Prayers by the Personified Vedas
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value of this material world for the service of the Lord, who is not attached to the material world, and who renounces the material world by not accepting it for sense gratification is situated in real renunciation. This material world is an expansion of the material energy of the Lord. Therefore it is real. It is not false, as it is sometimes concluded from the example of the snake and the rope.
The personified  Vedas  continued: “The cosmic manifestation, because of the flickering nature of its impermanent existence, appears to less intelligent men to be false.” The Māyāvādī philosophers take advantage of the flickering nature of this cosmic manifestation to prove their thesis that this world is false. According to the Vedic version, before the creation this world had no existence, and after dissolution the world will no longer be manifested. Voidists also take advantage of this Vedic version and conclude that the cause of this material world is void. But Vedic injunction does not say that it is void. The Vedic injunction defines the source of creation and dissolution as  yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante , “He from whom this cosmic manifestation has emanated and in whom, after annihilation, everything will merge.” The same is explained in the  Vedānta-sūtra  and in the first verse of the First Chapter of  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  by the word  janmādyasya , He from whom all things emanate. All these Vedic injunctions indicate that the cosmic manifestation is due to the Supreme Absolute Personality of Godhead, and when it is dissolved it merges into Him. The same is confirmed in the  Bhagavad-gītā : this cosmic manifestation is coming into existence and again dissolving, and after dissolution it merges into the existence of the Supreme Lord. This statement definitely confirms that the particular energy known as  bahiraṅgā-māyā , or the external energy, although of flickering nature, is the energy of the Supreme Lord, and as such it cannot be false. It simply appears to be false. The Māyāvādī philosophers conclude that because the material nature has no existence in the beginning and is nonexistent after dissolution, it is therefore false. But by the example of the earthen pots and dishes the Vedic version is presented: although the existence of the particular by-products of the Absolute Truth are temporary, the energy of the Supreme Lord is permanent. The earthen pot or water jug may be broken or transformed into another shape, such as that of a dish or or bowl, but the ingredient, or the material basis, namely the earth, continues to be the same. The basic principle of this cosmic manifestation is always the same, Brahman, or the Absolute Truth; therefore, the Māyāvādī philosophers’ theory that it is false is certainly only mental concoction. That the cosmic manifestation is flickering and tempo-