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life worthwhile. This foolish misunderstanding keeps the living entity a prisoner of birth and death although his
soul is eternal. All living entities eventually become frustrated by the onslaught of old age, disease and death.
They lose the luster and vitality of youth by the ravages of old age and disease.
Lord Krishna is self-effulgent whereas the living entities covered by the material body are not self-effulgent.
Brahma states in his Brahma Samhita:
yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi vibhūti-bhinnam
tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose effulgence is the source of the nondifferentiated Brahman
mentioned in the Upaniṣads, being differentiated from the infinity of glories of the mundane universe appears
as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth. (BS 5.40)
Lord Krishna says He is the source of the light of the sun and the moon:
raso ’ham apsu kaunteya /prabhāsmi śaśi-sūryayoḥ
praṇavaḥ sarva-vedeṣu / śabdaḥ khe pauruṣaṁ nṛṣu
O son of Kuntī, I am the taste of water, the light of the sun and the moon, the syllable oṁ in the Vedic mantras;
I am the sound in ether and ability in man. (Bg 7.8)
The spiritual light, the brahmajyoti, emanating from the transcendental body of Lord Krishna in the spiritual
world also enters the material world by reflection off the sun and the moon and illuminates and sustains all life.
Lord Krishna says:
yad āditya-gataṁ tejo / jagad bhāsayate ’khilam
yac candramasi yac cāgnau / tat tejo viddhi māmakam
The splendor of the sun, which dissipates the darkness of this whole world, comes from Me. And the splendor of
the moon and the splendor of fire are also from Me.(Bg 15.12)
Bhaktivedanta Swami explains:
The unintelligent cannot understand how things are taking place. But one can begin to be established in
knowledge by understanding what the Lord explains here. Everyone sees the sun, moon, fire and electricity. One
should simply try to understand that the splendor of the sun, the splendor of the moon, and the splendor of
electricity or fire are coming from the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In such a conception of life, the beginning
of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, lies a great deal of advancement for the conditioned soul in this material world. The
living entities are essentially the parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, and He is giving herewith the hint how
they can come back to Godhead, back to home.
From this verse we can understand that the sun is illuminating the whole solar system. There are different
universes and solar systems, and there are different suns, moons and planets also, but in each universe there is
only one sun. As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (10.21), the moon is one of the stars (nakṣatrāṇām ahaṁ śaśī). Sunlight
is due to the spiritual effulgence in the spiritual sky of the Supreme Lord. With the rise of the sun, the activities
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