Text 39] The Cause of All Causes 269
PURPORT

Many times in these pages we have discussed the spiritual planets
situated beyond the material sky, and the description is corroborated in
this verse. The word sandatana is significant. This very idea of eternity is
expressed in the Bhagavad-gita (Bg. 8.2@), where it is said that beyond the
material creation there is the spiritual sky, where everything is eternal.
Sometimes Satyaloka, the planet in which Brahmi resides, is also called
Brahmaloka. But the Brahmaloka mentioned here is not the same as the
Satyaloka planetary system. This Brahmaloka is eternal, whereas the
Satyaloka planetary system is not eternal. And to distinguish between the
two, the adjective sanatana has been used in this case. According to Srila
Jiva Gosvami, this Brahmaloka is the loka or abode of Brahma, or the
Supreme Lord. In the spiritual sky all the planets are as good as the Lord
Himself. The Lord is all spirit, and His name, fame, glories, qualities,
pastimes, etc., are all nondifferent from Him because He is absolute. As
such, the planets in the kingdom of God are also nondifferent from Him.
In those planets there is no difference between the body and the soul, nor
is there any influence of time as we experience it in the material world.
And in addition to there being no influence of time, the planets in the
Brahmaloka, due to their being spiritual, are never annihilated. All varie-
gatedness in the spiritual planets is also one with the Lord, and therefore
the Vedic aphorism ekam evadvitiyam is fully realized in that sanatana
atmosphere of spiritual variegatedness. This material world is only a shadow
phantasmagoria of the spiritual kingdom of the Lord, and because it is a
shadow it is never eternal; the variegatedness in the material world of
duality (spirit and matter) cannot be compared with that of the spiritual
world. Because of a poor fund of knowledge, less intelligent persons
sometimes mistake the conditions of the shadow world to be equivalent to
those of the spiritual world, and thus the Lord and His pastimes in the
material world are mistaken as one with the conditioned souls and their
activities. The Lord condemns such less intelligent persons in the Bhagavad-
gita (9.11):

avajananti mam miidha manusim tanum asritam
param bhavam ajananto mama bhiita-mahesvaram

Whenever the Lord incarnates, He does so in His full internal potency
(atma-maya), and less intelligent persons mistake Him to be one of the
material creations. Srila Sridhara Svami, therefore, rightly commenting on
