60
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 1]
that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate Supersoul of everything that be. The conclusion is that one should unhesitatingly become a worshiper of Lord Kṛṣṇa, or, for that matter, His plenary expansion, Nārāyaṇa, and none else. In the Vedic hymns, it is clearly said that first of all Nārāyaṇa cast a glance over matter and thus there was creation. Before creation, there was neither Brahmā nor Śiva, and what to speak of others. Śrīpād Śaṅkarācārya has definitely accepted this, that Nārāyaṇa is beyond the material creation and all others are within the material creation. The whole material creation is, therefore, one and different from Nārāyaṇa, simultaneously, and this supports the philosophy of  acintya-bhedābhedā-tattva  of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Being an emanation from the glancing potency of Nārāyaṇa, the whole material creation is nondifferent from Him. But because it is the effect of His external energy ( bahiraṅga-māyā ) and is aloof from the internal potency ( ātma-māyā ), the whole material creation is different from Him at the same time. The example given in this verse very nicely is that of the dreaming man. The dreaming man creates many things in the dream, and thus he himself becomes the entangled seer of the dream and is also affected by the consequences. This material creation is also exactly a dream-like creation of the Lord, but He, being the transcendental Supersoul, is neither entangled nor affected by the reactions of such a dream-like creation. He is always in His transcendental position, but essentially He is everything, and nothing is apart from Him. One should therefore concentrate on Him only as His part and parcel without deviation, otherwise one is sure to be overcome by the potencies of the material creation, one after another. It is confirmed in the  Bhagavad-gītā  as follows:
sarva-bhūtani kaunteya prakṛtiṁ yānti māmikām kalpakṣaye punas tāni kalpādau visṛjāmy aham
“O son of Kuntī, at the end of the millennium every material manifestation enters into My nature, and at the beginning of another millennium, by My potency I again create.” (Bg. 9.7)
The human life is, however, an opportunity to get out of this repetition of creation and annihilation. It is a means whereby one may escape the Lord’s external potency and enter into His internal potency.
Thus end the Bhaktivedanta purports of the Second Canto, First Chapter, of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, entitled “The First Step in God Realization.”