catuślokī bhāgavatam

Please accept from Me this supreme, most confidential knowledge, which is accompanied by scientific realization and the secrets of My transcendental nature and limbs, as I now explain it to you.

By My mercy, may you realize the absolute truth regarding My majesty, My essential nature, My form, My attributes, and My pastimes, exactly as they are.

Before the creation of the universe, I alone existed, and there was nothing else—neither the manifest, the unmanifest, nor the cause beyond them. After the dissolution of the universe, I alone will remain. Everything that exists now is also Me, and that which remains at the end is also Me.

Know that whatever appears to have value or existence independent of Me, but is not perceived in Me (the Supreme Self), is merely My illusory energy (Maya), which functions like a reflection or darkness.

Just as the fundamental elements of nature enter into the various created bodies and yet remain distinct from them, I am simultaneously present within all living beings and yet apart from them, existing beyond the influence of those bodies.

An inquisitive seeker of the Truth must search for this one principle: that which exists everywhere, at all times, both in the presence of the manifest world and in its absence, is the Supreme Self.

Fix your mind on this conclusion with absolute concentration, and you shall never again be deluded, regardless of the transformations and changes of the ages.