184
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 4]
Mahārāja Parīkṣit's statement regarding the working of the creative energy of the Lord discloses that he knew everything of the process of creation. Why then did he ask Śukadeva Gosvāmī for such information? Mahārāja Parīkṣit, being a great emperor, a descendant of the Pāṇḍavas and a great devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, was quite able to know considerably about the creation of the world, but that much knowledge was not sufficient. He said therefore that even greatly learned scholars fail to know about that, even after great effort. The Lord is unlimited, and His activities are also unfathomed. Any living being, up to the standard of Brahmājī, the highest perfect living being within the universe, with a limited source of knowledge and with imperfect senses can never imagine knowing about the unlimited. We can know something of the unlimited when it is explained by the unlimited, as it has been done by the Lord Himself in the unique statements of the  Bhagavad-gītā , and it can also be known to some extent from realized souls like Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who learned it from Vyāsadeva, a disciple of Nārada, and thus the perfect knowledge can descend by the chain of disciplic succession only, and not by any form of experimental knowledge, old or modern.
TEXT 9
यथा गुणांस्तु प्रकृतेर्युगपत् क्रमशोऽपि वा । विभर्ति भूरिशस्त्वेकः कुर्वन् कर्मणि जन्मभिः॥ ९ ॥
yathā guṇāṁs tu prakṛter yugapat kramaśo'pi vā bibharti bhūriśas tv ekaḥ kurvan karmāṇi janmabhiḥ
yathā —as they are;  guṇān —the modes of;  tu —but;  prakṛteḥ —of the material energy;  yugapat —simultaneously;  kramaśaḥ —gradually;  api —also;  vā —either;  bibharti —maintains;  bhūriśaḥ —many forms;  tu —but;  ekaḥ —the supreme one;  kurvan —acting;  karmāṇi —activities;  janmabhiḥ —by incarnations.
TRANSLATION
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is one, whether He alone acts with the modes of material nature, or simultaneously expands in many forms, or expands consecutively to direct the modes of nature.