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This is the fourth chapter of The Friend Who Never Left, a novel on the “Fall” of the jīva. The first chapter is here.
Chapter Four: Beginningless Conditioning?
The next morning, Mādhava returned to Gaurāṅga Dāsa’s house. He had spent the previous evening studying Bhagavad-gītā 13.20 and also reread the relevant sections of the other book, comparing the arguments with Prabhupāda’s purport.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa was working in his garden when Mādhava arrived. He finished watering the plants and invited him inside.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: So, did you study the verse?
Mādhava Dāsa: Yes, Prabhu. I read it several times, together with the purport. I also checked what the other book says about it. I think I got the basic argument, but I still don’t see how these different ideas go together.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Very good. Tell me what you found.
Mādhava Dāsa: Kṛṣṇa says:
prakṛtiṁ puruṣaṁ caiva, viddhy anādī ubhāv api
vikārāṁś ca guṇāṁś caiva, viddhi prakṛti-sambhavān“Material nature and the living entities should be understood to be beginningless. Their transformations and the modes of matter are products of material nature.”
I see that the important words are anādī ubhāv api. Both the soul and material nature are beginningless. The same word is used, anādī.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Yes, and how does Prabhupāda explain it?
Mādhava Dāsa: He explains that both the souls and material nature existed before this cosmos was manifested. At the time of dissolution, the souls stay within Mahā-Viṣṇu, and when the universe is manifested again, they continue their material activities.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: There is something else Prabhupāda says about the souls. What is their nature apart from the material creation?
Mādhava Dāsa: He says that actually the living entity is originally the spiritual part and parcel of the Supreme Lord, but due to his rebellious nature, he is conditioned within material nature.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: And what does the other book say?
Mādhava Dāsa: The other book explains that since both the soul and material nature are anādi, beginningless, their association must also be beginningless. The authors quote Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura and Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa in support of this. They conclude that we have always been conditioned, and therefore we were never with Kṛṣṇa.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa again looks distant for a moment, lost in his thoughts. Mādhava Dāsa understands something deep may be coming.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Sridhāra Maharaja, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s godbrother, was very scholarly. Do you know what he said is the most difficult philosophical question?
Mādhava Dāsa taught for a few moments but could not find the answer. Gaurāṅga Dāsa observed him, but not wanting to make the moment awkward, decided to answer himself.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: The question you are asking me. That is the most difficult philosophical question. What is the original position of the soul? Why, how, and when did we fall into this material world?
This question is so difficult because it deals with a reality that is completely outside the reach of our senses and that can’t be touched by the material intellect we are so proud of.
We can understand it up to a certain point if we carefully follow the conclusions Prabhupāda gives, but it is very easy to transform it into a useless intellectual debate and waste our lives in it. Many devotees get lost in this path. Everyone thinks they will be the first to solve the most difficult problem using their intellect.
Mādhava felt uneasy, but at the same time relieved. If the question was so difficult, then there is no shame in not being able to resolve it. Still, the warning troubled him. He looked down for a moment, not knowing what to say.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: The authors are correct in insisting that the soul and material nature are beginningless. This is what Prabhupāda explains in the purport. They are eternal, because they are both energies of Kṛṣṇa. Just as Kṛṣṇa is eternal, all of his potencies are eternal. Even the material energy itself is eternal; the only thing that is temporary is the cosmic manifestation.
Mādhava Dāsa: But how can the material energy be eternal if the cosmic manifestation is temporary?
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa explains this point in his Govinda-bhāṣya. Imagine a bar of gold. A goldsmith uses it to make many rings and other types of jewelry. Later, they are collected back and melted back into a bar. Imagine this process repeated thousands of times. The gold is permanent; it does not chemically or atomically change, just the form changes. Prabhupāda uses a specific word for it: permutation.
Did you ever check the meaning of this word?
Mādhava Dāsa: Let me see… Merriam-Webster gives “Any change produced by rearranging existing parts without introducing new ones.”
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Yes, exactly. So material nature is eternal; it just changes form. It is like a gigantic mass of Lego blocks that are periodically assembled into toys and later disassembled when the kids are put to sleep. The soul is also eternal, obviously. But tell me something: How old is the material universe?
