How the soul comes to the material world? Why is it so difficult to explain?
The limits of mundane language and mundane understanding make it difficult to describe many aspects of transcendence. One of them is how the soul comes in contact with matter.
In his commentary on the Mandukya Upanisad, Srila Madhvācārya includes verses from the Karika of Gauḍapāda as additional explanations. One of these verses (Kārikā 2.2) reads:
nirvṛtteḥ sarva-duḥkhānām īśanāvāpteśvarasya ca
avyayaḥ advaitaḥ sarva-bhāvānām devaḥ turīyaḥ vibhuḥ smṛtaḥ
"It is declared that the all-pervading Lord Turīya is the cessation of all sorrows. He is the very life of the liberated souls who have reached perfection. He is the unchanging destroyer of all ignorance for all jīvas, and the Supreme goal."
Who is Turīya mentioned in this verse? He is Krsna Himself. Apart from Turīya the person, there is also turīya as the supreme and original state of consciousness, which is pure love of Godhead. Pure devotees who attain this pure love for Him can see Him always present in the lotus of their hearts. By their pure devotion, they become firmly connected with Him, and there is no force that can separate them. Krsna becomes their very life and soul, and it is not possible for them to spend even a moment without remembering Him. At the time of death, this pure love carries them to Vraja, where they remain eternally, immersed in the bliss of the Lord's eternal pastimes. Far away from all material attachment and lamentation.
In his commentary to this verse, Srila Madhvācārya mentions: "The cause of the cessation of all sorrows is the Lord Turīya. Thus says the Pratyāhāra: “Hari in the form of Turīya is declared to be the giver of salvation. He is the deva (goal) of all jīvas, because towards Him all go. The jīvas are called bhava because they come into existence (bhavanti) from the Lord. He is called Īśana, because He is the anana or controller of Īśas or muktas."
Srila Prabhupada explains that the soul has no beginning, as explained by Krsna in the Gītā, but it is often described that the jīvas were created by Him or came into existence from Him. Such descriptions are given to describe the relationship of the souls and the Lord, and should not be taken in the literal sense.
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This point is more elaborately discussed in the 15th chapter of the Jaiva Dharma, where it is described:
"Vrajanatha: You said earlier that the cit world is eternal, and so are the jīvas. If this is true, how can an eternal entity possibly be created, manifested or produced? If it is created at some point of time, it must have been non-existent before that, so how can we accept that it is eternal?
Babaji: The time and space that you experience in this material world are completely different from time and space in the spiritual world. Material time is divided into three aspects: past, present and future. However, in the spiritual world there is only one undivided, eternally present time. Every event of the spiritual world is eternally present. Whatever we say or describe in the material world is under the jurisdiction of material time and space, so when we say – “The jivas were created,” “The spiritual world was manifested,” or “There is no influence of maya in creating the form of the jivas,” – material time is bound to influence our language and our statements. This is inevitable in our conditioned state, so we cannot remove the influence of material time from our descriptions of the atomic jiva and spiritual objects. The conception of past, present and future always enters them in some way or another. Still, those who can discriminate properly can understand the application of the eternal present when they comprehend the purport of the descriptions of the spiritual world. Baba, be very careful in this matter. Give up the inevitable baseness, or the aspect of the description that is fit to be rejected, and have spiritual realization.
All Vaisnavas say that the jiva is an eternal servant of Krsna, that his eternal nature is to serve Krsna, and that he is now bound by maya, because he has forgotten that eternal nature. However, everyone knows that the jiva is an eternal entity, of which there are two types: nitya-mukta and nitya-baddha.
