O, Hare, O, Krishna, kindly accept me again. I am fallen in this material world!

By Patita Pavana dasa

Introduction

It is said that the souls in the spiritual world are nitya-siddha, eternally liberated souls, and no one falls from the spiritual world. The souls in the material world are nitya-baddha, eternally conditioned – thus they can never become liberated – and that their conditioned state is anadi, or without any beginning; But it is also said that we conditioned souls have fallen from our original position we can regain our original Krsna consciousness and in so doing go back to Godhead. How to harmonize this.

Muktas become baddha, again become mukta

This word ‘nitya-siddha we read in SB 3.3.26 purport

“The nitya siddha devotees never fall down to the region of the material atmosphere.”

But then in SB 3.2.2 we read “Human life is meant for reviving one’s eternal relation with the Lord,.. awakening this dormant instinct of the living entity…..revive one’s sense of God consciousness…..”

Revive means, according to the Oxford dictionary, ‘it was there and it has to come or brought to health, strength or consciousness, to be recovered, come or brought back into use, activity, fashion. Stage again a play etc. that has not been performed for some time.’

And in SB 3.2.11 purport “If one takes a fish from the water and puts it on the land, it cannot be made happy by any amount of offered pleasure. The spirit soul can be happy only in the association of the supreme living being, the Personality of Godhead…..in the innumerable Vaikuntha planets in the brahma-jyoti sphere of the spiritual world, and in that transcendental world there is an unlimited arrangement for the unlimited pleasure of the living entities….. The Lord Himself comes to display His transcendental pastimes, typically represented at Vrindavana, Mathura and Dvaraka. The Lord appears just to attract the conditioned souls back to Godhead, back home to the eternal world.”

The soul is as the fish out of the water, out of the Vaikuntha planets and has to go back to that home, where he came from. Krishna comes with His home, Vrindavana, to this world, to attract us back to His home. And later in the purport, he says: “…..go back with Him to His kingdom…..go back home, back to Godhead.”

Then SB 3.2.12 purport “In the Vaikunthalokas the Lord is merciful toward the liberated or nitya-mukta living entities, but in His pastimes in the mortal world He is merciful even to the fallen souls who are nitya-baddha, or conditioned forever.” The nitya siddhas are home in Vrndavana or the Vaikuntha planets, but can fall. As nitya baddhas are not forever fallen and will rise back to the spiritual planets, as the fish out of the water is to go back to the water. Nitya-baddha is not so literally ”nitya” or eternally bound. So, nitya-siddha can also be ending or changing.

As we read in the SB 3.2.30 “Love of Godhead is dormant in every living entity, and the entire process of devotional service unto the Lord is meant for awakening this dormant, eternal love of Godhead…..go back to the Goloka Vrindavana planet in the spiritual sky…..or the Vaikuntha planets.”

This means, ‘Get back, get back, get back, to where you once belonged’, the Goloka Vrindavana planet or Vaikuntha planets. We were nitya-muktas there, became nitya-baddhas and can become nitya-muktas again.

And in SB 3.2.27 “to go back home, back to Godhead.”

SB 3.3.18 purport, Srila Prabhupada states “…..the entire manifested cosmic creation, which presents a chance for the conditioned souls to revive their eternal relationship with the Lord and thus go back to Godhead, back home.”

SB 3.4.25 purport we find again this word revive “…..revival of his self-knowledge is essential.”

Therefore, the nitya siddha jivas of 3.3.26 became conditioned and can revive their nitya-siddha-deha, the nitya-svarupa.

SB 3.5.1 purport “The Lord is ever infallible, whereas the living entities are prone to fall under the illusory energy.” We, souls, are fallen from home, Krishna’s planets, because of our “fallible nature.”

But we are also called infallible, “We want to close these nonsense places of sinful life: brothels, illegitimate sense gratification, sex relationship, prostitution. If we are embarrassed with this sinful life, there is no possibility of becoming again acyuta.. So to become Krishna conscious means acyuta-gotra. .. So we have to become acyuta-gotra, again belonging to the family of Krishna. Now we are fallen. Therefore we have forgotten that we belong to the family of Krishna…we revive our Krishna consciousness, that “I belong to the Krishna’s family…” (Bhagavad-gita 1.21-22, London, July 18, 1973)

Comment: Again figurative language. The soul is called acyuta, and also vicyuta or cyuta

SB 3.5.3 in the purport, we read “..bringing souls back to Godhead, back to home.”

SB 3.5.3 “…..the ultimate destination of going back home, back to Godhead.”

SB 3.5.10 “…..reviving their God consciousness, now forgotten in the conditional life of material existence…….revive the people’s sense of God consciousness.”

According to Oxford dictionary to forget means ‘fail to remember or recall, lose the memory of, neglect stop thinking about, put out of one’s mind.’

SB 3.5.24 “…..dormant in forgetfulness…..go back to home back to Godhead…..enliven the sleeping conditioned souls…..to take part in His eternal rasa-lila”

Back to the rasa-lila. We came from the rasa-lila, and should go back to the rasa-lila.

SB 3.5.26 “The mistaken living being, out of forgetfulness of this original condition of life…..remind one…..situated in the same spiritual life as the Lord.”

SB 3.5.29 purport “A pure living entity in his original spiritual existence…..called nitya muktas…….The material creation is meant for rebellious souls who are not prepared to accept subordination under the Supreme Lord.”

The nitya-muktas, originally in the Vaikuntha planets or in the rasa-lila, have become rebellious.

Nitya-baddha jivas also will have an end to their conditioned state; thus it is not nitya-baddha, eternally conditioned. When the soul gets materially exhausted and has experienced all of matter (which is a limited area) he naturally inquires “athato brahma jijnasa.” (Srila Prabhupada conversations 12-12-1970) (SB 10.51.53).

Similarly, nitya-muktas are sometimes not fixed forever in mukti.

SB 3.5.31 purport “forgets his constitutional position as an eternally subordinate part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and wants to be happy independently,

SB 3.5.42 “…..go back home, back to Godhead.”

SB 3.5.44 “…..go back to Godhead.”

SB 3.5.51 “the vishnu-tattvas, the jiva-tattvas and the sakti-tattvas (the Personalities of Godhead, the living entities and the different potential energies)—are different offshoots from the same one Supreme Lord…Some of the jivas, however, wanted to lord it over material nature in imitation of the lordship of the Personality of Godhead…due to misuse of this independence…the nitya-baddhas, the conditioned living entities, a chance to improve, and those who take advantage of such transcendental knowledge gradually regain their lost consciousness of rendering transcendental loving service to the Lord.”

The nitya-baddha was a nitya-siddha who now regains his love for the Lord, and becomes nitya-siddha once again.

Srila Prabhupada states the same in other places

“We are nitya-baddha-ever conditioned, eternally conditioned… Then we, again, become nitya-mukta. We revive our original condition of life.” (Bhag. lecture, Mayapur, June 20, 1973)

“When he comes to his senses, jnanavan (Bg 7.19), that “I am falsely trying to lord it over. Rather, I am becoming implicated with material energy,” when he comes to that, then he surrenders. Then again his liberated life begins. (Columbus, Ohio, on May 14, 1969)

“…there are millions and millions of liberated souls who are engaged in Krishna. They never misuse their independence. And we small quantity, we misused our independence. We wanted to enjoy separately. Therefore we are conditioned.…liberated souls. They are never conditioned. They never become conditioned. Yes?

Devotee: You mean they never were conditioned at any time or…

Prabhupada: Eh?

Devotee: You said there were millions of souls…

Prabhupada: Yes. They were never conditioned. They were never conditioned, never conditioned. They are called nitya-mukta, eternally liberated. We are only simple few, this material world. Just like I have several times told you that the prison house. The population of prison house is nothing in comparison to the whole population. ..

Bhaktijana: How could we make a poor choice if we were part and parcel of Krishna? How could we have chosen the material world?

Prabhupada: Oh, because you have got independence. Don’t you see so many students come. They go away again. Yesterday Kirtanananda went to call Ranchora. He said, “Oh, I have forgotten this!” So you can forget. There is another student. He was also our student, Wally. “Oh, you can go immediately!” .. “Oh, I don’t care for this Krishna consciousness Society. Who calls you? You can go.” That independence is there. We can misuse.

Bhaktijana: But Krishna will always be there if we want to go back?

Prabhupada: Eh? Krishna is always prepared to accept you. He’s always prepared. But because He has given us independence, we misuse it and we fall under the clutches of maya. That is our misfortune. We create this misfortune, and we can create our good fortune. “Man is the architect of his own fortune.” So if you become Krishna conscious, it is to your good fortune. If you become maya conscious, it is to your bad fortune. You are the creator.

Bhaktijana: When the souls that were never conditioned at all…, do they also have the independence?

Prabhupada: Yes, but they have not misused. They know that “I am meant for Krishna’s service,” and they are happy in Krishna’s service.

Bhaktijana: Could they ever misuse it?

Prabhupada: Yes, they can misuse it also. That power is there. (Lecture, CC Adi 7.108, February 18, 1967)

Our comment:

He says many times that those in Vaikuntha never fall, but then a little later he says they can fall, and these few, rare exceptions are the one’s here. Never, with a footnote. ‘No one’ is not a categorical absolute.

Non-literal

In our western languages we also use the terms forever, always, eternal, never also in a figurative, non-literal sense.

In the GBC book ‘Our original position” there is a list that

In scripture the words sat, anadir, ananta, nitya, sasvata can also be non-literal.

“When the sun-god and moon-god exposed the plot of wicked Rahu to steal the celestial nectar, a lasting (sasvata) enmity was sealed among them, which endures to the present day.” (Mbh. 1.17.8)

“The five sons of King Vasu each became kings in their own right, all five establishing permanent (sasvata) dynasties bearing their names.” (Mbh. 1.57.30)

“Defeated by his old friend Drona, King Drupada diplomatically solicits from him his ‘constant (sasvata) favor’ (Mbh. 1.128.13)

“The brahmana host of the Pandavas at Ekacakra condemns the incompetent king of the region who cannot provide the people with sasvata safety from harm.” (Mbh. 1.148.9)

Jaratkaru assures his forefathers that he will marry and beget a son who will preserve the family line and keep the forefathers in heaven:

“Surely for your deliverance offspring will arise in that [marriage]. May my forefathers enjoy, having reached the permanent status (sasvata-sthanam)!” (Mbh. 1.13.28)

When King Indra of heaven convinces the earthly King Vasu to give up the attempt to take Indra’s position, Indra promises that by sticking to his earthly duties, Vasu will eventually attain to the sasvata worlds:

“Ever protect the dharma that will take you to higher worlds, engaged and with attention, for being so engaged in dharma you shall then attain the pious, everlasting worlds (sasvatan lokan).” (Mbh. 1.57.6)

The sage Mandapala attempts to enter heaven on the strength of his pious credits, but he is turned back by the gatekeepers with these words:

“These very worlds are concealed from you because of [your lack of] progeny. Beget progeny and then you shall enjoy these everlasting (sasvatan lokan) worlds.” (Mbh. 1.220.13)

After begetting good sons, the same Mandapala then offered this prayer to the fire-god, Agni, when the blazing inferno of Khandava threatened to consume his young sons:

“Offering obeisances unto you, the sages go with their wives and sons to the everlasting destination (sasvatim gatim), won by their own work.” (Mbh. 1.220.25)

“After having ruled the citizens according to dharma for endless years (sasvatih samah), King Yayati, son of Nahusha, accepted a very ghastly old age that ruined his beauty.” (Mbh. 1.70.33)

The Rakshasi Hidimba refused her hungry brother’s order to kill the Pandavas, reasoning that:

“If they are killed (and eaten), there will be but a moment’s satisfaction for my brother and me. But by not killing them (and thus marrying Bhishma), I will enjoy for endless years (sasvatih samah).” (Mbh. 1.139.16)

When the Pandavas are defeated at dice, the wicked Duhsasana declares that Pritha’s sons have now been driven to hell for a long, virtually unlimited time, and that they are bereft of their happiness and kingdom, and ruined for endless years (sasvatih samah). (Mbh. 2.68.5)

“Having achieved the worlds of the pious doers, and having dwelt there for endless years (sasvatih samah), a fallen yogi takes birth in the home of pure and opulent persons.” (Bg. 6.41)

“One should eat very frugally and should always (sasvat) remain secluded so that he can achieve the highest perfection of life.” (Bhag. 3.28.3)

“O Lord, with a corpselike body that is always (sasvat) fearful, we bear the burden of the dreamlike happiness of kings.” (Bhag. 10.70.28)

“O almighty Lord, we shall no longer desire a mirage-like kingdom that is to be attentively served by a material body that is always (sasvat) declining, and is the source of sufferings.” (Bhag. 10.73.14)

“The Pandavas have been driven into hell for an endlessly long time-dirgha-kalam anantakam. They have been deprived of their happiness and their kingdom. They are lost forevermore.” (Mbh. 2.68.5)

“As a friend of Krishna, I alone with my chariot, crossed over the ocean of the Kuru army, an invincible ocean with no end [of the distance] to its far shore (ananta-param).” (Bhag. 1.15.14)

(Bhag. 5.5.17), Lord Rishabhadeva warns His sons that a blind materialist does not see his own unlimited (or unending) misery (ananta-duhkham).

Sukadeva Gosvami announces the benefits of the pumsavana vow, which is said to cause “unlimited satisfaction (ananta-triptih) for the forefathers and demigods” (Bhag. 6.19.27).

“Formerly, O King, that very Supreme Lord expanded the reputation of Rudra, after that god’s fame had been struck down by Maya Danava, who possessed unlimited (ananta) mystic power.” (Bhag. 7.10.51)

-In Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.10.37, Uddhava says to Lord Krishna:

“The same, single entity is said to be eternally liberated and eternally conditioned. That is my confusion.” One answer is that ‘eternal’ is figurative; the nitya-mukta can become bound, and the nitya-baddha can become liberated.

– anadih—the firstborn, Lord Brahma

“After being born, Daksha, by the superexcellence of his bodily luster, covered all others’ bodily opulence. Because he was very expert in performing fruitive activity, he was called by the name Daksha, meaning “the very expert.” Lord Brahma therefore engaged Daksha in the work of generating living entities and maintaining them. In due course of time, Daksha also engaged other Prajapatis [progenitors] in the process of generation and maintenance.” (SB 4.30.51)

Lord Brahma is anadi, “the beginningless one.”

