Text 4
prāk-kalpa-viṣayām etāṁ
smṛtiṁ te muni-sattama
na hy eṣa vyavadhāt kāla
eṣa sarva-nirākṛtiḥ
prāk — prior; kalpa — the duration of Brahmā’s day; viṣayām — subject matter; etām — all these; smṛtim — remembrance; te — your; muni-sattama — O great sage; na — not; hi — certainly; eṣaḥ — all these; vyavadhāt — made any difference; kālaḥ — course of time; eṣaḥ — all these; sarva — all; nirākṛtiḥ — annihilation.
O great sage, time annihilates everything in due course, so how is it that this subject matter, which happened prior to this day of Brahmā, is still fresh in your memory, undisturbed by time?
As spirit is not annihilated even after the annihilation of the material body, so also spiritual consciousness is not annihilated. Śrī Nārada developed this spiritual consciousness even when he had his material body in the previous kalpa. Consciousness of the material body means spiritual consciousness expressed through the medium of a material body. This consciousness is inferior, destructible and perverted. But superconsciousness of the supramind in the spiritual plane is as good as the spirit soul and is never annihilated.