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Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[ Canto 3, Ch. 24 ]
three modes of material nature, and who absorbs the material manifestations after their dissolution.
PURPORT
The six opulences—wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation—are indicated here by Kardama Muni, who addresses Kapila Muni, his son, as  param . The word  param  is used in the beginning of  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , in the phrase  paraṁ satyam , to refer to the  summum bonum  or the Supreme Personality of Godhead.  Param  is explained further by the next word,  pradhānam , which means the chief, the origin, the source of everything— sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam —the cause of all causes. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is not formless; He is  puruṣam , or the enjoyer, the original person. He is the time element and is all-cognizant. He knows everything—past, present and future—as confirmed in  Bhagavad-gītā . The Lord says, “I know everything, present, past and future, in every corner of the universe.” The material world, which is moving under the spell of the three modes of nature, is also a manifestation of His energy.  Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate : everything that we see is an interaction of His energies ( Śvet. Up. 6.8 ).  Parasya brahmaṇaḥ śaktis tathedam akhilaṁ jagat . This is the version of the  Viṣṇu Purāṇa . We can understand that whatever we see is an interaction of the three modes of material nature, but actually it is all an interaction of the Lord’s energy.  Loka-pālam : He is actually the maintainer of all living entities.  Nityo nityānām : He is the chief of all living entities; He is one, but He maintains many, many living entities. God maintains all other living entities, but no one can maintain God. That is His  svacchanda-śakti ; He is not dependent on others. Someone may call himself independent, but he is still dependent on someone higher. The Personality of Godhead, however, is absolute; there is no one higher than or equal to Him.
Kapila Muni appeared as the son of Kardama Muni, but because He is an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kardama Muni offered his respectful obeisances unto Him with full surrender. Another word in this verse is very important:  ātmānubhūtyānugata-prapāñcam . The Lord descends either as Kapila or Rāma, Nṛsiṁha or Varāha, and whatever forms He assumes in the material world are all manifestations of His own personal internal energy. They are never the forms of the material energy. The ordinary living entities who are manifested in this material world have bodies created by the material energy, but when Kṛṣṇa or any one of His expansions or parts of the expansions descends on this material world, although He appears to have a material body, His body is not material. He always has a transcendental body. But fools and rascals, who