444
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 3, Ch. 12]
Almost all the conditioned souls who are rotting in the material world are misusing their independence, and therefore five kinds of nescience are imposed upon them. As an obedient servitor of the Lord, Brahmā creates all these as a matter of necessity, but he is not happy in doing so because a devotee of the Lord naturally does not like to see anyone falling down from his real position. Persons who do not care for the path of realization get full facilities from the Lord for executing their proclivities to the fullest extent, and Brahmā helps in that procedure without fail.
TEXT 4
सनकं च सनन्दं च सनातनमथात्मभूः । सनत्कुमारं च मुनीषिक्रियान्त्वरेतसः ॥ ४ ॥
sanakaṁ ca sanandaṁ ca sanātanam athātmabhūḥ sanat-kumāraṁ ca munīn niṣkriyān ūrdhva-retasaḥ
sanakam—Sanaka; ca—also; sanandam—Sananda; ca—and; sanātanam—Sanātana; atha—thereafter; ātmabhūḥ— Brahmā, who is self-born; sanat-kumāram—Sanat-kumāra; ca—also; munīn—the great sages; niṣkriyān—free from all fruitive action; ūrdhva-retasaḥ—those whose semina flows upwards.
TRANSLATION
In the beginning, Brahmā created four great sages named Sanaka, Sananda, Sanātana and Sanat-kumāra. All of them were unwilling to adopt materialistic activities because they were highly elevated due to their semina's flowing upwards.
PURPORT
Although Brahmā created the principles of nescience as a matter of necessity for those living entities who were destined to ignorance by the will of the Lord, he was not satisfied in performing such a thankless task. He therefore created four principles of knowledge:  sāṅkhya , or empirical philosophy for the analytical study of material conditions;  yoga , or mysticism for liberation of the pure soul from material bondage;  vairāgya , the acceptance of complete detachment from material enjoyment in life to