-the demigods are amara, immortal.

No one

On “no one falls”: The spiritual world is unlimited and the material world is a limited area (see Srila Rupa Gosvami’s Laghu-bhagavatamrta 5.286). Millions, trillions, etc., of souls in the material world means “no one” compared to the *unlimited* souls in the spiritual world.

This is also concluded in the following statements of His Divine Grace Abhaya Carana Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, savior of the all the Brahmandas, where he states that only a few fall down:

“..The majority of the population, they are outside the prison house. Similarly, majority of living being, part and parcel of God, they are in the spiritual world. Only a few fall down…”

(Srila Prabhupada Conversation, June 23, 1975)

The same in “We are only simple few, this material world…The population of prison house is nothing in comparison to the whole population.” ((Lecture, CC Adi 7.108, February 18, 1967)

Anadi is not literal

“anadi karama-phale, which means that these actions and reactions of one’s activity cannot be traced, for they may even continue from the last millennium of Brahma’s birth to the next millennium.” (Bhag. 3.31.44, purport)

“Eternally conditioned means we do not know when we have been conditioned like this. ……. Many, many Brahma’s life. Not only one Brahma’s. There are so many Brahmas changed, and we are conditioned. So therefore we are called eternally conditioned.” (Cc. lecture, January 9, 1967, New York)

anadi karama-phale. Anadi. Anadi means… Adi means the creation. Creation… before creation, I contaminated this desire, iccha-dvesha samutthena.” (Bhag. lecture, January 1, 1975, Bombay)

Our comment: He simply explains here anadir as before the adi, beginning or creation.

“Constitutionally every living entity, even if he is in the Vaikuntha Loka, has chance of falling down. Therefore the living entity is called marginal energy. But when the falldown has taken place for the conditioned soul is very difficult to ascertain. Therefore two classes are designated: eternally liberated and eternally conditioned. But for arguments sake, a living entity being marginal energy, he can’t be eternally conditioned. The Time is so unlimited that the conditioned souls appear to be eternally so, but from the philosophical view he cannot be eternally conditioned. Since we cannot trace out when we have become conditioned, there is no use of arguing on this point.” (letter 69-10-27)

Krishna’s time

One dreamvadi wrote: “As one ascends from Martya-loka, through Svarga-loka and further through Mahar-loka and so on to Brahma-loka, time progressively dilates. Thus, as 360 years go by here in Martya-loka, only a year passes for the devas in Svarga-loka.”

Note: dreamvada is the vada, theory that the soul is forever on the spiritual planets. The fall is of an alternate dream-self or alternatively, a figment of the imagination.

Comment: The “clocks”– i.e., of atomic reactions, biological processes, and other natural phenomena, as well as ordinary clocks – change or are different in other realms, because matter acts differently

They will also change in other yugas. They live longer in higher realms, because the guna’s of nature are different, as in Satya/Dvapara/Treta-yuga, they lived longer because in Satya-, Treta- and Dvapara yuga the decay of matter is slower due to matter being of a better quality.

Experiencing different times at other places in the universe has to do with the experience of their ‘’100 years’’

The puranas state that for the inhabitants of hell: “A day in hell is equal to 100 years of the manusya (mankind).” In other words, when souls are in hell, one day for them, is experienced as 100 years.

And at the level of Brahma, the duration of the universe is 100 of his years.

See, SB 4.25.43

“My dear King, those two—the man and the woman—supporting one another through mutual understanding, entered that city and enjoyed life for one hundred years.

PURPORT

One hundred years is significant in this connection because every human being is given the concession to live up to a hundred years. The span of life is different on different planets, according to the planet’s distance from the sun. In other words, one hundred years on this planet is different from one hundred years on another planet. Lord Brahma lives for one hundred years according to time on the Brahmaloka planet, but one day of Brahma is equal to millions of years on this planet. Similarly, the days on the heavenly planets are equal to six months on this planet. On every planet, however, the span of life for a human being is roughly one hundred years. According to the life-spans on different planets, the standards of living also differ.

Thus to describe the clock paradox or twin paradox as a literal slow-motion or ‘freezing’ in higher realms of the universe is wrong. As one dream-theorist wrote: A live television broadcast on Satya-loka of events on Martya-loka would disclose everything moving with dizzying speed, peoples and civilizations rushing on and off the earth. By the same token, a live broadcast on Martya-loka of current events on Satya-loka would transmit motion so slow as to be undetectable by normal human vision.

One scientist Phd devotee friend of us wrote us:

“Time dilatation applies only when comparing two different systems (say A and B) that move relative to each other. From system A one can observe system B to be moving and measure a dilated time on system B. The opposite also applies, from system B one can observe system A to be moving and measure a dilated time on system A. Otherwise in each individual system, time flows in a normal way.”

Thus, the descriptions of scripture comparing the time of different realms are figurative.

This is also in Brhad Bhagavatamrta 2.4.115-117

(115)“Sometimes the Lord would secretly go somewhere with a few of His intimate associates. Then everyone else who had been near Him would lament, unable to see their master.

(116)When I would ask what the Lord was doing on these outings, everyone would keep the facts from me like privileged secrets. No one would disclose anything clearly.

COMMENTARY (by Srila Sanatana Gosvami)

Despite his earnest inquiries, no one told Gopa-kumara where Lord Narayana had gone or why. Anyone who knew was unwilling to discuss the subject openly, because making public news of the private pastimes of the Supreme Lord could disrupt the reverential mood of Vaikuntha.

(117)Then, at the very moment I inquired, the Lord of the universe would reappear before us, putting our distress to an end and enlarging our joy to an ocean.

COMMENTARY

From Gopa-kumara’s description it might seem that Vaikuntha has unhappiness just like everywhere else. But as we see here, the Lord’s absence was only momentary. As soon as the devotees felt distress, the Lord returned. Time is subtler in Vaikuntha than in the mortal realm; an instant in Vaikuntha equals the largest span of time in the mundane world. Sri Maitreya describes this in Srimad-Bhagavatam (3.11.38):

kalo ’yam dvi-parardhakhyo

nimesha upacaryate

avyakritasyanantasya

hy anader jagad-atmanah

“The duration of the two parts of Brahma’s life is calculated to equal one nimesha [less than a second] for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the unchanging, the unlimited, the cause of all causes of the universe.” This scale of comparative time is only metaphorical, yet such a figurative sense of spiritual time contributes to the charm of the Supreme Lord’s lilas in Vaikuntha. In reality, time in Vaikuntha is not the kind of force it is in the material world; time does not delimit the lifespan of residents in Vaikuntha, because everything there is eternal and infallible.”

Sub– everywhere going gacchati iti jagat

Our friend devotee scientist wrote :

“In modern science, time is used for measuring movement. One rotation of the Earth is called one day or 24 hours. Time is a dimension of space. The flowing of time can be considered as movement through the time dimension.”

In Srimad Bhagavatam, we read:

“Time is astronomically and mathematically calculated in relation to the speed, change and life of a particular object..” (SB 3.10.11 p.)

Thus, time never stops flowing, even in the Brahman effulgence. There is not the “now moment of eternity, an everlasting instant without past or future”, as one dream-vadi wrote; meaning that in Brahman, nothing measurable is going on; no movement of, or in, the substances takes place, so there is nothing going on, to measure as time..

This is not so.

The Brahma-jyotir is composed of fallen souls (Room Conversation—August 17, 1971, London).

”Because he falls down from brahma-sayujya, he thinks that may be his origin, but he does not remember that before that even he was with Krsna… in His lila or sport.” (SPL, 1973)

Souls rise up into the Brahman effulgence at sayujya-mukti and fall again– patanty adha (SB 10.2.32); there is a constantly coming and going of little gods-jiva’s.

Conclusion: Time is eternal, being the infinity of single instants, metaphorically describable as a one way flow, and goes on even in Brahman.

Srila Prabhupada also says so:

” Jagadisa means the Supreme Lord, Krishna. Jagat means this world, material world or spiritual world, all worlds. Jagat. Jagat gacchati iti jagat: “Which is progressing, that is called jagat.” So Jagat-isa, the supreme master of this jagat, going concern.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya-lila 20.142, New York, November 30, 1966)

The same in Ratha-yatra lecture, San Francisco, July 5, 1970

“Jagannatha. Jagat means the moving world. Gacchati iti jagat, Sanskrit word, gacchati means which is moving. So all these planets, this universe, even the sun, everything is moving. Even inanimate things are moving, but they are moving under the control of some animate object. Therefore it is called jagat. Jagat means moving. And Jagat-natha, means the proprietor or the master of all these movements, He is Jagannatha.”

“The so-called scientist, philosophers, they don’t see that who is pushing on this button. This material world is going on. Jagat means going on. Gacchati iti jagat. Every planet is going on. This planet is going on. One thousand miles per hour, going on. The sun is moving sixteen thousand miles per second. This is called jagat. Everything is going on. Your motorcar is going on. You are going on. We have a big city, especially in Europe, America, simply going on. This way, this… Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. No rest. This is called jagat.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.2, London, August 16, 1971)

“Apara and para. Apara means inferior, or material, and para means superior, or spiritual. The spiritual force behind is moving the material world. Yayedam dharyate jagat. Jagat means gacchati iti jagat, which is moving or going forward. Everything is moving. All these planets are moving. Your earthly planet is also moving—within twenty-four hours covering 25,000 miles, day and night. The whole material planets, earthly planets, you have 25,000 miles, and this is rotating. Similarly every planet is rotating. The sun is also rotating. Yasyajnaya bhramati sambhrita-kala-cakrah. The sun is also having a duration of life, and it will rotate, then it will be finished. Everything in the material world, it has got a date of birth, it lives for some time, it grows or changes the body, and produces some by-products, then dwindles, and then vanishes. This is called shad-vikara, six kind of changes of anything material. That is called jagat. Gacchati. But there is a moving force. Just like the motorcar is going, gacchati. But the motorcar is not moving without any driver. There is a machine, first-class machine, Rolls-Royce car, Cadillac car, good machine, but the machine is useless unless there is a driver. The aeroplane is moving, but without the pilot it cannot move.” (Bhagavad-gita 7.5, Bombay, February 20, 1974)

Last one on this; let’s not forget a diversion to theology, since another name of the Paramatma feature of the Lord is kala, or eternal time (SB 1.8.28).

(Bhagavad-gita 16.6-8, Tokyo, January 28, 1975) “…”by chance.” This is childish reason. A child will say, “[By] chance, it has come.” You must give solid reason. Chance, you can say anything as chance. Everybody can say like that. That is not reason. When you bring in chance, that is not logic. That is not knowledge. If somebody says, “By chance, I have come in this world,” that is not logic. I must have my father. I must have my mother. This is scientific. This is common sense. An airplane flying has a pilot; similarly the planets are orbiting because Krishna is within.

gam avisya ca bhutani

dharayamy aham ojasa

‘I enter into each planet, and by My energy they stay in orbit ’(Bhagavad-gita 15.13). … This is the atheistic theory, asatyam. They say that this material world is false. Brahma satyam jagan mithya. Jagat, jagat means this cosmic manifestation which is gacchati, going. In the material world, everything is going. Just like in your city you see the cars, motor cars. They are going here and there, gacchati, very busy. Every man is going here and there. Similarly, the whole planetary system also, beginning from its birth up to the annihilation it is going, moving, orbit. It is going. Everything is going, moving. Even the sun, it has got its orbit. Yac-cakshur esha savita sakala-grahanam raja samasta…, asesha-tejah, yasyajnaya bhramati sambhrita-kala-cakrah. Just like the earth has its orbit—it is rotating—similarly, every planet is rotating. The sun is also rotating. It is sixteen thousand miles every 8 /5 second.

So this is called jagat. Everything is going on. But it is going in such a way… Just like these cars are moving with high speed, but they are very careful to pass within the lane. Otherwise there will be collision. Similarly, all these planets, they have got their own speed for rotating, and there are hundreds and thousands and millions. They are rotating, but there is no collision. Now, how it is made? Who has made this lane? A car is moving in sixty miles, seventy miles speed, but they are ordered just to remain within the lane, the marking line. Who has made it? The police department, the government. So how can you say there is no control? This is called upama, analogy, the points of similarity. Analogy means the points of similarity. Then you can conclude some idea.”

Conclusion: Jagannatha, Jagadisa, God exists.

Conclusion on Krishna’s time: Everywhere, also in the spiritual world there is time:

Prabhupada: That is called jagat. Gacchati. Everything is going on, forward. That is called jagat.

Syamasundara: Even the activities of the spiritual world are like that?

Isn’t there motion?

Prabhupada: Yes. Why not motion? Because there is living entities. Living entities means life force. There must be motion.

(Srila Prabhupada Philosophy discussions– The Evolutionists: Thomas Huxley, Henri Bergson, and Samuel Alexander)

That there is no time in the absolute world, that there is no begin and end is also based on a misunderstanding and mistranslation of Brahma Samhita 5.56 – nimesArdhAkhyo vA vrajati na hi yarapi samayah – “not even a moment of time passes”. Samayah na vrajati “time does not proceed for even half a second”, means according to Jiva Gosvami’s purport that “the inhabitants in Goloka do not know time at all because they are absorbed in Govinda. Or the meaning can be ‘the faults of time do not exist there.”

Also, Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s Jaiva Dharma (Chapter Fifteen), cij-jagatera kala akhandarupe nitya-vartamana”, is distorted to “every event in the spiritual world is eternal”. Yet in fact the Bengali words quoted mean “the time (kala) of the spiritual world is ever-existing in unbroken form.” The words “every event” simply do not occur in the Bengali that has been cited. Indeed, this quotation is not even speaking about events.

The text explains this cit-kala: “In the material world time has three phases: past, present and future. In the spiritual world time is not broken in that way. In the spiritual world things do not come into being, nor are destroyed; things are eternal; they remain present and don’t move into oblivion.

Srila Prabhupada also says that: “All living entities there are eternally associated without any break… there is no deterioration… the cycle of birth, growth, existence, transformations, deterioration and annihilation—the six material changes—are not existent there.

