In plain words
Children who study science know this. There are oxygen and hydrogen. He joined one part of oxygen and two parts of hydrogen and created it as water. “I created water,” this student boasts proudly. Who created the hydrogen and the oxygen? Only by taking these root substances as the basis is he able to make worldly, physical, natural things for himself. But in this modern age they take as their basis only this physical, worldly form of action; they do not take the substance at the root as their basis. There is a potter. He resolved to make pots. Pots do not come about merely because he resolved it. He thought out the method, the way they should be made. Pots do not get made merely because he thought it out. He entered in, took part in it, and took on the form of action. The pot was made. The potter stays separate from this pot. But the clay and the pot did not become two separate things. The clay is in this very pot. The pot is in the clay itself. There is no way to separate them. So this potter is nothing but the nimitta agent; he is not the root agent. This root agent is itself the upādāna agent. He Himself is God. Through creation that God achieves success in every work.
The Living Species
In our land of Bhārata, in the language of Vedānta, mankind has kept declaring that there are 84 lakh species of living beings. How did the 84 lakh species of living beings come about? Aṇḍajas, 21 lakh. Piṇḍajas, 21 lakh; svedajas, 21 lakh; udbhijja, 21 lakh. These four together became the 84 lakh species of living beings. What does aṇḍaja mean? Being born out of an egg. There are many species in this. It is not just birds. It is not just worms and insects. It is from eggs that poisonous creatures such as the snake and the scorpion, too, come forth. ‘Ja’ means being born.