A lecture delivered at last year's Ratha-yātrā festival in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.

Ladies and gentlemen, devotees and all the sannyasis present, I thank you very much for kindly joining this Ratha-yatra festival. This festival has been going on in India for more than 2,000 years in the city of Jagannatha Puri. The name jagannatha comes from two words-jagat, which means "the universe," and natha, which means "the Lord." Thus Jagannatha means "the Lord of the universe." The Ratha-yatra festival and the saṅkirtana movement, the Hare Krsna movement, are meant to enable one to realize the Lord of the universe. From Vedic literature we understand that there are not only one but innumerable universes. It is said:

"I worship Govinda, Krsna, the primal Lord, who is endowed with great power. The glowing effulgence of His transcendental form is absolute, complete and unlimited. It is the basis for the varieties of countless planets, with their different opulences, in millions and millions of universes." (Brahma-samhita, 5.40) Just as the sun is the source of the sunshine, so the Supreme Lord is the source of the impersonal effulgence in which all the universes rest. Srimad-Bhagavatam says, therefore:

This verse informs us that the Absolute Truth may be realized from three angles of vision in three different aspects. One is impersonal (Brahman), and another is localized (Paramatma), but the ultimate phase of the Absolute Truth is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna.

We find in Bhagavad-gita that Lord Krsna says: "There is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread." (Bg. 7.7) Thus the Supreme Personality of Godhead says that He is the ultimate goal, the Absolute Truth. The Krsna consciousness movement, therefore, is meant to help one advance in understanding the Absolute Truth.

The material world is full of relative truths, but one need not study these relative truths separately, for in the Vedic literature, in the Upanisads, it is said, yasmin vijnate sarvam evam vijnatam bhavanti: "If one understands the Absolute Truth, the relative truths will automatically be understood." The material world is full of relative truths, and the spiritual world is the Absolute Truth.