Mantra Five 29
PURPORT

Ilere is an explanation of the Supreme Lord’s transcendental
welivilies: by His inconceivable potencies. There are two sets
of contradictory words mentioned herein to prove the incon-
teivable: potency of the Lord. He walks, and He does not walk.
These two phrases are contradictory. If someone can walk then
il ix improper to say that he cannot walk. These contradictions
xhow the inconceivable power of God. With our limited fund of
knowledge we cannot accommodate such things, and therefore
he Lord is conceived in terms of our limited powers of
understanding. The impersonalist philosophers of the mayd-vada
xchool accept only the impersonalist part of the Lord’s activities,
wd refute [is Personal feature. The Bhagavata school, however,
accepts the Lord in both ways, i.e., as Personal and impersonal.
And the Bhdgavatas also accept His inconceivable potencics.
Without inconceivable potency there is no meaning to the words
Supreme Lord.

We should not take it for granted that because we cannot
wee God before our eyes there is therefore no personal existence
of the Lord. To refute this sort of argument, Sri [sopanisad
wirna us that the Lord is far away from us, but Ile is very near
lo un also. ‘The Abode of the Lord is beyond the material sky.
We have no means to measure even the material sky. If just the
material xky is so far, far away from us, then what of the
xpirittul sky, which is beyond the material sky altogether?
That the spiritual sky is situated far, far away from the material
world ix further confirmed in the Bhagavad-gitd. But, in spite of
the Lord's being so far away, He can al once, within less than a
xecond, desxeend before us with a speed more powerful than the
mind oe the air. He can walk so quickly that no one can surpass
Him, Mhix fet has already been described in the previous verse.

When the Personality of Godhead thus comes before us,
however, we neglect Him. This negligence on the part of
the foolish people is condemned by the Lord in the Bhagavad-
