Ādi-līlā, Chapter 7
103
prākṛta kariyā māne viṣṇu-kalevara viṣṇu-nindā āra nāhi ihāra upara
SYNONYMS
prākṛta —material;  kariyā —taking it to be so;  māne —accepts;  viṣṇu —Lord Viṣṇu's;  kalevara —body;  viṣṇu-nindā —defaming or blaspheming Lord Viṣṇu;  āra —beyond this;  nāhi —none;  ihāra —of this;  upara —above.
TRANSLATION
“One who considers the transcendental body of Lord Viṣṇu to be made of material nature is the greatest offender at the lotus feet of the Lord. There is no greater blasphemy against the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
PURPORT
Śrī Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī explains that the variegated personal feature of the Absolute Truth is the  Viṣṇu-tattva , and the material energy which creates this cosmic manifestation is the energy of Lord Viṣṇu. The creative force is merely the energy of the Lord, but the foolish conclude that the Lord has no separate existence because He has distributed Himself in an impersonal form. The impersonal Brahman, however, cannot possess energies, nor do the Vedic literatures state that  māyā  (the illusory energy) is covered by another  māyā . There are hundreds and thousands of references, however, to  Viṣṇu-māyā  ( parāsya śaktiḥ ), or the energy of Lord Viṣṇu. In  Bhagavad-gītā  (7.14) Kṛṣṇa refers to  mama māyā  (“My energy”).  Māyā  is controlled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead; it is not that He is covered by  māyā . Therefore Lord Viṣṇu cannot be a product of the material energy. In the beginning of the  Vedānta-sūtra  it is said,  janmādy asya yataḥ , indicating that the material energy is also an emanation of the Supreme Brahman. How then could He be covered by the material energy? If that were possible, material energy would be greater than the Supreme Brahman. Even these simple arguments, however, cannot be understood by the Māyāvādī philosophers, and therefore the term  māyayāpahṛta-jñāna  which is applied to them in  Bhagavad-gītā  is extremely appropriate. Anyone who thinks that Lord Viṣṇu is a product of the material energy, as explained by Sadānanda Yogīndra, should immediately be understood to be insane, for his knowledge has been stolen by the illusory energy.
Lord Viṣṇu cannot be placed within the category of the demigods. Those who are actually bewildered by the Māyāvāda philosophy and are still in the darkness of ignorance consider Lord Viṣṇu to be a demigod, in defiance of the Rg-vedic  mantra ,  oṁ tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padam  (“Viṣṇu is always in a superior position”). This  mantra  is also confirmed in  Bhagavad-gītā .  Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat : there is no truth superior to Lord Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu. Thus only those whose knowledge has been bewildered consider Lord Viṣṇu to be a demigod and therefore suggest that one may either worship Lord Viṣṇu, the goddess Kālī or Durgā or whomever he likes and achieve the same result. This is an ignorant conclusion that is not accepted in