Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 11.28.35
Āśraya· The supreme shelterThe Supreme Lord Exceeds Our Limits
“The Supreme Lord is self-luminous, unborn and immeasurable. He is pure transcendental consciousness and perceives everything. One without a second, He is realized only after ordinary words cease. By Him the power of speech and the life airs are set into motion.”
What the purport teaches
- The Supreme Lord is self-manifested, unborn and all-pervasive. The individual living entity is manifested by Him, is localized and takes birth under material coverings.
- The Lord possesses full transcendental consciousness and knows everything. Each of the innumerable living entities is a tiny spark of consciousness with limited experience.
- The Lord sets speech and the life airs into motion, yet ordinary words cannot reveal Him. Mental speculation and material research cannot attain the Absolute Truth.
Try this today
Choose one contrast between yourself and the Lord in this verse and quietly reflect on it for a minute.
Ask yourself
How might recognizing my limited experience change the way I seek to understand the Supreme Lord?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.