CHAPTER ONE

The First Step in God Realization

INVOCATION
@ 5s ba iS
3 AAT ANAT Wasa |
om namo bhagavate vasudevaya

om—O my Lord; namah—my respectful obcisances unto You; bhagavate
~—unto the Personality of Godhead ; vasudevdéya—unto Lord Krsna, the son
of Vasudeva.

TRANSLATION
O my Lord, the all-pervading Personality of Godhead, I offer my

respectful obeisances unto You.

PURPORT

Vasudevaya means to Krsna, the son of Vasudeva. As by chanting the
name of Krsna, Vasudeva, one can achieve all the good results of charity,
austerity and penances, so by the chanting of this mantra, om namo
bhagavate vdsudevdya, it is to be understood that the author or the
speaker, or anyone of the readers of Srimad-Bhagavatam, is offering
respectful obeisances unto the Supreme Lord Krsna, the reservoir of
all pleasure. In the First Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam, the principles
of creation are described, and as such, the First Canto can be called
“Creation.”

Similarly, in the Second Canto, the post-creation cosmic manifestation is
described. The different planetary systems are described in the Second
Canto as different parts of the universal body of the Lord. For this reason,
the Second Canto can be called ‘“The Cosmic Manifestation.” There are ten
chapters in the Second Canto, and in these ten chapters the purpose of
Srimad-Bhagavatam and the different symptoms of this purpose are nar-
rated. In the First Chapter, the glories of chanting are described, and the
process of meditation on the universal form of the Lord by the neophyte

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