaving with Draupadī.

SB 1.15.27, Purport:

In the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord and the living beings are both described as sanātana, or eternal, and the Lord's abode, far beyond the material sky, is also described as sanātana. The living being is invited to live in the sanātana existence of the Lord, and the process which can help a living being to approach the Lord's abode, where the liberated activity of the soul is exhibited, is called sanātana-dharma. One cannot, however, reach the eternal abode of the Lord without being free from the misconception of material identification, and the Bhagavad-gītā gives us the clue how to achieve this stage of perfection. The process of being liberated from the misconception of material identification is called, in different stages, fruitive activity, empiric philosophy and devotional service, up to transcendental realization. Such transcendental realization is made possible by dovetailing all the above items in relation with the Lord. Prescribed duties of the human being, as directed in the Vedas, can gradually purify the sinful mind of the conditioned soul and raise him to the stage of knowledge.

SB 1.15.35, Purport:

Under the circumstances, the Lord's dying or quitting His body is like the jugglery of a magician. The magician shows by his tricks that he is cut to pieces, burnt to ashes or made unconscious by hypnotic influences, but all are false shows only. Factually the magician himself is neither burnt to ashes nor cut to pieces, nor is he dead or unconscious at any stage of his magical demonstration. Similarly, the Lord has His eternal forms of unlimited variety, of which the fish incarnation, as was exhibited within this universe, is also one. Because there are innumerable universes, somewhere or other the fish incarnation must be manifesting His pastimes without cessation. In this verse, the particular word dhatte ("eternally accepted," and not the word dhitvā, "accepted for the occasion") is used. The idea is that the Lord does not create the fish incarnation; He eternally has such a form, and the appearance and disappearance of such an incarnation serves particular purposes. In the Bhagavad-gītā (7.24-25) the Lord says, "The impersonalists think that I have no form, that I am formless, but that at present I have accepted a form to serve a purpose, and now I am manifested. But such speculators are factually without sharp intelligence.

SB 1.15.35, Purport:

The less intelligent fools are therefore unaware of My eternal form, which is never to be vanquished and is unborn." In the Padma Purāṇa it is said that those who are envious and always angry at the Lord are unfit to know the actual and eternal form of the Lord. In the Bhāgavatam also it is said that the Lord appeared like a thunderbolt to those who were wrestlers. Śiśupāla, at the time of being killed by the Lord, could not see Him as Kṛṣṇa, being dazzled by the glare of the brahma-jyotir. Therefore, the temporary manifestation of the Lord as a thunderbolt to the wrestlers appointed by Kaṁsa, or the glaring appearance of the Lord before Śiśupāla, was relinquished by the Lord, but the Lord as a magician is eternally existent and is never vanquished in any circumstance. Such forms are temporarily shown to the asuras only, and when such exhibitions are withdrawn, the asuras think that the Lord is no more existent, just as the foolish audience thinks the magician to be burnt to ashes or cut to pieces. The conclusion is that the Lord has no material body, and therefore He is never to be killed or changed by His transcendental body.

SB 1.16.10, Purport:

The news was not palatable for him, but in a way it was, because Mahārāja Parīkṣit got a chance to fight. There was no need to fight with small states because everyone was peacefully under his subordination, but the Kali-yuga miscreants gave his fighting spirit a chance for exhibition. A perfect kṣatriya king is always jubilant as soon as he gets a chance to fight, just as a sportsman is eager when there is a chance for a sporting match. It is no argument that in the age of Kali such symptoms are predestined. If so, then why was there preparation for fighting out such symptoms? Such arguments are offered by lazy and unfortunate men. In the rainy season, rain is predestined, and yet people take precautions to protect themselves. Similarly, in the age of Kali the symptoms as above mentioned are sure to infiltrate into social life, but it is the duty of the state to save the citizens from the association of the agents of the age of Kali. Mahārāja Parīkṣit wanted to punish the miscreants indulging in the symptoms of Kali, and thus save the innocent citizens who were pure in habit by culture of religion. It is the duty of the king to give such protection, and Mahārāja Parīkṣit was perfectly right when he prepared himself to fight.

SB 1.17.24, Purport:

Modern civilization and economic development are creating a new situation of poverty and scarcity with the result of blackmailing the consumer's commodities. If the leaders and the rich men of the society spend fifty percent of their accumulated wealth mercifully for the misled mass of people and educate them in God consciousness, the knowledge of Bhāgavatam, certainly the age of Kali will be defeated in its attempt to entrap the conditioned souls. We must always remember that false pride, or too high an estimation of one's own values of life, undue attachment to women or association with them, and intoxication will divert human civilization from the path of peace, however much the people clamor for peace in the world. The preaching of the Bhāgavatam principles will automatically render all men austere, clean both inside and outside, merciful to the suffering, and truthful in daily behavior. That is the way of correcting the flaws of human society, which are very prominently exhibited at the present moment.

SB 1.17.28, Purport:

This age of Kali will certainly be full of all activities of Kali, but this does not mean that the leaders of society, the executive heads, the learned and intelligent men, or above all the devotees of the Lord should sit down tightly and become callous to the reactions of the age of Kali. In the rainy season certainly there will be profuse rainfalls, but that does not mean that men should not take means to protect themselves from the rains. It is the duty of the executive heads of state and others to take all necessary actions against the activities of Kali or the persons influenced by the age of Kali; and Mahārāja Parīkṣit is the ideal executive head of the state, for at once he was ready to kill the personality of Kali with his sharp sword. The administrators should not simply pass resolutions for anti-corruptional steps, but they must be ready with sharp swords to kill the persons creating corruptions from the angle of vision of the recognized śāstras. The administrators cannot prevent corrupt activities by allowing wine shops. They must at once close all shops of intoxicating drugs and wine and force punishment even by death for those who indulge in habits of intoxication of all description. That is the way of stopping the activities of Kali, as exhibited herein by Mahārāja Parīkṣit, the mahā-ratha.

SB Canto 2

SB 2.1.4, Purport:

The history of human society definitely proves it, yet the foolish people still suggest that in the future they will be able to live perpetually, with the help of material science. This poor fund of knowledge exhibited by human society is certainly misleading, and it is all due to ignoring the constitution of the living soul. This material world exists only as a dream, due to our attachment to it. Otherwise, the living soul is always different from the material nature. The great ocean of material nature is tossing with the waves of time, and the so-called living conditions are something like foaming bubbles, which appear before us as bodily self, wife, children, society, countrymen, etc. Due to a lack of knowledge of self, we become victimized by the force of ignorance and thus spoil the valuable energy of human life in a vain search after permanent living conditions, which are impossible in this material world.

SB 2.1.11, Purport:

The ninth offense is to instruct those who are not interested in chanting the holy name of the Lord about the transcendental nature of the holy name; if such instruction is imparted to an unwilling audience, the act is considered to be an offense at the feet of the holy name. The tenth offense is to become uninterested in the holy name of the Lord even after hearing of the transcendental nature of the holy name. The effect of chanting the holy name of the Lord is perceived by the chanter as liberation from the conception of false egoism. False egoism is exhibited by thinking oneself to be the enjoyer of the world and thinking everything in the world to be meant for the enjoyment of one's self only. The whole materialistic world is moving under such false egoism of "I" and "mine," but the factual effect of chanting the holy name is to become free from such misconceptions.

SB 2.1.24, Purport:

The asuras cannot recognize the existence of the Lord, although there are vivid descriptions of the Lord in the revealed scriptures, although the Lord incarnates and exhibits His uncommon strength and energy, and although He is accepted as the Supreme Personality of Godhead by learned scholars and saints like Vyāsadeva, Nārada, Asita and Devala in the past and by Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gītā, as also by the ācāryas like Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, Madhva and Lord Śrī Caitanya in the modern age. The asuras do not accept any evidential proof from the revealed scriptures, nor do they recognize the authority of the great ācāryas. They want to see with their own eyes at once. Therefore they can see the gigantic body of the Lord as virāṭ, which will answer their challenge, and since they are accustomed to paying homage to superior material strength like that of the tiger, elephant and lightning, they can offer respect to the virāṭ-rūpa. Lord Kṛṣṇa, by the request of Arjuna, exhibited His virāṭ-rūpa for the asuras. A pure devotee of the Lord, being unaccustomed to looking into such a mundane gigantic form of the Lord, requires special vision for the purpose. The Lord, therefore, favored Arjuna with special vision for looking into His virāṭ-rūpa, which is described in the Eleventh Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā.

SB 2.1.24, Purport:

A pure devotee of the Lord, being unaccustomed to looking into such a mundane gigantic form of the Lord, requires special vision for the purpose. The Lord, therefore, favored Arjuna with special vision for looking into His virāṭ-rūpa, which is described in the Eleventh Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā. This virāṭ-rūpa of the Lord was especially manifested, not for the benefit of Arjuna, but for that unintelligent class of men who accept anyone and everyone as an incarnation of the Lord and so mislead the general mass of people. For them, the indication is that one should ask the cheap incarnation to exhibit his virāṭ-rūpa and thus be established as an incarnation. The virāṭ-rūpa manifestation of the Lord is simultaneously a challenge to the atheist and a favor for the asuras, who can think of the Lord as virāṭ and thus gradually cleanse the dirty things from their hearts in order to become qualified to actually see the transcendental form of the Lord in the near future. This is a favor of the all-merciful Lord to the atheists and the gross materialists.

SB 2.1.25, Purport:

All the universes in seed are emanating from the breathing of the Mahā-viṣṇu, who is but part of a partial expansion of the Lord, and all the universes presided over by the Brahmās vanish when the Mahā-viṣṇu withdraws His great breath. In this way, the material worlds are being created and vanished by the supreme will of the Lord. The poor foolish materialist can just imagine how ignorantly he puts forward an insignificant creature to become His rival incarnation, simply on the allegations of a dying man. The virāṭ-rūpa was particularly exhibited by the Lord just to give lessons to such foolish men, so that one can accept a person as the incarnation of Godhead only if such a person is able to exhibit such a virāṭ-rūpa as Lord Kṛṣṇa did. The materialistic person may concentrate his mind upon the virāṭ or gigantic form of the Lord in his own interest and as recommended by Śukadeva Gosvāmī, but he must be on his guard not to be misled by pretenders who claim to be the identical person as Lord Kṛṣṇa but are not able to act like Him or exhibit the virāṭ-rūpa, comprehending the whole of the universe.

