Search | Guest Book | Prasadam Recipes | Newsletter | Contact Us | MediaSpeak
 
May 2008
 
Explore & Experience festivals at ISKCON Bangalore in Videos & Special songs
Discover images that evoke Spiritual reverence & bring them to life on your desktop
Send exciting e-greetings from ISKCON-Bangalore to a friend
Get all the details for Vaishnava festivals in our Vedic calendar (Vaishnava calendar)
Experts claim that increasing materialistic life on the globe with promoted consumerism is damaging the essential Spiritual quotient of the human civilization. How can such social erosion be checked & human values be preserved. Check out our forums for the youth & the parents
 
The Teachings of Lord Chaitanya
by Swami A.C. Bhaktivedanta
Part II

Nobody can trace out the history of the living entity's entanglement in material energy; therefore the Lord says that it is beginingless. Beginingless means that conditional life exists prior to the creation-it is simply manifested with and after the creation. Due to this forgetfulness, the living entity, although spirit, is suffering all kinds of miseries of material existence. It is to be understood here also that there are other living entities who are not entangled in this material energy. Such living entities are situated in the spiritual world, and they are called liberated souls. They are also always engaged in Krishna Consciousness and in devotional service. The activities of those who are under the conditions of material nature are taken into account, and in their next life, according to such activities, they are offered different grades of material bodies. In the material world the spiritual soul in conditional life is subjected to different rewards and punishments. When he is rewarded he is elevated to the higher planets due to his righteous activities, and there he becomes one with the many demigods; and when he is punished for his abominable activities he is thrown into different kinds of hellish planets, and there he suffers the miseries of material existence more acutely. The Lord gives a very nice example of this punishment; formerly a king used to punish a criminal by dunking him in the river and then raising him again for breath, and then again dunking him in the water; now, material nature punishes and rewards the individual entity in just the same way. When he is punished he is dunked into the water of material miseries, and when he is rewarded he is taken out of it for some time. Elevation of the living entity to higher planets or to a higher status of life is never permanent. He has to come down again to be drowned in the water. All this is going on in this material existence. Sometimes he is elevated to the higher planetary system, and sometimes he is thrown into the hellish condition of material life.

In this connection the Lord recites a nice verse from Srimad Bhagavatam taken from the instruction of Narada Muni to Vasudeva, father of Krishna. In this quotation from the nine sages who were instructing Maharaja Nemi it is stated that forgetfulness of the relationship with Krishna is called maya. Actually, maya means that which is not. It has no existence. Therefore that the living entity has no connection with the Supreme Lord is a false conception. He may not believe in the existence of God, or he may think he has no relationship with God, but these are all so-called "illusions," or maya. Due to his absorption in this false conception of life, man is always fearful and full of anxieties; in other words, such a Godless concept of life is maya—therefore one who is actually learned in the Vedic literatures surrenders unto the Supreme Lord with all devotion and accepts Him as the supreme goal. When a living entity becomes forgetful of the constitutional position of his relationship with God, then he is at once overwhelmed by the external energy, and this is the cause of his false ego or identifying his body as self. His whole conception of the material universe is due to his false conception of body. He therefore becomes attached to this body and the by-products of this body. To get out of this entanglement he has simply to perform his duty—to surrender unto the Supreme Lord with intelligence, with devotion, and with sincere Krishna consciousness.

A conditioned soul falsely thinks himself happy in the material world, but if he is favored by an unalloyed devotee— by hearing instruction from an unalloyed devotee—he gives up the desire for material enjoyment and becomes enlightened in Krishna consciousness. As soon as one enters into Krishna consciousness, his desire for material enjoyment at once is vanquished, and gradually he becomes free from material entanglement. For example, because there is no question of darkness where there is light, Krishna consciousness is like the light that dispels the darkness of material sense enjoyment. One who is engaged in Krishna consciousness generally has no desire for material enjoyment. A Krishna conscious person is never under the false conception that he is one with God. He does not think that he would be happy by working for himself. He engages all his energy in the service of the Supreme Lord, and thereby becomes released from the clutches of illusory energy, or material energy. In this connection the Lord quotes a verse in the Bhagavad-gita, 7th chapter, to the effect that the material energy containing the three modes of material nature, is very strong. It is very difficult to get out of the process of material energy, but one who surrenders unto Krishna easily comes out from the clutches of maya.

NEXT