There is a story, I shall—it is not story or take it as story—that sometimes Nārada Muni was passing, and one very learned scholar, Brāhmin, he saw Nārada Muni, and he asked Nārada Muni, "Sir, where you are going?" He said: "I am going to Vṛndāvana . . . er, yes, Vaikuṇṭha, to see my Lord." "Oh, you are going there?" Nārada Muni has got free passage to everyone. So, "Will you ask Nārāyaṇa when my liberation will come?" "All right, I shall ask." Then he met another cobbler. He was sewing shoes. So he also asked: "Sir, where you are going?" "Now I am going to Vaikuṇṭha to see my Lord." So, "Will you ask when I shall get salvation?" So Nārada Muni noted, "All right, I shall ask." So when Nārada Muni met Nārāyaṇa, he, after finishing his business, he asked the two men's question that, "These two men, one very learned scholar, Brāhmin, he also asked me this question, and the cobbler also asked me." So Nārāyaṇa said: "This cobbler will get his salvation after finishing this life, and this Brāhmin will have to take . . . wait for many, many births."
So Nārada Muni became very much inquisitive, "How is that?" So when he came back, first of all he met the Brāhmin. He inquired, "Did you inquire, sir, about me?" "Yes, yes. He said that you have to wait many, many births . . ." No, He did not say many, many births. Kṛṣṇa said . . . Nārāyaṇa said that, "When you meet them again, you say that, if they inquire 'What my Lord was doing at that time?' you say that 'He was pulling one elephant from the hole of a nail,' " what is called?
Devotees: Needle.
Prabhupāda: Needle. So when he met the Brāhmin he said . . . and he inquired, "What Nārāyaṇa was doing when you met Him?" "I saw that He was pulling one elephant through the hole of a needle." So he immediately said, "All right, sir. Namaskāra. Your all these big, big stories we cannot believe, that an elephant is being drawn through the hole of a needle." And the same question was raised by the cobbler, and he . . . Nārada Muni replied in the same way. And he began to cry, "Oh, my Lord is so powerful. He can do anything." So Nārada Muni inquired that, "How do you believe that the elephant is being drawn through the hole of a needle?" "Now, why not? I am seeing daily, I am sitting under this banyan tree and there is fig, banyan fruit, and there are thousands of seeds, and I know that each seed's containing a big tree like this."
That's a fact. Everyone knows. Bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām (BG 7.10). Here Kṛṣṇa says, bījo 'haṁ sarva-bhūtānām. Is there any chemist, just get one small seed like the fig seed? It is very small, but it contains that big tree. Where is that chemistry? Where is that physics? So here is the answer. Kṛṣṇa says, bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ viddhi. Big, even this big, gigantic universe, that is also bījaṁ māṁ sarva-bhūtānām. It is stated in the Vedic literature, yasyaika-niśvasita-kālam athāvalambya jīvanti loma-vilajā jagad-aṇḍa-nāthāḥ (Bs. 5.48). There are so many things. Everyone is inquisitive, "Where is the beginning of this thing?" The beginning is the Supreme Lord. That is the Vedānta-sūtra, janmādy asya yataḥ (SB 1.1.1).