Tag: material body

Bodily Consciousness, Miss America, and Suicide

Recently, an accomplished young lady committed suicide. What is the root cause of it? What is the consequence of it? What can we do to stop this?

In recent classes on the Srimad Bhagavatam, my spiritual master mentioned this sad news.

Why did a beautiful, young, highly educated young lady, crowned as Miss America recently commit suicide? Yes, Cheslie Kryst, former Miss America, an attorney, committed suicide on Jan 31, 2022! This was incredibly sad that such a gifted person thought it fit to end her valuable human life in this way.

Not long ago, a young school girl, Mallory, just 12 years of age, committed suicide too.

These are just two sad examples of many, many.

Some people are faulting social media, and Big Tech. The argument goes that these platforms are designed and created to be addictive, and these platforms don’t enforce discipline or proper behavior among the users, and so, harassment from others is the cause of the suicide. There is some truth to this.

But just like all other material solutions to material problems, it is only a partial truth. Partial truths only create more problems further down the road.

It is true that platforms like Facebook and Instagram are designed to be addictive. In Mathematics, there is a concept called “necessary and sufficient condition”… sometimes a condition is “necessary” but not “sufficient”. This means that unless all the necessary and the sufficient conditions are met, a certain statement is not true.

The fact is that there are a lot of different causes that cause this problem. If you start analyzing the problem, you will find that our entire social order, our systems, our institutions, and our societies each contribute to this problem. But how to attack the problem at it’s root?

When we examine harassment on social media, negative body image, resulting depression, and reduction of self-confidence to the extent of committing suicide, the primary condition to cause all the other problem is bodily consciousness.

What is “Miss America”? It is an external material designation, awarded to someone almost arbitrarily, on the basis of their body, and to some extent, their mind. So, the very “achievement” deepens and locks someone into bodily consciousness. So this Miss America thing is a big part of the problem, because of course, every idiot has their own idea of what is beautiful and what is not. Everyone who organizes it, everyone who participates in it, everyone who watches it, and everyone who attaches any value or any importance to it is a victim of this terrible disease of bodily consciousness.

Yes, bodily consciousness. Thinking that we are these bodies is the fundamental root cause of the problem.

We are spirit souls, or “Atma”. We are completely non-material.

In fact, the spirit soul wears two bodies, just like we wear outwear and underwear… The “outerwear” in the case of the spirit soul, is these gross material body. And the “underwear” in the case of the spirit soul is the subtle material body, consisting of mind, intelligence, and false ego.

What is false ego? Exactly the very root of the problem. False ego means “I am this body, I am this mind”. To confuse and conflate the identity of the pure spirit soul with temporary identities like the gross and material bodies is the pastime of fools like Descartes. And due to these very smart and clever fools, innocent people are being misled, even to the point of suicide.

In the material energy, the principal manifestations are eight, as above mentioned. Out of these, the first five manifestations, namely earth, water, fire, air and sky, are called the five gigantic creations or the gross creations, within which the five sense objects are included. They are the manifestations of physical sound, touch, form, taste and smell. Material science comprises these ten items and nothing more. But the other three items, namely mind, intelligence and false ego, are neglected by the materialists.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/7/4/ purport

Spiritual life begins at the point when we realize our identity as spirit soul. Any religious, philosophical or scientific tradition which does not clearly help us understand this is purely material in nature.

It is extremely sad that violence is being committed upon God’s dear souls every single day. And one should be extremely angry with those who are perpetrating this violence?

What is violence and what is non-violence? Violence means denying someone their right. If you have a right to be somewhere, and someone denies you that right, then that is violence against you.

Dear Spirit Soul, you are not this body, you are spirit soul, an eternal associate of God. Why are you accepting this horrible violence being perpetrated on you, making you believe that you are this body, you are this mind?

Wake up! Free yourself from these shackles! And the moment you do, you will no longer be fodder for those peddling sense gratification. You will not be addicted to Wordle, you will not be addicted to Facebook, you will not be addicted to Instagram, you will not be addicted to LinkedIn, and you will never have a negative thought about yourself for all of eternity.

Because you will know who you are, and you will be who you are. Eternal, Full of Knowledge and Ever-increasing Bliss – these are your qualities as a spirit soul.

You will then participate in the most enlivening, adventurous, loving interactions, together with other spiritually perfected beings, in the service of God.