In the spiritual world there is undoubtedly time, but it has no control over activities.”

(SB 3.11.38 p)

“The residents of these planets are free from all anxieties. For them there is no question of birth, death, old age and diseases, and therefore they are not anxious. In those planets there is no difference between the body and the soul, nor is there any influence of time as we experience it in the material world. And in addition to there being no influence of time, the planets…due to being spiritual, are never annihilated.”

(SB 3.15.13 p)

“34. How are Krishna’s pastimes transcendental? What are the ingredients of such pastimes?

The material world is the perverted reflection of the spiritual world. Here everything is polluted by maya. In the spiritual world, maya and the three modes of material nature do not exist. There everything is impeccable and made of pure goodness including time, place, and all other objects. The pastimes of Krishna are transcendental to material nature, and therefore they are fully spiritual. Krishna’s pastimes are nourished by faultless time, place, sky, water, and so on. Within spiritual time, which is unlike material time, the pastimes of Krishna are eightfold. They take place at dawn, morning, pre-noon, noon, afternoon, evening, night, and late at night. In this way Krishna’s pastimes are divided into eight, according to the different times of the day and night, and thus they are nourishing the eternal uninterrupted rasa.”

(Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura – Caitanya-sikshamrita 6/5)

Thus Srila Prabhupada explains that no time in the spiritual world means that the destructive feature of material time is absent. There is spiritual time. The astakaliya-lila revolves on and on, day after day. Astakaliya means the 8 periods of the day with pastimes at the end of the night, morning pastimes, forenoon pastimes, midday pastimes, afternoon pastimes, dusk pastimes, evening pastimes and midnight pastimes, as described in Krsnahnika Kaumudi, Govinda lilamrta, Krsna bhavanamrta. There is beginning and end of every period.

But there is no death and old age. And the spiritual forms of the houses and kunja’s- forest huts do not get broken down by time. By the arrangement of Sri Krsna’s lila-sakti there is eating, cooking, making of new flower garlands etc. This means blissful changing of services of the souls (= the cintamani’s or spiritual atoms, the building blocks of the spiritual world). See Brahma Samhita T 29 purport.

In the CC Adi-lila 5.53 we read: “The earth, water, fire, air and ether (Solid, liquid, radiant, gaseous, ethereal-ed.) of Vaikuntha are all spiritual. Material elements are not found there”. It is a real substantial world, the original of the perverted reflection here, the material world.

We can read in Srimad Bhagavatam the nature of the spiritual world.

Sub– the spiritual world

SB 2.9. 9 The Personality of Godhead, being thus very much satisfied with the penance of Lord Brahma, was pleased to manifest His personal abode, Vaikuntha, the supreme planet above all others. This transcendental abode of the Lord is adored by all self-realized persons freed from all kinds of miseries and fear of illusory existence. The inhabitants of the Vaikuntha planets are described as having a glowing sky-bluish complexion. Their eyes resemble lotus flowers, their dress is of yellowish color, and their bodily features very attractive. They are just the age of growing youths, they all have four hands, they are all nicely decorated with pearl necklaces with ornamental medallions, and they all appear to be effulgent. Some of them are effulgent like coral and diamonds in complexion and have garlands on their heads, blooming like lotus flowers, and some wear earrings. The Vaikuntha planets are also surrounded by various airplanes, all glowing and brilliantly situated. These airplanes belong to the great mahatmas or devotees of the Lord. The ladies are as beautiful as lightning because of their celestial complexions, and all these combined together appear just like the sky decorated with both clouds and lightning. The Personality of Godhead, seen leaning favorably towards His loving servitors, His very sight intoxicating and attractive, appeared to be very much satisfied. He had a smiling face decorated with an enchanting reddish hue. He was dressed in yellow robes and wore earrings and a helmet on his head. He had four hands, and His chest was marked with the lines of the goddess of fortune The Lord was seated on His throne and was surrounded by different energies like the four, the sixteen, the five, and the six natural opulences, along with other insignificant energies of the temporary character. But He was the factual Supreme Lord, enjoying His own abode.

SB3. 15.15-22

In the Vaikuntha planets is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the original person and who can be understood through the Vedic literature. He is full of the uncontaminated mode of goodness, with no place for passion or ignorance. He contributes religious progress for the devotees.

In those Vaikuntha planets there are many forests which are very auspicious. In those forests the trees are desire trees, and in all seasons they are filled with flowers and fruits because everything in the Vaikuntha planets is spiritual and personal. In the Vaikuntha planets the inhabitants fly in their airplanes, accompanied by their wives and consorts, and eternally sing of the character and activities of the Lord, which are always devoid of all inauspicious qualities. While singing the glories of the Lord, they deride even the presence of the blossoming madhavi flowers, which are fragrant and laden with honey; this breeze is so nice that it also carries the honey of the flowers. When the king of bees hums in a high pitch, singing the glories of the Lord, there is a temporary lull in the noise of the pigeon, the cuckoo, the crane, the cakravaka, the swan, the parrot, the partridge and the peacock. Such transcendental birds stop their own singing simply to hear the glories of the Lord. Even the trees, the ground, the plants, the flowers, the birds and the beasts are all on the level of Krishna consciousness. The special feature of Vaikunthaloka is that there is no question of sense gratification. In the Vaikunthas such nice birds as the peacock, the cakravaka and the cuckoo prefer to hear the vibration of the glories of the Lord from the bees. The inhabitants of Vaikuntha travel in their airplanes made of lapis lazuli, emerald and gold. Although accompanied by their consorts, they cannot be stimulated to passion by their mirth and beautiful charms. The goddesses of fortune worship the Lord in their own gardens by offering tulasi leaves on the coral-paved banks of transcendental reservoirs of water. The Lord is bearing all paraphernalia, such as an umbrella and a camara fan, the white bunches of hair moving very gently, like two swans, and due to their favorable breeze the pearls garlanding the umbrella also moved, like drops of nectar falling from the white full moon or ice melting due to a gust of wind. The Lord is the reservoir of all pleasure. His auspicious presence is meant for everyone’s benediction, and His affectionate smiling and glancing touch the core of the heart. The Lord’s beautiful bodily color is blackish, and His broad chest is the resting place of the goddess of fortune, who glorifies the entire spiritual world, the summit of all heavenly planets. Thus it appeared that the Lord was personally spreading the beauty and good fortune of the spiritual world. He was adorned with a girdle that shone brightly on the yellow cloth covering His large hips, and He wore a garland of fresh flowers which was distinguished by humming bees. His lovely wrists were graced with bracelets, and He rested one of His hands on the shoulder of Garuda, His carrier, and twirled a lotus with another hand. His countenance was distinguished by cheeks that enhanced the beauty of His alligator-shaped pendants, which outshone lightning. His symmetrically elevated nose was attractively formed, and His head was covered with a gem-studded crown. A charming necklace hung between His stout arms, and His neck was adorned with the gem known by the name Kaustubha. The exquisite beauty of Narayana, was so attractive that it defeated the pride of the goddess of fortune in being the most beautiful. The Lord’s beautiful face appeared to be like the inside of a blue lotus, and the Lord’s smile appeared to be a blossoming jasmine flower. The nails of His lotus feet resembled rubies. The Lord’s lovely and illuminating speech was like a series of Vedic hymns.”

Envious but forced to stay

The dreamvadi we quoted noticed this movement in eternity, but then he, ice-cold, theorizes on that the nitya-siddhas are “frozen”, fixed there.

He wrote: “Vaisnavas, however, know of transcendental variegatedness and activities.

Although eternity is described as having no past or future, there is still sequence (for

there are lilas, pastimes); and knowledge, bliss, and beauty eternally increase.” but “Every soul in that realm must accordingly be characterized as “nitya-mukta.” This

includes the souls that come from the material world. For if a soul enters that realm from

the material world, can we ask “when did that soul arrive?” The question does not apply.

“Once” the soul gets there, that soul can only be “nitya-mukta.” He has, necessarily,

“always” been there. This is the dictation of the logic of eternity.”

Where are the tenets of that logic. It is the zero-degree-cold logic of ice–eternity. Not the logic of Krishna’s Vaikuntha planets. There is spiritual, natural logic. This is in Tattva viveka (1.18-22)

That is also the logic of scripture, which is superior– Sabda Brahman.

We already wrote the meaning of spiritual time:

Brahma Samhita 5.56 – nimesArdhAkhyo vA vrajati na hi yarapi samayah – “not even a moment of time passes”. Samayah na vrajati “time does not proceed for even half a second” means: “the inhabitants in Goloka do not know time at all because they are absorbed in Govinda.” Or ‘the faults of time do not exist there.”

Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s Jaiva Dharma (Chapter Fifteen), cij-jagatera kala akhandarupe nitya-vartamana”, “the time (kala) of the spiritual world is ever-existing in unbroken form.” Means: “In the material world time has three phases: past, present and future. In the spiritual world time is not broken in that way. In the spiritual world things do not come into being, nor are destroyed; things are eternal; they remain present and don’t move into oblivion.”

Besides, scripture states that for example Gopa kumara left and came back.

Brhad Bhagavatamrta 2.4.81-87, When the gopa, Svarupa or Gopa kumara, came back in the spiritual world, Lord Narayana says to him:

“For so long I have been eager to see you… hope had Me dancing like a fool, thinking “perhaps in this lifetime, or this, or this, or this… ”

Here Srila Sanatana Gosvami comments:

“The Lord had been waiting a long time for Gopa Kumara to come back to Vaikuntha. The gopa had forgotten the Lord for many life times.” Srila Sanatana Gosvami says: “the gopa had forgotten the Lord”. That means he knew the Lord from before, from the spiritual world, because Srila Sanatana Gosvami comments: “in previous [material] lives Gopa Kumara had never chanted the names of the Lord, not even namabhasa” for which the Lord could have given him a birth near Govardhana.

But, one may counter, when Gopa Kumara comes to Krsna loka he is called “nutna”, newcomer. This is because Krsna loka is the place of the Lord’s nara-lila or human like pastimes. For example, Krsna again and again goes to Mathura to kill Kamsa etc., but this is forgotten again and again. The Brihad Bhagavatamrta 2.6.356/357/361 and commentary describes:

“Krsna subdues Kaliya time and again, in the same way, and time and again lifts Govardhana Hill. And again and yet again He performs His many other wonderful pastimes. Thus the Lord enchants the hearts of His devotees.”

COMMENTARY: Since all of Krsna’s pastimes, beginning with the killing of Putana, are eternal, Krsna enjoys them with His devotees in Goloka as often as they like. Yet each time a pastime is repeated, it seems completely new, as if never seen or heard of before.

“But the residents of Vraja, completely bewildered by the kalakuta poison of their supreme love for Sri Krsna, never think that any of these events has ever occurred before.”

COMMENTARY: Because the Vraja-vasis are never aware that Krsna’s pastimes are repeat performances, the attraction they feel for those pastimes is never impeded. The highest states of krsnaprema have the power to create such bewilderment.

“And, oh, the most glorious thing is that the foremost of enlightened persons, the Lord Himself, while drowning in an ocean of love for His dear devotees, cannot always remember what He has done and what He is going to do.”

COMMENTARY: Isn’t perfect knowledge an automatic byproduct of love of God? Why then are the pure devotees of Goloka so forgetful? Yes, to one who has prema omniscience comes naturally, but prema, being all-powerful, can redefine what is knowledge and what is ignorance.

“The Personality of Godhead Himself, by the influence of His Yogamaya, also forgets what He did before. But though He often forgets, He sometimes remembers, if it serves the purpose of His pastimes.”

Alternatively, nutna newcomer means he had been off for a long, long, long time; so much had happened in that time. Remember “.. in each individual system, time flows in a normal way.” No slow-motions.

Alternatively, the gopa had left Narayana, and was new for Vrndavana:

Since, when the gopa arrived in Vaikuntha, Lord Narayana said:

“For so long (ciram) I have been eager to see you!” (BB 2.4.81)

Sanatana Gosvami’s commentary: The Lord stated from the heart that He had been waiting a long time for Gopa-kumara to come to Vaikuntha.

Our comment: ‘so long’ means Gopa-kumara was before with the Lord.

“My dear friend, you have passed many lifetimes (bahuni janmani) without paying any attention to Me at all.” (BB 2.4.82)

Our comment: Here it does not say eternally not paying attention to Me (Narayana).

“For so long, hope had me dancing like a fool, thinking, “Perhaps in this lifetime, or this, or this, or this, he will finally turn his face towards Me.”

COMMENTARY

Even though Gopa-kumara had forgotten his Lord for many lifetimes, the Lord had never forgotten him. The Lord wanted Gopa-kumara to know this, and also to know how eager the Lord had always been to regain the association of His devotee. (BB 2.4.82 + Sanatana Gosvami’s commentary)

Our comment: ‘for so long’, the Lord was obviously not eternally dancing like a fool, in hope.

Gopa-kumara had forgotten his Lord for many lifetimes means he had been with the Lord before these “many lifetimes”

“But I could find no pretext on which to bring you to My abode, dear brother, and still follow the timeless laws that I Myself have created.”

Commentary: Since the Supreme Lord is all-powerful, why didn’t He simply find a way to bring Gopa-kumara to Him sooner? The Lord establishes the laws of the universe, which are enunciated in the Vedas and other scriptures, and He chooses to adhere to His own restrictions. Only when they show, by calling out His names, that they want to return to Him does He again reveal Himself. In previous lives, Gopa-kumara had never chanted the names of Lord Narayana, even unintentionally or in jest. Had he at least vibrated a shadow of the Lord’s name, he could have been delivered, like Ajamila. (BB 2.4.84 + Sanatana Gosvami’s commentary)

“Today you have at last fulfilled the desire I have harbored for so long.” (BB 2.4.87)

dirgha-tamam—long-held; cirat—after a long time.

Our comment: Again the Lord says that Gopa-kumara had been with Him before. All these verses and commentaries speak about Gopa-Kumara’s having been with Narayana on Vaikuntha-loka, before his fall into forgetfulness.

From these statements we must conclude that gopa kumara fell from Vaikuntha-lila originally and then by the mercy of guru, krishna and the holy dhama got elevated to krishna loka. So he was nutna– a new one, on Krsna’s planet.

