Text 22] Prahlada Pacifies the Lord with Prayers 217
over the conditioned soul. Therefore He is the Supreme, and only He can
deliver the conditioned soul from the onslaught of material nature (mam
eva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te). Maya, the external energy,
continuously imposes upon the conditioned souls the suffering of the
threefold miseries of this material world. Therefore, in the previous
verse, Prahlada Maharaja prayed to the Lord, “But for Your Lordship, no
one can save me.” Prahlada Maharaja has also explained that a child’s
protectors, his parents, cannot save the child from the onslaught of birth
and death, nor can medicine and a physician save one from death, nor
can a boat or similar means of protection save a person drowning in the
water, for everything is controlled by the Supreme Personality of God-
head. Therefore suffering humanity must surrender to Krsna, as Krsna
Himself demands in the last instruction of Bhagavad-gita (18.66):
sarva-dharman parityajya
mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvém sarva-papebhyo
moksayisyami ma sucah

“Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall
deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.” All of human society
must take advantage of this offer and thus be saved by Krsna from the
danger of being crushed by the wheel of time, the wheel of past, present
and future.

The word nispidyamadnam (“being crushed”) is very significant.
Every living entity in the material condition is actually being crushed
again and again, and to be saved from this position one must take shelter
of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Then one will be happy. The
word prapannam is also very significant, for unless one fully surrenders
to the Supreme Lord one cannot be saved from being crushed. A criminal
is put in prison and punished by the government, but the same govern-
ment, if it likes, can release the criminal from imprisoned life. Similarly,
we must know conclusively that our material condition of suffering has
been allotted to us by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and if we
want to be saved from this suffering, we must appeal to the same con-
troller. Thus one can be saved from this material condition.