The subject has been explained in this way only because the conditioned human intellect being controlled by pramada (inattentiveness), is unable to comprehend a subject matter. Realized sadhakas, though, experience transcendental truth through their cit-samadhi. Our words always have some material limitation, so whatever we say will have some mayika defects. My dear son, you should always endeavor to realize the pure truth. Logic and argument cannot help at all in this regard, so it is futile to use them to try to understand inconceivable subject matters." (JD ch.15)
We can break down this passage into individual points to make it easier to understand:
a) Time in the material world is divided into past, present, and future. We are thus accustomed to thinking in terms of a timeline, where there is a determined order for each event. In the spiritual world, however, everything exists in the eternal platform, in an undivided eternal present where nothing is created or destroyed, everything simply exists eternally.
b) Because in this world we don’t have experience of eternality, it is very difficult to practically understand the eternality of the spiritual world. As a consequence, our thought process and language become biased when we try to explain spiritual topics. Krsna clearly explains in the Bhagavad-gītā that the soul is never created, being ever-existing, yet we tend to use sentences such as "the jīvas were created", "the spiritual world was manifested", or "there is no influence of Maya in creating the form of the jīvas", which are not correct if taken in the literal sense. Even if one perfectly understands the topic, still expressions such as that are practically inevitable when trying to explain it due to the limitations of mundane language.
c) Still, even if material words may fail to perfectly describe the eternal reality of the spiritual world, those who can discriminate properly can still understand the subject matter through these explanations. To understand, one has to discard the parts of the explanation that introduce the ideas of creation or change and focus on the main points.
d) The jīva is an eternal servant of Krsna, and his eternal nature is to serve Krsna. The soul, forgetting his original nature, is now bound by Maya.
e) The bondage of the soul in material nature, however, can't be traced back. The soul is therefore an eternal servant of Krsna who somehow fell in contact with material nature, but because the beginning of this contact can't be traced back, it appears that the soul has always been in the material world, even though it is not factual.
f) Because the human intellect is propense to inattentiveness, this point is very difficult to understand. Therefore, simplified explanations are given, trying to bring one's attention to the main point. The souls are thus described as being of two types: nitya-mukta (eternally liberated) and nitya-baddha (conditioned since time immemorial). This eliminates the whole discussion about time in the material world and the spiritual world, the "fall" of the jīva, and so on, and focuses on the important aspect, which is understanding that we are right now in the material world and our goal should be to go back.
g) Ultimately, the complete truth can be understood only by spiritual realization, and not by logic or argument. Devotees who attain transcendental realization through their transcendental practice may be able to fully understand this topic, but even they face difficulties when trying to explain it through material words.
The limits of mundane language and mundane understanding make it difficult to describe many aspects of transcendence. There is no creation in the spiritual world, because there is no influence of material time there. In the material world, time manifests in the form of past, present, and future, manifesting as kāla, the potency of the Lord that puts everything in motion and ultimately causes the destruction of everything material. Time in the spiritual world has a different nature, perceived as an eternal present, where nothing is created or destroyed. The question, however, is the relationship. Krsna is the eternal master of all jīvas, He is their foundation, maintainer, and support. He is the supreme master, and we are his eternal servants. Because the idea of a relationship that exists eternally without change is difficult to express in mundane language, our ācāryas often settle in referring to Krsna as the source or creator of the jīvas, and then balancing the details in other references.
The next question is how this eternal soul comes in contact with material nature? What is the cause of it? Is it the Lord, the material nature, who somehow captures the soul, or the soul himself?
Since everything comes from the Lord and He is the controller of everything, we could say that the Lord is the cause of the entanglement of jīva, but this happens only because the Lord reciprocates the desires of the soul. When one desires to enjoy mater, He covers him with these coverings, so he can act in the material platform, but when one desires to return back home, back to Godhead, the Lord helps in every way.
