As part and parcel, there is tendency of being covered by māyā. The example we can cite that the sun and the sunshine . . . sunshine means accumulation of shining particles. They are also individual shining material, molecular parts. The cloud can cover the sunshine partial, not all. The sunshine is expanding millions and millions of miles. Out of that, hundred, two hundred miles may be covered by the cloud. So that portion of sunshine is called material world. Just try to understand. The . . . God is just like sun, kṛṣṇa sūrya-sama, and the sunshine, light, is the brahma-jyotir. Impersonal brahma-jyotir is just like the sunshine, and Paramātmā is just like the sun globe. To understand the Absolute Truth we have to make progress from impersonal Brahman to localized Paramātmā and then, from Paramātmā to this Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is the statement of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
- vadanti tat tattva-vidas
- tattvaṁ yaj jñānam advayam
- brahmeti paramātmeti
- bhagavān iti śabdyate
- (SB 1.2.11)
The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, when Śukadeva Gosvāmī was explaining that duty of the human being . . . duty of the human being is explained that first beginning is dharma. Dharmeṇa hīna paśubhiḥ samānāḥ (Hitopadeśa 25). Unless we come to the platform of understanding what is dharma, or religion . . . "Religion" is not the exact translation of the word dharma. Religion is understood in English dictionary as a kind of faith. But dharma does not mean that. Dharma means your characteristic, which you cannot change.
Just like water. Water is liquid. That is the characteristic of water. It cannot be changed. Stone—hardness is the characteristic of the stone. It cannot be changed. If you say that water has now changed its characteristic, it has become now hard, stonelike, that is not actually the fact. Although water sometimes becomes hard like stone by the influence of atmosphere, it immediately begins to melt. That means it is going to its own characteristic, liquidity. So when we speak of dharma, according to Vedic understanding, dharma means your characteristic which you cannot change. Therefore, in other words, sometimes dharma is explained as sanātana-dharma. Sanātana-dharma. Sanātana means eternal. You cannot change it.