One can change one’s nitya-svarupa. Srila Prabhupada says so:

“Some devotee wants to serve Krishna as flower; they become flower there. If I want that “As a flower I shall lie down at the lotus feet of Krishna,” he becomes flower, voluntarily. And he can change his…, from flower to human body. That is spiritual life. There is no restriction. If some devotee wants to serve Krishna as cow, he serves Krishna as cow, as calf, as flower, as plant, as water, as ground, field, or as father, as mother, as friend, as beloved, anything. Ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham [Bg. 4.11]. That is Krishna’s all-powerfulness, spiritual life.”

(Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.1.1-4

Melbourne, May 20, 1975)

No words in the whole Brhad Bhagavatamrtam like, ‘the dreaming gopa manufactured an alternate dream-self imagining himself undergoing all kinds of adventures.’ It is a true history.

Some more from the Puranas

Skanda purana 5.2.57.2

“Mahesvara to Parvati: “An excellent gana (associate) proficient in music, named Ghanta was my favorite. During the period of Caksusa Manu, once, out of curiosity, he proceeded to Brahma’s abode to see Brahma to show his musical proficiency. “I will propitiate Brahma, the Lord of the worlds, with my songs”. Narada told this to Lord Siva. Siva angrily cursed the gana: ” O Ghanta, as you have left Me and have gone to another abode for service, be fallen on the earth”………. he became a Gana once again and attained the greatest position at My side with no cause for further rebirths.”

and 5.2.77.34

“A brahmana did tapa to Lord Siva for a son not born of a womb. Lord Siva called the gana’s and asked: “Who among you will offer himself as his son”. All stood with faces turned downwards. Pushpadanta spoke: “The gana’s will not leave You and go off to the earth. They will stay here forever in Your vicinity enjoying excellent joy and not enter the despicable human womb in the greatest hell”. Lord Siva answered: “Displeasing Me, do fall into the mortal world”………. Again attained the eternal position. I (Lord Siva) embraced him and placed him on My lap.”

Know that according to Brhad Bhagavatamrta 2.3.48-65, Siva loka is transcendental.

“I heard some wonderful singing and music. Enlivened, looking all around, I saw someone riding on a bull—a unique person, arriving from a higher region. Three-eyed, white like camphor, dressed only by the sky, that exquisitely beautiful person carried a trident and bore the half moon on his head, his matted locks brilliantly adorned by the Ganga. His body was smeared with ashes and graced by a charming garland of bones.

COMMENTARY

‘Lord Siva’s garland of bones was in fact auspicious and beautiful because it was made from the bones of departed Vaishnavas.’

Sitting on his lap, a woman of beautiful golden fair complexion (gaurya ), affectionately served him. Divine regalia surrounded him, more heavenly than the riches of heaven. And many followers attended him, their attractive forms and behavior just fitting for his service.

COMMENTARY ‘The associates of Lord Siva appeared very handsome, including Sri Ganesa, with his large abdomen and elephant’s head. And they all conducted themselves in an attractive manner.

By worship of Ganesa or other demigods one may attain a form with, for example, a protuberant belly and an elephant’s head, can achieve this by worshiping Ganesa. But those who worship Lord Siva understanding that he is nondifferent from Sri Krishna attain beautiful bodily forms on Lord Siva’s planet. This is affirmed in the narration of Lord Siva’s battle with Andhaka in Sri Vamana Purana, Chapter fifty-nine.’

Feeling the greatest surprise and delight, I thought, “Who is this, accompanied by such an entourage, and appearing from above the abode of liberation? He looks more powerful than anyone in the material world, more excellent than all liberated souls, yet he seems to violate the rules of civilized behavior, like a great sense-gratifier.

COMMENTARY

‘It struck Gopa-kumara as strange that even though this unique person appeared to be the supreme ruler of the material world, the defender of religious principles, he was ignoring the rules of proper behavior—by traveling naked, embracing his wife in public, and so on—enjoying all kinds of sense gratification even though he seemed a fully liberated transcedentalist.’

My mind was overcome by the weight of the supreme ecstasy I felt from seeing him. I bowed down to him and those who stay with him, and he gave me a compassionate glance.

Impelled by joy, I approached the leader of his companions, named Sri Nandisvara, and asked him in detail about this person and what he was doing.

Nandisvara laughed and said to me, “O cowherd boy, devoted worshiper of Gopala, don’t you recognize Lord Siva, the lord of the universe?

COMMENTARY

‘By calling Lord Siva the lord of the universe, Nandisvara tactfully told Gopa-kumara that since Lord Siva is independent he can apparently violate the laws of civilized behavior without blame.’

He is the giver of material enjoyment and liberation, and he expands devotion to the Personality of Godhead. He is worshiped even by the liberated and is dear to the Vaishnavas.

Drawn by the devotion of his friend Kuvera, he is traveling with his beloved Parvati and dear gentle companions to grace Mount Kailasa with his presence. He came from his own planet, as transcendental as he, an abode reached through devotion by those who see him and Lord Krishna as nondifferent.

COMMENTARY

‘ Lord Siva’s own planet, beyond the coverings of the material universe, is attainable by those who worship him and Lord Vishnu on the same level. That transcendental world is suitable for Lord Siva’s pleasure, equipped as it is with all kinds of eternal and unlimited opulence. Yet Lord Siva gracefully accepts the friendship of the demigod Kuvera, the original proprietor of Mount Kailasa, and submits himself to Kuvera’s devotion. And so Lord Siva is on his way to visit Kailasa in the company of Parvati, his consort. Since Parvati, the mother of the universe, is Lord Siva’s supreme energy, Gopa-kumara should not be shocked to see her sitting on his lap in public. But why is Lord Siva traveling with such a small entourage? Although on his own planet he has many more devotees, for this trip he has chosen only his dearmost associates because the Kailasa within the material world can accommodate only some of his opulence and entourage. There is nothing wrong with being attracted to Lord Siva. Since he is nondifferent from Lord Krishna, devotion offered to him is also devotion to Krishna. More precisely, when one satisfies Lord Siva by pure devotion to him, Lord Siva helps one become more devoted to Krishna.’

The great Lord Siva has one eternal transcendental form. Dwelling in his own abode, he is always visible to his exclusive worshipers, who are pleased to live there.

COMMENTARY

‘According to Sri Nandisvara, Lord Siva remains always in one form, meaning that he is not like Lord Mahakala, sometimes formless and sometimes having a personal form, nor does he expand himself as Lord Vishnu does, into the different forms of a fish, a tortoise, and so on. In the pastimes Lord Siva performs for the pleasure of his devotees, he sometimes appears disguised as a hunter or a fisherman, but he does not transform into different species of life. Because Lord Siva’s followers can rest assured he is not going to change his appearance, they are always satisfied. He is always visible on his planet, not like Lord Vishnu, who often leaves His abodes to visit other places. Lord Siva’s dear devotees can always see their lord, unlike the devotees of Sri Vishnu, Sri Yajnesvara, and the other incarnations of the Personality of Godhead on Svargaloka, Maharloka, Tapoloka, and Satyaloka.

This is the explanation given by Sri Nandisvara, but more precisely Lord Siva is always in the same form in the sense that his body is always purely spiritual, sac-cid-ananda, and never subject to change. He is always present in his own abode, beyond the material creation, and so is always visible in that abode for the pleasure of his devotees.’

With festivals of singing, dancing, and so on, he always gives pleasure to his companions, as if to make them greedy for the Supreme Lord’s devotional service, in which they see that he and Lord Vishnu are nondifferent.

COMMENTARY

‘Lord Siva’s festivals resound with congregational chanting of Lord Vishnu’s names, and his devotees can be heard crying out in great reverence and love for Lord Vishnu. It appears that Lord Siva holds such festivals for the benefit of others, to induce them to take up worship of Lord Vishnu as nondifferent from himself, but in fact Lord Siva is himself fully absorbed in vishnu-bhakti because like Narada Muni he is a bhaktavatara, an empowered incarnation of the Lord in the role of the Lord’s devotee.’

Our point here is that souls come from there to here, and go from here back to there.

Srila Prabhupada also says so (lecture on Bhagavad gita 9.1 19-4-76): “Just like a thief in the prison house. How he becomes liberated? When his term of suffering in the prison house is finished, then he is again free man. And again if he is criminal, he is put into jail.” He uses this analogy a few hundred times. See the BhaktiVedantavedabase. The relevant quotes, on this analogy are:

Imprisoned – 26 Prison – 88 Rebel – 11 Rebellious – 32 prison-house – 190 jail – 200.

The dreamvada also teaches that the soul is eternally in the material world:

”A soul “falls” from eternity and sojourns in the material world. When did he enter the material world? ‘There was no time when he was not bound’ How long has that fallen and restored soul been absent?”, the answer is “He never left.” Or, alternatively, “the question does not apply.” For the logic of eternity dictates that, although it admits “bondage is not the soul’s original condition”.

This last theory is, they admit, “for the purposes of discussion”, since it is even for them too inconceivable.

Therefore another theory is called in, dreamvada.

Srila Prabhupada states:

“In Vrindavana, in Goloka Vrindavana, somebody’s serving Krishna as His friend, cowherd boy. Somebody’s serving Krishna as gopi, as lover. Somebody’s serving Krishna as father and mother, Mother Yasoda, Nanda Maharaja. Somebody’s Krishna’s friend as servant, as tree, as water, as flower, as land, as cow’s, as calf. So many ways. This is our business. But somehow or other we did not like to serve Krishna. Therefore we have been put into the service of maya in three modes of nature. Just like criminal.”

“We did not like to serve Krishna” but then, dream vada dreams, an alternate dream-self was send out, not me, the soul. That one is forced to stay.

This is countered by Prabhupada: “That is force. [indistinct] prema. In Bengali it is said “If you catch one girl or boy, ‘You love me, you love me, you love me.’ ” Is it love? “You love me, otherwise I will kill you.” Is that love? So Krishna does not want to become a lover like that, on the point of revolver. Love is reciprocal, voluntary, good exchange of feeling.” (Evening Darsana—July 8, 1976, Washington, D.C.)

Amsas-expansions- are for muktas and elevated yogi’s, not for the ordinary mortal. Liberated souls don’t expand fallen amsas

Dreamvada says the soul is nitya-siddha, and some dream-self is in maya.

Liberated souls, though, can expand into many forms, but they are of one consciousness and one soul.

Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana comments in his Govinda Bhasya on Vedanta-sutra 4.4.11 that the liberated soul can manifest many different bodies simultaneously and quotes Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2 to support this :”The liberated soul is one, he (can) become(s) or is three, five, seven, nine, eleven, one hundred and eleven, twenty thousand”, Nimbarkacarya and Ramanujacarya in their Vedanta bhasya also quote Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2 interpreting this enumeration 1, 3…….20.000 as meaning ad infinitum, endless variety; the liberated soul can manifest unlimited bodies.

But a liberated soul manifests expansions of the same quality (Ved. Sutra 4.4.15)

Liberated souls have many forms but there is one soul, and the many bodies are as their limbs. This is in the Vedanta Sutra 4.4.11-15

Sri Baladeva’s Govinda bhasya on Vedanta-sutra 4.4.11 “The soul can assume various bodies simultaneously and as the soul is atomic in its essential form, its becoming many can be only by assuming diverse bodies.”

Ramanuja’s Sribhasya on Vedanta sutra 4.4.11:

“As a self, which is atomic, and thus incapable of being cut or divided, cannot possibly have many forms, it is made out that his becoming threefold, fivefold, sevenfold etc. is due to the body or bodily expansions.”

And then in Vedanta sutra 4.4.14 he makes the purvapaksa object: “It has been stated above that the individual self is of the size of an atom. How as regarding the many bodies, there can be the idea of being of one’s own on the part of a single thing (i.e. self) which is an atom.”

To this objection the srutakara (Vyasadeva the writer) replies thus (VS 4.4.15)

“pradipa-vada avesa

The entering (into many bodies is) as in the case of a lamp, for (scripture) shows thus.”

If the soul in this material world is an expansion (amsa) of the liberated soul (mukta) in Goloka then this is a kind of a lila-avatara, a pastime expansion.

The mukta enters the amsa(s) through the spreading out of its prajna, the aura of consciousness. The liberated soul itself is in only one place; the pervasion of many bodies by the released soul is like that of a lamp, which is in one place but the illumination is in many places.

There is only one spirit soul who shines the same Krishna consciousness in all these bodies like a lamp in one place shines the same light all around, pradipa-vada avesa (=as a lamp enters other places by its light).

In other words, the consciousness in all the bodies (amsa’s) is the same. There can be various activities of the different parts or bodies but they are with the same thinking, feeling, willing. Not that the original soul is Krishna conscious and the amsa is in maya. Just as in one’s own body, the hand and feet have different activities but they act with the same purpose or consciousness/mind.

One can’t be a liberated soul there in Goloka and here have the experience of being in maya. It is like a puppet on the string of the puppeteer. There is no independent initiative.

Vedanta sutra’s Sri Bhasya 4.4.15 of Sri Ramanuja:

“Just as there is pervasion of other places by a single lamp existing in one place, through its own light, similarly, in the case of the individual self also, which is seated only in one body, through its own light (of attributive intelligence) the pervasion of all bodies appropriately results. Just as also, although in the heart, through the pervasion of consciousness there is the sense of one’s own in regard to the whole of the body; similar to it is the case there.”

Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana comments on this point: “Those muktas, who through spiritual (Brahmic) bodies always wish to carry out the will of the Supreme Brahman, manifest in their acts the cit-sakti of the Lord, and with that sakti they work simultaneously in different places. The muktas always posses this cit-sakti and always follow the will of the Lord…they have become satya-sankalpas, beings whose mere will is action. (Govinda bhasya 4.4.12)

Then he writes in his commentary on Vs 4.4.18 (about the mukta, and this is also for the amsa because they are one) that “every mukta has the power to get to the spheres of cosmic rulers like Brahma etc…through the permission of the Supreme Ruler. But he doesn’t become an ordinary samsari jiva because the mukta ever abides in that who is changeless. The mukta dwells in all spheres, fully knowing all the laws that govern those spheres.”

In other words, when the amsa comes here, it can never fall in maya and become non-Krishna conscious, independent of the origin. Baladeva continues: “Through the might of his vidya he knows both the nature and the attributes of the Lord.”

Then he concludes “Thus the dwelling of the mukta in these spheres, differs from the dwelling of the samsari jivas in them.”

Similarly is the explanation of the Vedanta-parijata-saurabha (fragrance of the heavenly wish-fulfilling flower of the Vedanta) and Vedanta-Kausthuba (The Lord’s jewel (on His chest, suspended from a necklace) of the Vedanta) the commentaries of Nimbarkacarya and his disciple Srinivasa.

Vedanta-kausthuba, Nimbarka sampradaya’s Vedanta-sutra-bhasya 4.4.15

Sutra: “The entering (into many bodies is) as in the case of a lamp, for (scripture) shows thus.”

Vedanta Parijata – Nimbarka

The soul’s entering into many bodies takes place through its attribute of knowledge, as of the lamp through its ray,—”for” the scriptural text: “It is capable of infinity” (Svet. 5.9) shows thus.

Vedanta-kaustubha – Srinivasa

Apprehending the objection, viz. The manifoldness, mentioned in the text: “He becomes three-fold ” (Chand. 7.26.2) and so on, is not possible on the part of the freed soul even though it may have a body, since it is never possible for one and the same soul, which is atomic by nature, to pervade many bodies,—the author replies:

“The entering” of the freed soul, atomic in size and abiding within one body, into many bodies,—i.e. its complete entering into those bodies as their soul with the thought: ‘This is my body and that as well’—is possible through its attribute of knowledge. “As in the case of a lamp.” That is, just as a lamp, though placed in one place, pervades many places through its attribute, viz. rays, so is the case here. “For thus ” Scripture shows, “The individual soul is to be known as a hundredth part of the point of a hair, divided a hundred times, yet it is capable of infinity ” (Svet. 5.9).

Thus, the original is of the same nature as the amsa, but if the origin falls in maya, the ability to create amsas or dream-selves, is gone. Unless the jiva gets back some yoga-siddhis, but he is fallen out of the spiritual world.

Day-dreaming

Thus, to consider our conditional life a dream expansion of our liberated self in the spiritual world is a wrong idea. Srila Prabhupada in the purport to SB 4.29.64 writes:

“In dreams we sometimes see things that we have never experienced in the present body. Sometimes in dreams we think that we are flying in the sky, although we have no experience of flying. This means that once in a previous life, either as a demigod or astronaut, we flew in the sky. The impression is there in the stockpile of the mind, and it suddenly expresses itself. It is like fermentation taking place in the depths of water, which sometimes manifests itself in bubbles on the water’s surface. Sometimes we dream of coming to a place we have never known or experienced in this lifetime, but this is proof that in a past life we experienced this. The impression is kept within the mind and sometimes becomes manifest either in dream or in thought. The conclusion is that the mind is the storehouse of various thoughts and experiences undergone during our past lives.”

Thus, dream-consciousness has a basis; the dreams of a liberated soul are expansions of the life experiences of the mukta and to be of the same quality. If he dreams of material activities, he’ll be given the material realm to do material activities.

So-called bad, spiritual dreams are lila.

Some branches of dreamvada make all the activities of all the conditioned souls, the lilas of the residents of Vaikuntha, since the activities of the mayic world are the dream-expansions of a mukta-purusa. This has some smell of the Brahmavada philosophy, which teaches that this world and its activities are the lila of the Lord.

Prabhupada: They have no knowledge. Avisuddha-buddhayah [SB 10.2.32], always impure. Otherwise how they are thinking, so ‘ham: “I am the same. I am God. I am moving the sun.” Such rascals, they remain always in ignorance. “If I am the same, then why I have fallen down in this maya?” They say, “It is my lila. I have become a dog. It is my lila. I have become hog.” (Morning Walk, July 2, 1975, Denver)

So according to this dreamvada, we do pastimes here just as they go on in the spiritual world. There is no difference between the material and spiritual world. All the activities here are orchestrated from above. The script is written in Vaikuntha and we execute it. The first and second world war with all its horrors gas-chambers atom-bombs was lila. The Stalin amsa killing 30 million other amsas was lila among the amsas of the nitya siddhas. The Mao amsa killing 40 million other amsas was lila. The 42 million abortions every year worldwide is the lila of Vaikuntha. The 1 million suicides worldwide every year is the lila of some or 1 million Vaikuntha residents. The up till now registered more than 120 million abductions by the aliens is the lila of Vaikuntha and it could also be staged in Vaikuntha, since maya and Vaikuntha are one, and the “conditioned existence is a figment of the imagination” (wrote one dream-vadi), meaning, according to the believer, either, these happen in some form in the spiritual world, or they are non-existent, sunya, zero or asat, false or my inexplicable subconsciousness with who I – who is in Krishna-lila– have nothing to do or inconceivable paradox– it is me and not me.

The world is not a dream

“The dream of Maha Vishnu is factual reality” (SB 1.16.26-30 purport)

Our acaryas rejected that we are dreaming off-shoots of a higher spirituality. Srila Madhvacarya writes in his Sri Tattva-muktavali or Mayavada-satadusani 101:

“The Mayavadis compare material existence to a dream, but in truth it is not at all like a dream. The dreaming condition is full of many faults. In a dream one may eat and drink unlimitedly, but he will never become satiated, although in the waking condition one quickly becomes satiated by eating and drinking. The use of this analogy by the Mayavadis is a great blunder, for the waking condition is not at all like a dream.”

And the Vedanta sutra 2.2.29 states – vaidharmyAc ca na svapnAdi-vat – it is not like a dream because of the difference.

This is from the section refuting the Yogacara Buddhists.

Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana explains the difference (in his Govinda bhasya 2.2.29) as follows:

“The objects experienced in a dream and in waking perception are not the same. They are different. In a dream there is a remembering of what was experienced in the past. In waking there is direct perception. In a dream experiences change moment to moment. When one awakens he is immediately convinced that the dream was unreal. The object seen when one is awake do not change so from moment to moment, as they do in dream. In the waking state some objects remain virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. True, the Lord creates objects in the dream state (sutra 3.2.1), but for a temporary purpose and for a particular soul only; while the external world He has created for all souls and for the Cosmic period, and given them greater fixity. ”

Vedanta Kaustubha adds: “Cognitions in the waking state are due to attentive sense organs, those in dreams due to inattentive sense organs,” “….those in dreams due to sleep and other such misguiding instruments”. Sri Bhasya states.

The material existence is in analogy sometimes described to be *like* a dream, but not literally a figment of the imagination or dream of a soul stationed in Goloka Vrindavana.

Soul dreams his dreams here

The dream theory is, ‘we have our soul still in goloka’.

The truth is that the soul is not Krishna conscious, in darkness, in the material world, and by taking to Krishna consciousness we can revive our eternal, original, spiritual form, sat-cit-ananda-vigraha, which is within these rotting material forms, and return in that sat-cit-ananda-vigraha, back to home, back to Godhead.

That is explained in several places: (we’ll give only a few)

SB 9.13.11

“The demigods said: Let Maharaja Nimi live without a material body. Let him live in a spiritual body as a personal associate of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and, according to his desire, let him be manifest or unmanifest to common materially embodied people.

PURPORT

The demigods wanted Maharaja Nimi to come to life, but Maharaja Nimi did not want to accept another material body. Under the circumstances, the demigods, having been requested by the saintly persons, gave him the benediction that he would be able to stay in his spiritual body…a purely spiritual body, free from all gross and subtle material contamination….Thus he lived in his original, spiritual body as an associate of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

“Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura comments that the word siddha-deha, “perfected spiritual body,” refers to a body beyond the material gross body composed of five elements and the subtle astral body composed of mind, intelligence and false ego. In other words, one attains a completely spiritual body fit to render service to the transcendental couple Radha and Krishna: sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam tat-paratvena nirmalam [Cc. Madhya 19.170].

When one is situated in his spiritual body, which is beyond this gross and subtle material body, he is fit to serve Radha and Krishna. That body is called siddha-deha. .. when one is spiritually situated and does not desire a gross or subtle body, he attains his original spiritual body. As confirmed by the Bhagavad-gita (4.9): tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti so ’rjuna.

One is elevated to the spiritual world by the spiritual body and is situated either in Goloka Vrindavana or in another Vaikuntha planet.” (CC Madhya 8.229 p)

“Anyone who understands Me, why I come here, what is My activities,” tyaktva deham punar janma [Bg. 4.9], “he becomes liberated. After giving up this body, he does not accept any material body. In his own spiritual body he goes back to home, back to Godhead.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila 1.4, Mayapur, March 28, 1975)

For a devotee, however, there is no more karma, and so there is no more material body. Krishna confirms this in the Bhagavad-gita (4.9): tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti. After giving up his present body, a devotee does not get another material body, but rather in his spiritual body he goes back home, back to Godhead. (Dharma: The Way of Transcendence ch. 16. When the Krishna Sun Rises in the Heart)

“If you want to stay in the material, then you change the material body just suitable for a particular place, atmosphere. But we have got our spiritual body. That spiritual body, without any material covering, you can transfer to the spiritual world. (Evening Darsana, July 7, 1976, Washington, D.C.)

“Everyone dies, so a devotee, after death, in his transcendental form, he goes, back to home, back to Godhead. (Room Conversation with Reverend Gordon Powell, Head of Scots Church, June 28, 1974, Melbourne)

“Our endeavor should be how to get again our original spiritual body. Spiritual body is there already. It is covered by the material body.” (Venezuela, on February 21, 1975)

Bhagavad-gita 16.10, Hawaii, February 6, 1975

“…revive our original spiritual body. That spiritual body is within…”

“When you go back to home, back to Godhead, you haven’t got to accept this material body. Your spiritual body is already there within this material body. And in that spiritual body you shall exist along with God.”

(Bhagavad-gita 2.11—Edinburgh, July 16, 1972)

“we are helping people how to get out of this material body, and revive your own spiritual body and, in that spiritual body, you go back to home, back to Godhead.” (Bhagavad-gita 4.13—New York, April 8, 1973)

“Mukta means we change this body not to accept any more material body, but we remain in our own spiritual body. Just like if you are diseased, you are suffering from fever, so when there is no more fever, but you remain in your original healthy body, that is called mukti. .. You are suffering from fever. To become free from fever does not mean that you become formless. Why I shall become formless? My form is there, but my form is no more disturbed by the fever, feverish condition. That is called mukti. Roga-mukta, free from disease. Therefore it is called muktva kalevaram. Just like the snake. They sometimes give up the outer covering of the body…But he remains in the body. But the extra covering which had, he had grown, that is also gone once he gives up. Everything, every education, is there in the nature’s study. We can see the, the snake give up the covering, but he remains in his form. Similarly, we… Muktva kalevaram means this extra… Just like this dress, this is covering. I can give it up, but I remain in my original body. Similarly, mukti means I have got my original body already. It is covered by this material coating” (Bhagavad-gita 8.1—Geneva, June 7, 1974)

Spiritual body is now covered with the material body… And when you haven’t got to take dress, or this material body, and you remain in your spiritual body, that is called mukti. .. tyaktva deham punar janma: he doesn’t accept any more material body. Mam eti. He becomes eligible to go back home, back to Godhead, and there he dances with Krishna. That is real mukti…no more accepts any material body, he is transferred to the spiritual world to play with Krishna, to dance with Krishna, to talk with Krishna. ( Conversation with

Yogi Amrit Desai of Kripalu Ashram, Pennsylvania, USA. January 2, 1977, Bombay)

“One’s identification with the material body will vanish and identification with one’s spiritual body will predominate. In that spiritual body (svarupa-siddhi) one will always see Vrindavana and serve Radha and Krishna. This final stage is called sampatti-dasa. By Krishna’s mercy, suddenly one’s material body, mind, intelligence and false ego will be cast off and one will appear in a pure spiritual body, serving Radha and Krishna along with Their eternal associates. (Hari-nama-cintamani & Nama-bhajana by Srila Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura Chapter 15 – Bhajana-pranali)

“Sri Dhruva Maharaja went to Dhruvaloka in his spiritualized material body; seeing that, should one waste time hoping for the same? The general rule is a living entity gives up his material body and goes to Vaikuntha in his spiritual body.” (Sri Bhaktyaloka – The Six Faults and Qualities of Bhakti Dhairya -by Srila Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura – 9 Dhairya – Patience)

“Is the holy name a material sound vibration? Can a material tongue chant the holy name?

The holy name of Hari is not a product of the material world. A pure spirit soul situated in his constitutional position is qualified to chant the holy name of Hari in his spiritual body.

A materially conditioned living entity cannot chant the holy name through his material senses. However, when one’s constitutional propensities are awakened by the mercy of the hladini potency, one is eligible to chant the holy name of the Lord. At that time, the pure name mercifully appears in the devotee’s heart and then dances on his devotion-filled tongue. The mystery of the holy name is that it is not a combination of letters but manifests as a combination of letters when it dances on a material tongue.”

(Jaiva Dharma by Srila Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura – Chapter 23)

“Does a great personality, who worships Krishna in his spiritual body, give up the rules and regulations?

Do swanlike persons engage only in spiritual activities and neglect material activities? No. Swanlike persons worship Krishna in the mood of one who is enjoyed, and they boldly take care of the external body. Eating, sleeping, enjoying, traveling, exercising, protecting society, protecting the body, riding in vehicles, engaging in industrial enterprises, and walking in the open air are seen in the lives of swanlike persons.”

(Sri Krishna-samhita by Srila Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura – Chapter 10/12)

(Vedanta sutra. 4.4.1-3) “(1) sampadyavir-bhavah svena sabdat

“Attaining, the appearance with one’s own, from sound.”

Ramanuja’s Sri Bhasya: “‘This blessed soul, rising up from the [material] body and approaching the supreme light with his own form achieves [the Absolute].’ (Chandogya Upanishad 8.12.2)”

Our comment: The soul’s form, sat-cit-ananda-vigraha developed here, that form rises up.

Ramanuja continues: “Does the liberated soul achieve a body that is different from his self, just as the souls of demigods receive demigod bodies?] Or is there the appearance of a svarupa, a constitutional form, which is derived from the very nature [of the soul]. Whether the soul, at liberation, achieves a thoroughly new spiritual body or simply manifests a spiritual form that the soul possessed all along.”

