Text 9] King Citraketu Meets the Lord 89

esa nityo ‘vyayah suksma
esa sarvasrayah svadrk

atmamay4a-gunair visvam
Gtmanam srjate prabhuh

esah—this living entity; nityah—eternal; avyayah—imperishable;
siuksmah—very, very fine (not seen by the material eyes); esah—this
living entity; sarva-dsrayah—the cause of different types of bodies; sva-
drk—self-effulgent; atma-maya-gunaih—by the Supreme Personality
of Godhead’s modes of material nature; visvam—this material world; at-
manam—himself; srjate—appears; prabhuh—the master.

TRANSLATION

The living entity is eternal and imperishable because he actually
has no beginning and no end. He never takes birth or dies. He is
the basic principle of all types of bodies, yet he does not belong to
the bodily category. The living being is so sublime that he is equal
in quality to the Supreme Lord. Nonetheless, because he is ex-
tremely small, he is prone to be illusioned by the external energy,
and thus he creates various bodies for himself according to his
different desires.

PURPORT

In this verse the philosophy of acintya-bhedabheda—simultaneous
oneness and difference —is described. The living entity is eternal (nitya)
like the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the difference is that the
Supreme Lord is the greatest, no one being equal to or greater than Him,
whereas the living entity is siiksma, or extremely small. The sastra de-
scribes that the magnitude of the living entity is one ten-thousandth the
size of the tip of a hair. The Supreme Lord is all-pervading (andantara-
stha-param4@nu-caydntara-stham). Relatively, if the living entity is ac-
cepted as the smallest, there should naturally be inquiry about the
greatest. The greatest is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the
smallest is the living entity.

Another peculiar characteristic of the jiva is that he becomes covered
by maya. Atmamaéya-gunaih: he is prone to being covered by the
Supreme Lord’s illusory energy. The living entity is responsible for his
