Chapter 9: Brahmâ's Prayers for Creative Energy

(1) Brahmâ said: 'Today, after a long time [of penance], I have come to know You and can say that it is really a shame for embodied beings not to have knowledge of Your ways as the Supreme Lord. There is none beyond You, oh my Lord, and anything that appears to be so can never be the absolute, for You are [the transcendence of] the greater reality to the modes of the material energy that lost its equilibrium. (2) That [greater] form is always free from the darkness of matter because You in the beginning for the sake of the devotees manifested Your inner potency, the potency that is the source of the hundreds of avatâras and from which I also found my existence upon the lotus flower sprouting from Your navel. (3) Oh my Lord, beyond this [source] I see no other superior to Your eternal form full of bliss that is free from change and deterioration of potency. You are the one and only Creator of the cosmic manifestation and the nonmaterial Supreme Soul itself. I who take pride in the identification with the body and senses am surrendered to You. (4) That form, or however You make Your presence, is all-auspicious for the entire universe and beneficial to our meditation, and You, Supreme Lord who have manifested Yourself to us devotees, I offer my obeisances. For You I perform that what is neglected by persons who head straight for hell in their appetite for material matters. (5) But those who hold on to the flavor and smell of Your lotus feet that is carried by the sounds of the Veda that reaches their ears, accepted by their devotional service Your transcendental course. For those who are Your devotees there is never the separation from You [installed] on the lotus of their hearts oh Lord. (6) Till that is the case there will be fear because of the wealth, the body and the relatives, and the lamentation and desire as also the avarice and contempt will be great. Until that time, as long as the people of the world do not take to the shelter of the security of Your lotus feet one will, undertaking according to the perishable notion of owning things, be full of anxieties. (7) How unfortunate are they who are bereft of the memory of Your topics! Tied down by inauspiciousness and bereft of good sense, they act to their desires finding happiness for only a brief moment. They are poor fellows whose minds are overwhelmed by greed and whose activities are full of stress. (8) Their always being troubled by [neurotic] hunger, thirst and their three humors [mucus, bile and wind], winter and summer, wind and rain and many other disturbances as also by a strong sex drive and inescapable anger, I consider all together as spiritually most unbearable, oh Man of the Great Strides. It aggrieves me a lot. (9) As long as a person under the influence of the material illusion is a servant of his senses and is faced with an existence of being separated in a body oh Fortunate One, such a one oh Lord, will not be able to overcome the cycle of repeated births in the material world. Even though working for outer results carries no factual meaning [to the soul], it will bring him endless miseries. (10) During the day they are engaged in stressful labor and at night they suffer insomnia because of their ruminations that constantly disturb their intelligence and sleep. The divine order frustrates their plans and also those sages oh my Lord, who turned against Your topics, will have to keep wandering around in this world. (11) Directed at You for a hundred percent united in devotion, with You residing on the lotus of their hearts, the devotees who are on the path of listening oh my Lord, see how You, in the here and now, in Your causeless mercy exactly manifest that transcendental form they had in mind of You who are glorified by so many. (12) You are never that much pleased by pompous arrangements with a lot of paraphernalia of high-class servants who are of worship with hearts full of all kinds of desires. For You, the variously perceived Unique and Only Well-wisher, the Supersoul within the living entities, are there to show all living entities Your causeless mercy and cannot be achieved by those who settle for what is man-made and temporal [asat]. (13) The correct, infallible course [the dharma] to be fixed upon is therefore the people's worship which, with different fruitive activities, charities, difficult penances and transcendental service, is performed for simply pleasing You, the Fortunate One.

(14) Let me offer my obeisances to You, the Supreme One who always by the glories of His transcendental form distinguishes Himself in enjoying the pastimes of His cosmic creation, maintenance and destruction. Unto You, the Transcendence whom one realizes by intelligently dealing with the illusory diversity, I offer my obeisances. (15) I take refuge in the Unborn One whose names representing His incarnations, transcendental qualities and activities open the way to immortality. When they, even unconsciously, are invoked the moment one leaves this life they immediately remove the accumulated sins of many, many lives so that one attains Him. (16) He, the Almighty Personality, who for reasons of maintenance, creation and dissolution penetrates [this world] with three trunks - I,  S'iva and Himself - grew rooting in the soul as the one and only to the many branches [of religion]. Him, the Personality of Godhead, this tree of the planetary systems, I offer my obeisances. (17) As long as the people of the world are engaged in unwanted activities and in the activities of their self-interest despise the by You as beneficial pronounced devotional activities, the struggle for existence of these people will be very tough and under Your Vigilant Rule [of Time] lead straight to a shambles. Let there be my obeisances unto You. (18)  Even I existing in a place that lasts for two parârdhas [2 x 50 years, with one day and night being two times 4.32 billion earthly years: 311.04 trillion years], being respected in all the worlds and having undergone severe penances for many years for my self-realization, fear You. To You I offer my respectful obeisances my Lord, oh Supreme Personality and enjoyer of all sacrifices. (19) Desiring to fulfill Your obligations You manifest Your transcendental pastimes by the grace of Your will projecting Yourself in the different life forms of the animals, human beings and gods. In spite of appearing in Your divine form you are never under the influence of the material energy. I offer my obeisances to that Lord of the Opulences, the Supreme Personality. (20) And also the ignorance [avidya] that is known in five ways [see further 3.12: 2] does not affect You. On the contrary, You are as kind amidst the violent series of waves in the waters lying on the snake bed to be in touch [with Ananta S'esha] and to slumber carrying all the worlds in Your abdomen for the sake of their maintenance. And with that You show the [intelligent] human being Your happiness. (21) Him by the power of whom I, from the lotus house sprouting from the navel, manifested to assist, by His grace, Him, the worshipable one, in the creation of the three worlds; He who has the universe in His abdomen and whose eyes after the end of His yogic slumber are blossoming like lotuses, I offer my obeisances.

