Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.28.1

śrī-bhagavān uvāca

para-svabhāva-karmāṇi

na praśaḿsen na garhayet

viśvam ekāmakaḿ paśyan

prakṛtyā puruṣeṇa ca

SYNONYMS

śrī-bhagavān uvāca — the Supreme Personality of Godhead said; para — anyone else's; svabhāva — nature; karmāṇi — and activities; na praśaḿset — one should not praise; na garhayet — one should not criticize; viśvam — the world; eka-ātmakam — based on one reality; paśyan — seeing; prakṛtyā — along with nature; puruṣeṇa — with the enjoying soul; ca — also.

TRANSLATION

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: One should neither praise nor criticize the conditioned nature and activities of other persons. Rather, one should see this world as simply the combination of material nature and the enjoying souls, all based on the one Absolute Truth.

PURPORT

Material situations and activities appear to be good, passionate or ignorant according to the interaction of the modes of nature. These modes are produced by the illusory potency of the Lord, which is itself not different from its master, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So a devotee of the Lord remains aloof from the illusory, temporary manifestations of material nature. At the same time, he accepts material nature as the potency of the Lord and thus essentially real. The example may be given that modeling clay is shaped by a child into various playful forms such as tigers, men or houses. The modeling clay is real, whereas the temporary shapes it assumes are illusory, not being actual tigers, men or houses. Similarly, the entire cosmic manifestation is modeling clay in the hands of the Supreme Lord, who acts through māyā to shape the glaring temporary forms of illusion, which absorb the minds of those who are not devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
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Gopiparanadhana dasa Adhikari
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