Regarding those professors who say that Siva is the Supreme, in the Rg Veda it is stated: "om tad visnoh paramam padam.'' The lotus feet of Visnu are the supreme devotional platform. There Visnu is accepted as the Supreme. So there are 18 Puranas. Six of them are for persons in the modes of ignorance, some for those in passion, and the topmost are for those in goodness, the sattvic puranas. If one intelligently reads the Puranas and Vedas, then he can understand that Visnu is the Supreme Person. But, for those on the stage of ignorance and passion, sometimes such statements are there.
Letter to Satsvarupa das Goswami, 3 November, 1974