156
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 10, Ch. 2]
and His pleasure is truth);  tvām —unto You, O Lord;  śaraṇam —offering our full surrender;  prapannāḥ —we are completely under Your protection.
TRANSLATION
The demigods prayed: O Lord, You never deviate from Your vow, which is always perfect because whatever You decide is perfectly correct and cannot be stopped by anyone. Being present in the three phases of cosmic manifestation—creation, maintenance and annihilation—You are the Supreme Truth. Indeed, unless one is completely truthful, one cannot achieve Your favor, which therefore cannot be achieved by hypocrites. You are the active principle, the real truth, in all the ingredients of creation, and therefore you are known as antaryāmi, the inner force. You are equal to everyone, and Your instructions apply for everyone, for all time. You are the beginning of all truth. Therefore, offering our obeisances, we surrender unto You. Kindly give us protection.
PURPORT
The demigods or devotees know perfectly well that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the true substance, whether within this material world or in the spiritual world.  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  begins, therefore, with the words  oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya... satyaṁ paraṁ dhīmahi . Vāsudeva, Kṛṣṇa, is the  paraṁ satyam , the Supreme Truth. The Supreme Truth can be approached or understood by the supreme method, as declared by the Supreme Truth:  bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ  (Bg. 18.55).  Bhakti , devotional service, is the only way to understand the Absolute Truth. For protection, therefore, the demigods surrender to the Supreme Truth, not to the relative truth. There are persons who worship various demigods, but the Supreme Truth, Kṛṣṇa, declares in  Bhagavad-gītā  (7.23),  antavat tu phalaṁ teṣāṁ tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām : “Men of small intelligence worship the demigods, and their fruits are limited and temporary.” Worship of demigods may be useful for a limited time, but the result is  antavat , perishable. This material world is impermanent, the demigods are impermanent, and the benedictions derived from the demigods are also impermanent, whereas the living entity is eternal ( nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś ).