502
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 9]
illusion is that he wants to become Lord of the material world by accumulating wealth and power, but when he is frustrated in that attempt he wants to be one with the Lord. So both becoming the most powerful man in the material world or desiring to become one with the Lord are different illusory snares. And because the pure devotees of the Lord are surrendered souls, they are above the illusory snares of  māyā . Because he is a pure devotee, Lord Brahmā, even though the first dominating deity in the material world, and therefore able to do many wonderful things, would never, like the nondevotee with a poor fund of knowledge, have the audacity to think of becoming one with the Lord. People with a poor fund of knowledge should take lessons from Brahmā when they are puffed up with the false notion of becoming God.
Factually Lord Brahmā does not create the living entities. In the beginning of the creation he is empowered to give different bodily shapes to the living entities according to their work during the last millennium. Brahmājī's duty is just to wake the living entities from their slumber and to engage them in their proper duty. The different grades of living entities are not created by Brahmājī by his capricious whims, but he is entrusted with the task of giving the living entities different grades of body so that they can work accordingly. And still he is conscious that he is only instrumental, so that he may not think of himself as the Supreme Powerful Lord.
Devotees of the Lord are engaged in the specific duty offered by the Lord, and such duties are successfully carried out without hindrance because they are ordained by the Lord. The credit of success does not go to the doer but to the Lord. But persons with a poor fund of knowledge take the credit of success into their own accounts and give nothing to the credit of the Lord. That is the symptom of the nondevotee class of men.
TEXT 31
श्रीभगवानुवाच
ज्ञानं परमगुह्यं मे यद् विज्ञानसमन्वितम् ।
सरहस्यं तदङ्गं च गृहाण गदितं मया ॥३१॥
śrī bhāgavān uvāca
jñānam parama-guhyam me
yad vijñāna-samanvitam