- ei ta' dvitīya-puruṣa—brahmāṇḍera īśvara
- māyāra 'āśraya' haya, tabu māyā-pāra
- (CC Madhya 20.293)
Although this Viṣṇu is the shelter, shelter of the material energy, still, He has nothing to do with this material energy. He is free from the contamination of material energy. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam there is a verse: apaśyat puruṣaṁ pūrṇaṁ māyāṁ ca yad apāśrayam (SB 1.7.4).
When Vyāsadeva, he was just attempting to write Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by bhakti-yoga, he saw two things: apaśyat puruṣaṁ pūrṇam. He saw the Supreme Personality and the material energy, apāśrayam, just far away from Him.
Because this māyā's task is very thankless task. Māyā's task is very thankless task because he she is in charge of these conditioned souls, and her business is to give all the conditioned souls always miseries. Trisula. You have seen in the hand . . . you have . . . you may, you have might not have seen, but there is a picture of Durgā, she has got three, trisula. Trisula means three kinds of miseries. So the māyā, this material nature, is inflicting upon the conditioned soul always three kinds of miseries so that they can come to their conscious, Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
But the conditioned souls are so foolish and so dull, they have accepted, "Oh, these miseries are very palatable." Yes. They have no sense that they are always in three kinds of miseries: adhyātmika, adhibhautika, adhidaivika. This is constantly going on. Just like in the prison house, when the prisoners are there, it is not meant that they should be comfortably situated there. The prison house (is) meant for giving them always some trouble so that they can come to their consciousness, that "We have broken . . . we are lawbreakers. Therefore we are punished here." But if the prisoner becomes so fool that, "All right. Don't care for this prison. Let me finish this term and again commit nuisance and again come to the . . ." That is going on. So gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante (BG 9.21).