SB 2.1.32, Purport:

The Supreme Lord is not impersonal, as misconceived by less intelligent thinkers. Rather, He is the Supreme person, as confirmed in all authentic Vedic literatures. But His personality is different from what we can conceive. It is stated here that Brahmājī acts as His genitals and that the Mitrā-varuṇas are His two testicles. This means that as a person He is complete with all bodily organs, but they are of different types with different potencies. When the Lord is described as impersonal, therefore, it should be understood that His personality is not exactly the type of personality found within our imperfect speculation. One can, however, worship the Lord even by seeing the hills and mountains or the ocean and the sky as different parts and parcels of the gigantic body of the Lord, the virāṭ-puruṣa. The virāṭ-rūpa, as exhibited by Lord Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna, is a challenge to the unbelievers.

SB 2.2.17, Purport:

Devastating time, which controls even the celestial demigods by its manifestations of past, present and future, does not act on the transcendental plane. The influence of time is exhibited by the symptoms of birth, death, old age and disease, and these four principles of material conditions are present everywhere in any part of the material cosmos up to the planet Brahmaloka, where the duration of life of the inhabitants appears to us to be fabulous. Insurmountable time even brings about the death of Brahmā, so what to speak of other demigods like Indra, Candra, Sūrya, Vāyu and Varuṇa? The astronomical influence directed by the different demigods over mundane creatures is also conspicuous by its absence.

SB 2.2.19, Purport:

There are many durātmās who claim to have realized themselves as Brahman and yet are unable to conquer material desires. In the Bhagavad-gītā (18.54) it is clearly explained that an absolutely self-realized soul becomes completely aloof from all material desires. Material desires are based on the false ego of the living being and are exhibited by his childish and useless activities to conquer the laws of material nature and by his desire to lord it over the resources of the five elements. With such a mentality, one is led to believe in the strength of material science, with its discovery of atomic energy and space travel by mechanical vehicles, and by such tiny advancements in material science the false egoist tries to challenge even the strength of the Supreme Lord, who can finish all man's tiny endeavors in less than a second. The well-situated self, or Brahman-realized soul, perfectly understands that the Supreme Brahman, or the Personality of Godhead, is the all-powerful Vāsudeva and that he (the self-realized living being) is a part and parcel of the supreme whole. As such, his constitutional position is to cooperate with Him in all respects in the transcendental relation of the served and the servitor. Such a self-realized soul ceases to exhibit his useless activities of attempting to lord it over material nature. Being scientifically well informed, he fully engages himself in faithful devotion to the Lord.

SB 2.3.10, Purport:

In the mundane field such an outlook of doing good to others in the form of society, community, family, country or humanity is a partial manifestation of the same original feeling in which a pure living entity feels happiness by the happiness of the Supreme Lord. Such superb feelings were exhibited by the damsels of Vrajabhūmi for the happiness of the Lord. The gopīs loved the Lord without any return, and this is the perfect exhibition of the akāmaḥ spirit. Kāma spirit, or the desire for one's own satisfaction, is fully exhibited in the material world, whereas the spirit of akāmaḥ is fully exhibited in the spiritual world.

Thoughts of becoming one with the Lord, or being merged in the brahma-jyotir, can also be exhibitions of kāma spirit if they are desires for one's own satisfaction to be free from the material miseries. A pure devotee does not want liberation so that he may be relieved from the miseries of life. Even without so-called liberation, a pure devotee is aspirant for the satisfaction of the Lord. Influenced by the kāma spirit, Arjuna declined to fight in the Kurukṣetra battlefield because he wanted to save his relatives for his own satisfaction. But being a pure devotee, he agreed to fight on the instruction of the Lord because he came to his senses and realized that satisfaction of the Lord at the cost of his own satisfaction was his prime duty. Thus he became akāma. That is the perfect stage of a perfect living being.

SB 2.3.24, Purport:

The whole process of spiritual culture is aimed at changing the heart of the living being in the matter of his eternal relation with the Supreme Lord as subordinate servant, which is his eternal constitutional position. So with the progress of devotional service, the reaction of change in the heart is exhibited by gradual detachment from the sense of material enjoyment by a false sense of lording it over the world and an increase in the attitude of rendering loving service to the Lord. Vidhi-bhakti, or regulated devotional service by the limbs of the body (namely the eyes, the ears, the nose, the hands and the legs, as already explained hereinbefore), is now stressed herein in relation to the mind, which is the impetus for all activities of the limbs of the body. It is expected by all means that by discharging regulated devotional service one must manifest the change of heart. If there is no such change, the heart must be considered steel-framed, for it is not melted even when there is chanting of the holy name of the Lord. We must always remember that hearing and chanting are the basic principles of discharging devotional duties, and if they are properly performed there will follow the reactional ecstasy with signs of tears in the eyes and standing of the hairs on the body. These are natural consequences and are the preliminary symptoms of the bhāva stage, which occurs before one reaches the perfectional stage of prema, love of Godhead.

SB 2.4.20, Purport:

The Lord of the universe, out of His causeless mercy upon the conditioned souls, descends by His own energy (ātma-māyā) to reestablish the eternal relation of the conditioned souls with Him. He instructs all to surrender unto Him instead of falsely claiming to be enjoyers for a certain limit under His control. When He so descends He proves how much greater is His ability to enjoy, and He exhibits His power of enjoyment by (for instance) marrying sixteen thousand wives at once. The conditioned soul is very proud of becoming the husband of even one wife, but the Lord laughs at this; the intelligent man can know who is the real husband. Factually, the Lord is the husband of all the women in His creation, but a conditioned soul under the control of the Lord feels proud to be the husband of one or two wives.

SB 2.6.19, Purport:

Out of the total manifestations of the sandhinī energy of the Lord, one fourth is displayed in the material world, and three fourths are displayed in the spiritual world. The Lord's energy is divided into three component parts, namely sandhinī, saṁvit and hlādinī; in other words, He is the full manifestation of existence, knowledge and bliss. In the material world such a sense of existence, knowledge and pleasure is meagerly exhibited, and all living entities, who are minute parts and parcels of the Lord, are eligible to relish such consciousness of existence, knowledge and bliss very minutely in the liberated stage, whereas in the conditioned stage of material existence they can hardly appreciate what is the factual, existential, cognizable and pure happiness of life. The liberated souls, who exist in far greater numerical strength than those souls in the material world, can factually experience the potency of the above-mentioned sandhinī, saṁvit and hlādinī energies of the Lord in the matter of deathlessness, fearlessness and freedom from old age and disease.

SB 2.6.42, Purport:

That the material creation is not permanent has been discussed many times hereinbefore. The material creation is but a temporary exhibition of the material energy of the Almighty God. This material manifestation is necessary to give a chance to the conditioned souls who are unwilling to associate with the Lord in the relationship of loving transcendental service. Such unwilling conditioned souls are not allowed to enter into the liberated life of spiritual existence because at heart they are not willing to serve. Instead, they want to enjoy themselves as imitation Gods. The living entities are constitutionally eternal servitors of the Lord, but some of them, because of misusing their independence, do not wish to serve; therefore they are allowed to enjoy the material nature, which is called māyā, or illusion. It is called illusion because the living beings under the clutches of māyā are not factually enjoyers, although they think that they are, being illusioned by māyā. Such illusioned living entities are given a chance at intervals to rectify their perverted mentality of becoming false masters of the material nature, and they are imparted lessons from the Vedas about their eternal relationship with the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa (vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ (BG 15.15)). So the temporary creation of the material manifestation is an exhibition of the material energy of the Lord, and to manage the whole show the Supreme Lord incarnates Himself as the Kāraṇārṇavaśāyī Viṣṇu just as a magistrate is deputed by the government to manage affairs temporarily. This Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu causes the manifestation of material creation by looking over His material energy (sa aikṣata).

SB 2.6.43-45, Purport:

When the Lord is described as formless in the Vedic literatures, it is to be understood that all these forms mentioned above, within the experience of universal knowledge, are different exhibitions of the Lord's transcendental potencies only, and none of them factually represents the transcendental form of the Lord. But when the Lord actually descends on the earth or anywhere within the universe, the less intelligent class of men also mistake Him to be one of them, and thus they imagine the Transcendence to be formless or impersonal. Factually, the Lord is not formless, nor does He belong to any of the multiforms experienced within the universal forms. One should try to know the truth about the Lord by following the instruction of Brahmājī.

SB 2.7.6, Translation:

To exhibit His personal way of austerity and penance, He appeared in twin forms as Nārāyaṇa and Nara in the womb of Mūrti, the wife of Dharma and the daughter of Dakṣa. Celestial beauties, the companions of Cupid, went to try to break His vows, but they were unsuccessful, for they saw that many beauties like them were emanating from Him, the Personality of Godhead.

SB 2.7.26, Purport:

Now the question is why the Lord, who is omnipotent, comes here to diminish the burden created upon the world by the unscrupulous kingly order. Certainly the Lord does not need to come here personally for such purposes, but He actually descends to exhibit His transcendental activities in order to encourage His pure devotees, who want to enjoy life by chanting the glories of the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gītā (9.13-14) it is stated that the mahātmās, great devotees of the Lord, take pleasure in chanting of the activities of the Lord. All Vedic literatures are meant for turning one's attention towards the Lord and His transcendental activities. Thus the activities of the Lord, in His dealings with worldly people, create a subject matter for discussion by His pure devotees.

