186 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 3, Ch. 5

that creation is made possible and again everything merges in Him. This
Supreme Self is symptomized by different names.

PURPORT

The great sage here begins to explain the purpose of the four original
verses of the Srimad-Bhagavatam. Although they have no access to the
Srimad-Bhagavatam, the followers of the Mayavadi (impersonalist) school
sometimes screw out an imaginary explanation of the original four verses,
but we must accept the actual explanation given herein by Maitreya Muni
because he, along with Uddhava, personally heard it directly from the
Lord. The first line of the original four verses runs, aham evasam evagre.
The word aham is misinterpreted by the Mayavadi school into meanings
which no one but the interpreter can understand. Here aham is explained
as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, not the individual living entities.
Before the creation, there was only the Personality of Godhead; there
were no purusa incarnations and certainly no living entities, nor was there
the material energy, by which the manifested creation is effected. The
purusa incarnations and all the different energies of the Supreme Lord
were merged in Him only.

The Personality of Godhead is described herein as the master of all
other living entities. He is like the sun disc, and the living entities are like
the molecules of the sun’s rays. This existence of the Lord before the
creation is confirmed by the Srutis: vdsudevo va idam agra asit na brahma
na ca Sankarah eko vai ndrayana asit na brahma na idno. Because every-
thing that be is an emanation from the Personality of Godhead, He
therefore always exists alone without a second. He can so exist because He
is all-perfect and omnipotent. Everything other than Him, including His
plenary expansions the Visnu-tattvas, is His part and parcel. Before the
creation there were no Karanarnavasay! or Garbhodakasayi or Ksirodaka-
say? Visnus, nor was there Brahma nor Sankara. The Visnu plenary
expansion and the living entities beginning from Brahma are separated
parts and parcels. Although the spiritual existence was there with the
Lord, the material existence was dormant in Him. By His will only is the
material manifestation done and undone, The diversity of the Vaikuntha-
loka is one with the Lord, just as the diversity of soldiers is one with and
the same as the king. As explained in Bhagavad-gita (9.7), the material
creation takes place at intervals by the will of the Lord, and in the periods
between dissolution and creation, the living entities and the material
energy remain dormant in Him.