Are you struggling with any negativity because of being misled like these unfortunate souls? Do you know someone suffering like this? Send them this article! Let me know, I will gladly point in the right direction, and you will be ever-increasingly happy.

To the gross materialist who cannot see anything beyond the gross material body, there is nothing beyond the senses. Therefore his occupational activities are limited to concentrated and extended selfishness. Concentrated selfishness centers around the personal body—this is generally seen amongst the lower animals. Extended selfishness is manifested in human society and centers around the family, society, community, nation and world with a view to gross bodily comfort.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/1/2/8/ purport

At the minimum, you should know the consequence of committing suicide… when someone kills their gross material body, they are not released from their subtle material body. So, the soul, because it is not yet time to acquire a new gross material body, has to remain in the subtle material body till the allotted lifetime is finished.

This is called, remaining on as a ghost. The ghosts, they do not possess a gross material body or senses, though they have many material desires for sense gratification. Just imagine how frustrating it is to want to drink water but have no hands, no tongue, no throat, and no stomach! Such is the fate of the ghost. In order to enjoy material experiences, ghosts have a need to inhabit other material bodies… and this happens when a person becomes intensely angry, or unspeakably morose, drunk, drugged, or otherwise inebriated. When this happens, a ghost finds it easy to enter such a body, and act through that body.

Ghosts are bereft of a physical body because of their grievously sinful acts, such as suicide. The last resort of the ghostly characters in human society is to take shelter of suicide, either material or spiritual. Material suicide causes loss of the physical body, and spiritual suicide causes loss of the individual identity. 

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/3/14/24/ purport

This is why we find instances of perfectly normal people doing things they would have never dreamed of doing. For example a gentle schoolteacher might murder someone, a devoted mother might abuse their child, a policeman may end up committing a most heinous crime. Of course, the ghost cannot be punished in a human court of law!

So it is all very very sad. This intense bodily consciousness and the resultant side effects must be stopped.

How can you stop this? First you have to perfect yourself. How can you do it?

Here is a start, chant this Mantra as much as you can:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare

The Hare Krishna Mahamantra

And to understand who you really are, read this book carefully The Bhagavad Gita As It Is. To be free is your right, don’t surrender it! I can help you get your own copy!

Questions On Nature Of Soul, and should we accept everything we hear?

What is the home of the soul? Why does it need to have a form? What is the evidence for the information we get from the scriptures?

Partha Das, 20 October 2019

Hare Krsna,

In chapter 2 of the Bhagvad Gita, we read that the soul is ten thousand part of the tip of a human hair. If this is the real nature of the soul, then logically is not our real home in the brahmajyoti? as this is the only place that a particle of this nature can dwell.

Why then do we say that our real home is the spiritual world where this miniscule soul takes up a spiritual body and does action.

Can the soul not just remain in it’s original form without artificially taking up a spiritual or material body.

Or is the soul so unstable in nature that it has to combine with either a spiritual or material.body to exist.Just like a single atom of oxygen is so unstable, it won’t rest till it combined with some other atom.

Dandavats,

Partha Das

Mahabhagavat Das SDA, 25 October 2019

Dear Sriman Partha,

Hare Krishna!

The soul is non-material, please don’t mistake it like a single atom of oxygen.

budhyate sve na bhedena  vyakti-stha iva tad-gataḥ

lakṣyate sthūla-matibhir  ātmā cāvasthito ’rka-vat

Even when reflected in various objects, the sun is never divided, nor does it merge into its reflection. Only those with dull brains would consider the sun in this way. Similarly, although the soul is reflected through different material bodies, the soul remains undivided and nonmaterial.

https://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/11/7/51

Logically, the size of the soul has nothing to do with where it belongs, they are two separate attributes.

The spiritual body is not separate from the spirit soul. It is the material body both subtle and gross that is separate from the soul.

dehas tu sarva-saṅghāto jagat tasthur iti dvidhā

atraiva mṛgyaḥ puruṣo neti netīty atat tyajan

There are two kinds of bodies for every individual soul — a gross body made of five gross elements and a subtle body made of three subtle elements. Within these bodies, however, is the spirit soul. One must find the soul by analysis, saying, “This is not it. This is not it.” Thus one must separate spirit from matter.

https://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/7/7/23

Size is a limiting attribute only of matter. For the spiritual, there is no barrier of space or time, the spiritual can be bigger than the biggest or smaller than the smallest… Still this one ten thousandth part of the tip of the human hair size is a seed form of the soul – in the perfectional form, the soul blossoms into its eternal identity in the spiritual world.

