1.50
yatha brahmane bhagavan
svayam upadisyanubhavitavan
SYNONYMS
yatha—just as; brahmane—unto Lord Brahma; bhagavan—the Supreme Lord; svayam—Himself; upadisya—having instructed; anubhavitavan—caused to perceive.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead (svayam bhagavan) taught Brahma and made him self-realized.
PURPORT
The English maxim that God helps those who help themselves is also applicable in the transcendental realm.
There are many instances in revealed scriptures of the Personality of Godhead’s acting as the spiritual master from within.
He was the spiritual master who instructed Brahma, the original living being in the cosmic creation.
When Brahma was first created, he could not apply his creative energy to arrange the cosmic situation.
At first there was only sound, vibrating the word tapa, which indicates the acceptance of hardships for spiritual realization.
Refraining from sensual enjoyment, one should voluntarily accept all sorts of difficulty for spiritual realization.
This is called tapasya.
An enjoyer of the senses can never realize God, godliness or the science of theistic knowledge.
Thus when Brahma, initiated by Sri Krsna by the sound vibration tapa, engaged himself in acts of austerity, by the pleasure of Visnu he was able to visualize the transcendental world, Sri Vaikuntha, through transcendental realization.
Modern science can communicate using material discoveries such as radio, television and computers, but the science invoked by the austerities of Sri Brahma, the original father of mankind, was still more subtle.
In time, material scientists may also know how we can communicate with the Vaikuntha world.
Lord Brahma inquired about the potency of the Supreme Lord, and the Personality of Godhead answered his inquiry in the following six consecutive statements.
These instructions, which are reproduced in Srimad-Bhagavatam (2.9.31-36), were imparted by the Personality of Godhead, acting as the supreme spiritual master.