Answer: “He attains to a specific situation in the form of the appearance of the [soul’s] svarupa, not in the form of [the soul] entering a bodily shape that did not exist before. How so? Because of the word svena, [in the sense of] svena rupena, ‘by one’s own form.’ That is the meaning because of the use of the adjective (sva). Indeed, if we accept that [the spiritual body one acquires at liberation] is agantuka [extrinsic, added on, adventitious] and sadhya [to be gained, produced], then certainly the adjective svena [modifying] rupena would be meaningless … Being liberated from the connection with karma and from the body, etc., created by it, [the liberated soul] is situated with a form that is of his own nature. Here is stated [from Chandogya Upanishad 8.12.2]:

‘With his own form, he attains the Absolute.’

There is cessation of the concealment of the svarupa, which, even though eternally present, was concealed by ignorance in the form of karma.

In his Vedanta-sara (“essence of Vedanta”) he comments:

“It is said here that although the precise form of the soul’s constitutional form was in fact (eva) previously (prag) known and existed in perfection (siddha) (siddhatve means “in the condition of existing fully or perfectly,” or “in the condition of being known or understood,”) still (at the time of liberation) there is the appearance of that constitutional form, in expanded form, of the qualities of knowledge, bliss, etc., which due to karma had been shrunk within the soul.

Sri Ramanujacarya in His Sri Bhasya 4.4.3 quotes Saunaka rsi in Visnudharma 4.55-57

“Just as the luster of a gem is not created by the washing off of the dirt, so the knowledge of the soul is not created by the removal of faults. Just as water is not created by the digging of a well, only what is already existent is brought to manifestation,— for how can there be the origination of what is non-existent,—so the attributes of knowledge and the rest are manifested, and not created, through the destruction of the evil qualities, for they belong to the soul eternally.”

Our comment:

The luster of the soul (sat-cit-ananda-vigraha, of its form of eternal knowledge and bliss) was shining, in the spiritual world. It is written here : ‘eternally manifest essential nature’ before bondage, and ‘The qualities of intelligence, bliss etc fully in perfection’. Then the qualities of the soul become shrunk within the soul. They manifest again, and then with that sat-cit-ananda-vigraha he goes back to Godhead. That means the soul’s original position is in a shrunken or contracted state, and in bondage, in the material body (‘liberated from connection with karma and from the body’); it is not still shining in Goloka .

(SB 8.4.13)

Upon delivering the King of the elephants from the clutches of the crocodile, and from material existence, which resembles a crocodile, the Lord awarded him the status of sarupya-mukti. In the presence of the Gandharvas, the Siddhas and the other demigods, who were praising the Lord for His wonderful transcendental activities, the Lord, sitting on the back of His carrier, Garuda, returned to His all-wonderful abode and took Gajendra with Him.

Purport: muktir hitvanyatha rupam svarupena vyavasthitih. The word svarupa refers to sarupya-mukti—going back home, back to Godhead, and remaining the Lord’s eternal associate, having regained a spiritual body exactly resembling that of the Lord, with four hands, holding the sankha, cakra, gada and padma.

Our comment: upon being delivered from the crocodile, the svarupa was given; this sat-cit-ananda-vigraha was on the back of Garuda, to go back to Godhead.

There is no amsa here

Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana describes in his purport to Bhagavad-gita 18.14 quoting Prasna Upanisad Esa hi drastA srastA – he is the seer and doer; the soul here sees and acts.

This is on the verses of Bg 18.13-14 where Krishna says: “learn from Me the five causes of action.” This is about the jiva in this world. Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana makes it clear that there is a jiva in this world and not only a consciousness. He comments:

“The jiva is the substratum of the body, senses and pranas which are supplied by the Lord, and which operate through powers bestowed by the Lord alone. Being the possessor of these bestowed powers, the jiva rules over his body and senses by his own desires alone, for accomplishing his actions. The Supreme Lord, situated within all the jivas, giving His permission for the jiva’s action, sets the actions of the jiva in motion.”

Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s purva-paksa, opponent, says:

“But then at least the liberated jiva should not be the agent, because he no longer has a body, senses and pranas.” (This is about the soul in the spiritual world)

Baladeva answers:

“No, that is not so, because the liberated souls have spiritual senses and body, by which to accomplish their (spiritual) desires.”

Thus, there is a soul here, and it became liberated; it has gone from the material to the spiritual world.

Nimbarka in his Vedanta-parijata-saurabha, 4.4.1 writes: “after leaving the material body, the soul in the spiritual world manifests its own natural form”. To prove he quotes Chandogya upanisad 8.12.3: “The soul is completed in or restored to his own form”. Then in his comment on Vedanta sutra 4.4.2 he writes:

“One’s natural form is ever present. The soul is not completed in another adventitious form.”

On Vedanta sutra 4.4.4 he comments:

“Through the influence of nescience the individual soul comes to have a perverted notion about itself.”

This means in the material-spiritualized– body, the soul develops its original form, which becomes visible in full when it returns to the spiritual world.

“Comes to have” means the soul didn’t have the influence of nescience. It had its natural eternal form, this becomes veiled, overpowered, covered. The soul got, “came to have,” the tama, raja, sattva guna’s of maya.

Srinivasa ends: “By the repeated practice of hearing, thinking, meditating etc. all the obstacles to real knowledge are destroyed.”

He is all the time talking of a soul here in a material body

comments on Bhagavad-gita 5.15-16.

nadatte kasyacit papam / na caiva sukrtam vibhuh

ajnanenavrtam jnanam / tena muhyanti jantavah

jnanena tu tad ajnanam / yesam nasitam atmanah

tesam aditya-vaj jnanam / prakasayati tat param

“Nor does the Supreme Lord assume anyone’s sinful or pious activities. Embodied beings, however, are bewildered because of the ignorance which covers their real knowledge. When, however, one is enlightened with the knowledge by which nescience is destroyed, then his knowledge reveals everything, as the sun lights up everything in the daytime.”

Sri Ramanuja’s commentary: “The atma is transcendental to material nature…How then is it that the atma is thus shrouded by this vasana. Lord Krsna reveals that it is because of ignorance. It is ignorance which shrouds and obscures spiritual knowledge. Ignorance and nescience is that which is opposed to spiritual knowledge and wisdom. By the shrouding of ignorance …the consciousness of the atma becomes obscured and the intelligence compromised, allowing the living entity to enter the perilous predicament of believing they are the enjoyer..

Although the intelligence may be shrouded by the veil of ignorance still it has been seen that there are those whose consciousness becomes awakened upon receiving Vedic knowledge.”

He speaks about the soul stationed here in the material world. “blooped,” as Srila Prabhupada would say. “Bloop” was the sound of the soul falling back into the material pool.

Oxford dictionary states “fall: come or go down from force of weight, loss of balance, descend or drop. Loose one’s position, office or power, sin, do wrong. Example: Eve tempted Adam and he fell.”

“Fall away: desert or leave, disappear, vanish, fall for, be attracted to, fall in love with, allow oneself to be persuaded by, esp. unwisely fall into, be trapped by.”

“Fall (noun) decrease in value, quantity, intensity, loss of innocence or state of goodness.”

Also scripture teaches there is a soul in this body:

Qoutes:

isvarah sarva-bhutanam

hrd-dese arjuna tisthati

bhramayan sarva-bhutani

yantrarudhani mayaya

“The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wandering of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.” BG 18.61

dva suparna sayuja sakhaya

samanam vriksham praishasvajate

tayor anyah pippalam svadv atty

anashnann anyo ‘bhicakashiti

“The individual spirit soul and the Supersoul, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, are like two friendly birds sitting on the same tree. One of the birds (the individual atomic soul) is eating the fruit of the tree (the sense gratification afforded by the material body), and the other bird (the Supersoul) is not trying to eat these fruits, but is simply watching His friend. (Svetasvatara Upanishad 4.6-7)

Thus the fallen soul is *in* the material body, not in the spiritual world

“O son of Bharata, as the sun alone illuminates all this universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness.” (Bg 13.34)

(Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Prema Pradipa p.96) “Cit is said to be pure atma; it does not mean this (material) form. In other words, the original form of pure atma is a body made of cit. It is a constitutional structure called cit. It is eternally manifested by the acintya-sakti. It is in this substance that the places, the bodies, and other instruments become manifest in their eternal form in Vaikuntha. Atma is an element situated in Vaikuntha. The original cit body comes to the material world. Cit makes the substances named material elements reflect.”

“The liberated state is our original constitution as consciousness (cit), while the conditioned state is a reflex of consciousness, which appears as conscious and non-conscious, a form of mixed matter and spirit. In the liberated state we (naturally) enjoy the rasas of Vaikuntha, while in the conditioned state we have to search for rasa. That means, we have to look for enjoyable rasas like those (but which are perverted in this world).” Another translation is: “The individual soul naturally resides in Vaikuntha. If he somehow comes to the material world, the individual soul brings with him his spiritual form made of chit. Pervertedly reflected in the material world those things of chit are called by name ‘matter’…. the soul loses (the memory) of the original form (or rasa) (he had) in the Vaikuntha world.”

To summarize this quote:

In the liberated state as atma in vaikuntha, we enjoyed the rasas of Vaikuntha. The original form of pure atma is a soul-body made of cit. This is our original constitution as soul-consciousness (cit). Then we come to the material world.

The soul, sat-cit-ananda-vigraha, left Vaikuntha. Nothing of the soul is there anymore, only a memory.

The soul ”comes to the material world and brings with him his spiritual form made of cit.”

He doesn’t leave it in the spiritual world. The soul brought it here.

The souls had a spiritual form in the spiritual world. That form became shrunk or contracted. Therefore, it has to become revived or reanimated from the conditioned diseased state. If the spiritual body is already and still in its complete glorious form in Vaikuntha then it doesn’t have to become revived. In Vaikuntha all the bodies are perfect. Thus our form is not in Vaikuntha. It is here and it has to become restored by the process of Krishna-consciousness.

”Jiva is a spiritual atomic part of Krishna. When he forgets his service of Govinda he is at once deflected by the attracting power of Maya in this world, who throws him into the whirlpool of mundane fruitive activity (karma) by confining him in a gross body resembling the garb of a prisoner. ..On getting rid of the subtle body, he bathes in the viraja and goes up to Hari-dhama.” (Brahma-samhita 5.44 purport)

“Krsna comes down and instructs us, “But why you are engaged in this foolish activity? Please come to Me, back to home, back to Godhead…So originally the spirit soul has got body, so these physical elements are just like a covering, exactly to the size of the hands, legs, everything…The future is to go back to home, back to Godhead.” (Srila Prabhupada philosophical discussions on Bergson)

Comment: The soul got its prison suit in this cosmic prison, according to its original form. Know that all spiritual forms are fully complete with all the karmendriyas, jnanendriyas, with spiritual mind and intelligence. That sat-cit-ananda-vigraha fell here, got contracted and has to be revived, then that soul and form can go back to the free world, back home to Godhead:

“Devotee: Srila Prabhupada, in our fully developed state in the spiritual sky, are we still one ten-thousandth the size of a tip of a hair like we are now in conditioned state?

Prabhupada: Your real dimension is mentioned there that you are a spiritual atom. The measurement is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. That is the seed, or basic principle. Now, on that small particle of spirit soul we have developed this body. We have got human bodies, other has got the elephant body, other has got the mountainous body, but this is external. The real seed is that one ten-thousandth part of the hair. Similarly, as you have developed this material body under different consciousness, similarly when we give up the material connection we shall develop our spiritual body, and in that spiritual body we shall be able to enter the kingdom of God, back to home, back to Godhead. .. “He comes to Me” means just like in your country one who comes to you becomes citizen. He must have some particular qualities or conditions fulfilled, then he will be accepted as citizen or immigrant. Similarly, if we want to go back to home, back to Godhead, then we must develop our dormant spiritual qualities. (Interview–July 5, 1972, New York)

Same in:

“Devotee (1): Will we ever get our memory functioning properly again?

Prabhupada: Yes. When the anartha, unwanted bodies, body’s covering of the spiritual body. We have got this spiritual body. When you get your spiritual body, then the natural memory is liberated. Everything is there. It is the diseased condition, anartha. In diseased condition… Just like in high fever one does not act memory…When you condition this material body, you have forgotten.

Devotee (1): Does the spiritual body grow gradually, Srila Prabhupada?

Prabhupada: It is already there; it is covered… It is there. Unless it is there, how we are moving? This is a fact—open secret. As soon as the spiritual body goes, this body has no value. Just like my…, this coat. If the coat is out of my body, then it has no value, although the coat has hands and body; it looks like another body. Similarly, the real body is supported by the spiritual body. That is already there. Otherwise how this body is moving? It is common sense only. Just like this coat is moving because it is on my real body, so far we have got. Similarly this real body, this is also another dress. This is also moving because there is spiritual body… This form out of this body cannot move. You hang it on the hanger, it will remain there for millions of years. But so long as this body… Because at the end it has got hand, it has got body. Similarly, because the spiritual body is there, this material body appears to be moving…. Devotee (2): Your Divine Grace, I understand that the spirit soul is one ten-thousandth the size of the tip of the hair, and in the spiritual world, is the size the same size?

Prabhupada: No. When you get your spiritual body, you can enhance your body as you like. [laughter] Just like Krishna can enhance the body—Varaha murti—which can lift this Earth on the tusk of the [indistinct]. First of all, the Varaha murti came like a small germ from the nostril of Brahma. And the Brahma says, “What is this?” [laughter] And then became proof: “verrrhhh” [laughter]. So big that it covered the sky! Similarly, spiritual body means all freedom. You can increase; you can decrease. You can go anywhere; you can do whatever you like. That is spiritual body. (Arrival Address, Delhi, November 11, 1973)

You are liberated

“Cit in purity” is stainless. (Vasistha Muni teaches)

This Srila Prabhupada quotes often from the Vedas: Brihad aranyaka upanisad 4.3.15 asango hy ayam purusa the text in full is:

sa va esa etasmin samprasade ratva caritva drstvaiva punyam ca papam ca,

punah pratinyayam pratiyony adravati svapnayaiva; sa yat tatra kim cit

pasyati ananvagatas tena bhavati; asango hy ayam purusa iti. evam evaitat,

yajnavalkya. so’ham bhagavate sahasram dadami, ata urdhvam

vimoksayaiva bruhiti.

