Text 51] King Citraketu Meets the Lord 149

master, his devotional service becomes more and more pleasing. Then
the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is within the core of every-
one’s heart, speaks to the devotee (dadami buddhi-yogam tam yena
mam upayanti te). Citraketu Maharaja was first instructed by his gurus,
Angira and Narada, and now, having followed their instructions, he has
come to the stage of seeing the Supreme Lord face to face. Therefore the
Lord is now instructing him in the essence of knowledge.

The essence of knowledge is that there are two kinds of vastu, or sub-
stances, One is real, and the other, being illusory or temporary, is some-
times called nonfactual. One must consider these two kinds of existence.
The real tattva, or truth, consists of Brahman, Paramatma, and

Bhagavan. As stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.2.11):

vadanti tat tattva-vidas
tattvam yaj jia@nam advayam
brahmeti paramatmeti
bhagavan iti sabdyate

‘‘Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this non-
dual substance Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan.” The Absolute Truth
exists eternally in three features. Therefore, Brahman, Paramatma and
Bhagavan combined are the substance.

The categories of emanations from the nonsubstance are two—ac-
tivities and forbidden activities (karma and vikarma). Karma refers to
the pious life or material activities performed during the day and the
mental activities of dreams at night. These are more or less desired ac-
tivities. Vikarma, however, refers to illusory activities, which are some-
thing like the will-o’-the-wisp. These are activities that have no mean-
ing. For example, modern scientists imagine that life can be produced
from chemical combinations, and they are very busy trying to prove this
in laboratories throughout the world, although no one in history has been
able to produce the substance of life from material combinations. Such
activities are called vikarma.

All material activities are actually illusory, and progress in illusion is
simply a waste of time. These illusory activities are called akarya, and
one must learn of them from the instructions of the Supreme Personality

of Godhead. As stated in Bhagavad-gita (4.17):
