Invocation
Om. May He protect us.
May He maintain us. May we become powerful. May we study diligently.
May we not hate each other. Om. Peace. Peace. Peace.
Chapter 1
TEXT 1
Hari. Om. The
Brahmavadis say: What is the first, the great cause? From where
were we born? How do we remain alive? Where do we go at death?
O knowers of Brahman. By whose will are we subject to pleasure and pain?
TEXT 2
Neither time, nature, destiny,
chance, the material elements, the mother’s womb, nor the father are the
first cause. All of them taken together are not the first cause.
Because he has no great control over the happiness and distress fate brings
him, the individual living entity is not the first cause.
TEXT 3
Rapt in meditation, the sages
then saw the mysterious potency and transcendental qualities of the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, the first cause, who alone dominates the secondary
causes, from time to the individual living entity.
TEXT 4
They saw the potency of the
Supreme Personality of Godhead as a great wheel with a single rim divided
first into three and then into sixteen, with 50 spokes, 20 counter-spokes,
six groups of eight, one rope, three paths, and an illusion with two causes.
TEXT 5
We meditate on the potency
of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as a river with five currents, five
tortuous curves, five waves, five sources of knowledge, five whirlpools,
five floods of pain, fifty parts, and five parts.
TEXT 6
A swan wanders in the great
circle of material life. When he learns that he is different from
the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and becomes active in His service,
the swan attains immortality.
TEXT 7
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead is glorified in all the Vedas. In Him the three divisions
of this world rest. He is the first cause. He is eternal and
imperishable. Knowing that He is present everywhere in this world,
the wise become devoted to Him. Free from having again to enter a
mother’s womb, the wise enter the spiritual world.
TEXT 8
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead maintains this universe, which consists of the temporary and eternal,
the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual spirit soul is not
the Supreme Personality of Godhead. When the individual soul tries
to become the supreme enjoyer he becomes bound, and when he understands
the real nature of the Supreme Lord, he becomes free from bondage.
TEXT 9
Two, one the Supreme Personality
of Godhead and the other not the Supreme Personality of Godhead, are eternal.
Another, a pleasure-potency, is also eternal. The Supreme Personality
of Godhead is limitless. His form fills the entire world. He
is not bound to perform any work. When one understands these three,
he finds the Supreme Lord.
TEXT 10
The material world is temporary.
The individual spirit soul is eternal. The one Supreme Personality
of Godhead is the master of both temporary matter and the eternal individual
soul. By meditating on the Lord, by yoga, and by understanding the
truth, at the end the individual spirit soul becomes free from the illusion
of the world.
TEXT 11
By understanding the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, a person becomes free from all material bondage,
his sufferings perish, and he escapes the cycle of repeated birth and death.
By meditating on the Supreme Lord, when one is finally separated from the
material body he enters the opulent spiritual world and attains a spiritual
body where all his desires are fulfilled.
TEXT 12
The eternal Supreme Personality
of Godhead should be known as the Supersoul in everyone’s heart.
It should be known that no one is superior to Him. The individual
spirit soul who enjoys material nature, the material nature that is the
object of his enjoyment, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead who dominates
both individual soul and matter, are described as the three-fold Brahman.
TEXT 13
As the fire in wood cannot
be seen although it is present there, so the Supreme Personality of Godhead
cannot be seen, although He is also present. As fire is manifest
by rubbing sticks together, so the Supreme Personality of Godhead is manifest
by chanting the sacred syllable om.
TEXT 14
Making one’s body the lower
arani stick and the sacred syllable om the upper arani stick, and rubbing
them together in the trance of meditation, one may see the Supreme Personality
of Godhead as by rubbing two sticks one may see the fire hidden in wood.
TEXT 15
As oil hidden in sesame seeds
is extracted by pressure, as butter hidden in yogurt is extracted by churning,
as an underground stream is extracted by digging a well, and as fire in
arani sticks is extraced by friction, so the Supreme Personality of Godhead
in the heart is extracted by spiritual activity. By performing austerities
one sees Him.
TEXT 16
As butter is present in milk,
the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is known by spiritual knowledge
and austerity, is present in everything. This is the Supreme Personality
of Godhead described in the Upanisads. This is the Supreme Personality
of Godhead described in the Upanisads.
Chapter 2
TEXT 1
May the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, who with the light of the sun and fire illuminates this world,
enable our intelligence to see Him.
TEXT 2
With the help of His potency
may we fix our mind in meditation on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 3
The devotees of the Lord
worship Him by engaging their minds, intelligence, and senses in His service.
By the Lord’s mercy, they see the splendid form of the Lord and enter His
transcendental abode.
TEXT 4
Brahmanas and knowers of
the Absolute engage their mind, intelligence, and senses in the meditation
and worship of the all-pervading, omniscient, supremely great Personality
of Godhead, the creator of everything. The learned perform the rituals
of the Vedas for His satisfaction.
TEXT 5
O senses and demigods who
are controllers of the senses, please engage me in meditating upon, worshiping,
and offering obeisances to the eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead.
May the Personality of Godhead, who is worshiped with excellent prayers,
be pleased with my devotional activies, and may He appear before the path
of my eyes. O liberated souls, O residents of the spiritual world,
please be kind to me, and enable me to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead
in my meditation.
TEXT 6
One who engages in the process
of breath-restraint (pranayma), whose mind is purified, and who by rubbing
the two arani sticks of the sacred syllable om and the body has ignited
the fire of direct perception of the Supersoul seated in the heart, is
able to fix the mind in meditation on the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 7
By the mercy of the Supreme
Godhead, the Original Creator of everything, oen may engage in His devotional
service and become fixed in meditation on Him. Established in this
way, one is not bound by the reactions of past fruitive acts.
TEXT 8
With neck, head, and back
straight, and with all powers of concentration, one should meditate on
the Supreme Personality of Godhead staying in the heart as the Supersoul.
Traveling in the boat of the Supreme Lord’s mercy, the learned devotee
crosses the fearful raging waters of the cycle of repeated birth and death.
TEXT 9
One should engage in pranayama
and carefully control the breathing. One should control the mind,
which is like a chariot yoked with wild horses, and soberly guide it to
continual remembrance of the Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 10
One should practice yoga
in a solitary place with level ground free from pebbles and stones, free
from winds, clean and pure, pleasing to the mind, not unpleasing to the
eyes, and far from noisy bathing places.
TEXT 11
As he approaches the Supreme
Personality of Godhead in yoga, the yogi attains forms of mist, smoke,
the sun, the wind, fire, fireflies, lightning, crystal, and the moon.
TEXT 12
When the five elements earth,
water, fire, air, and ether are dissolved, the yogi attains a body made
of the fire of yoga and free of disease, old age, and death.
TEXT 13
The wise say the first results
of yoga are the ability to become very light, freedom from disease, steadiness,
splendid handsomeness; eloquence, a sweet fragrance, and only the slightest
discharge of stool and urine.
TEXT 14
As a jewel washed of mud
shines brightly so an embodied soul who sees the Supreme Personality of
Godhead becomes glorious and free of all sufferings.
TEXT 15
With the lamp of spiritual
knowledge he sees the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Knowing that
the Supreme Personality of Godhead is unborn, eternal, and supremely pure,
he becomes free from all bondage.
TEXT 16
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead is everywhere. He existed before the material universes.
He is present in the universe. He was born in the past and He will
be born again in the future. He stands in every living entity.
TEXT 17
Obeisances, obeisances to
the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is in fire, who is in water, who
entered the material universe, who is in plants, and who is in trees.
Chapter 3
TEXT 1
They who understand the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, the master of the network of maya, who alone, with
His potencies, rules all the worlds, and who alone, with His potencies,
rules all the worlds, and who alone, with His potencies, rules the all
the worlds in their creation and maintenance, becomes immortal.
