brahmovaca
vacam vahner mukham ksetram
chandasam sapta dhatavah
havya-kavyamrtannanam
jihva sarva-rasasya ca
brahma uvaca -- Lord Brahma said; vacam -- of the voice; vahneh -- of fire; mukham -- the mouth; ksetram -- the generating center; chandasam -- of the Vedic hymns, such as Gayatri; sapta -- seven; dhatavah -- skin and six other layers; havya-kavya -- offerings for the demigods and the forefathers; amrta -- food for human beings; annanam -- of all sorts of foodstuffs; jihva -- the tongue; sarva -- all; rasasya -- of all delicacies; ca -- also.
The opulences of the universal form of the Lord are described herein. It is said that His mouth is the generating center of all kinds of voices, and its controlling deity is the fire demigod. And His skin and other six layers of bodily construction are the representative generating centers of the seven kinds of Vedic hymns, like the Gayatri. Gayatri is the beginning of all Vedic mantras, and it is explained in the first volume of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Since the generating centers are the different parts of the universal form of the Lord, and since the form of the Lord is transcendental to the material creation, it is to be understood that the voice, the tongue, the skin, etc., suggest that the Lord in His transcendental form is not without them. The material voice, or the energy of taking in foodstuff, is generated originally from the Lord; such actions are but perverted reflections of the original reservoirs -- the transcendental situation is not without spiritual variegatedness. In the spiritual world, all the perverted forms of material variegatedness are fully represented in their original spiritual identity. The only difference is that material activities are contaminated by the three modes of material nature, whereas the potencies in the spiritual world are all pure because they are engaged in the unalloyed transcendental loving service of the Lord. In the spiritual world, the Lord is the sublime enjoyer of everything, and the living entities there are all engaged in His transcendental loving service without any contamination of the modes of material nature. The activities in the spiritual world are without any of the inebrieties of the material world, but there is no question of impersonal voidness on the spiritual platform, as suggested by the impersonalists. Devotional service is defined in the Narada-pancaratra as follows:
sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam
tat-paratvena nirmalam
hrsikena hrsikesa-
sevanam bhaktir ucyate
[Cc. Madhya 19.170]
Originally, since all the senses are produced of the Lord's reservoir of senses, the sensual activities of the material world are to be purified by the process of devotional service, and thus the perfection of life can be attained simply by purifying the present position of our material activities. And the purifying process begins from the stage of being liberated from the conception of different designations. Every living entity is engaged in some sort of service, either for the self, or for the family, or for the society, country, etc., but, unfortunately, all such services are rendered due to material attachment. The attachments of the material affinity may be simply changed to the service of the Lord, and thus the treatment of being freed from material attachment begins automatically. The process of liberation is therefore easier through devotional service than by any other methods, for in the Bhagavad-gita (12.5) it is said that one is subjected to various kinds of tribulations if one is impersonally attached: kleso 'dhikataras tesam avyaktasakta-cetasam.
Comments