CC Madhya 19.153
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 153
- upajiyā bāḍe latā ‘brahmāṇḍa’ bhedi’ yāya
- ‘virajā’, ‘brahma-loka’ bhedi’ ‘para-vyoma’ pāya
SYNONYMS
upajiyā — being cultivated; bāḍe — grows; latā — the creeper of devotional service; brahmāṇḍa — the whole universe; bhedi’ — penetrating; yāya — goes; virajā — the river between the spiritual world and the material world; brahma-loka — the Brahman effulgence; bhedi’ — penetrating; para-vyoma — the spiritual sky; pāya — attains.
TRANSLATION
“As one waters the bhakti-latā-bīja, the seed sprouts, and the creeper gradually grows to the point where it penetrates the walls of this universe and goes beyond the Virajā River, lying between the spiritual world and the material world. It attains brahma-loka, the Brahman effulgence, and penetrating through that stratum, it reaches the spiritual sky and the spiritual planet Goloka Vṛndāvana.
PURPORT
A creeper generally takes shelter of a big tree, but the bhakti-latā, being the creeper of spiritual energy, cannot take shelter of any material planet, for there is no tree on any material planet that the bhakti creeper can utilize for shelter. In other words, devotional service cannot be utilized for any material purpose. Devotional service is meant only for the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Sometimes men with a poor fund of knowledge maintain that bhakti can be applied to material things also. In other words, they say that devotional service can be rendered to one’s country or to the demigods, but this is not a fact. Devotional service is especially meant for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and it is beyond this material range. There is a river, or causal ocean, between the spiritual and material natures, and this river is free from the influence of the three modes of material nature; therefore it is called Virajā. The prefix vi means vigata (“completely eradicated”), and rajas means “the influence of the material world.” On this platform, a living entity is completely free from material entanglement. For the jñānīs who want to merge into the Brahman effulgence, there is Brahma-loka. The bhakti-latā, however, has no shelter in the material world, nor has it shelter in Brahma-loka, although Brahma-loka is beyond the material world. The bhakti-latā grows until it reaches the spiritual sky, where Goloka Vṛndāvana is situated.