TEXT 2
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead, who is one without a second, with His potencies rules the worlds.
He stays within the living entities. He protects the worlds.
He created the worlds and at the last moment He withdraws them.
TEXT 3
His eyes are everywhere.
His faces are everywhere. His arms are everywhere. His feet
are everywhere. He, the one Supreme Personality of Godhead, breathed
life into they who have two arms on the land and they who have wings in
the sky.
TEXT 4
May the omniscient Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who is the creator and protector of the demigods,
and who in the beginning fathered the demigod Brahma, give us good intelligence.
TEXT 5
O Supreme Personality of
Godhead, please show us Your auspicious, handsome, sinless, peaceful form.
TEXT 6
O good Supreme Personality
of Godhead, please make auspicious the arrow You hold in Your hand for
the living entities. Please don’t harm the people of the world.
TEXT 7
They who know the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who is greater than the greatest, who is hidden
in all living entities, and who is present everywhere in the material world,
become immortal.
TEXT 8
I know that Supreme Personality
of Godhead who is transcendental to all material conceptions of darkness.
Only he who knows Him can transcend the bonds of birth and death.
There is no way for liberation other than this knowledge of that Supreme
Person.
TEXT 9
There is no truth superior
to that Supreme Person because He is the supermost. He is smaller
than the smallest, and He is greater than the greatest. He is situated
as a silent tree, and He illumines the transcendental sky, and as a tree
spreads its roots, He spreads His extensive energies.
TEXT 10
They who know that the Supreme
Personality of Godhead is greater than the greatest, and has no material
body and no faults, become immortal. They who do not know Him suffer.
TEXT 11
His faces, heads, and necks
are everywhere. He hides in all beings. He is everywhere.
The auspicious Personality of Godhead is everywhere.
TEXT 12
The Personality of Godhead
is the source of the Brahman effulgence, and He is imperishable.
He is the Supreme Controller. He controls the mode of goodness, and He
awards various kind of intelligence to the living entities. He is
the controller of spiritual purity and of liberation.
TEXT 13
They become immortal who
know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who in a form the size of a thumb
always stays in the living entities’ hearts, who is the master of all knowledge,
and who is meditated on in the heart.
TEXT 14
That Supreme Personality
of Godhead is all-prevading within the material world. His uncountable
thousands of heads, eyes, and feet are situated everywhere. His form
is so large that not only does it cover the entire universe, but it has
surpassed the boundries of the material creation by the measurement of
ten fingers.
TEXT 15
That Supreme Personality
of Godhead is everything, all that has been, and all that ever will be,
for everything is simply the manifestation of His energy. When He
wishes He frees the conditioned living entities from the bondage of past
karmic reactions, and grants them liberation and eternal residence in the
spiritual worlds.
TEXT16
Everywhere are His hands
and legs, His eyes and faces, and He hears everything. In this way
the Supersoul exists.
TEXT 17
The Supersoul is the original
source of all senses, yet He is without senses. He is unattached,
although He is the maintaner of all living beings. He transcends
the modes of nature, and at the same time He is the master of all modes
of material nature.
TEXT 18
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead, who is living within the body of a living entity, is the controller
of all living entities all over the universe. The body consists of
nine gates: two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, one mouth, the anus
and the genital. The living entity in his conditioned stage identifies
himself with the body, but when he identifies himself with the Lord within
himself, he becomes just as free as the Lord, even while in the body.
TEXT 19
Learned transcendentalists
explain that God is the greatest, the original person. He has no
material hands, but He can take anything. He has no material legs,
but He can travel faster than anyone. He has no material eyes, but
He can see everything. He has no material ears, but He hears everything.
He knows everything, but not one knows Him.
TEXT 20
Both the Supersoul (Paramatma)
and the atomic soul (jivatma) are situated on the same tree of the body
within the same heart of the living beings, and only one who has become
free from all material desires as well as lamentations can, by the grace
of the Supreme, understand the glories of the soul.
