A living entity known as a chemist can manufacture water in the laboratory by mixing hydrogen and oxygen. But in reality the living entity works under the direction of the Supreme Lord, and all the materials he uses are supplied by the Lord. Thus the Lord knows everything directly and indirectly, in minute detail, and He is fully independent as well. He can be compared to a gold mine, and the objects within the cosmic creation can be compared to ornaments made from that gold, such as gold rings, gold necklaces, and so on. The gold ring and necklace are qualitatively one with the gold in the mine, but quantitatively the gold in the mine and the gold in the ring or necklace are different. The complete philosophy of the Absolute Truth, therefore, centers about the fact that the Absolute Truth is simultaneously one with and different from His creation. Nothing is absolutely equal to the Absolute Truth, but at the same time nothing is independent of the Absolute Truth.
Conditioned souls, from Brahmā, the engineer of this particular universe, down to an insignificant ant, are all creating something, but none of them are independent of the Supreme Lord. The materialist wrongly thinks that there is no creator but his own good self, and this misconception is called māyā, or illusion. Due to his poor fund of knowledge, the materialist cannot see beyond the purview of his imperfect senses; thus he thinks that matter automatically takes its own shape independent of a conscious background. This is refuted by Śrīla Vyāsadeva in the first verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. As stated before, Vyāsadeva is a liberated soul, and he compiled this book of authority after attaining spiritual perfection. Since the complete whole, or the Absolute Truth, is the source of everything, nothing is independent of Him. In one sense, everything that exists is the body of the Absolute Truth. Any action or reaction of a part of a body becomes a cognizable fact to the embodied soul. Similarly, since the creation is the body of the Absolute Truth, then everything in the creation is known to the Absolute, both directly and indirectly.