PURPORT

As we have generally the experience of the temporary, material world and conditioned souls trying to lord it over the material worlds, so Brahmaji explained to Naradadeva that this temporary world is the work of the external potency of the Lord, and the conditioned souls struggling here for existence are the marginal potency of the Supreme Lord Personality of Godhead, and but for Him, Hari, the Supreme Lord, there is no other cause for all these phenomenal activities. He is the primeval cause of all causes. This does not mean, however, that the Lord Himself is distributed impersonally. He is aloof from all these interactions of the external and marginal potencies. In the Bhagavad-gita, it is confirmed (Bg. 9.4) that by His potencies alone He is present everywhere and anywhere, and everything that is manifested rests on His potency only, but He, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is always aloof from them. The potency and the potent are simultaneously one and different from one another.

One should not deprecate the Supreme Lord for the creation of this miserable world, just as one should not blame the king for creating a prisonhouse in the government. The prisonhouse is a necessary institution of the establishment of the government for those who are disobedient to the laws of the government. Similarly, this material world, full of miseries, is a temporary creation of the Lord for those who have forgotten Him and are trying to lord it over the false manifestation. He, however, is always anxious to get the fallen souls back home, back to Godhead, and for this He has given so many chances to the conditioned souls via the authoritative scriptures, His representatives, and personal incarnations also. Since He has no direct attachment to this material world, He is not to be blamed for its creation.