Śrīmad Bhāgavatam

Canto Ten. Volume 12 Chapter 87

TRANSLATION AND PURPORT BY
Mahāmaṇḍaleśwar Mahant Śrī Kṛṣṇa Balarām Swāmījī

Text 19


svakṛta-vicitra-yoniṣu viśann iva hetutayā
taratamataś cakāssy analavat svakṛtānukṛtiḥ
atha vitathāsv amūṣv vitathaṁ tava dhāma samaṁ
viraja-dhiyo ’nvayanty abhivipaṇyava eka-rasam


Translation

You apparently enter the variegated living entities that You create so they can exist and You seem to imitate their actions. Your appearance is similar to fire, which changes shape according to the material it burns. Those that are totally free from material attachment and possess fine intelligence are not bewildered by Your impermanent forms, but see Your undifferentiated, eternal and unchanging features in them.

Purport

There is unlimited fear in the material creation; where the living entities that have forgotten their constitutional position as servant of God have been wandering since time immemorial. They remain destitute unless they take shelter of Lord Kṛṣṇa, who is the only one that can rescue them from the ocean of material existence. One can happily cross over this material world of suffering by taking shelter of the two blossomed lotuses in this creation; the two lotus feet of the Lord. This universe is divided into three layers; the lower, middle and upper planets; where the eight million four hundred thousand species live. There are three categories of species; demigods, humans, and the lower species. Even though the soul experiences the benefits and hardships of a particular body, the Lord living inside that living entity as Supersoul does not experience anything and remains unchanged and unaffected. The living entities are rewarded a particular type of body according to their karma. Just as fire burning a small piece of wood looks smaller than fire burning a large piece of wood, similarly living entities appear differently according to the type of body they inhabit. Fire does not have a fixed form, its form changes according to what it is burning. If fire is burning a crooked piece of wood it looks crooked; if the wood is thick it looks thick; and if the wood is thin it looks thin. To the uneducated eye, the living entities look different, whereas pure hearted devotees of the Lord see Him inside the living entity unchanged and unaffected by their actions.

A living entity’s body is like a mold, wherein whatever kind of mold (body) they exist in, they take up its qualities. They may take up the mold of a horse, parrot, alligator, demigod, man or woman. For example, if clay is put in a mold to make a toy horse, the clay looks like a horse, and if sugar is added to the mold, the toy horse has a sweet quality. Similarly the Lord enters the living entities in the form of activating energy, like sugar put in a mold making a toy horse. When the Lord enters various bodies He seems to take different shapes, but He always remains the unchanged Lord; just as sugar remains sugar regardless of what mold it is cast in. The wise understand that the Lord has nothing to do with the form of body He enters, but remains unchanged, just as sugar has nothing to do with the form it may be cast into. As stated in the Brahman Upaniṣad, eko devaḥ sarva-bhūteṣu  gūḍhaḥ, kevalo nirguṇaś ca,  “The one Supreme Lord resides hidden in every type of living entity, but remains totally unchanged.”