Text 28] Entanglement in Fruitive Activities 1397
of the Lord. We have to acquire knowledge about Him. Therefore it is said
here, jiianam ekam. Bhagavad-gita confirms that they are fools who, simply
upon seeing Krgna, consider Him a common man. They do not know the
unlimited knowledge, power and opulence of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead. Material sense speculation leads to the conclusion that the
Supreme is formless. It is because of such mental speculation that the con-
ditioned soul remains in ignorance under the spell of illusory energy.
The Supreme Person has to be understood by the transcendental sound
vibrated by Him in Bhagavad-gita, wherein He says that there is nothing
superior to Himself; the impersonal Brahman effulgence is resting on His
personality. The purified, absolute vision of Bhagavad-gita is compared to
the River Ganges. Ganges water is so pure that it can purify even the asses
and cows. But anyone who, disregarding the pure Ganges, wishes to be
purified instead by the filthy water flowing in a drain, cannot be success-
ful. Similarly, one can successfully attain pure knowledge of the Absolute
only by hearing from the pure Absolute Himself.

In this verse it is clearly said that those who are averse to the Supreme
Personality of Godhead speculate with their imperfect senses about the
nature of the Absolute Truth. The formless Brahman conception, however,
can be received only by aural reception and not by personal experience.
Knowledge is therefore acquired by aural reception. It is confirmed in the
Vedanta-sutra, sastra-yonitvat: one has to acquire pure knowledge from the
authorized scriptures. So-called speculative arguments about the Absolute
Truth are therefore useless. The actual identity of the living entity is his
consciousness, which is always present while the living entity is awake,
dreaming, or in deep slecp. Even in deep sleep, he can perceive by con-
sciousness whether he is happy or distressed. Thus when consciousness is
displayed through the medium of the subtle and gross material bodies, it is
covered, but when the consciousness is purified, in Krgia consciousness,
one becomes free from the entanglement of repeated birth and death.

When uncontaminated pure knowledge is uncovered from the modes of
material nature, then the actual identity of the living entity is discovered:
he is eternally a servitor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The
process of uncovering is like this: the rays of sunshine are luminous, and
the sun itself is also luminous. In the presence of the sun, the rays illumi-
nate just like the sun, but when the sunshine is covered by the spell of a
cloud, or by maya, then darkness, the imperfection of perception, begins.
Therefore, to get out of the entanglement of the spell of nescience, one has
to awaken his spiritual consciousness or Krgna consciousness in terms of
the authorized scriptures.
