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As with the sun globe and its expanded rays, the Lord and His expanded potency are simultaneously one and different. Although to conditioned souls material duality seems to be based on the modes of nature, the entire material manifestation is actually nondifferent from the Lord and is one ultimately spiritual nature.
The modes of nature create sense objects, demigods, human beings, animals, friends, enemies, and so forth. But in reality everything is simply an expansion of the potency of the Supreme Lord.
Foolishly, the conditioned soul tries to lord it over material nature, but the Lord Himself, being nondifferent from that nature, is its only true proprietor. As a spider spins its web by expanding thread from its mouth, the Lord manifests the material world by expanding His potencies, and by those same potencies He maintains it and eventually withdraws it within Himself.
Although the Lord is the unique Supreme Personality of Godhead, above everyone and everything, He is simultaneously and inconceivably nondifferent from everything. Therefore it is the Lord Himself who is manifested when the Lord creates, it is the Lord Himself who is maintained when the Lord maintains, and it is the Lord Himself who is withdrawn at the time of annihilation.
Although the Lord is nondifferent from both His spiritual abode and His material creation, still, the spiritual abode is always superior to the material manifestation. Boch matter and spirit are energies of the Lord, yet the spiritual energy is molded into the eternal forms of bliss and knowledge, whereas the temporary forms ofmatter are symbols of ignorance and frustration for the conditioned souls who covet them.
