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The Lord in the Heart
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the gross body, and one after another he gradually attains stages of existence from earthly to watery, fiery, glowing, and airy until he reaches the ethereal stage.
PURPORT
Anyone who can reach the Brahmaloka or Satyaloka by dint of spiritual perfection and practice is qualified to attain three different types of perfection. One who has attained a specific planet by dint of pious activities attains places in terms of comparative pious activities. One who has attained the place by dint of  virāṭa  or Hiraṇyagarbha worship is liberated along with the liberation of Brahmā. But one who attains the place by dint of devotional service is specifically mentioned here, in relation to how he can penetrate into the different coverings of the universe and thus ultimately disclose his spiritual identity in the absolute atmosphere of supreme existence.
According to Śrilā Jīva Gosvāmī, all the universes are clustered together up and down, and each and every one of them is separately sevenfold-covered. The watery portion is beyond the sevenfold coverings, and each covering is ten times more expansive than the previous covering. The Personality of Godhead who creates all such universes by His breathing period lies above the cluster of the universes. The water of the Causal Ocean is differently situated than the covering water of the universe. The water that serves as covering for the universe is material, whereas the water of the Causal Ocean is spiritual. As such, the watery covering mentioned herein is considered to be the false egoistic covering of all living entities, and the gradual process of liberation from the material coverings one after another, as mentioned herein, is the gradual process of being liberated from false egoistic conceptions of the material gross body, and then being absorbed in the identification of the subtle body till the attainment of the pure spiritual body in the absolute realm of the kingdom of God.
Śrīla Śridhara Svāmī confirms that a part of the material nature, after being initiated by the Lord, is known as the  mahat-tattva . A fractional portion of the  mahat-tattva  is called the false ego. A portion of the ego is the vibration of sound, and a portion of sound is atmospheric air. A portion of the airy atmosphere is turned into forms, and the forms constitute power of electricity or heat. Heat produces smell of flavor of the earth, and the gross earth is produced by such flavor. And all these combined together constitute the cosmic phenomenon. Extension of the cosmic