Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 8.20.22
Āśraya· The supreme shelterOne With the Lord, Yet Different
“Bali Mahārāja, along with all the priests, ācāryas and members of the assembly, observed the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s universal body, which was full of six opulences. That body contained everything within the universe, including all the gross material elements, the senses, the sense objects, the mind, intelligence and false ego, the various kinds of living entities, and the actions and reactions of the three modes of material nature.”
What the purport teaches
- Bali Mahārāja and the assembly saw everything within the Lord’s universal body, which was full of six opulences. Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the origin of everything.
- Although everything rests in the Lord, He retains His separate existence. Bali Mahārāja was the seer, and the universal body was what he saw.
- The living entity is part of the whole but can never equal the complete whole. Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu taught this simultaneous oneness and difference as acintya-bhedābheda.
Try this today
Pause today to reflect: “I am part of Kṛṣṇa, but I am not the complete whole.”
Ask yourself
How does being part of the Lord, but never equal to Him, shape your attitude toward Him?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
The study points, practice and question are short summaries drawn from Śrīla Prabhupāda's translation and purport. Read the full purport to go deeper.