The gist of this sloka is that “whatever the soul sees in dream, deep sleep or awakening, he is not followed or affected by it for this person is not attached to anything.” But the soul is *in* matter dreaming, sleeping or awakened.

Srila Prahupada explains this asango hy ayam purusa in various places: I am packed up with all these twenty-four elements?” Just like we are covering because it is cold, but actually as spirit soul, I am not affected. Asango hy ayam purusha. In the Vedas it is said that the soul is unaffected with this material condition. I have several times given this example, that a person has got a good car, and it is somehow or another broken, and he becomes upset, because his car Although he knows that “I am not this car,” but his thoughts being absorbed by the attraction of the car, when the car is broken somehow or other he becomes almost unconscious. So this is due to our attachment… Therefore Krishna advises, matra-sparsas tu kaunteya. These pains and pleasure is due to this material skin and bone; it is not real. But because you are attached to the skin and bone, therefore you feel sometimes pain and pleasure. But that will not endure. Better tolerate it.(Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.6.8, Vrindavana, December 10, 1975)

Comment: The soul is here in the material world, packed up within twenty-four elements, within this material bag of skin and bone.

“Since the identity of the living entity is very minute, he is prone to be subjected to material nature, but when he is freed from this material body, which is false, he attains the same, spiritual nature as the Supreme Lord. At that time there is no qualitative difference between him and the Supreme Lord, but because he is not so quantitatively powerful as to never be put under the influence of material nature, he is quantitatively different from the Lord.

The entire process of devotional service is to purify oneself of this contamination of material nature and put oneself on the spiritual platform, where he is qualitatively one with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In the Vedas it is said that the living entity is always free. Asango hy ayam purushah. The living entity is liberated. His material contamination is temporary, and his actual position is that he is liberated. This liberation is achieved by Krishna consciousness, which begins from the point of surrender. Therefore it is said here, “I offer my respectful obeisances unto the Supreme Person.” (SB 3.31.14 p)

Comment: The soul is in the material body, subjected to material nature, but is *constitutionally* pure:

“The living entity is constitutionally pure. Asango hy ayam purushah. In the Vedic literature it is said that the soul is always pure and uncontaminated by material attachment. The identification of the body with the soul is due to misunderstanding. As soon as one is fully Krishna conscious it is to be understood that one is in his pure, original constitutional position. This state of existence is called suddha-sattva” (SB 4.3.23 p)

“…The living entity lying down within the body is disturbed by many tribulations pertaining to providence, to other living entities and to his own body and mind. Despite all kinds of tribulations, the living entity, subjected to the necessities of the body, mind and senses and suffering from various types of disease, is carried away by many plans due to his lust to enjoy the world. Although transcendental to this material existence, the living entity, out of ignorance, accepts all these material miseries under the pretext of false egoism (“I” and “mine”). In this way he lives for a hundred years within this body.

PURPORT

In the Vedas it is stated: asango hy ayam purushah. The living entity is actually separate from material existence, for the soul is not material…. the internal or superior energy comes in contact with the external energy… because of the material body, the living entity is subjected to many tribulations, brought about by air, water, fire, extreme heat, extreme cold, sunshine, excessive eating, unhealthy food, maladjustments of the three elements of the body (kapha, pitta and vayu).. The living entity, however, is different from all these material elements…. get out of the material clutches and return home, back to Godhead. Actually the living entity is not at all happy in this material body. Because of the body, he suffers… Manifold miseries encircle the transcendental living entity simply because he desires to satisfy his senses in this material world… after giving up the body, will return home, back to Godhead.” (SB 4.29.23, SB 4.29.24, SB 4.29.25 SB 4.29.23-25)

Comment: the transcendental soul is lying within the body (kunape tri dhatuke) for a 100 years.

“In the Vedas it is said: asango hy ayam purushah. The living entity is not really connected with this material world, but due to his tendency to enjoy the material senses he is put into the material condition.” (SB 5.5.4 p)

Comment: the soul is not in Goloka, but not really here, but here; (acintya)bhedabheda at all levels. This dreamvada forgets; the material existence is a dream, in one sense, but not a dream also. We are in Vaikuntha but in the prison of Vaikuntha, the secondary kingdom of Vaikunthanatha. Vaikunthanatha’s and our home is at another location, in the paravyoma– or Maha-Vaikuntha.

“The soul the body covers is different from the bodily construction; therefore anything favorable or mischievous done to the body does not affect the spirit soul. The Vedic injunction is asango hy ayam purushah: the spirit soul is always unaffected by material arrangements.” (SB 5.10.6 p)

“ Lord Brahma, who is carried by a swan airplane, at first could not see where Hiranyakasipu was, for Hiranyakasipu’s body was covered by an anthill and by grass and bamboo sticks. Because Hiranyakasipu had been there for a long time, the ants had devoured his skin, fat, flesh and blood. Then Lord Brahma and the demigods spotted him, resembling a cloud-covered sun, heating all the world by his austerity. Struck with wonder, Lord Brahma began to smile and then addressed him as follows.

PURPORT

The living entity can live merely by his own power, without the help of skin, marrow, bone, blood and so on, because it is said, asango hy ayam purushah—the living entity has nothing to do with the material covering.” (SB 7.3.15, SB 7.3.16, SB 7.3.15-16)

Our comment: The irony is that Jaya and Vijaya had as one amsa this Hiranyakasipu. Thus this is very similar to what dream-vada thinks happens as the fall of the soul from the spiritual heaven.

Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura states in his Darsini commentary on SB 3.16.29 and SB 8.21.16-17 that they had spiritual bodies, amsas, expansions in the pastimes of the Lord in the material world:

“The expansions of Jaya and Vijaya fell in to the material world…the original forms remained in Vaikuntha. Their expansions playing the roles of demons stayed in the material world until Krishna liberated them.”

”When the 4 Kumaras cursed Jaya and Vijaya, these doorkeepers wept and wailed. The Lord spoke, His heart softened by compassion: “do not fear. May you two have good fortune. Do not go there. Always remain serving me in Vaikuntha.”

“As Garuda sacrificed an expansion of his wing to maintain the inevitability of the thunderbolt’s power you should take on the role of demons in one of your expansions and at the same time remain in Vaikuntha in your svarupa.”

They could expand an amsa because they were liberated souls. But internally they were always aware that all this was a drama, lila for the pleasure of the Lord. We are different. If we can expand an amsa, then if our amsa is envious of Krishna, then the original is also to be like that.

“Asango hy ayam purushah.. The individual exists in darkness when he thinks that he is the material body and that everything in relationship with the material body belongs to him. This is called aham mama (janasya moho ‘yam aham mameti [SB 5.5.8]). This is illusion. One must give up his illusory conception and thus become fully aware of everything.”(SB 7.7.19, SB 7.7.20, SB 7.7.19-20 p)

“the living entity is not subject to any material reactions. He can neither be burnt by fire, cut by sharp weapons, moistened by water, nor dried by the air. He is completely different from the physical elements, but by a superior arrangement he is put into these material elements. He is always aloof from material contact (asango hy ayam purushah) but because he is placed in a material condition, he suffers the reactions of the material modes of nature.

purushah prakriti-stho hi

bhunkte prakritijan gunan

karanam guna-sango ‘sya

sad-asad-yoni-janmasu

“The living entity in material nature thus follows the ways of life, enjoying the three modes of nature. This is due to his association with that material nature. Thus he meets with good and evil amongst various species.” (Bg. 13.22) Although the living entity is aloof from the material elements, he is put into material conditions, and thus he must suffer the reactions of material activities.” (SB 8.17.23 p)

“The body [the total body and the individual body are of the same composition] may figuratively be called “the original tree.” From this tree, which fully depends on the ground of material nature, come two kinds of fruit—the enjoyment of happiness and the suffering of distress. The cause of the tree, forming its three roots, is association with the three modes of material nature—goodness, passion and ignorance. The fruits of bodily happiness have four tastes—religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and liberation—which are experienced through five senses for acquiring knowledge in the midst of six circumstances: lamentation, illusion, old age, death, hunger and thirst. The seven layers of bark covering the tree are skin, blood, muscle, fat, bone, marrow and semen, and the eight branches of the tree are the five gross and three subtle elements—earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego. The tree of the body has nine hollows—the eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the rectum and the genitals—and ten leaves, the ten airs passing through the body. In this tree of the body there are two birds: one is the individual soul, and the other is the Supersoul.

PURPORT … the entire cosmic manifestation is a combination of two of Krishna’s energies—the superior energy and the inferior energy. The living entities are the superior energy, and the inanimate material elements are His inferior energy… the living entity is completely separate from the material bodily structure. In Bhagavad-gita (7.5) the Lord says:

apareyam itas tv anyam

prakritim viddhi me param

jiva-bhutam maha-baho

yayedam dharyate jagat

“Besides this inferior nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which consists of all the living entities who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe.” Although the material elements emanate from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, they are separated elements and are sustained by the living elements…. In the tree of the body there are two birds, or two living elements… Bhagavad-gita (13.3), the Lord says, kshetra-jnam capi mam viddhi sarva-kshetreshu bharata: “O scion of Bharata, you should understand that I am also the knower in all bodies.” The kshetra jna, the owner of the body, is also called the khaga, the living entity. Within the body there are two such kshetra jnas—the individual soul and the Supersoul. The individual soul is the owner of his individual body, but the Supersoul is present within the bodies of all living entities… The living entity lives close to matter, but this does not mean that he merges or mixes with it (asango hy ayam purushah).. The Supersoul is present in every body (isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrid-dese ‘rjuna tishthati [Bg. 18.61]), whereas the individual soul is situated only in his own body (dehi) and is transmigrating from one body to another. (SB 10.2.27)

Comment: ‘completely separate’ but ‘in’ the body. Again, the ABCD is stated, the ABCD, which dreamvada jumps over.

“As stated in the Vedas, asango hy ayam purushah: the spirit soul has no connection with the changes of the material body. The body undergoes six changes—birth, growth, sustenance, by-products, dwindling and then annihilation—but the soul undergoes no such changes… The living entity enjoys the material body, which appears and disappears.. As already discussed, the body is made according to the desires of the soul. The soul desires, and thus the body is formed. Krishna therefore says in Bhagavad-gita (18.61):

isvarah sarva-bhutanam

hrid-dese ‘rjuna tishthati

bhramayan sarva-bhutani

yantrarudhani mayaya

“The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.” Neither the Supersoul, Paramatma, nor the individual soul changes its original, spiritual identity. The atma does not undergo birth, death or changes like the body. Therefore a Vedic aphorism says, asango hy ayam purushah: although the soul is conditioned within this material world, he has no connections with the changes of the material body. (SB 10.4.19 p)

““In the material condition, the living entity is sometimes raised to higher planetary systems and material prosperity and sometimes drowned in a hellish situation. His state is exactly like that of a criminal whom a king punishes by submerging him in water and then raising him again from the water.

PURPORT

In the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (4.3.16) it is stated, asango hy ayam purushah: the living entity is always free from the contamination of the material world. (CC.Madhya 20.118)

“I am thinking that “I am American,” “I am Indian,” or “I am this,” “I am that.” “I have to work, I have got business.” So many you have created. But, our process is, our process is to cleanse the heart. That you are nothing of this, you are simply eternal servant of Krishna. You engage yourself as eternal servant of Krishna and become happy. Ceto-darpana-marjanam bhava-maha-davagni-nirvapanam [Cc. Antya 20.12]. Because we are ignorant of our constitutional position we have created all these problems.

Actually there is no problem. Exactly the same example, just like at night in dream we create so many problems, but actually there is no problem. But dreaming, that I am in such and such position, I am being harassed, somebody is taking my money, somebody is pinching me, so many things. I am in the front of tiger, there is ghost, there is so many things. So these problems, actually there is no problem, but by dreaming he is creating, mental. Asango hy ayam purushah, Veda says that this purusha, the atma, the soul has no connection with all these things. So we have created, by material concoction, so many problems. So the whole process is how to cleanse this dreaming condition of life.” (Sri Brahma-samhita, Verse 35, New York, July 31, 1971)

Comment: “Just like..”, there is analogy, but “I am this,” “I am that.” “I have to..”, is actually going on, and “I” the soul is ‘really’ within it.

Same in:

“the soul, as he is, he’s pure. Asango hy ayam purushah. The spirit soul is not contaminated or does not associate with the material modes of nature. It is simply an illusion, misidentification. Just like water and oil does not mix, but it appears that oil is fallen in the water, similarly, although we are in this material world, in the material consciousness, our identity is not actually in material consciousness. It is simply… Just like dreaming. The example is dreaming. Just like in dream I see so many hallucinations. Actually, dream is false. I am separate from the dream. But while dreaming, I think I am actually enjoying or suffering. Similarly, by the association of the modes of material nature, we are thinking like that. Otherwise, we are free from the contamination of the material nature.” (The Nectar of Devotion, Vrindavana, November 8, 1972).

This ‘asango’ means that the living entity is not connected with matter. As a diamond can be covered over by mud but is not actually stained, so similarly the svarupa of the soul is covered over, and contracted even, but not lost by being under the mud of maya.

This asango purusa gets repeatedly associated with different types of antah karana, the four inner faculties – citta, ahankara, buddhi, manah – and various gross bodies. The subtle body, antah karana, is the same, during one maha-kalpa, lifetime of Lord Brahma, but its content changes; the soul has various types of thinking, feeling, willing. There is no description that this means that the asango hy ayam purusa is still in Goloka.

**You are liberated. Simply just a cloud has covered you. Drive away the cloud. There is no question that you were ever. You are ever-liberated.**

The context of the quote from the CC Adi 7.108 lecture 18-2-67 makes it clear that Srila Prabhupada is not speaking of “part of us in a liberated state on some plane of existence.”

He speaks of and to the soul here and now, who is temporarily in maya.

