Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 6.16.35

tava vibhavaḥ khalu bhagavan

jagad-udaya-sthiti-layādīni

viśva-sṛjas te 'ḿśāḿśās

tatra mṛṣā spardhanti pṛthag abhimatyā

SYNONYMS

tava — Your; vibhavaḥ — opulences; khalu — indeed; bhagavan — O Supreme Personality of Godhead; jagat — of the cosmic manifestation; udaya — the creation; sthiti — maintenance; laya-ādīni — dissolution and so on; viśva-sṛjaḥ — the creators of the manifested world; te — they; aḿśa-aḿśāḥ — parts of Your plenary portion; tatra — in that; mṛṣā — in vain; spardhanti — rival one another; pṛthak — of separateness; abhimatyā — by a false conception.

TRANSLATION

My dear Lord, this cosmic manifestation and its creation, maintenance and annihilation are all but Your opulences. Since Lord Brahmā and the other creators are nothing but small portions of a portion of You, their partial power to create does not make them God [īśvara]. Their consciousness of themselves as separate Lords is therefore merely false prestige. It is not valid.

PURPORT

A devotee who has fully surrendered to the lotus feet of the Lord knows very well that the creative energy of the living entities, from Lord Brahmā down to the small ant, exists because the living entities are part and parcel of the Lord. In Bhagavad-gītā (15.7) the Lord says, mamaivāḿśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ: "The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts." The living entities are nothing but very small portions of the supreme spirit, like sparks of a fire. Because they are part of the Supreme, they have a creative quality in a very minute quantity.

The so-called scientists of the modern materialistic world are proud because they have created modern facilities like great airplanes, but the credit for creating the airplanes should go to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, not to the scientists who have invented or created the so-called wonderful products. The first consideration is the intelligence of the scientist; one must be elevated by the dictation of the Supreme Lord, who says in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15), mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaḿ ca: "From Me comes remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness." Because the Supreme Lord, as Supersoul, sits within the core of every living entity's heart, the dictation by which one advances in scientific knowledge or creative faculties comes from Him. Furthermore, the ingredients to manufacture wonderful machines like airplanes are also supplied by the Lord, not by the scientists. Before the airplane was created, its ingredients already existed, having been caused by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but when the manifested creation of the airplane is ruined, the remaining debris is a problem for the so-called creators. Another example is that the West is creating many automobiles. The ingredients for these cars are supplied, of course, by the Supreme Lord, and the intelligence for the so-called creation is also supplied by the Lord. Ultimately, when the cars are demolished, the so-called creators are faced with the problem of what to do with their ingredients. The actual creator, the original creator, is the Personality of Godhead. Only in the interim does someone create something with intelligence supplied by the Lord, and later the creation again becomes a problem. Therefore the so-called creator is not to be credited with the act of creation; the only credit goes to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is rightly stated herein that the credit for all the opulences of creation, maintenance and annihilation belongs to the Supreme Lord, not to the living entities.

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