SB 2.8.6, Purport:

One who is not a pure devotee of the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa is not completely cleansed in the heart. But a perfectly cleansed person never quits the devotional service of the Lord. In discharging such devotional service, as ordered by Brahmājī to Nārada in the preaching of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, sometimes a representative of the Lord engaged in preaching work meets various so-called difficulties. This was exhibited by Lord Nityānanda when He delivered the two fallen souls Jagāi and Mādhāi, and similarly Lord Jesus Christ was crucified by the nonbelievers. But such difficulties are very gladly suffered by the devotees in preaching because in such activities, although apparently very severe, the devotees of the Lord feel transcendental pleasure because the Lord is satisfied. Prahlāda Mahārāja suffered greatly, but still he never forgot the lotus feet of the Lord. This is because a pure devotee of the Lord is so purified in his heart that he cannot leave the shelter of Lord Kṛṣṇa in any circumstances.

SB 2.8.20, Purport:

The yogeśvara, or the master of mystic powers, can exhibit eight kinds of wonders of perfection by becoming smaller than the atom or lighter than a feather, getting anything and everything he desires, going anywhere and everywhere he likes, creating even a planet in the sky, etc. There are many yogeśvaras having different proficiencies in these wonderful powers, and the topmost of all of them is Lord Śiva. Lord Śiva is the greatest yogī, and he can perform such wonderful things, far beyond the ordinary living beings. The devotees of the Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, do not directly practice the process of mystic powers, but, by the grace of the Lord, His devotee can defeat even a great yogeśvara like Durvāsā Muni, who picked a quarrel with Mahārāja Ambarīṣa and wanted to show the wonderful achievements of his mystic powers.

SB 2.9.23, Purport:

The penance by which one can see the Personality of Godhead face to face is to be understood as devotional service to the Lord and nothing else because only by discharging devotional service in transcendental love can one approach the Lord. Such penance is the internal potency of the Lord and is nondifferent from Him. Such acts of internal potency are exhibited by nonattachment for material enjoyment. The living entities are encaged in the conditions of material bondage because of their propensity for overlordship. But by engagement in the devotional service of the Lord one becomes detached from this enjoying spirit. The devotees automatically become detached from worldly enjoyment, and this detachment is the result of perfect knowledge. Therefore the penance of devotional service includes knowledge and detachment, and that is the manifestation of the transcendental potency.

SB 2.9.30, Purport:

Lord Brahmā is definitely situated in the humor of friendship with the Lord. Every living being is eternally related with the Personality of Godhead in one of five different transcendental humors, namely śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya and mādhurya. We have already discussed these five kinds of humors in relationship with the Personality of Godhead. It is clearly exhibited herein that Lord Brahmā is related to the Personality of Godhead in the transcendental humor of friendship. A pure devotee may be related with the Lord in any one of the transcendental humors, even in the humor of parenthood, but the devotee of the Lord is always a transcendental servitor. No one is equal to or greater than the Lord. That is the version of the Bhagavad-gītā. Brahmājī, although eternally related with the Lord in the transcendental humor of friendship, and although entrusted with the most exalted post of creating different grades of living entities, is still conscious of his position, that he is neither the Supreme Lord nor supremely powerful. It is possible that some extremely powerful personality, within or without the universe, may sometimes show more power than the Lord Himself.

SB 2.9.33, Purport:

Brahmā is factually seeing face to face his predominator Lord, who exists in His transcendental eternal form, even after the annihilation of the material creation. The form of the Lord, as seen by Brahmā, existed before the creation of Brahmā, and the material manifestation with all the ingredients and agents of material creation are also energetic expansions of the Lord, and after the exhibition of the Lord's energy comes to a close, what remains is the same Personality of Godhead. Therefore the form of the Lord exists in all circumstances of creation, maintenance and annihilation. The Vedic hymns confirm this fact in the statement vāsudevo vā idam agra āsīn na brahmā na ca śaṅkara eko nārāyaṇa āsīn na brahmā neśāna, etc. Before the creation there was none except Vāsudeva. There was neither Brahmā nor Śaṅkara. Only Nārāyaṇa was there and no one else, neither Brahmā nor Īśāna. Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya also confirms in his comments on the Bhagavad-gītā that Nārāyaṇa, or the Personality of Godhead, is transcendental to all creation, but that the whole creation is the product of avyakta. Therefore the difference between the created and the creator is always there, although both the creator and created are of the same quality.

SB 2.9.37, Purport:

The bona fide spiritual master, by his personal activities, teaches the disciple the principles of devotional service. Without personal service, one would go on speculating like the impersonalists and dry speculators life after life and would be unable to reach the final conclusion. By following the instructions of the bona fide spiritual master in conjunction with the principles of revealed scriptures, the student will rise to the plane of complete knowledge, which will be exhibited by development of detachment from the world of sense gratification. The mundane wranglers are surprised that one can detach himself from the world of sense gratification, and thus any attempt to be fixed in God realization appears to them to be mysticism. This detachment from the sensory world is called the brahma-bhūta (SB 4.30.20) stage of realization, the preliminary stage of transcendental devotional life (parā bhaktiḥ). The brahma-bhūta stage of life is also known as the ātmārāma stage, in which one is fully self-satisfied and does not hanker for the world of sense enjoyment. This stage of full satisfaction is the proper situation for understanding the transcendental knowledge of the Personality of Godhead.

SB 2.9.37, Purport:

Thus in the completely satisfied stage of life, exhibited by full detachment from the world of sense enjoyment as a result of performing devotional service, one can understand the science of God in the liberated stage.

In this stage of full satisfaction and detachment from the sensory world, one can know the mystery of the science of God with all its confidential intricacies, and not by grammar or academic speculation. Because Brahmā qualified himself for such reception, the Lord was pleased to disclose the purpose of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

SB 2.10.8, Purport:

All the controlling deities like Viṣṇu, Brahmā and Śiva are different manifestations of the Paramātmā feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who exhibits Himself in such manners by entering into each and every universe generated from Him. But still apparently there are divisions of the controller and controlled. For example, in the food-controlling department the controller of food is a person made of the same ingredients as the person who is controlled. Similarly, each and every individual in the material world is controlled by the higher demigods. For example, we have our senses, but the senses are controlled by superior controlling deities. We cannot see without light, and the supreme controller of light is the sun. The sun-god is in the sun planet, and we, the individual human beings or any other being on this earth, are all controlled by the sun-god as far as our eyes are concerned. Similarly, all the senses we have are controlled by the superior demigods, who are also as much living entities as we are, but one is empowered while the other is controlled. The controlled living entity is called the adhyātmic person, and the controller is called the adhidaivic person.

SB 2.10.10, Purport:

The Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa and all His plenary portions and extensions of plenary portions are nondifferent from one another, and thus the supreme independence is in each and every one of them. In order to prove this, Śukadeva Gosvāmī (as promised to King Parīkṣit) describes herein the independence of the puruṣa-avatāra Personality of Godhead, even in the sphere of the material creation. Such activities of the Lord are also transcendental, and therefore they are also līlā, or pastimes, of the absolute Lord. Such pastimes of the Lord are very conducive to the hearers for self-realization in the field of devotional service. Some may argue, why not then relish the transcendental līlā of the Lord as exhibited in the land of Mathurā and Vṛndāvana, which are sweeter than anything in the world? Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura replies that the pastimes of the Lord in Vṛndāvana are meant to be relished by advanced devotees of the Lord. Neophyte devotees will misunderstand such supreme transcendental activities of the Lord, and therefore the Lord's pastimes in the material sphere related to creation, maintenance and destruction are verily relishable by the prākṛta, or mundane devotees of the Lord.

SB 2.10.10, Purport:

Yet foolish men will not accept Lord Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Lord. Generally they consider the infinitesimal and infinite features of the Lord because they themselves are unable to become either the infinitesimal or the infinite, but one should know that the infinite and infinitesimal sizes of the Lord are not His highest glories. The most wonderful manifestation of the Lord's power is exhibited when the infinite Lord becomes visible to our eyes as one of us. Yet His activities are different from those of the finite beings. Lifting a mountain at the age of seven years and marrying sixteen thousand wives in the prime of His youth are some of the examples of His infinite energy, but the mūḍhas, after seeing them or hearing about them, decry them as legendary and take the Lord as one of them. They cannot understand that the Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, although in the form of a human being by His own potency, is still the Supreme Lord with full potency as the supreme controller.

SB 2.10.13, Purport:

At the stage of nonmanifestation, the living energies remain potent in the Lord, and when they are let loose in the cosmic manifestation they are exhibited differently in terms of different desires under the modes of nature. Such differential manifestations of the living energies are conditional states of the living entities. The liberated living entities, however, in the sanātana (eternal) manifestation, are unconditionally surrendered souls, and therefore they are not subject to the conditions of creation and annihilation. So this creation takes place by the glance of the Lord from His bedstead of mystic slumber. And thus all the universes and the lord of the universe, Brahmā, are again and again manifested and annihilated.

SB 2.10.35, Purport:

He was afraid to see the gigantic form of the Lord. He therefore prayed to the Lord to assume His four-handed Nārāyaṇa or Kṛṣṇa form, which alone could please Arjuna. Undoubtedly the Lord has the supreme potency to exhibit Himself in multifarious forms, but the pure devotees of the Lord are interested in His forms as eternally exhibited in the abode of the Lord, known as the tripād-vibhūti or kingdom of God. The Lord in the tripād-vibhūti abode exhibits Himself in two forms, either with four hands or with two hands. The viśva-rūpa exhibited in the material manifestation has unlimited hands and unlimited dimensions with everything unlimited. The pure devotees of the Lord worship Him in His Vaikuṇṭha forms as Nārāyaṇa or Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes the same Vaikuṇṭha forms of the Lord are in the material world also by His grace as Śrī Rāma, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Śrī Narasiṁhadeva, etc., and thus the pure devotees also worship them. Usually the features shown in the material world have no existence in the Vaikuṇṭha planets, and thus they are not accepted by the pure devotees.

