Associate with great souls to attain true liberation; become what you associate with.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.5.2 — September 17, 1969, London 690917SB-LONDON [57:04 Minutes] SB-05.05.02_690917SB-LONDON Prabhupāda: ...mahāntas te sama-cittāḥ praśāntā vimanyavaḥ suhṛdaḥ sādhavo ye [SB 5.5.2] [One can attain the path of liberation from material bondage only by rendering service to highly advanced spiritual personalities. These personalities are impersonalists and devotees. Whether one wants to merge into the Lord's existence or wants to associate with the Personality of Godhead, one should render service to the mahātmās. For those who are not interested in such activities, who associate with people fond of women and sex, the path to hell is wide open. The mahātmās are equipoised. They do not see any difference between one living entity and another. They are very peaceful and are fully engaged in devotional service. They are devoid of anger, and they work for the benefit of everyone. They do not behave in any abominable way. Such people are known as mahātmās.] The last meeting we have been discussing about the path of salvation. There are two paths. One path is to salvation.
Salvation means liberation from this material bondage. People do not understand what is material bondage, but those who are in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they are educated what is bondage and what is liberation. A spirit soul, being part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, he is by nature very powerful. We do not know how much spiritual power we have got, but that is being suppressed by the material covering.
Just like this fire. This fire, if there are too many ashes, the heat of the fire is not properly felt. But you move the ashes and just fan it, and when it is blazing, then you get the proper heat and you can utilize it for so many purposes. Similarly, we, as spirit soul, we have immense power. And God is the supreme spirit soul, so we cannot imagine how much power God has got.
But even we, who are a simply minute particle... Just like... Comparison is just like the fire and the sparks. The fire and the sparks, both of them are fire.
The spark even, wherever the spark will fall, immediately it will burn. Similarly, we have got all the qualities in minute quantity of God. God has the creative force; therefore we are also creating so many things. The scientists, they are creating so many wonderful things. That is wonderful for persons like us, because we do not know how much wonderful one can play.
That we do not know. We simply... Just like we are giving very much credit to the person who is going to the moon planet by some machine: "Oh, wonderful." But we do not see that who has created these planets, and they are floating in the air. And not only one planet; millions of planets, trillions of planets, each planet having different atmosphere, temperature, population, so many things, varieties. In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is stated, yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭikoṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam [Bs. 5.40] [I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose effulgence is the source of the nondifferentiated Brahman mentioned in the Upaniṣads, being differentiated from the infinity of glories of the mundane universe appears as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth.] Koṭiṣu vasudhādi . In each brahmāṇḍa, in each universe, there are innumerable universes.
This universe in which we are living, that is only one. And how it is one? Caitanya Mahāprabhu has given information, it is just like one mustard seed in the bag of mustard seed. If you take a bag of mustard seed, you can imagine how many... You cannot count how many there are, mustard seed.