300 Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead

their different talents and tendencies.” This Veda-stuti is thus the original
instruction regarding the relationship existing between the living entity
and the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The highest platform of realiza-
tion for the living entity is the attainment of this devotional life. One
cannot be engaged in devotional life or Krsna consciousness unless he is
fully free from material contamination. Narayana Rsi informed Narada
Muni that the essence of all Vedas and Vedic literatures (namely, the four
Vedas, the Upanisads, the Puranas) teaches the rendering of transcendental
loving service to the Lord. In this connection Narayana Rsi has used one
particular word—rasa. In devotional service this rasa is the via media or the
basic principle for exchanging a relationship between the Lord and the
living entity. A rasa is also described in the Vedas as isdvdsya: “The
Supreme Lord is the reservoir of all pleasure.”’ All the Vedic literatures, the
Puranas, the Vedas, the Upanisads, the Vedanta-sitras, etc., are teaching
the living entities how to attain the stage of rasa. The Bhagavatam also
says that the statements in the Mahapurdana (Srimad-Bhagavatam) contain
the essence of rasas in all Vedic literatures. Nigama-kalpa-taror galitam
phalam. The Bhagavatam is the essence of the ripen fruit in the tree of the
Vedic literature.

We understand that with the breathing of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead there issued forth the four Vedas, namely the Rg-veda, the
Sama-veda, Yajur-veda, and the Atharva-veda, and the histories like the
Mahabharata and all the Puranas, which are also considered to be the
history of the world. The Vedic histories like the Purdnas and Maha-
bharata are called the fifth Veda.

The verses of Veda-stuti are to be considered the essence of all Vedic
knowledge. The four Kumiaras and all other authorized sages know per-
fectly that devotional service in Krsna consciousness is the essence of all
Vedic literatures, and they are preaching this in different planets, traveling
in outer space. It is stated herein that such sages, including Narada Muni,
hardly ever travel on land; they are perpetually traveling in space.

Sages like Narada and the Kumiras travel throughout the universe in
order to educate the conditioned souls and show them that their business
in the world is not that of sense gratification, but of reinstating themselves
again in their original position of devotional service to the Supreme Person-
ality of Godhead. It is stated in several places that the living entities are
like sparks of the fire, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is like the
fire itself. Somehow or other when the sparks fall out of the fire they lose
their natural illumination; thus it is ascertained that the living entities
come into this material world exactly as sparks fall from a great fire. The