You assume that the original form is as a particle in the Brahmajyoti effulgence, but actually the original form is in the spiritual world before the soul tried to compete with Krishna.

mad-bhaktaḥ pratibuddhārtho mat-prasādena bhūyasā

niḥśreyasaṁ sva-saṁsthānaṁ kaivalyākhyaṁ mad-āśrayam

prāpnotīhāñjasā dhīraḥ sva-dṛśā cchinna-saṁśayaḥ

yad gatvā na nivarteta yogī liṅgād vinirgame

My devotee actually becomes self-realized by My unlimited causeless mercy, and thus, when freed from all doubts, he steadily progresses towards his destined abode, which is directly under the protection of My spiritual energy of unadulterated bliss. That is the ultimate perfectional goal of the living entity. After giving up the present material body, the mystic devotee goes to that transcendental abode and never comes back.

https://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/3/27/28-29

In the above purport, Srila Prabhupada writes

quote

Niḥśreyasa means “the ultimate destination.” Sva-saṁsthāna indicates that the impersonalists have no particular place to stay. The impersonalists sacrifice their individuality so that the living spark can merge into the impersonal effulgence emanating from the transcendental body of the Lord, but the devotee has a specific abode. The planets rest in the sunshine, but the sunshine itself has no particular resting place. When one reaches a particular planet, then he has a resting place. The spiritual sky, which is known as kaivalya, is simply blissful light on all sides, and it is under the protection of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As stated in Bhagavad-gītā (14.27), brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham: the impersonal Brahman effulgence rests on the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In other words, the bodily effulgence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is kaivalya, or impersonal Brahman. In that impersonal effulgence there are spiritual planets, which are known as Vaikuṇṭhas, chief of which is Kṛṣṇaloka. Some devotees are elevated to the Vaikuṇṭha planets, and some are elevated to the planet Kṛṣṇaloka. According to the desire of the particular devotee, he is offered a particular abode, which is known as sva-saṁsthāna, his desired destination. By the grace of the Lord, the self-realized devotee engaged in devotional service understands his destination even while in the material body. He therefore performs his devotional activities steadily, without doubting, and after quitting his material body he at once reaches the destination for which he has prepared himself. After reaching that abode, he never comes back to this material world.

The words liṅgād vinirgame, which are used here, mean “after being freed from the two kinds of material bodies, subtle and gross.” The subtle body is made of mind, intelligence, false ego and contaminated consciousness, and the gross body is made of five elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether. When one is transferred to the spiritual world, he gives up both the subtle and gross bodies of this material world. He enters the spiritual sky in his pure, spiritual body and is stationed in one of the spiritual planets. Although the impersonalists also reach that spiritual sky after giving up the subtle and gross material bodies, they are not placed in the spiritual planets; as they desire, they are allowed to merge in the spiritual effulgence emanating from the transcendental body of the Lord. The word sva-saṁsthānam is also very significant. As a living entity prepares himself, so he attains his abode. The impersonal Brahman effulgence is offered to the impersonalists, but those who want to associate with the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His transcendental form as Nārāyaṇa in the Vaikuṇṭhas, or with Kṛṣṇa in Kṛṣṇaloka, go to those abodes, wherefrom they never return.

https://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/3/27/28-29

unquote

The soul has 3 features, sat (eternal) chit (full of knowledge), and ananda (blissful). In the Brahmajyoti, only the sat (eternal) aspect is there, therefore, the spirit soul is not satisfied.

One who realizes Brahman has a perfect realization of the sat or eternity aspect of the Supreme. One realizes the Paramatma has a more perfect realization of the sat and cit (knowledge) features of the Supreme. And one who realizes Bhagavan has the most perfect realization of the sat, cit, and ananda (bliss) features of the Supreme.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari in Q&A of TTFD 9 May 2011

I beg you to carefully hear and read from Srila Gurudeva and Srila Prabhupada… at least every devotee should read all of Srila Prabhupada’s books and hear all of Srila Prabhupada’s lectures.

