212 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

tion, knows very well what is happening in the nooks and corners of the cosmic
Creation, although the things are apparently done by someone else. From
Brahma down to the insignificant ant, nobody is independent in material
Creation, and everywhere there is the Hand of the Supreme Lord. All material
elements as well as spiritual sparks are but emanations from Him only. And
whatever is created in this material world is but the interaction of the two
energies, material and spiritual, or the Absolute Truth, the Personality of
Godhead, Sri Krishna (Vasudeva).

A living entity called a chemist can manufacture water in the chemical
laboratory by mixing hydrogen and oxygen gases, but in reality the living
entity works in the laboratory under the direction of the Supreme Lord, and
the materials with which the chemist works are also supplied by the Lord.
As such, the Lord knows everything directly and indirectly, and He is cognizant
of all the minute details of everything, and He is fully independent. He is
compared with the mine of gold, and the cosmic creations in different forms
are compared with the gold rings and necklaces, etc. The gold ring and the
gold necklace are qualitatively one with the gold in the mine, but quantita-
tively the gold in the mine and the gold in the earring or necklace are different.
The whole philosophy of the Absolute Truth is, therefore, that It is simultane-
ously one and different. Nothing is absolutely equal to the Absolute Truth,
but at the same time nothing is independent of the Absolute Truth.

Conditioned souls, beginning from Brahma, the engineer of this particular
Universe, down to the insignificant ant, are all creating something, but none of
them are independent of the Supreme Lord. The materialist wrongly thinks
that there is no Creator save and except his own good self, and this is called
Maya, or illusion. On account of his poor fund of knowledge the materialist
cannot see beyond the purview of his imperfect senses, and thus he thinks that
matter automatically takes its own shape without a conscious background.
This is refuted in the 1st verse of the Bhagwatam by Srila Vyasadeva, Who is
a liberated soul and compiled this book of authority after His mature spiritual
perfection. The Complete Whole, or the Absolute Truth, being the Source
of everything, nothing is independent of the Whole Body. Any action and
reaction on the body becomes a cognizable fact to the embodied Whole.
Similarly, if the whole Creation is the Body of the Absolute Whole, then
nothing is unknown to the Absolute, directly or indirectly.

In the Sruti Mantra it is also stated that the Absolute Whole, or Brahman,
is the Ultimate Source of everything. Everything emanates from Him, and
everything is maintained by Him, and at the end everything enters into Him