"The living entity is the cause of his own suffering, but he can also be the cause of his eternal happiness. When he wants to engage in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, a suitable body is offered to him by the internal potency, the spiritual energy of the Lord, and when he wants to satisfy his senses, a material body is offered. Thus it is his free choice to accept a spiritual body or a material body, but once the body is accepted he has to enjoy or suffer the consequences." (SB 3.26.8, purport)
Lord Caitanya mentions that devotional service is eternally present inside the soul and doesn't need to be gained from another source. At the same time, however, He compared devotional service with a seed planted in the heart by the grace of the Lord and the spiritual master and grows by the chanting of the holy names. As in other topics, both sides are present and should be understood together. Devotional service is eternally part of the soul, but at the same time, we need the mercy of Krsna to develop it. As Prabhupada explains in his purport to the same SB 3.27.28-29: "Only those who engage in devotional service with love and faith receive the necessary intelligence from the Supreme Personality of Godhead so that gradually and progressively they can advance to the abode of the Personality of Godhead."
The Mandukya Upanisad describes that in deep sleep (the prājña state), the Lord makes the jīva forget the false ego and become materially inactive. However, the propensity of the soul to enjoy matter, the very reason the jīva came into contact with matter in the first place, is still there, and thus when one returns to the waking state, the material activities are resumed.
If the soul forgets all layers of material contamination in the prājña stage, including even the false ego, what is this original cause of bondage that remains? From where does it come, if at this stage the soul is disconnected from the mind, intelligence, and false ego?
It happens that there is another component that is never destroyed. This component, the very thing that distinguishes a living soul from inanimate matter, is free will. This free will is an intrinsic characteristic of the soul, the very thing that makes us different from inanimate matter. Free will implies that we are free to make the wrong choices—decisions that even Krsna respects.
Due to free will, the soul develops an affinity for matter, and this free will keeps the soul bound even when all other coverings are removed. This explains how the soul originally comes in contact with matter, and also how souls can fall back into the material world even when put into the impersonal brahmajyoti. Only when the original propensity of service to Krsna is fully revived does the soul become finally free from this propensity and go back to his original position of service to Krsna.
This root of material conditioning is defined as mula-avidya in Vedanta philosophy, the root cause of material ignorance. It is considered beginningless (anādi) in the sense that it is not created at any point in time, since the soul coming in contact with the material nature happens outside the influence of time. In other words, the choice of the soul to turn in the direction of material enjoyment happens outside of material conditioning, becoming the root cause of it.
Material time is eternal since the cycles of creation and destruction happen cyclically without an end. Each cycle is limited to 311.04 trillion years (a lifetime of Brahma), but because these cycles repeat indefinitelly, material time is considered eternal. When the soul comes in contact with the material nature, one joins this eternal material time, and from this moment it is not possible to tell since when the soul has been in contact with matter. The conditioning appears thus to be eternal. In addition to that, because material time has no influence in the spiritual world, when the soul revives his original consciousness and returns to the eternal time, it appears he never left.
In this way, the question of how the soul comes in contact with matter is not easy to answer, but it starts to make sense when we accept the concept of free will as an intrinsic characteristic of the soul, as Srila Prabhupada explains in many passages.
As he mentions in his purport to SB 3.26.24: "The living entity exists in the natural state of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, but he has marginal independence, and this allows him to forget Kṛṣṇa. Originally, pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness exists, but because of misuse of marginal independence there is a chance of forgetting Kṛṣṇa."
Even though the soul is made to forget all material contamination in the prājña stage, the propensity to enjoy matter remains present. Because the affinity with matter is still present, the soul returns to his previous conditioning after returning to consciousness, be it daily after deep sleep, at the beginning of the day of Brahma, or at the beginning of a new cycle of material creation.
In each case, the Lord restores the coverings of the soul, allowing the soul to continue his pursuit of material enjoyment. As Prabhupada mentions in his purport to SB 3.26.8: "The living entity is the cause of his own suffering, but he can also be the cause of his eternal happiness. When he wants to engage in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, a suitable body is offered to him by the internal potency, the spiritual energy of the Lord, and when he wants to satisfy his senses, a material body is offered. Thus it is his free choice to accept a spiritual body or a material body, but once the body is accepted he has to enjoy or suffer the consequences."
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Jay, very nice.