Mādhava Dāsa: According to the Bhāgavatam, the universe is trillions of years old. 8.64 billion years for a day and night of Brahmā, multiplied by 36.000 days of his life. This is… let me check… 311.04 trillion years. We passed the first half, so it’s something north of 155 billion years!
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Exact. I see you remember the formula, and that you are very fast with a calculator. But the question is: what happens when Brahmā dies?
Mādhava Dāsa: When Brahmā dies, the universe is dissolved, and the children are put to sleep. Then, later, another creation takes place.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: And what happened before the current creation?
Mādhava Dāsa: There was another creation before that, and so on.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Exactly. Each cycle goes for a practically unlimited time. We can give it a number, but we have no idea of how much time it is in practice. And that’s not the first time; the cycle of creation and dissolution has been going on for as long as we can trace back.
Even if you could remember millions of your previous lives, you would not be able to trace when your material existence began, because it would be before that. Brahmā also does not know, because he was not there. His life started just 155 trillion years ago. Before that, his guess is as good as ours. And there is one more factor: all the previous universes that existed before this one were completely destroyed, without a trace; therefore, there is simply no history to reconstruct.
This is why the scriptures describe our bondage as anādi. It is not possible to trace where, when, or how it began. We can’t put a date on it. As far as we can examine from the material side, it appears we have always been here.
Mādhava Dāsa: But if we cannot find the beginning, doesn’t that mean we were always here?
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: There is an important distinction between the material history of the soul and his constitutional nature. Anādi answers the first question, not the second. Without distinguishing the two, we will tend to take anādi literally and think it applies to the constitutional nature of the soul. From this comes the idea that we were never with Kṛṣṇa.
You can note how Prabhupāda translates the word anādi.
Mādhava Dāsa: Since time immemorial…
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Yes, exactly. This shows you are paying attention to what you read. This shows how his understanding of the philosophy goes much beyond that of a Sanskrit scholar. An ordinary scholar looks at the dictionary meaning; a pure devotee sees the true siddhānta behind it.
Anādi describes the beginninglessness of our material bondage, but our constitutional position is being eternal servants of Kṛṣṇa. Mahāprabhu Himself established:
jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’
“It is the living entity’s constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa.”
That’s the difference between what we are and where we are now.
If you ask, “How long have I been in this material world?” the answer is, since time immemorial, as far as we can trace back. But if you ask, “What am I, what is my real nature?” Then the answer is that you are an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. Not just a part of Kṛṣṇa, but a servant of Kṛṣṇa, dāsa. The word indicates a relationship. That’s exactly as Prabhupāda explains.
Mādhava Dāsa: Do you mean that our material existence has a beginning actually, even though we cannot trace it?
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: This is one way Prabhupāda describes it. See here, in Kṛṣṇa Book, that’s the prayers of the personified Vedas… Here, you can read:
Mādhava Dāsa:
“No one knows when material life began, but it is a fact that it does have a point of beginning because originally every living entity is a spiritual spark. As a spark’s falling onto the ground from a fire has a beginning, so a living entity’s coming to this material world has a beginning, but no one can say when. Even though during the time of dissolution all the conditioned living entities remain merged within the spiritual existence of the Lord, as if in deep sleep, their original desires to lord it over the material nature do not subside. Again, when there is cosmic manifestation, they come out to fulfill the same desires, and therefore they appear in different species of life.”
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: The constitutional position of the soul is to be an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa. Now we are forgetful, but this doesn’t change what we are. Since we are not part of this material nature, the conditioning must have a beginning, even though it cannot be traced back. Prabhupāda’s logic is flawless.
He compares the living entity to a spark falling from a fire. The spark has its original existence in the fire, but at some point it becomes separated from it. Even if you don’t see the spark falling from the fire, you cannot deny that the spark came from the fire, because of their intrinsic connection.
You should, however, be attentive to not jump into imagining the soul as a spark physically falling from the spiritual sky into the material universe. The analogy gives the principle; we should not try to extrapolate all details out of it.
Mādhava Dāsa: This is something I have been thinking about. If material bondage is beginningless, then how can we speak of a point when the soul turned away from Kṛṣṇa? If I speak about turning away, this automatically implies that there must be a date when it happened.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: This is where ordinary logic breaks down. You are thinking in terms of past, present, and future, but these apply only to the material world. Here, we are born, grow up, and then become old and die. These changes happen due to the influence of material time. Here, one event follows the other; we are used to thinking in terms of a timeline, where we can put all events chronologically.
