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Śrīmad Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 9]
the Lord, and he is constitutionally meant for satisfying the senses of the Lord. The Lord therefore asks the conditioned souls to surrender unto Him. Had the living entities not been subordinate to the supreme will, why would the living entity be asked to surrender? Had the living being been equal in all respects, then why was he put under the influence of  māyā ? We have already discussed many times that the material energy is controlled by the Lord. The  Bhagavad-gītā  confirms this controlling power of the Lord over the material nature (Bg. 9.10). Can a living entity who claims to be as good as the Supreme Being control the material nature? The foolish “I” would reply that he would do so in the future. Even accepting that in the future one would be as good a controller of the material nature as the Supreme Being, then why is he now under the control of the material nature? The  Bhagavad-gītā  says that one can be freed from the control of the material nature by surrendering unto the Supreme Lord, but if there is no surrender, then the living entity will never be able to control the material nature. So this misconception of “I” must also be given up by practicing the way of devotional service or firmly being situated in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. A poor man without any employment or without any occupation may undergo so many troubles in life, but if by chance the same man gets a good service under the government, he at once becomes happy. There is no profit in denying the supremacy of the Lord, who is the controller of all energies, but one should be constitutionally situated in one’s own glory, namely to be situated in the pure consciousness of being the eternal servitor of the Lord. In his conditional life the living entity is servant of the illusory  māyā , and in his liberated state he is the pure unqualified servant of the Lord. To become untinged by the modes of material nature is the qualification for entering into the service of the Lord. As long as one is a servant of mental concoctions, one cannot be completely free from the disease of “I” and “mine.”
The Supreme Truth is without any contamination of the illusory energy because He is the controller of that energy. The relative truths are apt to be engrossed with illusory energy. The best purpose is, however, served when one is directly facing the supreme truth, as when one faces the sun. The sun overhead in the sky is full of light, but when the sun is not in the visible sky, all is in darkness. Similarly, when one is face to face with the Supreme Lord, he is freed from all illusions, and one who is not so is in the darkness of illusory  māyā . The  Bhagavad-gītā  confirms this as follows: