Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.12.3

dṛṣṭvā pāpīyasīḿ sṛṣṭiḿ

nātmānaḿ bahv amanyata

bhagavad-dhyāna-pūtena

manasānyāḿ tato 'sṛjat

SYNONYMS

dṛṣṭvā — by seeing; pāpīyasīm — sinful; sṛṣṭim — creation; na — did not; ātmānam — unto Himself; bahu — much pleasure; amanyata — felt; bhagavat — on the Personality of Godhead; dhyāna — meditation; pūtena — purified by that; manasā — by such a mentality; anyām — another; tataḥ — thereafter; asṛjat — created.

TRANSLATION

Seeing such a misleading creation as a sinful task, Brahmā did not feel much pleasure in his activity, and therefore he purified himself by meditation on the Personality of Godhead. Then he began another term of creation.

PURPORT

Although he created the different influences of nescience, Lord Brahmā was not satisfied in performing such a thankless task, but he had to do it because most of the conditioned souls wanted it to be so. Lord Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15) that He is present in everyone's heart and is helping everyone to either remember of forget. The question may be raised why the Lord, who is all-merciful, helps one to remember and another to forget. Actually, His mercy is not exhibited in partiality towards one and enmity towards another. The living entity, as part and parcel of the Lord, is partially independent because he partially possesses all the qualities of the Lord. Anyone who has some independence may sometimes misuse it due to ignorance. When the living entity prefers to misuse his independence and glide down towards nescience, the all-merciful Lord first of all tries to protect him from the trap, but when the living entity persists in gliding down to hell, the Lord helps him to forget his real position. The Lord helps the falling living entity glide down to the lowest point, just to give him the chance to see if he is happy by misusing his independence.

Almost all the conditioned souls who are rotting in the material world are misusing their independence, and therefore five kinds of nescience are imposed upon them. As an obedient servitor of the Lord, Brahmā creates all these as a matter of necessity, but he is not happy in doing so because a devotee of the Lord naturally does not like to see anyone falling down from his real position. Persons who do not care for the path of realization get full facilities from the Lord for executing their proclivities to the fullest extent, and Brahmā helps in that procedure without fail.

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