46
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 1, Ch. 1]
very easily imagine how brains higher than man can produce similarly wonderful things which are far superior. The reasonable person will easily accept this argument, but there are stubborn atheists who would never agree. Śrīla Vyāsadeva, however, at once accepts the supreme intelligence as the  parameśvara . He offers his respectful obeisances unto the supreme intelligence addressed as the  para  or the  parameśvara  or the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And that  parameśvara  is Śrī Kṛṣṇa, as admitted in  Bhagavad-gītā  and other scriptures delivered by Śrī Vyāsadeva and specifically in this  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam . In  Bhagavad-gītā , the Lord says that there is no other  Para-tattva  ( summum bonum ) than Himself. Therefore, Śrī Vyāsadeva at once worships the  Para-tattva , Śrī Kṛṣṇa, whose transcendental activities are described in the Tenth Canto.
Unscrupulous persons go immediately to the Tenth Canto and especially to the five chapters which describe the Lord's  rāsa dance . This portion of the  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  is the most confidential part of this great literature. Unless one is thoroughly accomplished in the transcendental knowledge of the Lord, one is sure to misunderstand the Lord's worshipable transcendental pastimes called  rāsa dance  and His love affairs with the  gopīs . This subject matter is highly spiritual, and only the liberated persons who have gradually attained to the stage of  paramahaṁsa  can transcendentally relish this  rāsa dance . Śrīla Vyāsadeva therefore gives the reader the chance to gradually develop spiritual realization before actually relishing the essence of the pastimes of the Lord. Therefore, he purposely invokes a  Gāyatrī mantra, dhīmahi . This  Gāyatrī mantra  is meant for spiritually advanced people. When one is successful in chanting the  Gāyatrī mantra , he can enter into the transcendental position of the Lord. One must therefore acquire brahminical qualities or be perfectly situated in the quality of goodness in order to chant the  Gāyatrī mantra  successfully and then attain to the stage of transcendentally realizing the Lord, His name, His fame, His qualities and so on.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  is the narration of the  svarūpa  of the Lord manifested by His internal potency, and this potency is distinguished from the external potency which has manifested the cosmic world, which is within our experience. Śrīla Vyāsadeva makes a clear distinction between the two in this  śloka . Śrī Vyāsadeva says herein that the manifested internal potency is real, whereas the external manifested energy in the form of material existence is only temporary and illusory like the mirage in the desert. In the desert mirage there is no actual water. There is only the appearance of water. Real water is somewhere else. The manifested cosmic creation appears as reality. But reality, of which this is but a shadow, is in