Prayers Offered by Lord Brahma to Lord Krsna 97
lotus feet by stealing away Your cows, boys and calves, I can understand
that You have mercy upon me. That is Your transcendental quality; You
are very affectionate toward Your devotees. In spite of Your affection for
me, I cannot estimate the potency of Your bodily activities. It is to be
understood that when I, Lord Brahma, the supreme personality of this
universe, cannot estimate the child-like body of the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, then what to speak of others? And if I cannot estimate the
spiritual potency of Your child-like body, then what can I understand
about Your transcendental pastimes? Therefore, as it is said in the
Bhagavad-gita, anyone who can understand a little of the transcendental
pastimes, appearance and disappearance of the Lord becomes immediately
eligible to enter into the kingdom of God after quitting the material body.
This statement is also confirmed in the Vedas, and it is stated simply: by
understanding the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one can overcome
the chain of repeated birth and death. I therefore recommend that people
should not try to understand You by their speculative knowledge.

“The best process of understanding You is to submissively give up the
speculative process and try to hear about You, either from Yourself as
You have given statements in the Bhagavad-gita and many similar Vedic
litcratures, or from a realized devotee who has taken shelter at Your lotus
feet. One has to hear from a devotee without speculation. One does not
even need to change his worldly position; he simply has to hear Your
message. Although You are not understandable by the material senses,
simply by hearing about You, one can gradually conquer the nescience ef
misunderstanding. By Your own grace only, You become revealed to a
devotee. You are unconquerable by any other means. Speculative know-
ledge without any trace of devotional service is simply a useless waste of
time in the search for You. Devotional service is so important that even a
little attempt can raise one to the highest perfectional platform. One
should not, therefore, neglect this auspicious process of devotional service
and take to the speculative method. By the speculative method one may
gain partial knowledge of Your cosmic manifestation, but it is not possible
to understand You, the origin of everything. The attempt of persons who
are interested only in speculative knowledge is simply wasted labor, like
the labor of a person who attempts to gain something by beating the
empty husk of a rice paddy. A little quantity of paddy can be husked by
the grinding wheel, and one can gain some grains of rice, but if the skin of
the paddy is already beaten by the grinding wheel, there is no further gain
in beating the husk. It is simply useless labor.

“My dear Lord, there are many instances in the history of human