Bhaktijana: Has my soul ever been liberated? If I was once liberated…

Prabhupada: You are liberated. You are liberated. Simply just a cloud has covered you. Drive away the cloud. There is no question that you were ever. …You are ever-liberated. The sky is always spiritual, but it is sometimes overcrowded with a cloud, this maya. This is called maya. Actually, you are not conditioned. You are thinking. Just like in the dream you are thinking that a tiger is eating you. You were never eaten by a tiger. There is no tiger. So we have to get out of this dream. Don’t you sometimes dream that a tiger is eating you? Is there any tiger? You are simply thinking. So if you keep in Krishna consciousness, that nonsense thinking will go away. Therefore we have to keep ourself always in ‘Krishna-thinking’ so that this dream will never come. If you are always awakened, then dream never comes. So keep yourself always awakened by Krishna consciousness.”

The previous 15 questions, before this question, were on the soul falling from the spiritual world due to independence, Srila Prabhupada has explained, just as students come to his ISKCON and go away.

He has also just answered that the brahmajyoti is in the spiritual sky and here also. Just like the sunshine, when there is cloud in the sky, is under in and above the clouds.

Brahmajyoti means cit-kana, souls. These souls are Krishna’s and Visnu’s effulgence. I.o.w there are souls here, not just amsas.

Then Srila Prabhupada says: “a cloud has covered you…sometimes (you are) overcrowded with a cloud. This is maya. Keep in Krishna consciousness, that nonsense thinking will go away.”

Before this answer he has already explained that “The population of the prison house is nothing in comparison to the whole population. .. Vasudeva datta speaking to Lord Caitanya: ”You have come to deliver all the fallen souls. You please take all the conditioned souls of this universe, and if You think they are not competent, they are sinful, You can give me all the sin to me. Caitanya says: “ Even this universe is delivered fully, there is a big bag of mustard seeds. It is only one grain.” There are so many conditioned souls, and these conditioned souls are only insignificant in comparison to the liberated souls. Just imagine what is the quantity of liberated souls.” Srila Prabhupada explains that some souls actually leave the spiritual world; there are less souls there, and now a few are here in the cosmic prison-house of Durga.

Then it is said that “if the soul gets out of the material world and he goes to Krishnaloka, there is possibility to again come here, but he does not come. Just like after putting your hand in the fire, you never put it again if you are really intelligent. So those who are going back to Godhead, they become intelligent.”

The soul came from, moved out of, Krishna loka to here, and then ‘goes back to Godhead’, Krishna’s planet. If the soul is already in Krishna loka, this ‘going back’ is not to be said.

Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on SB 2.9.1.

Srila Visvanatha Thakura comments on this verse SB 2.9.1:

“Verse 2.8.7 asked whether the jiva’s relation to the body is with or without cause. This verse answers. A relationship of the jiva with the body and senses (artha) does not actually occur (through the beginningless avidya-sakti (maya) of the Lord (atma)), just as there is no relation of the dreamer with his dream body (except through ignorance), because the jiva is superior (parasya) to the body, being composed of knowledge (anubhavatmanah). The relationship occurs by the inconceivable energy of the Lord which is expert at doing the impossible.”

In other words, as a man has connection with the dream objects, and both are at the same place, so the soul, transcending all material coverings, is in this world, has a connection with the phenomena of this world, but through the Lord’s maya. Thus, no connection, in one sense, asango’hy ayam purusa, but the connection takes place, but it is asat, temporary.

In Srila Prabhupada’s lecture he also says “many people inquire how the living entity who was with Krishna became fallen down in contact with this material qualities.“

So the jiva “was” with Krishna not that he is still with Krishna and is also fallen away. The jiva became fallen down. The soul is not any more in Goloka.

Then, Srila Prabhupada says “It is simply the influence of the material energy actually he is not fallen.” This means asango’hy ayam purusa.

Srila Prabhupada uses this sloka 27 times according to the Vedabase. It means the soul is like a diamond in the mud, inherently or intrinsically not muddied. It is covered over.

Govinda bhasya of Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana quotes in 2.3.26 Saunaka rsi from the Puranas.

yatha na kriyate jyotsna mala-praksalanan

maneh dosa-prahanan na jnanam atmanah kriyate tatha

“As by washing away the dirt that covered a jewel, the jewel’s splendor is not created but merely uncovered, so by removing the dirt of materialism that covered the soul, the soul’s splendor is not created, but merely uncovered.

yathodapana-khananat kriyate na jalantaram

sad eva niyate vyaktim asatah sambhavah kutah

“As by digging a well, water is brought forth but not created, so by spiritual activities the nature of the soul is brought forth but not created. How would it be possible to create the soul and the soul’s qualities from nothing?

tatha heya-guna-dhvamsad avarodhadayo

gunah prakacyante na janyante nitya evatmano hi te

“When material faults are destroyed, the soul’s qualities become revealed. The soul’s qualities are eternal. They are never created.”

In other words the soul is covered over. There is no material energy in the spiritual world, so the soul who fell and is covered, is here in the material world.

Then Srila Prabhupada speaks how the moon covered with scattered clouds seems to move. Srila Prabhupada doesn’t specify (anywhere) that he means the double or more soul or expansion construction. No sastra or mukta teaches: “you are not actually fallen. You are still in the rasa-lila in Krishna-loka. But also in all these human animal and plant species. Please descend and free yourself. Actually, I will give you also a list of my amsas who got fallen in different lower modes of nature species. Please expand some amsas there for them also. Please relief me of some duties to my many selves who are bewildered and ignorant and distribute books and preach to my many selves or myself.

What you say?

You don’t have the kamarupa siddhi yet because you are only on the bhakta program? Then tell yourself in Goloka to expand. Why tell him, it is you. What you say: “You don’t know yourself there and don’t know how to reach yourself.” “You are in maya.” (End of the story.)

This dream expansions theory means some kind of schizophrenia, or a multisyncretic personality disorder impossible in a liberated jiva.

Then Srila Prabhupada says: “Because he is a spiritual spark of the supreme it has not fallen. But he is thinking ‘I am fallen, I am material, I am this body.’” This means that the body has no connection with the soul, just as the moon is far away from the cloud.

Note that the soul is here and thinking I am this body. But constitutionally he has nothing to do with matter. Srila Prabhupada doesn’t say he is up, not fallen and down fallen. He says that the soul is fallen here but actually not part of the material world, not in the fallen world. “In this world but not of this world.”

Srila Prabhupada doesn’t specify that there is a moon above the clouds and another moon down, or one moon above the clouds and another far above the clouds.

He says that by the maneuvering of the illusory energy we, souls, think we are of this material world. This is because of the modes of nature. But we are from beyond matter. These modes don’t work on the soul in Goloka.

Srila Prabhupada next compares the relationship of the soul with the material world to a dreamer and his dream of e.g. a tiger attacking.

Again he doesn’t say there is a soul in the spiritual world and a soul or something subconscious in the material world. He could have easily revealed it here fully, “There are two you’s or souls. One is in maya and the other is awake, always in the spiritual world, you are one.” Or, “Actually nothing is going on here in Tokyo; we are in a literal asat or non-existence, you are all liberated, no more sadhana”. Srila Prahupada is always very precise, clear and frank. And he will repeat it from all angles, many many many times.

Then he says: “Actually the dreamer has no contact with the tiger.”

In one sense, but there is contact, also. The (original) soul is in the dream. So the soul is in matter really, but temporarily:

“A person in a dream, is fearful of a tiger in the dream, but another man who is awake by his side sees no tiger there. The tiger is a myth for both of them namely the person dreaming and the person awake, because actually there is no tiger: but the man forgetful of his awakened life is fearful, whereas the man who has not forgotten his position is not at all fearful of the so-called tiger.” (Bg. 2.20 p)

“When you sleep at night, then you dream, means subtle body. So these activities of this gross body stop. You again work in the subtle body. You dream that you have gone to somewhere or in the forest or somewhere, somewhere, somewhere. But you forget that “My real body is lying in this bed.” You do not remember. This is practical. So I change this, myself. I am soul. I change from this gross body lying on bed in a very nice apartment, skyscraper building, but I have gone to the forest, and I am affronting a big tiger and I’m crying. In this bed I am crying. The friends say, “Why you are crying?” “Tiger, tiger, tiger.” Where is tiger? This is called subtle body. So you are changing daily at night from this gross body to the subtle body. And again the dream is over, from the subtle body, again to the gross body. Every one of us has got this experience.” (Bg. Lecture 3.27 / 7.27.1974)

In the same lecture he states: “So we have got almighty father and leaving His place, I have come to this material world.”

Just before this analogy of the nightmare, Srila Prabhupada says: “By forgetting God you are in this material world and in this material world you are changing from one body to another. That you can experience practically daily. When you sleep at night you dream means subtle body…changed from the gross body…then immediately after this analogy he says “Therefore I am the enjoyer. I am changing simply body…why you are placed here. Because I wanted to enjoy life like that…forgetting our father, God we are criminal within this material world. Therefore our only business is to get out of this prison house and go back to home, back to Godhead…liberated from changing one body to another…go back to your father…if you persist “I must go and enjoy independently,” God says “All right you go” and you come and enjoy beginning from Lord Brahma down to the worm in the stool.”

Srila Prabhupada doesn’t say something like “but actually one part of you stays, although you want to go, you don’t go, only a part of you goes. Although you wanted to go to enjoy, You are not allowed but must stay to serve what you don’t want.”

In the beginning of the lecture Srila Prabhupada says: “we don’t belong to the material world just like a person in the prison house is a citizen but when he goes to the prison house he gets a different dress.”

Again, we are criminals. How we can still stay in the spiritual world, even partially.

So, to summarize, he is saying, (in this SB 2.9.1 lecture) we are spirit soul, we have to wake up now to our real identity. Stop identifying with all the material temporary illusions. You are a spirit soul. You can ascend to a spiritual life right now. You are not fallen; you are not part of the material energy. Chant Hare Krishna and keep chanting and you’ll never dream off anymore.

Then Srila Prabhupada says “We are not fallen but Krishna has given us a situation. Because we wanted to imitate Krishna.” We are not fallen because we are spiritual souls. We are not material fallen energy. We are here only a split second of eternity. So we have left Him and became covered over. He doesn’t say that “you are still in Goloka.” He stresses or inspires to wake up to your real nature. You are spirit soul, right now you can start Krishna consciousness again.

He continues: “Because actually we are not fallen at any moment we can revive our Krishna consciousness.” If we were not actually fallen why should we revive our Krishna consciousness?

He doesn’t say: “join yourself who is already liberated. You fallen one, join yourself who is already in Krishna loka.” Srila Prabhupada confirms this: “We can break this material connection at any moment.” I.o.w. we are connected to maya.

Then the purport to SB 2.9.1 is read: “The child cries to have the moon and the mother gives a mirror so the child has a shadow or reflection of the moon.”

There are no two moons and similarly there is only one soul. Nor are we shadows or reflections literary; we experience we are soul here, now.

This is an analogy which is not explained as “you are free. And half of yourself is bound. Please save half of yourself. Descend and preach to yourself. You don’t know it is also you, although it is you and you are one.”

Next we read in the purport:

“The living entity’s first sinful will is to become the Lord. The consequent will of the Lord is that the living entity forgets his actual life and thus dreams of the land of Utopia where he becomes one like the Lord.”

It is not said here: “There was only a part of you sinful. That Krishna kicked out of the spiritual world. Your expansion forgot his actual life. But you are ok. Only your other self or you parted. But because you are one, all is ok. Still, although the expansion is the same soul but…. he is in the land of utopia. Preach to him and became one again.”

Then Srila Prabhupada says: “the crying child of the Lord is given over to the shadow of the material world.” The soul is given/send to the material world. Not that the soul is also kept in Goloka. Because the soul desired to go, why he should be still in some form in Krishna-loka, against his first sinful will. “The soul, thus dreams of the land of Utopia where he may become one like the Lord.”

The soul wishes, daydreams, to go to the land where he can try to become God. He will never be enjoyer and controller.

He explains these points again in the questions and answers after the lecture.

He says: “you are fallen means you have some certain desires except service of Krishna…if you keep yourself tightly in Krishna’s service there is no question of falling down or maya.”

So the soul is actually here and fallen. But constitutionally not fallen. He says that you have to gradually rise to the non-fallen platform, not artificially. “Just like when you are feverish, actually you are healthy, but it has come.”

This is clear. The soul is not fallen because he is not part of the matter surrounding him. “That is external.”

He says then. “The feverish condition will not stay. You will come to the healthy stage.”

He is clearly saying: you are completely in the material world, as when you get sick; the disease is covering you, who are here, and sick. There is not a healthy you in another dimension or world. Similarly there is no non-fallen you in the spiritual world.

The analogy is explained in the same purport “the crying child of the Lord is given over to the reflection or shadow the material world, to lord it over as karmi…”

And “the dream is that the conditioned soul thinks of his material body as I and that everything in connection with the material body is mine, or falsely thinks that he is the Lord.”

Nothing is esoteric. Everything is defined clearly. Nothing is left to the imagination. The conditioned soul thinks of the material body as ‘I’, and thinks ‘mine’ of everything in relation with the body. Not that the soul is in Goloka and is dreaming this. The soul is given over to the reflection, the material world. He is put out, he is not anymore in Goloka because of his sinful will to become the Lord. How a sinful soul can be in Goloka.

One cannot argue that the soul is in Goloka and the sinful consciousness is in the material world.

Because Ramanuja’s Sri Bhasya 1.1.1 states:

“Consciousness is the attribute of a permanent conscious self…the character of consciousness is that it renders things capable of becoming objects to its own substrate…consciousness is an attribute belonging to a conscious self…that there exists a consciousness devoid of substrate we have already refuted on the ground that of a thing of this kind we have absolutely no knowledge.“

There cannot be a split in soul and consciousness. If the consciousness is sinful it is the soul who is sinful. A sinful soul cannot be in Goloka. The soul is thus “given over to the refection, the material world.”

Chant

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare

Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare,

and be back with Hare Krishna Rama.

“Guest: What is the meaning of this mantra, Hare Krishna?

Prabhupada: Hare means, “O, Hare, the energy of God,” and Krishna, “O Krishna, God, kindly accept me again. I am fallen in this material world.” (Room Conversation—February 21, 1975, Caracas)

Patita Pavana dasa