42
Beyond Birth and Death
paras tasmāt tu bhāvo'nyo 'vyakto'vyaktāt sanātanaḥ yaḥ sa sarveṣu bhūteṣu naśyatsu na vinaśyati
“Yet there is another nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is.” (Bg. 8.20)
We cannot calculate the extent of the material universe, but we have Vedic information that there are millions of universes within the entire creation, and beyond these material universes there is another sky which is spiritual. There all the planets are eternal, and the lives of all the beings on them are eternal. In this verse the word  bhāvaḥ  means nature, and here another nature is indicated. In this world we have experience also of two natures. The living entity is spirit, and as long as he is within matter, matter is moving, and as soon as the living entity, the spiritual spark, is out of the body, the body is immovable. The spiritual nature is called Kṛṣṇa’s superior nature, and the material is called the inferior. Beyond this material nature there is a superior nature which is totally spiritual. It is not possible to understand this by experimental knowledge. We can see millions and millions of stars through a telescope, but we cannot approach them. We have to understand our incapabilities. If we cannot understand the material universe by experimental knowledge, what is the possibility of understanding God and His kingdom? It is