(22) May He, the Lord of all universes, the one friend and philosopher, the Supersoul who by the mode of goodness as the Supreme Lord of the six opulences [beauty, intelligence, penance, power, fame and wealth] brings happiness, grant me the power of introspection so that I will be able to create as before this universe as a surrendered soul dear to Him. (23) To this benefactor of the surrendered soul, who enjoys with the Goddess of Fortune [Lakshmî] whatever He may enact from His internal potency with accepting His incarnations of goodness, I pray that I gifted with His omnipotency may be of service and that I, in spite of the material affection of my heart, will also be able to stop with it. (24) I pray that I, who as the energy of the total universe was born from the lake of the Supreme Person His navel for the sake of the manifestation of the variegatedness of His unlimited power, may not suffer the misfortune of losing sight of the sound vibrations of the Vedic truth. (25) And may He, the Supreme Lord who is of an endless mercy in His ultimate love and smiles, open His lotus eyes so that the cosmic creation may flourish and find the glory when He with His sweet words as the oldest and Original Person takes away our dejection.'

(26) Maitreya said: 'After he thus, in having observed the source of His appearance, with penance, full of knowledge and a focussed mind, to the best of his ability had given thought to the words of his prayer, he fell silent like being tired. (27-28) When Madhusûdana [Krishna as the killer of Madhu] saw the sincerity of Brahmâ and how depressed he was about the devastating waters of the age and at a loss about the different positions of the worlds, He in deep thoughtful words addressed him in order to remove his anxiety.

(29) The Supreme Lord said: 'You who have the depth of all Vedic wisdom, do not despair about the endeavor of creation. What you have set yourself to and pray for, I have arranged already. (30) To be sure of My support you must as before have to be of penance and hearten the principles of knowledge. By these qualities you will see all the worlds laid open within your heart, oh brahmin. (31) Thereafter, when you connected in devotion are fully absorbed in the universe, you will see Me spread throughout oh Brahmâ and that you including all the worlds and the beings, are part of Me. (32) When you see Me in all living entities and in the universe like fire present in wood, you without doubt that very instant will be able to leave the weakness behind. (33) As soon as you are free from the gross and subtle self and your senses are no longer controlled by the modes of nature, you will, in approaching Me, see your pure essence [svarûpa] and enjoy the kingdom of heaven. (34) With your desire to expand the varieties of service and increase the population innumerably, your soul will never be saddened in this matter because My mercy is unbounded. (35) You are the original sage; the vicious mode of passion will never encroach upon you because, despite of the fact that you generate progeny, your mind will always be compacted in Me. (36) Even though I for the conditioned soul am difficult to know, I today am known by you because you understand Me as not being a product of matter, the senses, the modes or the bewilderment of the self. (37) I showed Myself to you when you, in contemplating the source of the lotus through its stem in the water, tried to figure Me out. (38) Your prayers for Me oh Brahmâ, about My stories and enumerating My glories or about your penance and your faith, you may all consider a result of My causeless mercy. (39) May all benediction rest upon you who in your desire prayed for the victory of all the worlds by describing so nicely My qualities and transcendental position. I am most pleased by you. (40) Anyone who regularly prays these verses as stated will by his worship very soon see all his desires fulfilled, for I am the Lord of all benediction. (41) By means of good works, penances, sacrifices, charities and absorption in yoga satisfying Me, the human being will find his ultimate success so is the opinion of those who know the Absolute Truth. (42) Because I am the Supersoul, the director of all other souls and the dearest one of all that is dear, one should make sure to dedicate all one's attachment to Me, for the love one has for one's body and other things is there on account of Me. (43) And now generate with the control of your knowledge of the Veda and with your body, who both directly owe their existence to the [Super]soul, as is customary the lives of all to be devotedly attached to Me.'

(44) Maitreya said: 'After thus having instructed him, the creator of the universe, the primeval, original Lord in His personal Nârâyana form disappeared from sight.'