Mahabhagavat Das

Partha Das, 25 October 2019

Dandavats Prabhuji, 

Wonderful explanation.Thanks so much.

your Servant

Partha Das

Russell, 27 October 2019

I have a question : I am having problems with the Idea that we must except all that is taught. We don’t do this in real life, for example if you buy a car you don’t believe everything the car salesman tells you. You research for yourself so why must we believe everything in shastra as absolutely literally true, for example that the moon is further than the Sun or that Rahu exists when we have no proof of it neither by our Eyes or computer or risidual evidence, this troubles me.greatly and makes me think that we are laying aside our brains the only real tool we have to know anything even if it is not completely reliable it is all we have to understand by we cant even understand shastra without it ! Thank you for receiving my question 

Russell

Mahabhagavat Das SDA, 12 November 2019

Dear Russell,

Please forgive the delayed response to your question, which is quite reasonable and very intelligent.

No one is asking you to lay aside your intelligence. BTW, the brain is not your intelligence, your intelligence is a subtle material element that is manifested or linked to your body through your brain.  You are not this body, you are not your mind. And your mind is certainly not your brain.

In fact, we are asking you to surrender “with” your intelligence. We don’t want blind-following fools in the Krishna conscious movement. We don’t want fanatics. Neither do we want mental speculators. Both are quite dangerous. So we are asking you to please analyze, for example, can something come out of nothing? Can an explosion create order? But the modern world is running on this fairy tale that all this came out of nothing, at a certain point of singularity there was an explosion and time and everything we know was created at that point. How absurd!

We accept a lot of things at face value on a daily basis. We don’t question them at all.

Let us take an example of the things that most of us accept or at least don’t ordinarily verify…

1. Do we do a DNA test to prove that we are the children of our parents?

2. Do we personally assess the medical qualifications of a doctor before we take treatment from them?

3. Do we test the teachers before we go to school?

4. Do we test that the driver of a bus or taxi or train is sober and qualified before getting on that vehicle?

5. Have you ever seen your mind? Why do you believe it exists?

6. Can you see others’ emotions? How can we believe that emotions are real?

7. Before you take medication, do you lab-test it to prove that it is what the label says it is?

8. Before you take medication, do you fully understand how it works?

9. When you eat food, do you track the digestive process as it goes through the system?

10. When you look at materials under a microscope, as you go deeper and deeper, you see that there is more space than there is matter, but you don’t see the space with your eyes… so why do you believe that a solid is a solid and a liquid is a liquid?

11. Why do you accept paper money in exchange for your goods or services when it is really worthless?

We want you to use your intelligence, but we want you to know that your intelligence is quite limited, as is mine. You may certainly be more intelligent than me, but no matter how intelligent you are, you are not more intelligent than this Universe – so how can you figure it out? Plus you won’t live forever too in this body! If an ant were to want to map the world, we would laugh at it. We are like those ants. If I wanted to swim out of the middle of the ocean, I’d be dead before long, but if someone came with a big ship and pulled me out, I wouldn’t argue with that person “oh, but you are preventing me from freely swimming to the shore”. So the scripture is preventing us from drowning in that endless ocean of birth and death. But we argue against that scripture which is our savior!

The Vedic scripture says that on every planet there are living beings. The Vedic scripture says that the moon is a heavenly realm. If someone went somewhere and they didn’t find a heavenly realm, is it not that the simplest explanation is that they didn’t go to where the scriptures say is a heavely realm? Srila Prabhupada said that the astronauts went to the dark planet. Is that wrong? The astronauts went to the dark planet after all, and they didn’t meet anyone there too. So we say they went to Rahu, not the moon, because to us, the moon is a heavenly planet – if you didn’t go to a heavenly planet then you didn’t go to the moon!

We accept so many things at face value, but when it comes to the scripture, which is giving us information that is actually unverifiable by material means, we want proof of it? Everything that is in the scriptures can be personally realized, but the process of realization takes work, discipline, and patience. I know that some of my questions can only be answered by Krishna – but when I meet Krishna, will my questions even matter to me? Who cares, here’s Krishna! I’ve been waiting to meet Him for eons!

In the early days of my spiritual journey, my spiritual master repeatedly told me that I cannot taste the honey by licking the outside of the bottle. I had to dive in and put my tongue in contact with the honey.

