Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 6 Chapter 16 Verse 20

Canto 6: Prescribed Duties for Mankind | Chapter 16: King Citraketu Meets the Supreme Lord

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 6.16.20

ātmānandānubhūtyaiva

nyasta-śakty-ūrmaye namaḥ

hṛṣīkeśāya mahate

namas te 'nanta-mūrtaye

SYNONYMS

ātma-ānanda — of Your personal bliss; anubhūtyā — by perception; eva — certainly; nyasta — given up; śakti-ūrmaye — the waves of material nature; namaḥ — respectful obeisances; hṛṣīkeśāya — unto the supreme controller of the senses; mahate — unto the Supreme; namaḥ — respectful obeisances; te — unto You; ananta — unlimited; mūrtaye — whose expansions.

TRANSLATION

Perceiving Your personal bliss, You are always transcendental to the waves of material nature. Therefore, my Lord, I offer my respectful obeisances unto You. You are the supreme controller of the senses, and Your expansions of form are unlimited. You are the greatest, and therefore I offer my respectful obeisances unto You.

PURPORT

This verse analytically differentiates the living entity from the Supreme Lord. The form of the Lord and the form of the conditioned soul are different because the Lord is always blissful whereas the conditioned soul is always under the threefold miseries of the material world. The Supreme Lord is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha [Bs. 5.1]. He derives ānanda, bliss, from His own self. The Lord's body is transcendental, spiritual, but because the conditioned soul has a material body, he has many bodily and mental troubles. The conditioned soul is always perturbed by attachment and detachment, whereas the Supreme Lord is always free from such dualities. The Lord is the supreme master of all the senses, whereas the conditioned soul is controlled by the senses. The Lord is the greatest, whereas the living entity is the smallest. The living entity is conditioned by the waves of material nature, but the Supreme Lord is transcendental to all actions and reactions. The expansions of the Supreme Lord's body are innumerable (advaitam acyutam anādim ananta-rūpam [Bs 5.33]), but the conditioned soul is limited to only one form. From history we learn that a conditioned soul, by mystic power, can sometimes expand into eight forms, but the Lord's bodily expansions are unlimited. This means that the bodies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead have no beginning and no end, unlike the bodies of the living entities.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness