336 Srimad-Bhagavatam [Canto 4, Ch. 8

sva-icchad—by His own supreme will; avatdéra—incarnation; caritaih—
activities; acintya—inconceivable; nija-madyaya—by His own potency;
karigyati— performs; uttama-slokah—the Supreme Personality of Godhead;
tat—that; dhyadyet—one should meditate; hrdayangamam—very attractive.

TRANSLATION

My dear Dhruva, besides worshiping the Deity and chanting the mantra
three times a day, you should meditate upon the transcendental activities
of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His different incarnations, as
exhibited by His supreme will and personal potencies.

PURPORT

Devotional service comprises nine prescribed  practices—hearing,
chanting, remembering, worshiping, serving, offering everything to the
Deity, etc. Here Dhruva Maharaja is advised not only to meditate on the
form of the Lord, but to think of His transcendental pastimes in His
different incarnations. Mayavadi philosophers take the incarnation of the
Lord to be in the same category as the ordinary living entity. This is a
great mistake. The incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is
not forced to act by the material laws of nature. The word svecchd is used
here to indicate that He appears out of His supreme will. The conditioned
soul is forced to accept a particular type of body according to his karma
given by the laws of material nature under the direction of the Supreme
Lord. But when the Lord appears, He is not forced by the dictation of
material nature; He appears as He likes by His own internal potency.
That is the difference. The conditioned soul accepts a particular type of
body, such as the body of a hog, by his work and by the superior
authority of material nature. But when Lord Krsna appears in the
incarnation of a boar, He is not the same kind of hog as an ordinary
animal. Krsna appears as Varaha avatdra in an expansive feature which
cannot be compared to an ordinary hog’s. His appearance and disappear-
ance are inconceivable to us. In the Bhagavad-gitd it is clearly said that He
appears by His own internal potency for the protection of the tlevotees
and the annihilation of the nondevotees. A devotee should always consider
that Krsna does not appear as an ordinary human being or ordinary
beast; His appearance as Varaha-mirti or a horse or tortoise is an exhibition
of His internal potency. In the Brahma-samhita it is said, Gnanda-cinmaya-
rasa-pratibhavitabhih: one should not mistake the appearance of the Lord
as a human being or a beast to be the same as the birth of an ordinary
conditioned soul, who is forced to appear by the laws of nature, whether