So I began to chant

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama

Rama Rama Hare Hare

and now, even though I’m far from perfect, still I just can’t get enough of it! But how can I convince someone who doesn’t chant?

if a man is blind and cannot see the sun, we can only be sympathetic towards them… but at least they can accept an eye witness account that there is such a thing as the sun.

But if the person is not blind, still one cannot show anything to a man who refuses to open his eyes! One cannot explain the taste of salt or sugar to a person who does  not agree to taste those substances by putting them on their tongue… Similarly Bhakti is a personal experience, the whole thing is experential. The instrument you can perceive the truth of the scripture is your own consciousness, that needs to be sharpened and purified and honed to a high degree of sensitivity.

Are you following the process to realize the scripture by yourself? Does this help you?

Mahabhagavat Das

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There is life everywhere in the Universe (and beyond)

Can life exist in other environments? Does life exist only on this planet and exactly as we know it? Could there be life on other planets? Are there of bodies that survive in harsh (to us humans) environments?

Recently, I came across a a piece that said something like “scientists have discovered a planet orbiting a star that may have conditions favorable for life”.

There’s an implicit assumption there, which says “life exists only on this one planet that we inhabit, and only in the ways we know”. This is a very myopic understanding. Why is that, you ask?

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः ।

न चैनं क्ल‍ेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः ॥ २३ ॥

The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.

Bhagavad Gita 2.23

Because life is actually spiritual in nature, and spirit souls have no need for any specific material circumstances to exist. Only bodies do.

भूमिरापोऽनलो वायु: खं मनो बुद्धिरेव च ।
अहङ्कार इतीयं मे भिन्ना प्रकृतिरष्टधा ॥ ४ ॥

bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā

Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego – all together these eight constitute My separated material energies.

अपरेयमितस्त्वन्यां प्रकृतिं विद्धि मे पराम् ।

जीवभूतां महाबाहो ययेदं धार्यते जगत् ॥ ५ ॥

apareyam itas tv anyāṁ prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat

Besides these, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature.

Bhagavad Gita 7.4-5

Souls can inhabit any type of body according to their “karmic earnings” – just like one person can afford to live in an expensive penthouse suite in a desirable location, another one in a sprawling estate, yet another in a shared apartment in a dilapidated building in an unsavory part of town, and yet another one has to just sleep on the side of the street.

Our bodies (I’m talking about human bodies here) consist primarily of water, about 50-75% water. There are also a lot of dissolved gases in there and many materials that qualify as “earth”. Our bodies take up some space, and for anyone who knows about all the amazing chemical reactions taking place inside, there is definitely “fire” inside our bodies too. But in our bodies, there is the mind, the intelligence, and the sense of identity.

And the spirit soul inhabits this body made of the material elements.

If you logically consider this, you will see that there could be bodies made predominantly of earth, very little water. There are gigantic bodies that take up a lot of space, and bodies that can hardly be seen under a microscope. Living entities can exist even where we cannot. Here is an example… deep within the earth, where there is no light, very little water, very high temperature, living entities still exist, “teeming with life” this article says. http://www.geologyin.com/2018/12/scientists-reveal-massive-biosphere-of.html

Why then would one assume that a body cannot exist without hydrocarbons or oxygen or a “comfortable temperature”? We may not be able to detect such a body ourselves with our current limited instruments, but logically, why should the presence or absence of certain chemicals or environmental conditions hinder the soul? There could be bodies made predominantly of air, or fire!

As on this earth planet we have a multivariety of living entities, we can understand from Vedic literatures that in the sun also there is a variety of living entities, but their bodies are made of fire, just as ours are made of earth

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (On the Way to Krsna)

It may seem far-fetched, that there are living entities with bodies made of fire, but how about these bacteria that survive high temperatures we cannot?

How do we get there to these other worlds? It is not possible to go there by mechanical means, because of the “karmic credit balance” and also practically because a body designed for the earthly environment cannot survive the realities of other environments for too long. A deepwater fish cannot survive in a swimming pool. A freshwater fish cannot survive in the ocean. To survive fire, one needs a body made of fire, to survive gaseous environments one needs a body predominantly made of gases. These types of bodies may be outside of our immediate direct experience, but can we at least logically accept the possibility?

Want to read more? Check this out: https://www.vedabase.com/en/ej/preface

A decaying, limiting, embarassing body made of material elements does not befit the spirit soul, instead, through a process of spiritual purification, one can acquire a body that is purely spiritual, no material contamination. Would you like to obtain a spiritual body? Let me know!

