Text 19] Fundamental Principles of Material Nature 1085
TRANSLATION

After the Supreme Personality of Godhead impregnates material nature
with His internal potency, material nature delivers the sum total of the
cosmic intelligence, which is known as Hiranmaya. This takes place in
material nature when she is agitated by the destinations of the conditioned
souls.

PURPORT

This impregnation of material nature is described in Bhagavad-gita,
Fourteenth Chapter, third verse. Material nature’s primal factor is the
mahat-tattva, or breeding source of all varieties. This part of material
nature, which is called pradhana as well as Brahman, is impregnated by the
Supreme Personality of Godhead and delivers varieties of living entities.
Material nature in this connection is called Brahman because it is a per-
verted reflection of the spiritual nature.

It is described in the Visnu Purana that the living entities belong to the
spiritual nature. The potency of the Supreme Lord is spiritual, and the
living entities, although they are called marginal potency, are also spiritual.
If the living entities were not spiritual, this description of impregnation by
the Supreme Lord would not be applicable. The Supreme Lord does not
put His semina into that which is not spiritual, but it is stated here that
the Supreme Person puts His semina into material nature. This means that
the living entities are spiritual by nature. After impregnation, material
nature delivers all kinds of living entities, beginning from the greatest
living creature, Lord Brahma, down to the insignificant ant, in all varieties
of form. In Bhagavad-gita (14.4) material nature is clearly mentioned as
sarva-yonisu. This means that of all varieties of species—demigods, human
beings, animals, birds and beasts (whatever is manifested)—material nature
is the mother, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the seed-giving
father. Generally it is experienced that the father gives life to a child but
the mother gives its body; although the seed of life is given by the father,
the body develops within the womb of the mother. Similarly, the spiritual
living entities are impregnated into the womb of material nature, but the
body, being supplied by material nature, takes on many different species
and forms of life. The theory that the symptoms of life are manifest by the
interaction of the twenty-four material elements is not supported here.
The living force comes directly from the Supreme Personality of Godhead
and is completely spiritual. Therefore, no material scientific advancement
can produce life. The living force comes from the spiritual world and has
nothing to do with the interaction of the material elements.
