In Bhagavad-gita it is said that when the daytime of Brahma is
over the manifested creations of the universe all vanish and after
the end of Brahma’s night the creation is manifested again.

bhata-gramah sa evavam
bhitvd bhitvd pralivate

ratry-dgame vasah partha
prabhavaty ahar-dgame

“Again and again the day comes. and this host of beings 1s
active: and again the night falls. O Partha, and they are helplessly
dissolved. (By. 8.19)

Thus the cosmic creation, in its manifestation and nonman-
ifestation, resembles the creepers and plants that appear during
the rainy season and gradually vanish when the season is over.

Even when the plants and creepers are no longer to be seen,
their seeds remain, and these dormant seeds fructify in contact
with water. Similarly, the seedlike spiritual sparks who are domin-
ated by the desire to lord it over the material nature exist in a
dormant state after the cosmic manifestation is annihilated, and
when the cosmic manifestation reappears all the silent living
beings within the womb of material nature come out and engage
in sense enjoyment, thereby growing luxuriously fat.

To attain liberation, one must be completely purified of per-
verted forms of desire. A living being cannot snuff out desires,
and to practice artificially erasing the actions of desire is more
dangerous than the active desires themselves. All desires should
be reformed and directed towards spiritual activities; otherwise
those same desires will repeatedly manifest themselves in differ-
ent varieties of material enjoyment, thus conditioning the living
being perpetually in material bondage.=

48
