Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.23.43

prekṣayitvā bhuvo golaḿ

patnyai yāvān sva-saḿsthayā

bahv-āścaryaḿ mahā-yogī

svāśramāya nyavartata

SYNONYMS

prekṣayitvā — after showing; bhuvaḥ — of the universe; golam — the globe; patnyai — to his wife; yāvān — as much; sva-saḿsthayā — with its arrangements; bahu-āścaryam — full of many wonders; mahā-yogī — the great yogī (Kardama); sva-āśramāya — to his own hermitage; nyavartata — returned.

TRANSLATION

After showing his wife the globe of the universe and its different arrangements, full of many wonders, the great yogī Kardama Muni returned to his own hermitage.

PURPORT

All the planets are here described as gola, round. Every planet is round, and each planet is a different shelter, just like islands in the great ocean. Planets are sometimes called dvīpa or varṣa. This earth planet is called Bhārata-varṣa because it was ruled by King Bharata. Another significant word used in this verse is bahv-āścaryam, "many wonderful things." This indicates that the different planets are distributed all over the universe in the eight directions, and each and every one of them is wonderful in itself. Each planet has its particular climatic influences and particular types of inhabitants and is completely equipped with everything, including the beauty of the seasons. In the Brahma-saḿhitā (5.40) it is similarly stated, vibhūti-bhinnam: on each and every planet there are different opulences. It cannot be expected that one planet is exactly like another. By God's grace, by nature's law, each and every planet is made differently and has different wonderful features. All such wonders were personally experienced by Kardama Muni while he traveled with his wife, yet he could return again to his humble hermitage. He showed his princess-wife that although he was living in the hermitage, he had the power to go everywhere and do anything by mystic yoga. That is the perfection of yoga. One cannot become a perfect yogī simply by showing some sitting postures, nor by such sitting postures or so-called meditation can one become God, as is being advertised. Foolish persons are misled into believing that simply by some caricature of meditation and sitting postures one can become God within six months.

Here is the example of a perfect yogī; he could travel all over the universe. Similarly, there is a description of Durvāsā Muni, who also traveled in space. Actually, the perfect yogī can do that. But even if one can travel all over the universe and show wonderful feats like Kardama Muni, he cannot be compared to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose power and inconceivable energy can never be attained by any conditioned or liberated soul. By the actions of Kardama Muni we can understand that in spite of his immense mystic power, he remained a devotee of the Lord. That is the real position of every living entity.

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