TEXT 21
I know the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, who is the oldest, who never grows old, who is in everyone’s
heart, who is everywhere, and who the transcendentalists say is eternal
and is never born.
Chapter 4
TEXT 1
May the one Supreme Personality
of Godhead, who has no material qualities, who by His potencies created
the varieties of the material world in the beginning, and who dissolves
the material world in the end, grant us good intelligence.
TEXT 2
He is fire. He is the
sun. He is air. He is the moon. He is the stars.
He is Brahma. He is Prajapati. He is water.
TEXT 3
You are woman. You
are man. You are boy. You are girl. As an old man You
walk with a cane. You are born again, O all-prevading Lord.
TEXT 4
You are the black bee, the
green parrot, the red-eyed cuckoo, the storm-cloud with lightning, the
seasons, and the oceans. You are everywhere. You are beginningless.
The worlds are born from You.
TEXT 5
An unborn man enjoys an unborn
red, white, and black woman who bears many children like herself.
Another unborn man first enjoys and then forsakes her.
TEXT 6
The individual spirit-soul
and the Supersoul, Personality of Godhead, are like two friendly birds
sitting on the same tree. One of the birds (the individual atomic
soul) is eating the fruit of the tree (the sense-gratification afford to
the material body), and the other bird (the Supersoul) is not trying to
eat these fruits, but is simply watching His friend.
TEXT 7
Although the two birds are
on the same tree, the eating bird is fully engrossed with anxiety and moroseness
as the enjoyer of the fruits of the tree. But if in some way or other
he turns hsi face to his friend who is the Lord and knows His glories,
at once the suffering bird becomes free from all anxieties.
TEXT 8
In the eternal spiritual
sky the demigods and the Vedic hymns serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
What will he who does not know Him do with the Vedic hymns? They
who know Him have attained the goal of life.
TEXT 9
The Vedas describe a bewildering
variety of hymns, prayers, sacrifices, rituals, vows, austerities, history,
and predictions of the future. Simply by studying the Vedas, it is
very difficult for the conditioned soul, illusioned by maya and trapped
in the material world, to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead,
the controller of the illusory potency and the creator of the material
universes.
TEXT 10
One should know that although
maya (illusion) is false or temporary, the background of maya is the supreme
magician, the Personality of Godhead, who is Mahesvara, the Supreme Controller,
and whose limbs are everywhere in the material universe.
TEXT 11
One who knows the generous
and glorious Supreme Personality of Godhead, who alone created the material
world and in whom it enters at the end, attains perfect peace.
TEXT 12
May the omniscient Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who is the demigods’ father and the material universe’s
creator, maintainer and destroyer, and who with a glance fathered the demigod
Brahma, give good intelligence to us.
TEXT 13
With offerings of clarified
butter let us worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the master
of the demigods, in whom the worlds rest, and who rules the two-footed
and the four-footed.
TEXT 14
One who knows the auspicious
Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is more subtle than the subtlest, who
is the creater of the material universe, who has many forms, and who is
present everywhere, attains perfect peace.
TEXT 15
One who knows the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who protects the worlds, who hides in all living
entities, and in whom the demigods and sages take shelter, cuts the ropes
of death.
TEXT 16
One who knows the auspicious,
all-prevading Supreme Personality of Godhead, who hides in everyone’s heart
as butter hides in milk, becomes free of all bondage.
TEXT 17
They become immortal who
know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the universe creator, who always
stays in everyone’s heart and is the object of the wise heart’s meditation.
TEXT 18
When the darkness of universal
destruction comes there is no day. There is no night. There
is no cause. There is no effect. Then only the auspicious,
eternal, splendid, omniscient, ancient Supreme Personality of Godhead exists.
TEXT 19
For Him there is no up, so
across, and no middle. For Him there are no limits. His name
is His great glory.
TEXT 20
They become immortal who
know the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose form is not within the perception
of material senses, whose is not seen by the material eye, whose form in
the heart is seen only by the heart of love.