SB 2.10.42, Purport:

As we have already discussed in the previous verses, it is concluded that the Lord is never a product of the material creation. His transcendental position is always unchanged. He is the eternal form of knowledge and bliss, and He executes His almighty will by His different energies. As such, He is never the subject of reactions for any of His acts. He is transcendental to all such conceptions of actions and reactions. Even if He is visible in the material world, the exhibition is only of His internal energy, for He is above the good and bad conceptions of this material world. In the material world the fish or the hog may be considered lower than the man, but when the Lord appears as a fish or hog, He is neither of them in the material conception. It is His causeless mercy that He appears in every society or species of life, but He is never to be considered one of them. Conceptions of the material world such as good and bad, lower and upper, important and insignificant, are estimations of the material energy, and the Supreme Lord is transcendental to all such conceptions.

SB 2.10.43, Purport:

With such resources, and at the cost of valuable energy, the conditioned soul creates, satisfies his whims, but unwillingly has to depart from all his creations and enter into another phase of life to create again and again. To give hope to such foolish conditioned souls who waste their energy in this temporary material world, the Lord gives information that there is another nature, which is eternally existent without being occasionally created or destroyed, and that the conditioned soul can understand what he should do and how his valuable energy may be utilized. Instead of wasting his energy in matter, which is sure to be destroyed in due course by the supreme will, the conditioned soul should utilize his energy in the devotional service of the Lord so that he can be transferred to the other, eternal nature, where there is no birth, no death, no creation, no destruction, but permanent life instead, full of knowledge and unlimited bliss. The temporary creation is thus exhibited and destroyed just to give information to the conditioned soul who is attached to temporary things. It is also meant to give him a chance for self-realization, and not for sense gratification, which is the prime aim of all fruitive actors.

SB Canto 3

SB 3.1.30, Purport:

Lord Śiva, one of the three qualitative incarnations of the Personality of Godhead, is the plenary expansion of the Lord. Kārttikeya, born of him, is on the level of Pradyumna, another son of Lord Kṛṣṇa. When Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa descends into the material world, all His plenary portions also appear with Him to exhibit different functions of the Lord. But for the pastimes at Vṛndāvana, all functions are performed by the Lord's different plenary expansions. Vāsudeva is a plenary expansion of Nārāyaṇa. When the Lord appeared as Vāsudeva before Devakī and Vasudeva, He appeared in His capacity as Nārāyaṇa. Similarly, all the demigods of the heavenly kingdom appeared as associates of the Lord in the forms of Pradyumna, Sāmba, Uddhava, etc. It is learned here that Kāmadeva appeared as Pradyumna, Kārttikeya as Sāmba, and one of the Vasus as Uddhava. All of them served in their different capacities in order to enrich the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa.

SB 3.1.42, Purport:

A person should not be in the renounced order of life unless he is firmly convinced of being protected by the Lord. This stage of life is explained in Bhagavad-gītā as abhayaṁ sattva-saṁśuddhiḥ: every living entity is factually completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord, but unless one is in the pure state of existence, he cannot be established in this position. This stage of dependence is called sattva-saṁśuddhiḥ, or purification of one's existence. The result of such purification is exhibited in fearlessness. A devotee of the Lord, who is called nārāyaṇa-para, is never afraid of anything because he is always aware of the fact that the Lord protects him in all circumstances. With this conviction, Vidura traveled alone, and he was not seen or recognized by any friend or foe. Thus he enjoyed freedom of life without obligation to the many duties of the world.

SB 3.2.8, Purport:

Uddhava lamented for the unfortunate persons of the world who could not recognize Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa in spite of seeing all His transcendental godly qualities. From the very beginning of His appearance within the prison bars of King Kaṁsa up to His mausala-līlā, although He exhibited His potencies as the Personality of Godhead in the six opulences of wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation, the foolish persons of the world could not understand that He was the Supreme Lord, Foolish persons might have thought Him an extraordinary historic figure because they had no intimate touch with the Lord, but more unfortunate were the family members of the Lord, the members of the Yadu dynasty, who were always in company with the Lord but were unable to recognize Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Uddhava lamented his own fortune also because although he knew Kṛṣṇa to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he could not properly use the opportunity to render devotional service to the Lord. He regretted everyone's misfortune, including his own. The pure devotee of the Lord thinks himself most unfortunate. That is due to excessive love for the Lord and is one of the transcendental perceptions of viraha, the suffering of separation.

SB 3.2.19, Purport:

Lord Kṛṣṇa's causeless mercy was exhibited in the great assembly of Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira. He was merciful even to His enemy the King of Cedi, who always tried to be an envious rival of the Lord. Because it is not possible to be a bona fide rival of the Lord, the King of Cedi was extremely malicious toward Lord Kṛṣṇa. In this he was like many other asuras, such as Kaṁsa and Jarāsandha. In the open assembly of the rājasūya sacrifice performed by Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, Śiśupāla insulted Lord Kṛṣṇa, and he was finally killed by the Lord. But it was seen by everyone in the assembly that a light flashed out of the body of the King of Cedi and merged into the body of Lord Kṛṣṇa. This means that Cedirāja achieved the salvation of attaining oneness with the Supreme, which is a perfection most desired by the jñānīs and yogīs and for which they execute their different types of transcendental activities.

SB 3.3.10, Purport:

After the death of Kaṁsa, when Mathurā was encircled by the soldiers of Kālayavana, Jarāsandha and Sālva, the Lord seemingly fled from the city, and thus He is known as Ranchor, or one who fled from fighting. Actually, the fact was that the Lord wanted to kill them through the agency of His own men, devotees like Mucukunda and Bhīma. Kālayavana and the King of Magadha were killed by Mucukunda and Bhīma respectively, who acted as agents of the Lord. By such acts the Lord wanted to exhibit the prowess of His devotees, as if He were personally unable to fight but His devotees could kill them. The relationship of the Lord with His devotees is a very happy one. Actually, the Lord descended at the request of Brahmā in order to kill all the undesirables of the world, but to divide the share of glory He sometimes engaged His devotees to take the credit. The Battle of Kurukṣetra was designed by the Lord Himself, but just to give credit to His devotee Arjuna (nimitta-mātraṁ bhava savyasācin), He played the part of the charioteer, while Arjuna was given the chance to play the fighter and thus become the hero of the Battle of Kurukṣetra. What He wants to do Himself by His transcendental plans, He executes through His confidential devotees. That is the way of the Lord's mercy towards His pure unalloyed devotees.

SB 3.3.21, Purport:

The Lord enjoyed in this world with His pure devotees. Although He is the Personality of Godhead and is transcendental to all material attachment, He nevertheless exhibited much attachment for His pure devotees on the earth, as well as for the demigods who engage in His service in the heavenly planets as powerful delegated directors in the management of all material activities. He displayed special attachment for His family members, the Yadus, as well as for His sixteen thousand wives, who had the opportunity to meet Him in the leisure hours of night. All these attachments of the Lord are manifestations of His internal potency, of which the external potency is only a shadow representation. In the Skanda Purāṇa, Prabhāsa-khaṇḍa, in the topics between Lord Śiva and Gaurī, there is confirmation of His internal potential manifestations. There is mention of the Lord's meeting with sixteen thousand cowherd damsels although He is the Haṁsa (transcendental) Supersoul and maintainer of all living entities. The sixteen thousand cowherd damsels are a display of sixteen varieties of internal potencies. This will be more elaborately explained in the Tenth Canto. It is said there that Lord Kṛṣṇa is just like the moon and the internal potential damsels are like the stars around the moon.

SB 3.3.22, Purport:

Even though the Lord is never attached to any kind of material sex life, as the universal teacher He remained a householder for many, many years, just to teach others how one should live in householder life. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains that the word samajāyata means "fully exhibited." In all His activities while present on the earth, the Lord exhibited detachment. This was fully displayed when He wanted to teach by example that one should not remain attached to household life for all the days of one's life. One should naturally develop detachment as a matter of course. The Lord's detachment from household life does not indicate detachment from His eternal associates, the transcendental cowherd damsels. But the Lord desired to end His so-called attachment to the three modes of material nature. He can never be detached from the service of His transcendental associates like Rukmiṇī and other goddesses of fortune, as described in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.29): lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānam.

SB 3.3.28, Purport:

The behavior exhibited by the descendants of Yadu in the pilgrimage site of Prabhāsa was highly cultured and exactly to the point of human perfection. The perfection of human life is attained by following three principles of civilization: protecting the cows, maintaining the brahminical culture and, above all, becoming a pure devotee of the Lord. Without becoming a devotee of the Lord, one cannot perfect one's human life. The perfection of human life is to be elevated to the spiritual world, where there is no birth, no death, no disease and no old age. That is the highest perfectional aim of human life. Without this aim, any amount of material advancement in so-called comforts can only bring the defeat of the human form of life.

SB 3.4.3, Purport:

The Lord's family members were either incarnations of His plenary expansions or demigods from the heavenly planets, and thus before His departure He separated them by His internal potency. Before being dispatched to their respective abodes, they were sent to the holy place of Prabhāsa, where they performed pious activities and took food and drink to their heart's content. It was then arranged for them to be sent back to their abodes so that others could see that the powerful Yadu dynasty was no longer in the world. In the previous verse, the word anujñāta, indicating that the whole sequence of events was arranged by the Lord, is significant. These particular pastimes of the Lord are not a manifestation of His external energy, or material nature. Such an exhibition of His internal potency is eternal, and therefore one should not conclude that the Yadus and Bhojas died in a drunken state in an ordinary fratricidal war. Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī comments on these incidents as magical performances.

