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
