120 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 6, Ch. 16

tava—Your; vibhavah—opulences; khalu—indeed; bhagavan—O
Supreme Personality of Godhead; jagat—of the cosmic manifestation;
udaya—the creation; sthiti—maintenance; laya-ddini—dissolution and
so on; viSva-srjah—the creators of the manifested world; te—they;
arnsa-arnsah—parts of Your plenary portion; tatra—in that; mrsé—in
vain; spardhanti—rival one another; prthak—of separateness;
abhimatya—by a false conception.

TRANSLATION

My dear Lord, this cosmic manifestation and its creation, main-
tenance and annihilation are all but Your opulences. Since Lord
Brahma and the other creators are nothing but small portions of a
portion of You, their partial power to create does not make them
God [iSvara]. Their consciousness of themselves as separate Lords
is therefore merely false prestige. It is not valid.

PURPORT

A devotee who has fully surrendered to the lotus feet of the Lord
knows very well that the creative energy of the living entities, from Lord
Brahma down to the small ant, exists because the living entities are part
and parcel of the Lord. In Bhagavad-gita (15.7) the Lord says,
mamaivarnso jiva-loke jiva-bhiitah sanatanah: “The living entities in
this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts.” The living en-
tities are nothing but very small portions of the supreme spirit, like
sparks of a fire. Because they are part of the Supreme, they have a cre-
ative quality in a very minute quantity.

The so-called scientists of the modern materialistic world are proud
because they have created modern facilities like great airplanes, but the
credit for creating the airplanes should go to the Supreme Personality of
Godhead, not to the scientists who have invented or created the so-called
wonderful products. The first consideration is the intelligence of the
scientist; one must be elevated by the dictation of the Supreme Lord,
who says in Bhagavad-gita (15.15), mattah smrtir jidnam apohanarn
ca: “From Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness.” Be-
cause the Supreme Lord, as Supersoul, sits within the core of every living
entity’s heart, the dictation by which one advances in scientific knowl-
