Canto 10: The Summum BonumChapter 85: Lord Kṛṣṇa Instructs Vasudeva and Retrieves Devakī's Sons

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.85.14

tasmān na santy amī bhāvā

yarhi tvayi vikalpitāḥ

tvaḿ cāmīṣu vikāreṣu

hy anyadāvyāvahārikaḥ

SYNONYMS

tasmāt — therefore; na — not; santi — exist; amī — these; bhāvāḥ — entities; yarhi — when; tvayi — within You; vikalpitāḥ — arranged; tvam — You; ca — also; amīṣu — within these; vikāreṣu — products of creation; hi — indeed; anyadā — at any other time; avyāvahārikaḥ — nonmaterial.

TRANSLATION

Thus these created entities, transformations of material nature, do not exist except when material nature manifests them within You, at which time You also manifest within them. But aside from such periods of creation, You stand alone as the transcendental reality.

PURPORT

When the universe is wound up at the time of its periodic annihilation, all the inert objects and bodies of living beings that hitherto were manifested by the Lord's Māyā become disconnected from His sight. Then, since He maintains no association with them during the period of universal dissolution, they in fact no longer exist. In other words, material manifestations have real, functioning existence only when the Lord turns His attention to the creation and maintenance of the material cosmos. The Lord is never "within" these objects in any material sense, but He does mercifully pervade them all as the impersonal Brahman, and as the Paramātmā He enters within every atom and also accompanies the jīva souls in their individual embodiments. As the Lord describes in His own words in the verses of Bhagavad-gītā (9.4-5):

mayā tataḿ idaḿ sarvaḿ

jagad avyakta-mūrtinā

mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni

na cāhaḿ teṣv avasthitaḥ

na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni

paśya me yogam aiśvaram

bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho

mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ

"By Me, in My unmanifest form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them. And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold My mystic opulence! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities and although I am everywhere, I am not part of this cosmic manifestation, for My Self is the very source of creation."

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