Superficially material nature appears to be the cause of creation, maintenance and destruction, but material nature is set into motion for creation by the supreme conscious being, the Personality of Godhead. He is the background of all creation, maintenance and destruction, and this is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita.

Cosmology in the Vedas

Originating in the glaring effulgence known as the brahmajyoti

In this verse Brahmaji clears up the wrong impression held by the less intelligent and affirms that he creates the universal variegatedness after the potential creation by the glaring effulgence of Lord Sri Krishna. Brahmaji has also separately given this statement in the samhita known as the Brahma-samhita (5.40), where he says:

yasya prabha prabhavato jagad-anda-koti-
kotishv ashesha-vasudhadi-vibhuti-bhinnam
tad brahma nishkalam anantam ashesha-bhutam
govindam adi-purusham tam aham bhajami

"I serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose transcendental bodily effulgence, known as the brahmajyoti, which is unlimited, unfathomed and all-pervasive, is the cause of the creation of unlimited numbers of planets, etc., with varieties of climates and specific conditions of life."

The same statement is in the Bhagavad-gita (14.27). Lord Krishna is the background of the brahmajyoti (brahmano hi pratishthaham). In the Nirukti, or Vedic dictionary, the import of pratishtha is mentioned as "that which establishes." So the brahmajyoti is not independent or self-sufficient. Lord Sri Krishna is ultimately the creator of the brahmajyoti, mentioned in this verse as sva-rochisha, or the effulgence of the transcendental body of the Lord. This brahmajyoti is all-pervading, and all creation is made possible by its potential power; therefore the Vedic hymns declare that everything that exists is being sustained by the brahmajyoti (sarvam khalv idam brahma). Therefore the potential seed of all creation is the brahmajyoti, and the same brahmajyoti, unlimited and unfathomed, is established by the Lord. Therefore the Lord (Sri Krishna) is ultimately the supreme cause of all creation (aham sarvasya prabhavah [Bg. 10.8]).

One should not expect the Lord to create like a blacksmith with a hammer and other instruments. The Lord creates by His potencies. He has His multifarious potencies (parasya shaktir vividhaiva shruyate [Chaitanya-charitamrita Madhya 13.65, purport]). Just as the small seed of a banyan fruit has the potency to create a big banyan tree, the Lord disseminates all varieties of seeds by His potential brahmajyoti (sva-rochisha), and the seeds are made to develop by the watering process of persons like Brahma. Brahma cannot create the seeds, but he can manifest the seed into a tree, just as a gardener helps plants and orchards to grow by the watering process. The example cited here of the sun is very appropriate. In the material world the sun is the cause of all illumination: fire, electricity, the rays of the moon, etc. All luminaries in the sky are creations of the sun, the sun is the creation of the brahmajyoti, and the brahmajyoti is the effulgence of the Lord. Thus the ultimate cause of creation is the Lord.

Expanding and contracting again and again

The creation of the material world, wherein the conditioned souls are allowed to act subordinately by the Supreme Lord, takes place again and again after being repeatedly annihilated. The material creation is something like a cloud in the unlimited sky. The real sky is the spiritual sky, eternally filled with the rays of the brahmajyoti, and a portion of this unlimited sky is covered by the mahat-tattva cloud of the material creation, in which the conditioned souls, who want to lord it against the will of the Lord, are put into play as they desire under the control of the Lord by the agency of His external energy. As the rainy season appears and disappears regularly, the creation takes place and is again annihilated under the control of the Lord, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (8.19). So the creation and annihilation of the material worlds is a regular action of the Lord just to allow the conditioned souls to play as they like and thereby create their own fate of being differently created again in terms of their independent desires at the time of annihilation. The creation, therefore, takes place at a historical date (as we are accustomed to think of everything which has a beginning in our tiny experience). The process of creation and annihilation is called anadi, or without reference to date regarding the time the creation first took place, because the duration of even a partial creation is 8,640,000,000 years. The law of creation is, however, as mentioned in the Vedic literatures, that it is created at certain intervals and is again annihilated by the will of the Lord. The whole material or even the spiritual creation is a manifestation of the energy of the Lord, just as the light and heat of a fire are different manifestations of the fire's energy. The Lord therefore exists in His impersonal form by such expansion of energy, and the complete creation rests on His impersonal feature. Nonetheless He keeps Himself distinct from such creation as the purnam (or complete), and so no one should wrongly think that His personal feature is not existent due to His impersonal unlimited expansions. The impersonal expansion is a manifestation of His energy, and He is always in His personal feature despite His innumerable unlimited expansions of impersonal energies (Bg. 9.5-7). For human intelligence it is very difficult to conceive how the whole creation rests on His expansion of energy, but the Lord has given a very good example in the Bhagavad-gita. It is said that although the air and the atoms rest within the huge expansion of the sky, which is like the resting reservoir of everything materially created, still the sky remains separate and unaffected. Similarly although the Supreme Lord maintains everything created by His expansion of energy, He always remains separate. This is accepted even by Shankaracharya, the great advocate of the impersonal form of the Absolute. He says narayanah paro 'vyaktat, or Narayana exists separately, apart from the impersonal creative energy. The whole creation thus merges within the body of transcendental Narayana at the time of annihilation, and the creation emanates from His body again with the same unchanging categories of fate and individual nature. The individual living entities, being parts and parcels of the Lord, are sometimes described as atma, qualitatively one in spiritual constitution. But because such living entities are apt to be attracted to the material creation, actively and subjectively, they are therefore different from the Lord.

