namo namas te 'khila-kāraṇāya

namo namas te 'khila-kāraṇāya

niṣkāraṇāyādbhuta-kāraṇāya

sarvāgamāmnāya-mahārṇavāya

namo 'pavargāya parāyaṇāya

I offer repeated respects to the cause of everything, who has no cause, who is the astonishing cause without change, who is the great ocean of Pañcarātra and Vedas which prove his nature, who is the very form of liberation and who is the shelter of the greatest devotees.

Though the Lord is the material cause of the universe, he is astonishing because he does not transform in any way by being the material cause.

 

duravabodha iva tavāyaṁ vihāra-yogo yad aśaraṇo 'śarīra idam anavekṣitāsmat-samavāya ātmanaivāvikriyamāṇena saguṇam aguṇaḥ sṛjasi pāsi harasi.

 

It is difficult to understand that you, though engaged in pastimes in the spiritual world, without a material shelter, without actions in a material body, without the assistance of the devatās, without material guṇas, create, maintain and destroy the universe made of guṇas, without transformation of your svarūpa, though you are the material elements. SB 6.9.33

 

Śrīdhara Svāmī says “Though the Lord is the cause, being a cause as clay is a cause of a pot is excluded. That is what is meant by adhūta-kāraṇāya.”   The proof of this astonishing nature is given. The Lord is the great ocean, the conclusion, the resting place of waves in the form of Pañcarātra scriptures (āgama) and the Vedas (āmnāya). You are the very form of liberation and the shelter of the best devotees.

 

|| 8.3.16 ||

guṇāraṇi-cchanna-cid-uṣmapāya

tat-kṣobha-visphūrjita-mānasāya

naiṣkarmya-bhāvena vivarjitāgama-

svayaṁ-prakāśāya namas karomi

I offer respects to the Lord who is the fire of knowledge covered by the wood of the guṇas, who manifests the desire to agitate the guṇas, and who reveals himself to those who give up the rules of the Vedas by thinking of the nature of ātmā.

I offer respects to the Lord who is the fire of knowledge covered by the wood of the guṇas of matter, but who manifest a desire to agitate the guṇas. Śruti says so ‘kāmayata bahu syam: he desired that there be many. (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.2.4) You reveal yourself to those who give up the rules of the Vedas, by thinking of the nature of ātmā (naiṣkarmya).

|| 8.3.17 ||