TEXT 21
O Lord, because You are beyond
the world of birth and death this frightened soul surrenders unto You.
Please show me Your merciful face. Please save me.
TEXT 22
In this life let there be
no calamities for our children, grandchildren, cows, and horses.
Let there be no harm to our heroic protectors. We always worship
You with sacrifices of clarified butter.
Chapter 5
TEXT 1
Both knowledge and ignorance
rest in the limitless, eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead. Ignorance
is death, but knowledge is immortality. He rules knowledge and ignorance
although He is beyond them both.
TEXT 2
He alone rules all species,
forms, and universes. In the beginning He fathered the demigod Brahma
with a glance and taught Him the truth.
TEXT 3
Spreading His net everywhere,
the Supreme Personality of Godhead retracts the material world. Then
again the Supreme Personality of Godhead creates the demigods.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead rules all.
TEXT 4
As the sun shines in all
directions: above, below, and across, so the glorious Supreme Personality
of Godhead rules all creatures.
TEXT 5
He creates the worlds.
He develops and transform the creation. He alone rules all the world.
He controls the modes of nature.
TEXT 6
Knowing Him, who is the author
of the Vedas, who is hidden in the Vedas and Upanisads, and whom the demigod
Brahma also knows, the great demigods and sages became immortal.
TEXT 7
Bewildered by the modes of
nature, the conditioned soul performs fruitive acts and then experiences
their results. Bewildered by the modes, he accepts different forms,
by his karma traveling here and there on the paths of sin, piety, and transcendental
knowledge.
TEXT 8
The conditioned soul is small
as a thumb, splendid as the sun, and filled with false-ego and material
desire. Different from Him is the Supersoul, whose form is also very
small, but who is filled with intelligence and spiritual knowledge.
TEXT 9
If we divide the tip of a
hair into one hundred parts and then take one part and divide this into
another one hundred parts, that ten-thousandth part is the dimension of
the living entity. Although encased within the temporary material
body, the tiny soul may one day qualitfy itself to become liberated and
return to the eternal spiritual world.
TEXT 10
The individual spirit soul
is not female. It is not male. It is not neuter. These
designations arise only from the various material bodies the soul accepts.
TEXT 11
With the illusions of lusty
glances and touches, and with a rain of food and drink, the conditioned
soul nourishes his next birth. According to his deeds he attains
different bodies in different conditions of life.
TEXT 12
According to his own merit
the conditoned soul accepts many different bodies, both large and small.
According to his deeds and character he is linked to different bodies.
Thus it is seen he is different from the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 13
By knowing the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, who has no beginning and no end, who has many forms, who created
the universe, and who is present everywhere in the universe, one becomes
free of all bondage.
TEXT 14
By knowing the auspicious
Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is attained only by love, who is not
material, who is the creator and destroyer of the worlds, and who is the
creator of time, the individual souls become free from having to accept
another material body.
Chapter 6
TEXT 1
Some thinkers say the material
universe is self-manifest. Other bewildered men say time created
the universe. The truth is the universe turns by the power of the
Supreme Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 2
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead, who is present everywhere, who knows everything, who controls
time, and who has all auspicious qualities, created earth, water, fire,
air, and ether.
TEXT 3
Having created these He mixed
one with another. He mixed one, two, three, and eight. He mixed
them with time and with the subtle elements.
TEXT 4
Serving the Supreme Personality
of Godhead with every thought and deed, the soul destroys the reactions
of past deeds. When the reactions of past deeds are destroyed, in
truth he leaves this world.
TEXT 5
The devotee worships the
Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the cause of all causes, who is
above the three phases of time, whose form is not material, who is seen
by His devotees, whose form is the entire universe, who created the universe,
and who stays in His devotee’s heart.
TEXT 6
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead is not touched by the material nature and He is free from the entanglement
of the complex tree of material time. He is the origin of material
creation, and it is due to Him only that everything changes. He is
the protector of religion, and the annihilator of all sinful activities.
