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Srimad Bhagvata Mahapurana: Book 2: Chapter 9: Verses 23-34
Brahma beholds the divine Abode of the Lord and is taught by Him the text of the Bhagavata, consisting of four couplets only
It is by dint of penance alone that I create this universe and through penance I maintain it; and it is through penance, again, that I absorb it (within Myself). Nay, My strength consists in penancewhich is hard to practise. Brahma said : O Lord, You dwell in the heart of all beings as the witness and know by Your unobstructed wisdom what I intend doing. Nevertheless, my Master, grant one request of this humble petitioner that I may be blessed with an insight into both the absolute and relative aspects of Your formless Being. Even as a spider spins a web round itself, sports in it and then takes it back into its mouth, so do You, O Madhava (Lord of Maya) of unfailing resolve; through Your own Maya (creative will) multiply Yourself in the form of this universe, maintain it and then dissolve it all by Yourself, possessed as You are of manifold powers, and thus carry on Your sport, assuming various forms as and when necessary. Pray, therefore, bestow on me the insight by which I may be able to know how You do all this. Let me unwearingly carry out Your instructions, 0 Lord; nay, while carrying on the work of creation, let me not, by Your grace, be attached to it (through the feeling of doership etc.). Since you have acknowledged me as Your friend as any other friend would (by clasping my hand and through other such gestures), 0 Lord, let me not be puffed up with pride, thinking that I am immune from birth etc., so long as I remain engaged in Your service in the form of creating living beings and, unperplexed in mind, classify the Jivas (according to their natural characteristics and past actions).
The Lord said : Do you receive the most esoteric knowledge, as well as the realization, which is going to be imparted by Me, about Myself, as also the truth of Devotion and all that is accessory to it. By My grace you shall have true knowledge about Me, as to how great I am, what is My essential character, in how many forms do I manifest Myself, what virtues do I possess and what are My doings. Prior to this creation I alone existed and that too in my absolute state. Other than Me there was nothing gross or subtle, nor the cause of both, viz., Prakrti (Primordial Matter). I exist even after creation as well as in the form of this phenomenal world and I am also that which remains (after all this has disappeared). That which makes it possible for something inexplicable to appear in My Being (as apart from Me) without any corresponding reality, just like the illusion of a second moon, and which obscures My Being (even though I am present everywhere), like the presence of the planet Rahu (which has a shadowy form) in the midst of the other luminaries, should be regarded as My Maya (deluding potency). Even as the gross elements (earth, water etc.) may be said to have entered (the bodies of) all living beings, both great and small, (made up as they are of those very elements) after their creation, and they can as well be said not to have entered them (in that they already inhered in them as their material cause), similarly I can be said to have entered the bodies of these living beings as their indwelling Spirit (when they are viewed materially), and I can equally be said not to have entered them (when they are viewed spiritually, there being no other reality than the Spirit, i.e., Myself).
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