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Śrīmad Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 9]
supposed to be situated in the mode of goodness in the material world. Goodness in the material world also at times becomes contaminated with touches of the modes of passion and ignorance. In the Vaikuṇṭhaloka, it is unalloyed goodness only.
The whole situation there is one of freedom from the illusory manifestation of the external energy. Although illusory energy is also part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, still illusory energy is differentiated from the Lord. The illusory energy is not, however, false, as claimed by the monist philosophers. The rope accepted as a snake may be an illusion to a particular person, but the rope is a fact, and the snake is also a fact. The illusion of water on the hot desert may be illusion for the ignorant animal searching out water in the desert, but the desert and water are actual facts. Therefore the material creation of the Lord may be an illusion to the non-devotee class of men, but to a devotee even the material creation of the Lord is a fact, as the manifestation of His external energy. But this energy of the Lord is not all. The Lord has His internal energy also, which has another creation known to be the Vaikuṇṭhalokas, where there is no ignorance, no passion, no illusion and no past and present. With a poor fund of knowledge one may be unable to understand the existence of such things as the Vaikuṇṭha atmosphere, but that does not nullify its existence. That spacecraft cannot reach these planets does not mean that there are no such planets, for they are described in the revealed scriptures.
As quoted by Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, we can know from the  Nārada-pañcarātra  that the transcendental world or Vaikuṇṭha atmosphere is enriched with transcendental qualities. These transcendental qualities, as revealed through the devotional service of the Lord, are distinct from the mundane qualities of ignorance, passion and goodness. Such qualities are nonattainable by the nondevotee class of men. In the  Pādma Purāṇa ,  Uttara-khaṇḍa , it is stated that beyond the one-fourth part of God's creation, there is the three-fourths part manifestation. The marginal line between the material manifestation and the spiritual manifestation is the Virajā River, and beyond the Virajā, which is a transcendental current flowing from the perspiration of the body of the Lord, there is the three-fourths part manifestation of God's creation. This part is eternal, everlasting, without any deterioration, and unlimited, and contains the highest perfectional stage of living conditions. In the  Sāṅkhya-kaumudī  it is stated that unalloyed goodness or transcendence is just opposite to the material modes. All living entities are eternally associated without any break, and the Lord is the chief and prime entity there. In the  Āgama Purāṇas  also, the transcendental abode is described as follows: The asso-