SB 3.4.19, Purport:

The words paramāṁ sthitim are significant in this verse. The Lord's transcendental situation was not even spoken of to Brahmā when the four verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (2.9.33-36) were explained. This transcendental situation comprises His dealings with devotees engaged in transcendental loving service, as exhibited at Dvārakā and Vṛndāvana. When the Lord explained His specific transcendental situation, it was meant for Uddhava only, and therefore Uddhava particularly said mahyam ("unto me"), although the great sage Maitreya was also sitting there. Such a transcendental situation is hardly understood by those whose devotion is mixed with speculative knowledge or fruitive activities. The Lord's activities in confidential love are very rarely disclosed to the general devotees who are attracted by devotion mixed with knowledge and mysticism. Such activities are the inconceivable pastimes of the Lord.

SB 3.4.20, Purport:

Yet such unauthorized persons perversely try to understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and thus they commit offenses at the feet of the Lord, which even Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya dared not do. Thus they prepare for their continuation of miserable life. It should be particularly noted herein that Uddhava studied the catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavatam (SB 2.9.33/34/35/36) directly from the Lord, who spoke them first to Brahmājī, and this time the Lord explained more confidentially the self-knowledge mentioned as the paramāṁ sthitim. Upon learning such self-knowledge of love, Uddhava felt very much aggrieved by feelings of separation from the Lord. Unless one is awakened to the stage of Uddhava—everlastingly feeling the separation of the Lord in transcendental love, as exhibited by Lord Caitanya also—one cannot understand the real import of the four essential verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. One should not indulge in the unauthorized act of twisting the meaning and thereby putting himself on the dangerous path of offense.

SB 3.4.29, Purport:

By practical experience also, it is seen, up to the present day, that the Lord's transcendental form is worshiped by devotees in different temples, and all the devotees of the Lord factually realize that the form of the Deity in the temple is nondifferent from the form of the Lord. This inconceivable performance of the internal potency of the Lord is described in Bhagavad-gītā (7.25): nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ. The Lord reserves the right of not being exposed to everyone. In the Padma Purāṇa it is said, ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ (CC Madhya 17.136). The name and form of the Lord cannot be perceived by the material senses, but when He appears within the vision of the mundane people He assumes the form of the virāṭ-rūpa. This is an additional material exhibition of form and is supported by the logic of a subject and its adjectives. In grammar, when an adjective is taken away from the subject, the subject it modifies does not change. Similarly, when the Lord quits His virāṭ-rūpa, His eternal form does not change, although there is no material difference between Himself and any one of His innumerable forms. In the Fifth Canto it will be seen how the Lord is worshiped in different planets in His different forms, even now, and how He is worshiped in different temples of this earth also.

SB 3.4.32, Purport:

Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is factually the spiritual master of the three worlds, and He is the original source of all Vedic knowledge. It is very difficult, however, to understand the personal feature of the Absolute Truth, even from the Vedas. His personal instructions are needed in order to understand the Personality of Godhead as the Supreme Absolute Truth. Bhagavad-gītā is the evidence of such transcendental knowledge in gist. One cannot know the Supreme Lord unless one is graced by the Lord Himself. Lord Kṛṣṇa exhibited this specific mercy towards Arjuna and Uddhava while He was in the material world.

SB 3.4.33, Purport:

Such subject matters are certainly of increasing interest because the researchers have to search out the transcendental abode of the Lord, which He enters after finishing His pastimes in the mortal world. But even the great sages have no information that beyond the material sky is the spiritual sky where Śrī Kṛṣṇa eternally resides with His associates, although at the same time He exhibits His pastimes in the mortal world in all the universes one after another. This fact is confirmed in Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37): goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ. "The Lord, by His inconceivable potency, resides in His eternal abode, Goloka, yet at the same time, as the Supersoul, He is present everywhere—in both the spiritual and material skies—by His multivarieties of manifestation." Therefore His appearance and disappearance are simultaneously going on, and no one can say definitely which of them is the beginning and which is the end. His eternal pastimes have no beginning or end, and one has to learn of them from the pure devotee only and not waste valuable time in so-called research work.

SB 3.6.4, Purport:

The virāṭ-rūpa or viśva-rūpa, the gigantic universal form of the Lord, which is very much appreciated by the impersonalist, is not an eternal form of the Lord. It is manifested by the supreme will of the Lord after the ingredients of material creation. Lord Kṛṣṇa exhibited this virāṭ or viśva-rūpa to Arjuna just to convince the impersonalists that He is the original Personality of Godhead. Kṛṣṇa exhibited the virāṭ-rūpa; it is not that Kṛṣṇa was exhibited by the virāṭ-rūpa. The virāṭ-rūpa is not, therefore, an eternal form of the Lord exhibited in the spiritual sky; it is a material manifestation of the Lord. The arcā-vigraha, or the worshipable Deity in the temple, is a similar manifestation of the Lord for the neophytes. But in spite of their material touch, such forms of the Lord as the virāṭ and arcā are all nondifferent from His eternal form as Lord Kṛṣṇa.

SB 3.6.7, Purport:

Consciousness is the sign of the living entity, or the soul. The existence of the soul is manifest in the form of consciousness, called jñāna-śakti. The total consciousness is that of the gigantic virāṭ-rūpa, and the same consciousness is exhibited in individual persons. The activity of consciousness is performed through the air of life, which is of ten divisions. The airs of life are called prāṇa, apāna, udāna, vyāna and samāna and are also differently qualified as nāga, kūrma, kṛkara, devadatta and dhanañjaya. The consciousness of the soul becomes polluted by the material atmosphere, and thus various activities are exhibited in the false ego of bodily identification. These various activities are described in Bhagavad-gītā (2.41) as bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca buddhayo 'vyavasāyinām. The conditioned soul is bewildered into various activities for want of pure consciousness. In pure consciousness the activity is one. The consciousness of the individual soul becomes one with the supreme consciousness when there is complete synthesis between the two.

SB 3.6.35, Purport:

The froggish philosophers may go on with their mental speculations on the subject matter of the virāṭ, the gigantic form exhibited by the yogamāyā internal potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but factually no one can measure such a vast exhibition. In Bhagavad-gītā (11.16), Arjuna, the recognized devotee of the Lord, says:

aneka-bāhūdara-vaktra-netraṁ

paśyāmi tvāṁ sarvato 'nanta-rūpam

nāntaṁ na madhyaṁ na punas tavādiṁ

paśyāmi viśveśvara viśva-rūpa

"O my Lord, O gigantic viśva-rūpa form, O master of the universe, I see innumerable hands, bodies, mouths and eyes in all directions, and they are all unlimited. I cannot find the end of this manifestation, nor do I see the middle, nor the beginning."

Bhagavad-gītā was specifically spoken to Arjuna, and the viśva-rūpa was exhibited before him at his request. He was awarded the specific eyes to see this viśva-rūpa, yet although he was able to see the Lord's innumerable hands and mouths, he was unable to see Him completely. Since Arjuna was unable to estimate the length and breadth of the potency of the Lord, who else would be able to do so? One may only indulge in miscalculation like the frog-philosopher.

SB 3.7.2, Translation:

Śrī Vidura said: O great brāhmaṇa, since the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the complete spiritual whole and is unchangeable, how is He connected with the material modes of nature and their activities? If this is His pastime, how do the activities of the unchangeable take place and exhibit qualities without the modes of nature?

SB 3.7.5, Purport:

How then can the living entity become forgetful of his real identity as pure spirit soul and identify with matter unless influenced by something beyond himself? The conclusion is that the living entity is influenced by the avidyā potency, as confirmed in both the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The living entity is mentioned in Bhagavad-gītā (7.5) as parā prakṛti, and in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa he is mentioned as the parā śakti. He is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord as potency and not as the potent. The potent can exhibit many potencies, but the potency cannot equal the potent at any stage. One potency may be overcome by another potency, but to the potent, all potencies are under control. The jīva potency, or the kṣetrajña-śakti of the Lord, has the tendency to be overpowered by the external potency, avidyā-karma-saṁjñā, and in this way he is placed in the awkward circumstances of material existence. The living entity cannot be forgetful of his real identity unless influenced by the avidyā potency. Because the living entity is prone to the influence of the avidyā potency, he can never equal the supreme potent.

SB 3.9.1, Translation:

Lord Brahmā said: O my Lord, today, after many, many years of penance, I have come to know about You. Oh, how unfortunate the embodied living entities are that they are unable to know Your personality! My Lord, You are the only knowable object because there is nothing supreme beyond You. If there is anything supposedly superior to You, it is not the Absolute. You exist as the Supreme by exhibiting the creative energy of matter.

SB 3.9.4, Purport:

Regarding the personal and impersonal features of the Supreme Absolute Truth, the personal forms exhibited by the Lord in His different plenary expansions are all for the benediction of all the universes. The personal form of the Lord is also worshiped in meditation as Supersoul, Paramātmā, but the impersonal brahma-jyotir is not worshiped. Persons who are addicted to the impersonal feature of the Lord, whether in meditation or otherwise, are all pilgrims to hell because, as stated in Bhagavad-gītā (12.5), impersonalists simply waste their time in mundane mental speculation because they are addicted more to false arguments than to reality. Therefore, the association of the impersonalists is condemned herewith by Brahmā.

SB 3.9.4, Purport:

The Lord expands Himself as the flames of a fire expand one after another. Although the original flame, or Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is accepted as Govinda, the Supreme Person, all other expansions, such as Rāma, Nṛsiṁha and Varāha, are as potent as the original Lord. All such expanded forms are transcendental. In the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is made clear that the Supreme Truth is eternally uncontaminated by material touch. There is no jugglery of words and activities in the transcendental kingdom of the Lord. All the Lord's forms are transcendental, and such manifestations are ever identical. The particular form of the Lord exhibited to a devotee is not mundane, even though the devotee may retain material desire, nor is it manifest under the influence of material energy, as is foolishly considered by the impersonalists. Impersonalists who consider the transcendental forms of the Lord to be products of the material world are surely destined for hell.

SB 3.9.12, Purport:

The Lord is unmindful of the nondevotees, although He is sitting within everyone's heart as well-wisher and Supersoul. However, He also gives them the chance to receive His mercy through His pure devotees who are engaged in missionary activities. Sometimes the Lord Himself descends for missionary activities, as He did in the form of Lord Caitanya, but mostly He sends His bona fide representatives, and thus He shows His causeless mercy towards the nondevotees. The Lord is so satisfied with His pure devotees that He wants to give them the credit for missionary success, although He could do the work personally. This is the sign of His satisfaction with His pure, niṣkāma devotees, compared to the sakāma devotees. By such transcendental activities the Lord simultaneously becomes free from the charge of partiality and exhibits His pleasure with the devotees.

SB 3.9.15, Purport:

When the Lord appeared as Lord Kṛṣṇa, He played the part of the son of Yaśodā and Nanda, and He lifted the Govardhana Hill, although lifting a hill is not His concern. He can lift millions of Govardhana Hills by His simple desire; He does not need to lift it with His hand. But He imitates the ordinary living entity by this lifting, and at the same time He exhibits His supernatural power. Thus His name is chanted as the lifter of Govardhana Hill, or Śrī Govardhana-dhārī. Therefore, His acts in His incarnations and His partiality to the devotees are all imitations only, just like the stage makeup of an expert dramatical player. His acts in that capacity, however, are all omnipotent, and the remembrance of such activities of the incarnations of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is as powerful as the Lord Himself. Ajāmila remembered the holy name of the Lord, Nārāyaṇa, by merely calling the name of his son Nārāyaṇa, and that gave him a complete opportunity to achieve the highest perfection of life.

SB 3.10.12, Purport:

As stated previously by Nārada before Vyāsadeva (SB 1.5.20), idaṁ hi viśvaṁ bhagavān ivetaraḥ: this manifested world is the self-same Personality of Godhead, but it appears to be something else beyond or besides the Lord. It appears so because of its being separated from the Lord by means of kāla. It is something like the tape-recorded voice of a person who is now separated from the voice. As the tape recording is situated on the tape, so the whole cosmic manifestation is situated on the material energy and appears separate by means of kāla. The material manifestation is therefore the objective manifestation of the Supreme Lord and exhibits His impersonal feature so much adored by impersonalist philosophers.

SB 3.10.21, Purport:

In the Vedas the symptoms of the lower animals are described as follows: athetareṣāṁ paśūnāḥ aśanāpipāse evābhivijñānaṁ na vijñātaṁ vadanti na vijñātaṁ paśyanti na viduḥ śvastanaṁ na lokālokāv iti; yad vā, bhūri-tamaso bahu-ruṣaḥ ghrāṇenaiva jānanti hṛdyaṁ prati svapriyaṁ vastv eva vindanti bhojana-śayanādy-arthaṁ gṛhṇanti. "Lower animals have knowledge only of their hunger and thirst. They have no acquired knowledge, no vision. Their behavior exhibits no dependence on formalities. Extensively ignorant, they can know their desirables only by smell, and by such intelligence only can they understand what is favorable and unfavorable. Their knowledge is concerned only with eating and sleeping." Therefore, even the most ferocious lower animals, such as tigers, can be tamed simply by regularly supplying meals and accommodations for sleeping. Only snakes cannot be tamed by such an arrangement.

SB 3.12.3, Purport:

Although he created the different influences of nescience, Lord Brahmā was not satisfied in performing such a thankless task, but he had to do it because most of the conditioned souls wanted it to be so. Lord Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15) that He is present in everyone's heart and is helping everyone to either remember of forget. The question may be raised why the Lord, who is all-merciful, helps one to remember and another to forget. Actually, His mercy is not exhibited in partiality towards one and enmity towards another. The living entity, as part and parcel of the Lord, is partially independent because he partially possesses all the qualities of the Lord. Anyone who has some independence may sometimes misuse it due to ignorance. When the living entity prefers to misuse his independence and glide down towards nescience, the all-merciful Lord first of all tries to protect him from the trap, but when the living entity persists in gliding down to hell, the Lord helps him to forget his real position. The Lord helps the falling living entity glide down to the lowest point, just to give him the chance to see if he is happy by misusing his independence.

SB 3.12.7, Purport:

The face of anger is the same whether exhibited due to ignorance or knowledge. Although Brahmā tried to curb his anger, he could not do so, even though he is the supreme being. Such anger in its true color came from between the eyebrows of Brahmā as Rudra, in a mixed color of blue (ignorance) and red (passion), because anger is the product of passion and ignorance.

SB 3.12.11, Purport:

When a man is angry he expresses such anger with red-hot eyes and sometimes makes a display of clenching his fists or kicking his legs. This exhibition of the Rudra principle is the proof of Rudra's presence in such places. When a man is angry he breathes very rapidly, and thus Rudra is represented in the air of life, or in the activities of breathing. When the sky is overcast with dense clouds and roars in anger, and when the wind blows very fiercely, the Rudra principle is manifested, and so also when the sea water is infuriated by the wind it appears in a gloomy feature of Rudra, which is very fearful to the common man. When fire is ablaze we can also experience the presence of Rudra, and when there is an inundation over the earth we can understand that this is also the representation of Rudra.

There are many earthly creatures who constantly represent the Rudra element. The snake, tiger and lion are always representations of Rudra. Sometimes, because of the extreme heat of the sun, there are cases of heatstroke, and due to the extreme coldness created by the moon there are cases of collapse. There are many sages empowered with the influence of austerity and many yogīs, philosophers and renouncers who sometimes exhibit their acquired power under the influence of the Rudra principle of anger and passion. The great yogī Durvāsā, under the influence of this Rudra principle, picked a quarrel with Mahārāja Ambarīṣa, and a brāhmaṇa boy exhibited the Rudra principle by cursing the great King Parīkṣit. When the Rudra principle is exhibited by persons who are not engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the angry person falls down from the peak of his improved position.

SB 3.12.48, Purport:

The post of Brahmā is the highest responsible post within the universe, and it is offered to the most perfect personality of the universe. Sometimes the Supreme Personality of Godhead has to become Brahmā when there is no suitable living being to occupy the post. In the material world, Brahmā is the complete representation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and transcendental sound, praṇava, comes from him. He is therefore invested with multifarious energies, from which all the demigods like Indra, Candra and Varuṇa are manifested. His transcendental value is not to be minimized, even though he exhibited a tendency to enjoy his own daughter. There is a purpose for the exhibition of such a tendency by Brahmā, and he is not to be condemned like an ordinary living entity.

SB 3.13.9, Purport:

The relationship between the father and the son is always sublime. The father is naturally disposed with good will towards the son, and he is always ready to help the son in his progress in life. But in spite of the father's good will, the son is sometimes misguided because of his misuse of personal independence. Every living entity, however small or big he may be, has the choice of independence. If the son is unreservedly willing to be guided by the father, the father is ten times more eager to instruct and guide him by all means. The father and son relationship as exhibited here in the dealings of Brahmā and Manu is excellent. Both the father and the son are well qualified, and their example should be followed by all humankind. Manu, the son, unreservedly asked the father, Brahmā, to instruct him, and the father, who was full of Vedic wisdom, was very glad to instruct. The example of the father of mankind may be rigidly followed by mankind, and that will advance the cause of the relationship of fathers and sons.

SB 3.15.25, Purport:

Similarly, in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Third Canto, Twenty-fifth Chapter, verse 21, the qualifications of a saintly person are mentioned. It is said there that a saintly person eligible to enter into the kingdom of God is very tolerant and very kind to all living entities. He is not partial; he is kind both to human beings and to animals. He is not such a fool that he will kill a goat Nārāyaṇa to feed a human Nārāyaṇa, or daridra-nārāyaṇa. He is very kind to all living entities; therefore he has no enemy. He is very peaceful. These are the qualities of persons who are eligible to enter into the kingdom of God. That such a person gradually becomes liberated and enters the kingdom of God is confirmed in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Fifth Canto, Fifth Chapter, verse 2. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Second Canto, Third Chapter, verse 24, also states that if a person does not cry or exhibit bodily changes after chanting the holy name of God without offense, it is to be understood that he is hardhearted and that therefore his heart does not change even after he chants the holy name of God, Hare Kṛṣṇa. These bodily changes can take place due to ecstasy when we offenselessly chant the holy names of God: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.

SB 3.15.26, Purport:

Modern mechanical space vehicles are unsuccessful because they cannot go to the highest region of this material creation, and they certainly cannot enter the spiritual sky. But by perfection of the yoga system one not only can travel through material space, but can surpass material space and enter the spiritual sky. We learn this fact also from an incident concerning Durvāsā Muni and Mahārāja Ambarīṣa. It is understood that in one year Durvāsā Muni traveled everywhere and went into the spiritual sky to meet the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa. By present standards, scientists calculate that if one could travel at the speed of light, it would take forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of this material world. But the yoga system can carry one without limitation or difficulty. The word yoga-māyā is used in this verse. Yoga-māyā-balena vikuṇṭham. The transcendental happiness exhibited in the spiritual world and all other spiritual manifestations there are made possible by the influence of yoga-māyā, the internal potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

SB 3.15.47, Purport:

Even the quality of goodness here in the material world is not free from tinges of passion and ignorance. But in the transcendental world, only pure goodness, without any tinge of passion or ignorance, exists; therefore the form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His variegated pastimes and paraphernalia are all pure sattva-guṇa. Such variegatedness in pure goodness is exhibited eternally by the Lord for the satisfaction of the devotee. The devotee does not want to see the Supreme Personality of Absolute Truth in voidness or impersonalism. In one sense, absolute transcendental variegatedness is meant only for the devotees, not for others, because this distinct feature of transcendental variegatedness can be understood only by the mercy of the Supreme Lord and not by mental speculation or the ascending process. It is said that one can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead when one is even slightly favored by Him; otherwise, without His mercy, a man may speculate for thousands of years and not understand what is actually the Absolute Truth. This mercy can be perceived by the devotee when he is completely freed from contamination. It is stated, therefore, that only when all contamination is rooted out and the devotee is completely detached from material attractions can he receive this mercy of the Lord.

SB 3.16.11, Purport:

One may sometimes be faced with a grievous situation created by a brāhmaṇa, but instead of meeting him with a similar mood, one should try to pacify him with a smiling face and mild treatment. Brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas should be accepted as earthly representatives of Nārāyaṇa. Nowadays some foolish persons have manufactured the term daridra-nārāyaṇa, indicating that the poor man should be accepted as the representative of Nārāyaṇa. But in Vedic literature we do not find that poor men should be treated as representatives of Nārāyaṇa. Of course, "those who are unprotected" are mentioned here, but the definition of this phrase is clear from the śāstras. The poor man should not be unprotected, but the brāhmaṇa should especially be treated as the representative of Nārāyaṇa and should be worshiped like Him. It is specifically said that to pacify the brāhmaṇas, one's face should be lotuslike. A lotuslike face is exhibited when one is adorned with love and affection. In this respect, the example of the father's being angry at the son and the son's trying to pacify the father with smiling and sweet words is very appropriate.

SB 3.16.23, Purport:

It is also affirmed herein that the brāhmaṇas are the best of the twice-born. Brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas and vaiśyas are all twice-born, but the brāhmaṇas are the best. When there is a fight between two persons, each of them protects the upper part of his body—the head, the arms and the belly. Similarly, for the actual advancement of human civilization, the best part of the social body, namely the brāhmaṇas, the kṣatriyas and vaiśyas (the intelligent class of men, the military class and the mercantile men) should be given special protection. Protection of the laborers should not be neglected, but special protection should be given to the upper orders. Of all classes of men, the brāhmaṇas and the Vaiṣṇavas should be given special protection. They should be worshiped. When their protection is performed, it is just like worshiping God. That is not exactly protection; it is a duty. One should worship the brāhmaṇas and Vaiṣṇavas by offering them all kinds of endowments and sweet words, and if one has no means to offer anything, he must at least use sweet words to pacify them. The Lord personally exhibited this behavior towards the Kumāras.

SB 3.16.24, Translation:

Dear Lord, You never want the auspicious path to be destroyed, for You are the reservoir of all goodness. Just to benefit people in general, You destroy the evil element by Your mighty potency. You are the proprietor of the three creations and the maintainer of the entire universe. Therefore Your potency is not reduced by Your submissive behavior. Rather, by submission You exhibit Your transcendental pastimes.

SB 3.16.24, Purport:

Everyone knew that He was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, yet His behavior was exemplary. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha (Bs. 5.1); His form is completely spiritual, full of bliss and knowledge, and it is eternal. Because the living entities are His parts and parcels, originally they also belong to the same quality of eternal form as the Lord, but when they come in contact with māyā, the material potency, due to their forgetfulness their existential constitution is covered. We should try to understand the appearance of Lord Kṛṣṇa in this spirit, as the Kumāras pray to Him. He is eternally a cowherd boy at Vṛndāvana, He is eternally the leader of the Battle of Kurukṣetra, and He is eternally the opulent prince of Dvārakā and the lover of the damsels of Vṛndāvana; all His appearances are meaningful because they show His real characteristics to the conditioned souls, who have forgotten their relationship with the Supreme Lord. He does everything for their benefit. The force exhibited in the Battle of Kurukṣetra by the desire of Kṛṣṇa and through the agency of Arjuna was also necessary because when people become too irreligious, force is required. Nonviolence in this respect is rascaldom.

SB 3.17.16, Translation:

These two demons who appeared in ancient times soon began to exhibit uncommon bodily features; they had steellike frames which began to grow just like two great mountains.

SB 3.18.4, Purport:

The demon used the word abhavāya, which means "for killing." Śrīdhara Svāmī comments that this "killing" means liberating, or, in other words, killing the process of continued birth and death. The Lord kills the process of birth and death and keeps Himself invisible. The activities of the Lord's internal potency are inconceivable, but by a slight exhibition of this potency, the Lord, by His grace, can deliver one from nescience. Śucaḥ means "miseries"; the miseries of material existence can be extinguished by the Lord by His potential energy of internal yogamāyā. In the Upaniṣads (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8) it is stated, parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate (Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport). The Lord is invisible to the eyes of the common man, but His energies act in various ways. When demons are in adversity, they think that God is hiding Himself and is working by His mystic potency. They think that if they can find God they can kill Him just by seeing Him. Hiraṇyākṣa thought that way, and he challenged the Lord: "You have done tremendous harm to our community, taking the part of the demigods, and You have killed our kinsmen in so many ways, always keeping Yourself hidden. Now I see You face to face, and I am not going to let You go. I shall kill You and save my kinsmen from Your mystic misdeeds."

SB 3.18.16, Translation:

The Personality of Godhead now exhibited His anger and rushed to meet the demon, who bit his lip in rage, took up his mace again and began to repeatedly brandish it about.

SB 3.18.28, Translation:

This demon, luckily for us, has come of his own accord to You, his death ordained by You; therefore, exhibiting Your ways, kill him in the duel and establish the worlds in peace.

SB 3.22.25, Purport:

The word amba is significant. A father sometimes addresses his daughter in affection as "mother" and sometimes as "my darling." The feeling of separation occurs because until the daughter is married she remains the daughter of the father, but after her marriage she is no longer claimed as a daughter in the family; she must go to the husband's house, for after marriage she becomes the property of the husband. According to Manu-saṁhitā, a woman is never independent. She must remain the property of the father while she is not married, and she must remain the property of the husband until she is elderly and has grown-up children of her own. In old age, when the husband has taken sannyāsa and left home, she remains the property of the sons. A woman is always dependent, either upon the father, husband or elderly sons. That will be exhibited in the life of Devahūti. Devahūti's father handed over responsibility for her to the husband, Kardama Muni, and in the same way, Kardama Muni also left home, giving the responsibility to his son, Kapiladeva. This narration will describe these events one after another.

SB 3.23.21, Purport:

Kardama Muni, being a saintly person, was living in a humble hermitage, but when he saw the palace constructed by his yogic powers, which was full of resting rooms, rooms for sex enjoyment, and inner and outer yards, he himself was astonished. That is the way of a God-gifted person. A devotee like Kardama Muni exhibited such opulence by his yogic power at the request of his wife, but when the opulence was produced, he himself could not understand how such manifestations could be possible. When a yogī's power is exhibited, the yogī himself is sometimes astonished.

SB 3.23.50, Purport:

Devahūti was so beautiful that her toenails appeared just like pearls, and as she scratched the ground it appeared as if pearls had been thrown on the ground. When a woman scratches the ground with her foot, it is a sign that her mind is very disturbed. These signs were sometimes exhibited by the gopīs before Kṛṣṇa. When the gopīs came in the dead of night and Kṛṣṇa asked them to return to their homes, the gopīs also scratched the ground like this because their minds were very disturbed.

SB 3.26.3, Purport:

The existence of consciousness everywhere is not temporary. It is without beginning, and because it is without beginning, it is also without end. The theory that consciousness develops at a certain stage of material combination is not accepted herein, for the consciousness which exists everywhere is said to be without beginning. The materialistic or atheistic theory stating that there is no soul, that there is no God and that consciousness is the result of a combination of matter is not acceptable. Matter is not beginningless; it has a beginning. As this material body has a beginning, the universal body does also. And as our material body has begun on the basis of our soul, the entire gigantic universal body has begun on the basis of the Supreme Soul. The Vedānta-sūtra says, janmādy asya (SB 1.1.1). This entire material exhibition—its creation, its growth, its maintenance and its dissolution—is an emanation from the Supreme Person. In Bhagavad-gītā also, the Lord says, "I am the beginning, the source of birth of everything."

SB 3.26.5, Purport:

It is stated in the previous verse that the material energy was accepted by the Supreme Personality of Godhead in order that He might exhibit pastimes for the living entities who wanted to enjoy and lord it over the material energy. This world was created through the material energy of the Lord for the so-called enjoyment of such living entities. Why this material world was created for the sufferings of the conditioned souls is a very intricate question. There is a hint in the previous verse in the word līlayā, which means "for the pastimes of the Lord." The Lord wants to rectify the enjoying temperament of the conditioned souls. It is stated in Bhagavad-gītā that no one is the enjoyer but the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This material energy is created, therefore, for anyone who pretends to enjoy.

SB 3.26.5, Purport:

In this material world there are 8,400,000 species of life. As spirit souls, they are all transcendental to this material world. Why, then, do they exhibit themselves in different stages of life? The answer is given here: they are under the spell of the three modes of material nature. Because they were created by the material energy, their bodies are made of the material elements. Covered by the material body, the spiritual identity is lost, and therefore the word mumuhe is used here, indicating that they have forgotten their own spiritual identity. This forgetfulness of spiritual identity is present in the jīvas, or souls, who are conditioned, being subject to be covered by the energy of material nature. Jñāna-gūhayā is another word used. Gūhā means "covering." Because the knowledge of the minute conditioned souls is covered, they are exhibited in so many species of life.

SB 3.26.16, Purport:

The living entity's fear of death is due to his false ego of identifying with the body. Everyone is afraid of death. Actually there is no death for the spirit soul, but due to our absorption in the identification of body as self, the fear of death develops. It is also stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (11.2.37), bhayaṁ dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syāt. Dvitīya refers to matter, which is beyond spirit. Matter is the secondary manifestation of spirit, for matter is produced from spirit. Just as the material elements described are caused by the Supreme Lord, or the Supreme Spirit, the body is also a product of the spirit soul. Therefore, the material body is called dvitīya, or "the second." One who is absorbed in this second element or second exhibition of the spirit is afraid of death. When one is fully convinced that he is not his body, there is no question of fearing death, since the spirit soul does not die.

SB 3.26.18, Translation:

By exhibiting His potencies, the Supreme Personality of Godhead adjusts all these different elements, keeping Himself within as the Supersoul and without as time.

