Liberation from Ignorance and Suffering 131

they say, ‘‘The body is everything, and there is nothing more.”’ Actually,
however, that is not a fact.

The fact is that the spirit soul is very, very small. Baldgra-sata-
bhagasya satadha kalpitasya ca (Svetasvatara Up. 5.9). The soul is one
ten-thousandth the size of the tip of a hair. Suppose we were to take a hair
and divide it into a hundred parts. Could we do it? No. That is not possi-
ble. But if we could do it and then divide it again into another one
hundred parts, each part would be the size of the spirit soul.

Of course, this is not possible to understand by experimental knowl-
edge, so how can it be learned? One must learn of this from an authority.
Our knowledge is so imperfect that it cannot deal with such subtle affairs,
and because rascals cannot deal with such things, they think that matter
is the cause of life. Nonetheless, they have not been able to demonstrate
that life comes from matter. Let them take chemicals in their laboratory
and produce even a small insect with hands, legs, and eyes. Every night
we see many of such small insects with legs and eyes with which they ap-
proach the light. From such small insects up to Brahma there are 8,400,-
000 different forms of life, among which we are traveling from body to
body, leaving one body and entering another, as stated by Krsna in
Bhagavad-gita (tatha dehdntara-praptih) .. Therefore, either we must reject
Krsna’s word or reject all the so-called scientific theories that life comes
from matter. But we are pledged to Krsna consciousness, and therefore
we cannot reject Krsna’s word. We accept Krsna when He says that we
have to travel from one body to another.

Every living entity within this material world is under the influence
of avidya, ignorance. Avidya-karma-samjfianya trtiyd saktir isyate. God,
Krsna, has many millions of potencies (pardsya saktir vividhaiva Sriyate) ,
and they have been summarized into three categories—the external po-
tency, the internal potency, and the marginal potency. The marginal po-
tency and the internal potency are of the same spiritual quality, but the
third potency, the external potency, is inferior.

visnu-Saktir para prokta
ksetrajnakhya tatha para
avidya-karma-samjnanya
trtiya Saktir isyate
(Visnu Purana 6.7.61)

In this material world, everyone is in ignorance (avidyd). Even Brahma
was ignorant until he was given knowledge by Krsna. Therefore no one