But let me ask you a question. Is the spiritual reality under the influence of the same time potency that influences this cosmic creation?
Mādhava Dāsa: It doesn’t seem so, because in the spiritual world no one becomes old.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Exactly! Take the last volume of Madhya-lila, the one to the right.
Here: Madhya 20.117. Read this one.
Mādhava Dāsa:
kṛṣṇa bhuli’ sei jīva anādi-bahirmukha
ataeva māyā tāre deya saṁsāra-duḥkha“Forgetting Kṛṣṇa, the living entity has been attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. Therefore the illusory energy [māyā] gives him all kinds of misery in his material existence.”
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: You can see that here, Mahāprabhu uses the words “kṛṣṇa bhuli,” forgetting Kṛṣṇa, in the same breath as anādi-bahirmukha, attracted by the external feature from time immemorial. The jīva has turned away from Kṛṣṇa, and at the same time is anādi-bahirmukha, eternally conditioned. This is precisely the point we have been talking about. Now, let’s see how Prabhupāda resolves it in the purport.
Mādhava Dāsa:
“When the living entity forgets his constitutional position as an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, he is immediately entrapped by the illusory, external energy. The living entity is originally part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and is therefore the superior energy of Kṛṣṇa. He is endowed with inconceivable minute energy that works inconceivably within the body. However, the living entity, forgetting his position, is situated in material energy. The living entity is called the marginal energy because by nature he is spiritual but by forgetfulness he is situated in the material energy. Thus he has the power to live either in the material energy or in the spiritual energy, and for this reason he is called marginal energy. Being in the marginal position, he is sometimes attracted by the external, illusory energy, and this is the beginning of his material life. When he enters the material energy, he is subjected to the threefold time measurement — past, present and future. Past, present and future belong only to the material world; they do not exist in the spiritual world. The living entity is eternal, and he existed before the creation of this material world. Unfortunately he has forgotten his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. The living entity’s forgetfulness is described herein as anādi, which indicates that it has existed since time immemorial. One should understand that due to his desire to enjoy himself in competition with Kṛṣṇa, the living entity comes into material existence.”
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: You can see that here; again, He speaks about a beginning of conditioned life. See how He connects this with his explanation of time. The beginning of the conditioning cannot be traced back or calculated in terms of material time, because it happens outside of it. This helps us understand something essential: we don’t belong to this material world. Long as it may be, we are visitors here.
We are eternal, Kṛṣṇa is eternal, our relationship with Him is eternal, and His abode is also eternal, but somehow we see ourselves inside a temporary place. Material conditioning is something foreign to the soul. Being conditioned is not our eternal nature.
Mādhava Dāsa: Now I see what you mean. In physics, time is considered a dimension. Just as we have the three dimensions, we have time. If I agree to meet someone, the place is not sufficient; I need to also know the time. And, according to recent theories, time begins with the Big Bang. It seems a similar concept exists here. We become subject to material time when we come in contact with the material energy. Therefore, we cannot use material time to explain anything about the existence of the soul outside of it.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: Precisely. Think about the implications. You are trying to find the beginning of material conditioning in a timeline with past, present, and future. But these are part of the material world. They cannot be used to measure the eternal position of the soul outside of these. This is yet another dimension for the world “transcendental.” The soul is not just transcendental in terms of birth and death; it is transcendental to time itself.
Mādhava Dāsa: Now I think I understand what you meant when you spoke about Prabhupāda giving the conclusions in a condensed form. I was thinking I understood this purport because I could follow the words, but now I can see there is much more in it.
Mādhava read the paragraph again, slowly. The words remained familiar, but now he could see better the connections between them and with concepts from other purports. He remembered how he had assumed that the other book contained a deeper explanation because the arguments were difficult to follow. Now he started wondering how much else he had overlooked.
Gaurāṅga Dāsa: When someone can give a detailed explanation of a complicated topic, we call him a professor. When someone can explain a complicated topic in simple words, we call him a genius. What do we call someone who can put such a level of detail inside a simple explanation?
Mādhava Dāsa: Perhaps someone whose books I should read again.
Soon the next part…
If you want to study the philosophical basis of this story, here is the book:
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