PURPORT

As referred to above, philosophers like Jaimini and his followers establish that fruitive activity is the root cause of all distress and happiness, and even if there is a superior authority, some superhuman powerful God or gods, He or they are also under the influence of fruitive activity because they reward result according to one's action, and action is not independent because action is performed by some performer; therefore the performer himself is the cause of his own happiness or distress. In the Bhagavad-gita also it is confirmed (Bg. 6.5) that by one's mind, freed from material affection, one can deliver himself from the sufferings of material pangs. So one should not entangle oneself in matter by the mind's material affections. Thus one's own mind is one's friend or enemy in one's material happiness and distress.

Atheistic materialistic Saṅkhyaites conclude that material nature is the cause of all causes. According to them, combinations of material elements are the causes of material happiness and distress, and disintegration of matter is the cause of freedom from all material pangs. Gautama and Kanada find out that the atomic combination is the cause of everything, and impersonalists like Astavakra discover that the spiritual effulgence of Brahman is the cause of all causes. But in the Bhagavad-gita the Lord Himself declares that He is the source of impersonal Brahman also, and therefore He, the Personality of Godhead, is the ultimate cause of all causes. It is also confirmed in the Brahma-samhita that Lord Krsna is the ultimate cause of all causes.