Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 2.5.14

dravyaḿ karma ca kālaś ca

svabhāvo jīva eva ca

vāsudevāt paro brahman

na cānyo 'rtho 'sti tattvataḥ

SYNONYMS

dravyam — the ingredients (earth, water, fire, air and sky); karma — the interaction; ca — and; kālaḥ — eternal time; ca — also; sva-bhāvaḥ — intuition or nature; jīvaḥ — the living being; eva — certainly; ca — and; vāsudevāt — from Vāsudeva; paraḥ — differentiated parts; brahman — O brāhmaṇa; na — never; ca — also; anyaḥ — separate; arthaḥ — value; asti — there is; tattvataḥ — in truth.

TRANSLATION

The five elementary ingredients of creation, the interaction thereof set up by eternal time, and the intuition or nature of the individual living beings are all differentiated parts and parcels of the Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva, and in truth there is no other value in them.

PURPORT

This phenomenal world is impersonally the representation of Vāsudeva because the ingredients of its creation, their interaction and the enjoyer of the resultant action, the living being, are all produced by the external and internal energies of Lord Kṛṣṇa. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.4-5). The ingredients, namely earth, water, fire, air and sky, as well as the conception of material identity, intelligence and the mind, are produced of the external energy of the Lord. The living entity who enjoys the interaction of the above gross and subtle ingredients, as set up by eternal time, is an offshoot of internal potency, with freedom to remain either in the material world or in the spiritual world. In the material world the living entity is enticed by deluding nescience, but in the spiritual world he is in the normal condition of spiritual existence without any delusion. The living entity is known as the marginal potency of the Lord. But in all circumstances, neither the material ingredients nor the spiritual parts and parcels are independent of the Personality of Godhead Vāsudeva, for all things, whether products of the external, internal or marginal potencies of the Lord, are simply displays of the same effulgence of the Lord, just as light, heat and smoke are displays of fire. None of them are separate from the fire — all of them combine together to be called fire; similarly, all phenomenal manifestations, as well as the effulgence of the body of Vāsudeva, are His impersonal features, whereas He eternally exists in His transcendental form called sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ [Bs. 5.1], distinct from all conceptions of the material ingredients mentioned above.

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