SB 3.26.18, Purport:

Since the living entity is constitutionally part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the Lord is very affectionate to the living entities. Unfortunately, when the living entity is bewildered or illusioned by the external energy, he becomes forgetful of his eternal relationship with the Lord, but as soon as he becomes aware of his constitutional position, he is liberated. The minute independence of the conditioned soul is exhibited by his marginal position. If he likes, he can forget the Supreme Personality of Godhead and come into the material existence with a false ego to lord it over material nature, but if he likes he can turn his face to the service of the Lord. The individual living entity is given that independence. His conditional life is ended and his life becomes successful as soon as he turns his face to the Lord, but by misusing his independence he enters into material existence. Yet the Lord is so kind that, as Supersoul, He always remains with the conditioned soul. The concern of the Lord is neither to enjoy nor to suffer from the material body. He remains with the jīva simply as sanction-giver and witness so that the living entity can receive the results of his activities, good or bad.

SB 3.26.20, Purport:

Since the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is ever existing, all-blissful and full of knowledge, His different energies are also ever existing in the dormant stage. Thus when the mahat-tattva was created, it manifested the material ego and swallowed up the darkness which covered the cosmic manifestation at the time of dissolution. This idea can be further explained. A person at night remains inactive, covered by the darkness of night, but when he is awakened in the morning, the covering of night, or the forgetfulness of the sleeping state, disappears. Similarly, when the mahat-tattva appears after the night of dissolution, the effulgence is manifested to exhibit the variegatedness of this material world.

SB 3.26.23-24, Purport:

In the beginning, from clear consciousness, or the pure state of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the first contamination sprang up. This is called false ego, or identification of the body as self. The living entity exists in the natural state of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but he has marginal independence, and this allows him to forget Kṛṣṇa. Originally, pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness exists, but because of misuse of marginal independence there is a chance of forgetting Kṛṣṇa. This is exhibited in actual life; there are many instances in which someone acting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness suddenly changes. In the Upaniṣads it is stated, therefore, that the path of spiritual realization is just like the sharp edge of a razor. The example is very appropriate. One shaves his cheeks with a sharp razor very nicely, but as soon as his attention is diverted from the activity, he immediately cuts his cheek because he mishandles the razor.

SB 3.26.35, Purport:

In the course of time, when the subtle forms are transformed into gross forms, they become the objects of touch. The objects of touch and the tactile sense also develop after this evolution in time. Sound is the first sense object to exhibit material existence, and from the perception of sound, touch perception evolves and from touch perception the perception of sight. That is the way of the gradual evolution of our perceptive objects.

SB 3.26.37, Translation:

The action of the air is exhibited in movements, mixing, allowing approach to the objects of sound and other sense perceptions, and providing for the proper functioning of all other senses.

SB 3.26.43, Translation:

The characteristics of water are exhibited by its moistening other substances, coagulating various mixtures, causing satisfaction, maintaining life, softening things, driving away heat, incessantly supplying itself to reservoirs of water, and refreshing by slaking thirst.

SB 3.26.61, Purport:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared on the full-moon day as Gauracandra, or the spotless transcendental moon. The material moon has spots on it, but on the transcendental moon, Gauracandra, there are no spots. In order to fix the purified mind in the service of the Supreme Lord, one has to worship the spotless moon, Gauracandra. Those who are materially passionate or those who want to exhibit their intelligence for material advancement in life are generally worshipers of Lord Brahmā, and persons who are in the gross ignorance of identifying with the body worship Lord Śiva. Materialists like Hiraṇyakaśipu and Rāvaṇa are worshipers of Lord Brahmā or Lord Śiva, but Prahlāda and other devotees in the service of Kṛṣṇa consciousness worship the Supreme Lord, the Personality of Godhead.

SB 3.27.22, Translation:

Devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness cannot be performed blindly due to material emotion or mental concoction. It is specifically mentioned here that one has to perform devotional service in full knowledge by visualizing the Absolute Truth. We can understand about the Absolute Truth by evolving transcendental knowledge, and the result of such transcendental knowledge will be manifested by renunciation. That renunciation is not temporary or artificial, but is very strong. It is said that development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is exhibited by proportionate material detachment, or vairāgya. If one does not separate himself from material enjoyment, it is to be understood that he is not advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Renunciation in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so strong that it cannot be deviated by any attractive illusion. One has to perform devotional service in full tapasya, austerity. One should fast on the two Ekādaśī days, which fall on the eleventh day of the waxing and waning moon, and on the birthdays of Lord Kṛṣṇa, Lord Rāma and Caitanya Mahāprabhu. There are many such fasting days. Yogena means "by controlling the senses and mind." Yoga indriya-saṁyamaḥ. Yogena implies that one is seriously absorbed in the self and is able, by development of knowledge, to understand his constitutional position in relationship with the Superself. In this way one becomes fixed in devotional service, and his faith cannot be shaken by any material allurement.

SB 3.28.43, Translation:

As fire is exhibited in different forms of wood, so, under different conditions of the modes of material nature, the pure spirit soul manifests itself in different bodies.

SB 3.29.11-12, Translation:

The manifestation of unadulterated devotional service is exhibited when one's mind is at once attracted to hearing the transcendental name and qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is residing in everyone's heart. Just as the water of the Ganges flows naturally down towards the ocean, such devotional ecstasy, uninterrupted by any material condition, flows towards the Supreme Lord.

SB 3.29.24, Purport:

There are sixty-four different prescriptions for worship of the Deity in the temple. There are many items offered to the Deity, some valuable and some less valuable. It is prescribed in Bhagavad-gītā: "If a devotee offers Me a small flower, a leaf, some water or a little fruit, I will accept it." The real purpose is to exhibit one's loving devotion to the Lord; the offerings themselves are secondary. If one has not developed loving devotion to the Lord and simply offers many kinds of foodstuffs, fruits and flowers without real devotion, the offering will not be accepted by the Lord. We cannot bribe the Personality of Godhead. He is so great that our bribery has no value. Nor has He any scarcity; since He is full in Himself, what can we offer Him? Everything is produced by Him. We simply offer to show our love and gratitude to the Lord.

This gratitude and love for God is exhibited by a pure devotee, who knows that the Lord lives in every living entity. As such, temple worship necessarily includes distribution of prasāda. It is not that one should create a temple in his private apartment or private room, offer something to the Lord, and then eat. Of course, that is better than simply cooking foodstuffs and eating without understanding one's relationship with the Supreme Lord; people who act in this manner are just like animals. But the devotee who wants to elevate himself to the higher level of understanding must know that the Lord is present in every living entity, and, as stated in the previous verse, one should be compassionate to other living entities. A devotee should worship the Supreme Lord, be friendly to persons who are on the same level and be compassionate to the ignorant. One should exhibit his compassion for ignorant living entities by distributing prasāda. Distribution of prasāda to the ignorant masses of people is essential for persons who make offerings to the Personality of Godhead.

SB 3.31.19, Purport:

The word dama-śarīrī means that we have a body in which we can control the senses and the mind. The complication of materialistic life is due to an uncontrolled mind and uncontrolled senses. One should feel grateful to the Supreme Personality of Godhead for having obtained such a nice human form of body, and one should properly utilize it. The distinction between an animal and a man is that the animal cannot control himself and has no sense of decency, whereas the human being has the sense of decency and can control himself. If this controlling power is not exhibited by the human being, then he is no better than an animal. By controlling the senses, or by the process of yoga regulation, one can understand the position of his self, the Supersoul, the world and their interrelation; everything is possible by controlling the senses. Otherwise, we are no better than animals.

SB 3.32.24, Purport:

The significance of advancement in transcendental knowledge and detachment from material attraction is exhibited in the personality of a highly advanced devotee. For him there is nothing agreeable or disagreeable because he does not act in any way for his personal sense gratification. Whatever he does, whatever he thinks, is for the satisfaction of the Personality of Godhead. Either in the material world or in the spiritual world, his equipoised mind is completely manifested. He can understand that in the material world there is nothing good; everything is bad due to its being contaminated by material nature. The materialists conclusions of good and bad, moral and immoral, etc., are simply mental concoction or sentiment. Actually there is nothing good in the material world. In the spiritual field everything is absolutely good. There is no inebriety in the spiritual varieties. Because a devotee accepts everything in spiritual vision, he is equipoised; that is the symptom of his being elevated to the transcendental position. He automatically attains detachment, vairāgya, then jñāna, knowledge, and then actual transcendental knowledge. The conclusion is that an advanced devotee dovetails himself in the transcendental qualities of the Lord, and in that sense he becomes qualitatively one with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

SB 3.32.34-36, Translation:

By performing fruitive activities and sacrifices, by distributing charity, by performing austerities, by studying various literatures, by conducting philosophical research, by controlling the mind, by subduing the senses, by accepting the renounced order of life and by performing the prescribed duties of one's social order; by performing the different divisions of yoga practice, by performing devotional service and by exhibiting the process of devotional service containing the symptoms of both attachment and detachment; by understanding the science of self-realization and by developing a strong sense of detachment, one who is expert in understanding the different processes of self-realization realizes the Supreme Personality of Godhead as He is represented in the material world as well as in transcendence.

SB 3.33.9, Purport:

Since the Lord is all-perfect, His exhibition of affection for His mother was also complete. After hearing the words of His mother, He most respectfully, with due gravity and good manners, replied.

SB 3.33.17, Purport:

It is understood from this statement that the opulences of household life were exhibited in valuable jewels, ivory, first-class marble, and furniture made of gold and jewels. The clothes are also mentioned as being decorated with golden filigree. Everything actually had some value. It was not like the furniture of the present day, which is cast in valueless plastic or base metal. The way of Vedic civilization is that whatever was used in household affairs had to be valuable. In case of need, such items of value could be exchanged immediately. Thus one's broken and unwanted furniture and paraphernalia would never be without value. This system is still followed by Indians in household affairs. They keep metal utensils and golden ornaments or silver plates and valuable silk garments with gold embroidery, and in case of need, they can have some money in exchange immediately. There are exchanges for the moneylenders and the householders.