92
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 2]
harmony with the Personality of Godhead, or in other words, they always think of the Lord as their only dependable friend and well-wisher. They do not care for any mundane creature up to the status of Brahmā, the lord of the universe. They only can definitely have a clear vision of the Vaikuṇṭha planets. Such pure devotees, being perfectly directed by the Supreme Lord, do not create any artificial perplexity in the matter of transcendental understanding by wasting time in discussing what is Brahman or what is not Brahman or  māyā , nor do they falsely think of themselves as one with the Lord, or argue that there is no existence of the Lord separately, or that there is no God at all, or that living beings are themselves God, or when God incarnates Himself He assumes a material body. Nor do they concern themselves with many obscure speculative theories, which are in actuality so many stumbling blocks on the path of transcendental understanding. Apart from the class of impersonalists or nondevotees, there are other classes also who pose themselves as devotees of the Lord but at heart maintain the idea of salvation by becoming one with the impersonal Brahman. They manufacture their own way of devotional service wrongly by open debauchery and mislead others who are simpletons or debauchees like themselves. All these nondevotees and debauchees are, according to Viśvanātha Cakravartī,  durātmās , or the crooked souls in the dress of  mahātmās , or the great souls. Such nondevotees and debauchees are completely excluded from the list of transcendentalists by presentation of this particular verse by Śukadeva Go-svāmī.
So the Vaikuṇṭha planets are factually the supreme residential places called the  param padam . The impersonal  brahmajyoti  is also called the  param padam  due to its being the rays of the Vaikuṇṭha planets, as the sun rays are the rays of the sun. In the  Bhagavad-gītā  (Bg. 14.27) it is clearly said that the impersonal  brahmajyoti  rests on the person of the Lord, and because everything rests on the  brahmajyoti  directly and indirectly, everything is generated from the Lord, everything rests on Him, and after annihilation, everything is merged in Him only. Therefore, nothing is independent from Him. A pure devotee of the Lord no longer wastes valuable time in discriminating the Brahman from non-Brahman because he knows perfectly well that the Lord Param Brahman, by His Brahman energy, is interwoven in everything, and thus everything is looked upon by a devotee as the property of the Lord. The devotee tries to engage everything in His service and does not create perplexities by falsely lording it over the creation of the Lord. He is so faithful that he engages himself, as well as everything else, in the transcendental loving