Text 17] What Prahlada Learned in the Womb 57
bhaktya mam abhyanati
yavan yas casmi tattvatah
tato mam tattvato jnatva
visate tad-anantaram
“One can understand the Supreme Personality as He is only by devo-
tional service. And when one is in full consciousness of the Supreme
Lord by such devotion, he can enter into the kingdom of God.”
(Bg. 18.55)

These are Vedic instructions. One must have full faith in the words of
the spiritual master and similar faith in the Supreme Personality of God-
head. Then the real knowledge of dtma and Paramatma and the distinc-
tion between matter and spirit will be automatically revealed. This
atma-tattva, or spiritual knowledge, will be revealed within the core of a
devotee’s heart because of his having taken shelter of the lotus feet of a
mahajana such as Prahlada Maharaja.

In this verse the word bhiiyat may be understood to mean “let there
be.” Prahlada Maharaja offers his blessings to his class friends, saying,
‘*Also become faithful like me. Become bona fide Vaisnavas.”” A devotee
of the Lord desires for everyone to take to Krsna consciousness. Unfor-
tunately, however, people sometimes do not have staunch faith in the
words of the spiritual master who comes by the disciplic succession, and
therefore they are unable to understand transcendental knowledge. The
spiritual master must be in the line of authorized disciplic succession,
like Prahlada Maharaja, who received the knowledge from Narada. If the
class friends of Prahlada Maharaja, the sons of demons, were to accept
the truth through Prahlada, they would certainly also become fully
aware of transcendental knowledge.

The words vaisdradi dhih refer to intelligence concerning the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is extremely expert. The Lord has
created wonderful universes by His expert knowledge. Unless one is ex-
tremely expert, he cannot understand the expert management of the
supreme expert. One can understand, however, if one is fortunate
enough to meet a bona fide spiritual master coming in the disciplic suc-
cession from Lord Brahma, Lord Siva, Mother Laksmi or the Kumaras.
These four sampradayas, or disciplic successions of knowledge and tran-
scendence, are called the Brahma-sampradaya, Rudra-sampradaya,