The process of quitting this body and getting another body in the material world is also organized. A man dies after it has been decided what form of body he will have in the next life. Higher authorities, not the living entity himself, make this decision. According to our activities in this life, we either rise or sink. This life is a preparation for the next life. If we can prepare, therefore, in this life to get promotion to the kingdom of God, then surely, after quitting this material body, we will attain a spiritual body just like the Lord’s.

Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Introduction

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How many corpses have you carried?How many more do you have?

If you are reading this, you are a spirit soul. As a spirit soul, you are alive and conscious, and actually eternal, knowledgeable, and blissful.

But chances are that the body you currently inhabit is not eternal, is a network prone to ignorance, and often far from blissful

So there you are, dear spirit soul, dear “Atma”, you are carrying around a dead body. It’s heavy.

स्वप्नायितं नृपसुखं परतन्त्रमीश
शश्वद्भ‍येन मृतकेन धुरं वहाम: ।
हित्वा तदात्मनि सुखं त्वदनीहलभ्यं
क्लिश्यामहेऽतिकृपणास्तव माययेह ॥ २८ ॥ svapnāyitaṁ nṛpa-sukhaṁ para-tantram īśa
śaśvad-bhayena mṛtakena dhuraṁ vahāmaḥ
hitvā tad ātmani sukhaṁ tvad-anīha-labhyaṁ
kliśyāmahe ’ti-kṛpaṇās tava māyayeha

O Lord, with this corpselike body, always full of fear, we bear the burden of the relative happiness of kings, which is just like a dream. Thus we have rejected the real happiness of the soul, which comes by rendering selfless service to You. Being so very wretched, we simply suffer in this life under the spell of Your illusory energy.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/10/70/28/

Why is the body called corpselike? Well, it has no value, no use after the soul leaves it! No matter how beautiful a man or woman may have been, while millions might desire that person while they were alive, no one wants to associate with a dead body (with exceptions, there are always exceptions).

Why is that? If it was the body we really wanted, we’d have no problems associating with corpses. What we really crave for is the association with the spirit souls that animates and enlivens that corpse.

Which brings us the point – how do we get a ‘corpselike’ material body?

Material desires! What are material desires? Desire to be #1, the desire to be Lord and Master of all I survey, Desire to be the Center of the Universe, the Desire to be this, that, and other, the Desire to be what we are not.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown

William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II, 1597

Well before Shakespeare, it was known that material desires create material bodies.

One material body per material desire, at least.

Influenced by the illusory material energy that is all around us, we’re creating our next millions and billions of material bodies right now. The desire for money, the desire for sex, the desire for fame, the desire to be powerful, the desire to have blue eyes or smooth skin or long hair, the desire to do this or that… all corpses in disguise, seductive but deadly.

But why do we want to create yet another corpse? How many have we carried already? How many do we have yet to carry?

Better to be free of this material bondage, repeated, birth, death, old age, and disease!

जन्ममृत्युजराव्याधिदु:खदोषानुदर्शनम्

janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-

duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam

the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/13/8-12/

A genuine spiritual practice, devoid of the trickery of material sense gratification disguised as religion leads to this perception of who I am, not this body, but a pure spirit soul, eternally part-and-parcel of God.

Not carrying a corpse in the material world, as a spirit soul, free to be me!

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When and How did the Soul Arrive in the Material World?

Sanjeev, 12th September 2011

Hare Krsna Vaisnavas

Please accept my humble obeisances

All Glories to Srila Praphupada

All Glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga

We learn from the Sastras that because of our past deeds in the spiritual world we, as spirit souls, have obtained this material body and have been put into the material world. Do the Sastras say when and how the conditioned souls accepted the material body?

your eternal servant

Sanjeev

Ashutosh Pandey, 13th September 2011

Hare Krsna!

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

We have been captured in this material world since time immemorial….even if someone tells you your exact date of entry into this material world…. how is it going to help you?? What benefit will you get from this information?? Is it going to bring back your forgotten relationship with Krsna without following what others devotees are following??

More intelligent approach is that now you have realised or say know, you are entangled into this material world because of your own sins against Lord Krsna, better accept fault, get surrendered, approach a bonafide guru, follow the instructions and devote this life to serve the Vaishnavas……you have already taken millions and millions of birth for sense gratification..just devote one life for Krsna….

