Adi-lila, Chapter 5 427

PURPORT

The external energy, composed of pradhdna or prakrsti as the ingredient-supplying
portion and mdyd as the causal portion, is known as mdyd-sakti. Inert material
nature is not the actual cause of the material manifestation, for Karanarnavasayi,
MahaMisnu, the plenary expansion of Krsna, activates all the ingredients. It is in this
way that material nature has the power to supply the ingredients. The example
given is that iron has no power to heat or ‘burn, but after coming in contact with fire
the iron becomes red-hot and can then diffuse heat and burn other things. Material
nature is like iron, for it has no independence to act without the touch of Visnu,
who is compared to. fire. Lord Visnu activates material nature by the power of His
glance, and then the ironlike material nature becomes a material-supplying agent
just as iron made red-hot becomes a burning agent. Material nature cannot indepen-
dently become an agent for supplying the material ingredients. This is more clearly

explained by Sri Kapiladeva, an incarnation of Godhead, in Srimad-Bhagavatam
(3.28.40):

yatholmukdd visphulingad
dhiimdad vapi sva-sambhavat

apy atmatvendbhimatad
yathagnih prthag ulmukat

“Although smoke, flaming wood, and sparks are all considered together as ingredients
of a fire, the flaming wood is nevertheless different from the fire, and the smoke is
different from the flaming wood.”’ The material elements (earth, water, fire, etc.)
are like smoke, the living entities are like sparks, and material nature as pradhdna is
like the flaming wood. But all of them together are recipients of power from the
Supreme Personality of Godhead and are thus able to manifest their individual
capacities. In. other words, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the origin of all
manifestations. Material nature can supply only when it is activated by the glance
of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Just as a woman can deliver a child after being impregnated by the semina of a
man, so material nature can supply the material elements after being glanced upon
by Maha-Visnu. Therefore pradhdna cannot be independent of the superintendence
of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is confirmed in Bhagavaa-gitd (9.10).
Mayddhyaksena prakstih siyate sa-cardcaram: praksti, the total material energy,
works under the superintendence of the Lord. The original source of the material
elements is Krsna. Therefore the attempt of the atheistic Sankhya philosophers to
consider material nature the source of these elements, forgetting Krsna, is useless,
like trying to get milk from the nipple-like bumps of skin hanging on the neck of a
goat.

TEXT 62

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