42 Beyond Birth and Death

paras tasmat.tu bhavo’nyo

_ *yyakto’vyaktat sanatanah

yah sa sarvesu bhutesu

nasyatsu na vinasyati

“Yet there is another nature, which is eternal and is
transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested
matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When
all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it
is.”’ (Bg. 8.20)

We cannot calculate the extent of the material
universe, but we have Vedic information that there
are millions of universes within the entire creation,
and beyond these material universes there is another
sky which is spiritual. There all the planets are eternal,
and the lives of all the beings on them are eternal.
In this verse the word bhavah means nature, and
here another nature is indicated. In this world we
have experience also of two natures. The living entity
is spirit, and as long as he is within matter, matter is
moving, and as soon as the living entity, the spiritual
spark, is out of the bady, the body is immovable.
The spiritual nature is called Krsna’s superior nature,
and the material is called the inferior. Beyond this
material nature there is a superior nature which is
totally spiritual. It is not possible to understand this
by experimental knowledge. We can see millions and
millions of stars through a telescope, but we cannot
approach them. We have to understand our incapa-
bilities. If we cannot understand the material uni-
verse by experimental knowledge, what is the possi-
bility of understanding God and His kingdom? It is