Even though to quench your inquisitiveness: Shastras are meant for God realisation and hence they mention those characters from whose life one can learn a lot to progress in spirituality. Even if one talks about the day he entered into this material world, the time is not going to be same for every one.

Hope this answers your question

your servant,

Ashutosh

Uddhava Presta Das, 13th September 2011

Hare Krsna

All Glories to Srila Prabhupada

All Glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga

An apt answer….

your servant,

uddhava presta das

Mahabhagavat Das SDA, 13th September 2011

Hare Krishna Sanjeev Prabhu,

Please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Gurudeva.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Prabhu, your question is valid, and it is a nice question also. Ashutosh Prabhu is right that it is not useful to know when exactly.

However, in the spirit of understanding things as they are as per Guru and Shastra, here are a few points to add to Ashutosh Prabhu’s explanation.

Srila Gurudeva has written on this topic also, please read here – switch to the Q&A section – I am not quoting because it is lengthy:

http://www.sda-archives.com/tftd/2009/nov/tftd_110409.html

1. In the spiritual world, time is eternal also, but not like in the material world, in spiritual world, there is no concept of “passing away” – this is mentioned in Brahma Samhita also, Tirtharaja Prabhu had posted on another thread…

“…where there is eternal existence of transcendental time, who is ever present and without past or future and hence is not subject to the quality of passing away even for the duration of half a moment….”

2. In the material world, there is a start and finish to everything, and being materially conditioned, we cannot imagine timelessness. So we want to know, when, where, etc. It is out of scope for us, unless we are spiritually advanced. Mundane example is that it is like an ant trying to imagine the extent of our roads and railways and airways and shipping routes.

3. We have been coming and going higher and lower, on different planets, different universes, different bodies, since time immemorial… in other words, practically we have been here so long that it is more than 1000, 10,000, million, billion years. For example, it is said that every living entity starts off as Brahma in a particular universe… one day of Lord Brahma lasts 4.32 billion of our years. Lord Brahma lives for 100 of such years. It is just totally inconceivable for us, right?

4. We have been on and off in 8.4 different million species over and over again.

5. In this lifetime, we have the mercy of Guru and Krishna and have received the seed of Bhakti which has been planted in our heart.

brahmānda bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva

guru-krsna-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja

“”According to their karma, all living entities are wandering throughout the entire universe. Some of them are being elevated to the upper planetary systems, and some are going down into the lower planetary systems. Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bona fide spiritual master by the grace of Kṛṣṇa. By the mercy of both Kṛṣṇa and the spiritual master, such a person receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.” CC Madhya 19.151

Please read the purport here:

http://vedabase.net/cc/madhya/19/151/

I hope this helps. Please let us know if there are any questions, this is a nice topic and should be understood thoroughly. Just the endeavour to understand helps us to advance spiritually, whether we actually understand or not.

your servant,

Mahabhagavat Das

Sanjeev, 13th September 2011

Hare Krsna,

Please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Praphupada.

All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga.

Many Thanks for the very intuituive answers from Mahabhagavat Das Prabhu and Ashutosh Prabhu. This forum is so spiritually enlivening.

May Krsna bless this forum. Hari Bol.

Adding a thread to this question, if the living entity by the process of bhakti yoga gets a second chance to go back to Godhead, will the living entity have learnt his lessons or is there any chance for him to again rebel against the authority of the Supreme Lord and will want to try to enjoy outside his relationship with the Lord once more – meaning coming back to the material world? Will this not then mean that there is no guarantee that the living entity will stay eternally in the spiritual world – it will all depend on his actions there also?

Please forgive my ignorance.

your eternal servant

Sanjeev

Mahabhagavat Das SDA, 13th September 2011

Hare Krishna Prabhu,

Please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Gurudeva.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you for the appreciation. Actually you are making it so nice with your sincere desire to learn and share. Our mission is to know Krishna and make Him known, and this is best done if as many as possible individuals learn properly from bona fide sources and then go out there and teach in words and deeds.

On Friday 31 Oct 2008, Srila Sankarshan Das Adhikari wrote:

“Once having tasted the miseries of this material world and then having regained your original position in the spiritual world you will not make the same mistake twice. Once burned, twice shy. You will not come here again. So now take your human form of life seriously and finish up your business once and for all.”