He is the master of all opulences and everything rests within Him.
He is the Supersoul present in everyone’s heart. They who understand
and worship Him become free from the cycle of birth and death in the material
world and return to the eternal spiritual world.
TEXT 7
We meditate on the Supreme
Personality of Godhead. He is the controller of all other controllers,
and He is the greatest of all the diverse planetary leaders. Everyone
is under His control. All entities are delegated with particular
power only by the Supreme Lord; they are not supreme themselves.
He is also worshipable by all demigods and is the supreme director of all
directors. Therefore, He is transcendental to all kinds of material
leaders and controllers and is worshipable by all. There is no one
greater than Him, and He is the supreme cause of all causes.
TEXT 8
He does not possess bodily
form like that of an ordinary living entity. There is no difference
between His body and His soul. He is absolute. All his senses
are transcendental. Any one of His senses can perform the action
of any other sense. Therefore, no one is greater than Him or equal
to Him. His potencies are multifarious, and thus His deeds are automatically
performed as a natural sequence.
TEXT 9
No one is His master.
No one controls Him. He does not have a material body. He is
the cause of all causes. He is the master of all masters of the senses.
No one is His father. No one is His king.
TEXT 10
As a spider with its web,
the Supreme Personality of Godhead with His potencies captures His devotees
and grants them His association in the spiritual world.
TEXT 11
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead manifests Himself as the all-prevading Supersoul, the witness present
in the hearts of all livng entities. He witnesses all activities
of the living entity. He is the supreme living force, and yet He
is transcendental to all material qualities.
TEXT 12
Wise men who in their hearts
see the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who controls all living entities,
and who created great variety from the seed of material energy, attain
eternal peace. Others cannot.
TEXT 13
They who know the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who is the supreme eternal among all eternals and
the supreme conscious entity among all conscious entities, who fulfills
everyone’s desires and needs, who is the cause of all causes, and who is
attained by sankhya-yoga, become free of all bondage.
TEXT 14
In the sva-dhama (the abode)
of the Lord there is no need of sun, moon or stars for illumination.
Nor is there need of eletricity, so what to speak of ignited lamps?
On the other hand, it is because those planets are self-illuminting that
all effulgence has become possible, and whatever there is that is dazzling
is due to the reflection of that sva-dhama.
TEXT 15
He is the only swan in the
middle of the world. He is a fire burning on the water. They
who know Him cross beyond death. There is no other path to liberation.
TEXT 16
The Supreme Lord, the creator
of this cosmic manifestation, knows every nook and corner of His creation.
Although He is the cause of creation, there is no cause for His appearance.
He is fully aware of everything. He is the Supersoul, the master
of all transcendental qualities, and He is the master of this cosmic manifestation
in regard to bondage to the conditional state of material existence and
liberation from that bondage.
TEXT 17
The Supreme Personality of
Godhead is the spiritual, immortal, all-knowing, all-pervading, protector
of the world. He eternally rules the world. No one else rules
it.
TEXT 18
Because I desire liberation,
let me surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who first enlightened
Lord Brahma in Vedic knowledge through Lord Brahma’s heart. The Lord
is the original source of all enlightenment and spirutal advancement.
TEXT 19
Let me surrender to the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, who is perfect, complete, free from material activities,
peaceful, pure, and free from the touch of matter, who is a blazing fire
greedily consuming fuel.
TEXT 20
Only when they can cover
all outer space with a tent, the living entities will become free of suffering
without knowing the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 21
By the power of his austerities,
and by the Lord’s mercy, learned Svetasvatara Muni thus described the pure
Supreme Personality of Godhead to the best of the saintly sages.
TEXT 22
This ancient Svetasvatara
Upanisad, which is the supreme secret of Vedic literature, should not be
spoken to one who is not peaceful or in control of his senses, nor to one
who is not a dutiful son or an obedient disciple.
TEXT 23
Only unto those great souls
who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all
the imports of Vedic knowledge automatically revealed.