Mantra Five
31
In the  Bhagavad-gītā  the Lord says that He treats His devotee in proportion to the degree of surrender made by the devotee. He reserves the right not to expose Himself to anyone and everyone, except those who surrender unto Him. Therefore, for the surrendered soul, He is always within reach, whereas for the non-surrendered soul, He is far, far away, and cannot be approached.
There are two words in the revealed Scriptures which are important in this connection:  saguṇa  and  nirguṇa —with qualities and without qualities.  Saguṇa  does not mean that the Lord becomes subject to the laws of material Nature when He appears, although He has qualities and appears in the material form. For Him there is no difference between material and spiritual energies, because He is the Source of such energies. He is the Controller of the different energies, and as such He cannot at any time be under their influence, as we are. The material energy works according to His direction, and therefore He can use the material energy for His purpose, but without ever being influenced by any of the qualities of His energies. Nor for this purpose does He become a formless entity at any time. Ultimately He is the eternal Form, the Primeval Lord. And the impersonal representation, or  Brahman  effulgence, is the low of His Personal rays, as the Sun's rays are the glow of the Sun god.
When the boy saint Prahlāda Mahārāj was in the presence of his atheist father, his father asked him, "Where is your God?" The child Prahlāda replied that God resides everywhere. The father then angrily asked whether his God was within the pillar of the palace, and the child said yes. At once the atheist king broke the pillar in front of him into pieces, at which the Lord appeared as Nṛsimha (the half-man, half-lion Incurration) from within the pillar, and killed the atheist king. This means that the Lord is within everything, which is created by His different energies. And by His inconceivable power He can appear at any place in order to favor His sincere