Then again on 2 Aug 2009, he wrote:

“All of us here in this material world were originally with Krishna in the spiritual world serving Him as His devotees. By misuse of our minute independence we fell down into the cycle of birth and death. Just as it is sometimes said, “Once burned, twice shy,” if we realize our mistake and go back to Godhead, we will not make the same mistake twice. Of course, since we have free will eternally we could fall a second time. But who would stick their hand in the fire a second time after already being burned once?”

your servant,

Mahabhagavat Das

Vishal, 13th September 2011

Hare Krsna,

Please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Praphupada.

All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga.

Very philosophical answer. The quotes from Srila Gurudeva are indeed very deep thinking. No doubt this forum is helping, I am sure, everybody to learn a lot.

I read a quote from Srila Praphupada (Hawaii, 1969) where he said that in this age of Kali, it is more important to create devotees than to construct temples. So your comments are very valid Praphu – we should learn from bona fide sources before being able to teach others as recommended by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprahu.

Hari Bol

Your eternal servant

Sanjeev

Bhaktarupa Das, 14th September 2011

Dear Mahabhagavat prabhu,

Please accept my humble obeissances.

All glories to Srila Gurudeva,

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you very much for reminding Srila Gurudeva’s wonderful thought for the day. Infact this reminded me of Srila Gurudeva’s another amazing Thought for the Day titled – “Time Went Backwards” published on Friday 2 January 2009.

http://sda-archives.com/tftd/tftd/2009/jan/tftd_010209.html

Quote:

Today on 31 December 2008 I arrived in Santiago, Chile at 12:55pm flying in from Auckland, New Zealand. The most amazing thing about this journey was that I left Auckland at 5:25pm on 31 December 2008, which is 5 1/2 hours after I arrived in Santiago. I arrived in Santiago before I left Auckland. In other words time went backwards. If I told this to someone who is not familiar with what happens when one crosses the international date line, he would think that I had lost my marbles, that I was crazy. Crossing the international dateline always does uncanny things to one’s calendar no matter which way he crosses it.

There is another crossing point known as the Viraja River, which is the crossing point between the spiritual and material worlds. It acts in ways that are even more amazing and inconceivable than the international date line. On one side of the Viraja, the material side, is the realm of past, present, and future. And on the other side of the Viraja, the spiritual side, there exists the realm of timelessness, described as follows by Srila Prabhupada:

“In the transcendental realm there is no creation and no destruction, and thus the duration of life is eternal unlimitedly. In other words, everything in the transcendental world is everlasting, full of knowledge and bliss without deterioration. Since there is no deterioration, there is no past, present and future in the estimation of time. It is clearly stated in this verse that the influence of time is conspicuous by its absence.”

This means that even though we fell from the spiritual world into the material world (due to our envy of the Lord) because there is no time in the spiritual world there is no time that we fell into this material world. And when we become purified by the process of Krishna consciousness and reawaken our original love for the Supreme Lord there will be no time when we returned. We will always have been there.

Just as time goes backwards when one crosses the international date line from Auckland to Santiago, time also goes backwards when the jiva crosses the Viraja on his return trip back to home, back to Godhead. Time will go back to that moment when he fell from the spiritual sky. In other words, he will never have fallen. This is why it is sometimes said that no one falls from the spiritual world even though countless numbers of jivas have fallen into this material existence due to misuse of their minute independence by desiring to take the position of being the center of existence.

Some may argue that time cannot go backwards. But if the Lord has true supremacy over everything within existence, He must have the power to fast forward, rewind, or freeze time. And he can do it differently for each individual person. It’s not that everybody has to be on the same program. This is why some souls exist in the timeless spiritual realm as nitya-siddhas, eternally liberated souls, and some souls exist in the material realm of past, present, and future as nitya-baddhas, eternally conditioned souls.

unquote.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

I had these type of questions in my heart unanswered for a long time. But when I started subscribing to Srila Gurudeva’s emails, all these questions were answered convincingly without me even having to ask them.

Hare Krishna,

your servant,

Bhaktarupa das

Rahul Mangla, 14th September 2011

Hare Krishna,

What a wonderful explaination by Sriman Sankarshan Das Adhikari Maharaj. I suppose this should clear all doubts.

Hari Bol,

Rahul

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