44 Beyond Birth and Death

into being, grows, stays for a while, produces some
by-products, dwindles and then vanishes. Krsna indi-
cates that beyond this changing cloud-like nature
there is a spiritual nature which is eternal. In addition,
when this material nature is annihilated, that avyak-
tat sanatanah will remain.

In Vedic literatures there is a good deal of infor-
mation about the material and spiritual skies. In the
Second Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam there are
descriptions of the spiritual sky and of its inhabi-
tants. There is even information given that there are
spiritual airplanes in the spiritual sky and that the
liberated entities there travel about on these planes
like lightning. Everything that we find here can also
be found there in reality. Here in the material sky
everything is an imitation or shadow of that which
exists in the spiritual sky. As in a cinema we simply
see a show or facsimile of the real thing, in Srimaa-
Bhagavatam it is said that this material world is but
a combination of matter modelled on the reality, just
as a mannequin ofa girl in a store window is modelled
on a girl. Every sane man knows that the mannequin
is an imitation. Sridhara Svami says that because the
spiritual world is real, this material world, which is
an imitation, appears to be real. We must understand
the meaning of reality—reality means existence which
cannot be vanquished; reality means eternity.

nasato vidyate bhavo
nabhavo vidyate satah
ubhayor api drsto’ntas
tv anayos tattva-darsibhih
