1396 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 3, Ch. 32

jrianam—knowledge; ekam—one; paracinaih—averse; indriyaih—by the
senses; brahma—the Supreme Absolute Truth; nirgunam—beyond the
material modes; avabhati—appears; artha-ripena—in the form of various
objects; bhrantya—mistakenly; sabda-ddi—sound and so on; dharmina—
endowed with.
TRANSLATION

Those who are averse to the Transcendence realize the Supreme
Absolute Truth differently through speculative sense perception, and
therefore, because of mistaken speculation, everything appears to them to
be relative.

PURPORT

The Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead, is one, and
He is spread everywhere by His impersonal feature. This is clearly expressed
in Bhagavad-gita. Lord Krsna says, ‘Everything that is experienced is but
an expansion of My energy.” Everything is sustained by Him, but that does
not mean that He is in everything. Sense perceptions, such as aural percep-
tion of the sound of a drum, visual perception of a beautiful woman, or
perception of the delicious taste of a milk preparation by the tongue, all
come through different senses and are therefore differently understood.
Therefore sensory knowledge is divided in different categories, although
actually everything is one as a manifestation of the energy of the Supreme
Lord. Similarly, the energies of fire are heat and illumination, and by these
two energies, fire can display itself in many varieties, or in diversified
sense perception. Mayavadi philosophers declare this diversity to be false.
But Vaisnava philosophers do not accept the different manifestations as
false; they accept them as nondifferent from the Supreme Personality of
Godhead because they are a display of His diverse energies.

The philosophy that the Absolute is true and this creation is false
(brahma satyam jagan-mithya) is not accepted by Vaisnava philosophers.
The example is given that although all that glitters is not gold, this does
not mean that a glittering object is false. For example, an oyster shell
appears to be golden. This appearance of golden hue is due only to the
perception of the eyes, but that does not mean that the oyster shell is
false. Similarly, by seeing the form of Lord Krsna one cannot understand
what He actually is, but this does not mean that He is false. The form of
Krsna has to be understood as it is described in the books of knowledge
such as Brahma-samhitd. [svarah paramah krsnah sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah:
Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, has an eternal, blissful spiritual
body. By our imperfect sense perception we cannot understand the form