Background of the cosmic manifestation

There is no direct engineering by the Lord for the creation and destruction of the material world. What is described in the Vedas about His direct interference is simply to counteract the idea that material nature is the creator.

PURPORT
The Vedic direction for the creation, maintenance and destruction of the material world is this: yato va imani bhutani jayante. Yena jatani jivanti. Yat prayanty abhisamvishanti, i.e., everything is created by Brahman, after creation everything is maintained by Brahman, and after annihilation everything is conserved in Brahman. Gross materialists without any knowledge of Brahman, Paramatma or Bhagavan conclude material nature to be the ultimate cause of the material manifestation, and the modern scientist also shares this view that the material nature is the ultimate cause of all the manifestations of the material world. This view is refuted by all Vedic literature. The Vedanta philosophy mentions that Brahman is the fountainhead of all creation, maintenance and destruction, and Srimad-Bhagavatam, the natural commentation on the Vedanta philosophy, says, janmady asya yato 'nvayad itaratash chartheshv abhijñah svarat [SB 1.1.1], etc.

Inert matter is undoubtedly energy with potential to interact, but it has no initiative of its own. Srimad-Bhagavatam therefore comments on the aphorism janmady asya by saying abhijñah and svarat, i.e., the Supreme Brahman is not inert matter, but He is supreme consciousness and is independent. Therefore inert matter cannot be the ultimate cause of the creation, maintenance and destruction of the material world. Superficially material nature appears to be the cause of creation, maintenance and destruction, but material nature is set into motion for creation by the supreme conscious being, the Personality of Godhead. He is the background of all creation, maintenance and destruction, and this is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (9.10):

mayadhyakshena prakritih
suyate sa-characharam
hetunanena kaunteya
jagad viparivartate

The material nature is one of the energies of the Lord, and she can work under the direction of the Lord (adhyakshena). When the Lord throws His transcendental glance over the material nature, then only can the material nature act, as a father contacts the mother, who is then able to conceive a child. Although it appears to the layman that the mother gives birth to the child, the experienced man knows that the father gives birth to the child. The material nature therefore produces the moving and standing manifestations of the material world after being contacted by the supreme father, and not independently. Considering material nature to be the cause of creation, maintenance, etc., is called "the logic of nipples on the neck of a goat." The Caitanya-caritamrita by Srila Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami describes this logic of aja-gala-stana-nyaya as follows (as explained by His Divine Grace Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja): "The material nature, as the material cause, is known as pradhana, and as efficient cause is known as maya. But since it is inert matter, it is not the remote cause of creation." Kaviraja Gosvami states as follows:

ataeva krishna mula-jagat-karana
prakriti-karana yaiche aja-gala-stana (Cc. Adi 5.61)

Because Karanarnavashayi Vishnu is a plenary expansion of Krishna, it is He who electrifies the matter to put it in motion. The example of electrification is quite appropriate. A piece of iron is certainly not fire, but when the iron is made red-hot, certainly it has the quality of fire through its burning capacity. Matter is compared to the piece of iron, and it is electrified or made red-hot by the glance or manipulation of the supreme consciousness of Vishnu. Only by such electrification is the energy of matter displayed in various actions and reactions. Therefore the inert matter is neither efficient nor the material cause of the cosmic manifestation. Sri Kapiladeva has said:

yatholmukad visphulingad
dhumad vapi sva-sambhavat
apy atmatvenabhimatad
yathagnih prithag ulmukat (SB 3.28.40)

The original fire, its flame, its sparks and its smoke are all one, for fire is still fire yet is different from the flame, flame is different from sparks, and sparks are different from the smoke. In every one of them, namely in the flames, in the sparks and in the smoke, the integrity of fire is present, yet all of them are differently situated with different positions. The cosmic manifestation is compared to the smoke because when smoke passes over the sky so many forms appear, resembling many known and unknown manifestations. The sparks are compared to living entities, and the flames are compared to material nature (pradhana). One must know that each and every one of them is effective simply because of being empowered by the quality of the original fire. Therefore all of them, namely the material nature, the cosmic manifestation and the living entities, are but different energies of the Lord (fire). Therefore those who accept the material nature as the cosmic manifestation's original cause (prakriti, the cause of creation according to Sankhya philosophy) are not correct in their conclusion. The material nature has no separate existence without the Lord. Therefore, setting aside the Supreme Lord as the cause of all causes is the logic of aja-gala-stana-nyaya, or trying to milk the nipples on the neck of a goat. The nipples on the neck of a goat may seem like sources of milk, but to try to get milk from such nipples will be foolish.

Expansion due to the touch of spirit

As the Lord, in His plenary portion, entered into the elements of the universal creation, they transformed into the gigantic form in which all the planetary systems and all movable and immovable creations rest.

PURPORT
The elements of cosmic creation are all matter and have no potency to increase in volume unless entered into by the Lord in His plenary portion. This means that matter does not increase or decrease unless it is spiritually touched. Matter is a product of spirit and increases only by the touch of spirit. The entire cosmic manifestation has not assumed its gigantic form by itself, as wrongly calculated by less intelligent persons. As long as spirit is within matter, matter can increase as needed; but without the spirit, matter stops increasing. For example, as long as there is spiritual consciousness within the material body of a living entity, the body increases to the required size, but a dead material body, which has no spiritual consciousness, stops increasing. In Bhagavad-gita (Chapter Two) importance is given to the spiritual consciousness, not the body. The entire cosmic body increased by the same process that we experience in our small bodies. One should not, however, foolishly think that the individual infinitesimal soul is the cause of the gigantic manifestation of the universal form. The universal form is called the virat-rupa because the Supreme Lord is within it in His plenary portion.