Text 26
kālo daivaṁ karma jīvaḥ svabhāvo
dravyaṁ kṣetraṁ prāṇa ātmā vikāraḥ
tat-saṅghāto bīja-roha-pravāhas
tvan-māyaiṣā tan-niṣedhaṁ prapadye
kālaḥ — time; daivam — destiny; karma — the reactions of material work; jīvaḥ — the individual living entity; svabhāvaḥ — his propensities; dravyam — the subtle forms of matter; kṣetram — the body; prāṇaḥ — the life air; ātmā — the false ego; vikāraḥ — the transformations (of the eleven senses); tat — of all this; saṅghāṭaḥ — the aggregate (as the subtle body); bīja — of seed; roha — and sprout; pravāhaḥ — the constant flow; tvat — Your; māyā — material illusory energy; eṣā — this; tat — of it; niṣedham — the negation (You); prapadye — I am approaching for shelter.
Time; fate; karma; the jīva and his propensities; the subtle material elements; the material body; the life air; false ego; the various senses; and the totality of these as reflected in the living being’s subtle body — all this constitutes your material illusory energy, māyā, an endless cycle like that of seed and plant. I take shelter of You, the negation of this māyā.
The word bīja-roha-pravāha is explained as follows: The conditioned soul accepts a material body, with which he attempts to enjoy the material world. That body is the seed (bīja) of future material existence because when a person acts with that body he creates further reactions (karma), which grow (roha) into the obligation to accept another material body. In other words, material life is a chain of actions and reactions. The simple decision to surrender to the Supreme Lord releases the conditioned soul from this futile repetition of material growth and reaction.
According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the words tan-niṣedhaṁ prapadye indicate that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa, is niṣedhāvadhi-bhūtam, “the limit of negation.” In other words, after all illusion is negated, the Absolute Truth remains.
The process of education may be succinctly described as a way of eradicating ignorance through the attainment of knowledge. Through inductive, deductive and intuitive means, we attempt to refute the specious, the illusory and the imperfect and elevate ourselves to a platform of full knowledge. Ultimately, when all illusion is negated, that which remains firmly in place is the Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In the previous text, the Śiva-jvara described the Supreme Lord as sarvātmānaṁ kevalaṁ jñapti-mātram, “pure, concentrated spiritual consciousness.” Now the Śiva-jvara concludes his philosophical description of the Lord by saying in this text that the various aspects of material existence are also potencies of the Supreme Lord.
Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī mentions that the Supreme Lord’s own body and senses, as implied here by the word tan-niṣedham, are nondifferent from the Lord’s pure spiritual existence. The Lord’s body and senses are not external to Him, nor do they cover Him, but rather the Lord is identical with His spiritual form and senses. The full Absolute Truth, unlimited in fascinating diversity, is Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa.