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Fundamental Principles of Material Nature
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perceived within the limit of our particular body, but the Superconsciousness, or the existence of God, is perceived everywhere. He is present everywhere by His energy. It is stated in the  Viṣṇu Purāṇa  that whatever we find, anywhere and everywhere, is the distribution of the energy of the Supreme Lord. In  Bhagavad-gītā  also it is confirmed that the Lord is all-pervading and exists everywhere by His two kinds of energy, one spiritual and the other material. Both the spiritual and material energies are spread everywhere, and that is the proof of the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The existence of consciousness everywhere is not temporary. It is without beginning. And because it is without beginning, it is also without end. The theory that consciousness develops at a certain stage of material combination is not accepted herein, for the consciousness which exists everywhere is said to be without beginning. The materialistic or atheistic theory stating that there is no soul, that there is no God, and that consciousness is the result of a combination of matter is not acceptable. Matter is not beginningless; it has a beginning. As this material body has a beginning, so the universal body does also. And as our material body has begun on the basis of our soul, similarly, the entire gigantic universal body has begun on the basis of the Supreme Soul. The  Vedānta-sūtra  says,  janmādy asya . This entire material exhibition—its creation, its growth, its maintenance, and its dissolution—is an emanation from the Supreme Person. In  Bhagavad-gītā  also, the Lord says, “I am the beginning and the source of birth of everything.”
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is described here. He is not a temporary person, nor does He have a beginning. He is without a cause, and He is the cause of all causes.  Paraḥ  means transcendental, beyond the creative energy. The Lord is the creator of the creative energy. We can see that there is a creative energy in the material world, but He is not under this energy. He is  prakṛti-paraḥ , beyond this energy. He is not subjected to the threefold miseries created by the material energy because He is beyond it. The modes of material nature do not touch Him. It is explained here,  svayam-jyoti : He is light Himself. We have experience in the material world of one light’s being a reflection of another, just as moonlight is a reflection of the sunlight. Sunlight is also the reflection of the  brahmajyoti . Similarly,  brahmajyoti , the spiritual effulgence, is a reflection of the body of the Supreme Lord. This is confirmed in the  Brahma-samhitā :  yasya prabhā prabhavataḥ . The  brahmajyoti , or Brahman effulgence, is due to His bodily luster. Therefore it is said here,  svayam-jyoti : He Himself is light. His light is distributed in different ways, as the  brahmajyoti , as sunlight and as