Text 22]
Kapila's Instructions on Devotional Service
1197
yac-chauca-niḥsṛta-sarit-pravarodakena tīrthena mūrdhny adhikṛtena śivaḥ śivo 'bhūt dhyātur manaḥ-śamala-śaila-niṣṛṣta-vajram dhyāyec ciram bhagavataś caraṇāravindam
yat—the Lord's lotus feet; śauca—washing; niḥsṛta—gone forth; sarit-pravara—of the Ganges; udakena—by the water; tīrthena—holy; mūrdhni—on his head; adhikṛtena—borne; śivaḥ—Lord Śiva; śivaḥ—auspicious; abhūt—became; dhyātuḥ—of the meditator; manaḥ—in the mind; śamala-śaila—the mountain of sin; niṣṛṣta—hurled; vajram—thunderbolt; dhyāyet—one should meditate; ciram—for a long time; bhagavataḥ—of the Lord; caraṇa-aravindam—on the lotus feet.
TRANSLATION
The blessed Lord Śiva becomes all the more blessed by bearing on his head the holy waters of the Ganges, which has its source in the water that washed the Lord's lotus feet. The Lord's feet act like thunderbolts hurled to shatter the mountain of sin stored in the mind of the meditating devotee. One should therefore meditate on the lotus feet of the Lord for a long time.
PURPORT
In this verse the position of Lord Śiva is specifically mentioned. The impersonalist suggests that the Absolute Truth has no form and that one can therefore equally imagine the form of Viṣṇu or Lord Śiva or the goddess Durgā or their son Gaṇeśa. But actually the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the supreme master of everyone. In the  Caitanya-caritāmṛta  it is said:  ekale īśvara kṛṣṇa, āra saba bhṛtya : the Supreme Lord is Kṛṣṇa, and everyone else, including Lord Śiva and Lord Brahmā—not to mention other demigods—is a servant of Kṛṣṇa. The same principle is described here. Lord Śiva is important because he is holding on his head the holy Ganges water which has its origin in the footwash of Lord Viṣṇu. In the  Hari-bhakti-vilāsa  by Sanātana Gosvāmī it is said that anyone who puts the Supreme Lord and the demigods, including Lord Śiva and Lord Brahmā, on the same level, at once becomes a  pāṣaṇḍī , or atheist. We should never consider that the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu and the demigods are on an equal footing.
Another significant point of this verse is that the mind of the conditioned soul, on account of its association with the material energy from time immemorial, contains heaps of dirt in the form of desires to lord it