Remain in Vaikuntha or Goloka-Vrndavana,
or Leave
BY: GAURAGOPALA DASA
Nov 20, 2011 — AUSTRALIA (SUN) — The choice is entirely up to the marginal living entity to remain in Vaikuntha or Goloka-Vrndavana or leave.
All marginal living beings (nitya-siddhas) that love Krishna are situated in their full potential in the spiritual world in the complete ‘awareness' of who they perpetually are, whereas those marginal living beings who choose to ignore Krishna and therefore NO LONGER continue to be ‘aware' of their nitya-siddha body in Goloka, are situated in the material world as their nitya-baddha secondary state which is but an echo of their true nitya-siddha identity.
Professor – "Are there any souls that are always good? ...They're not foolish, they don't fall down?"
Srila Prabhupada – "Majority, ninety percent, they are always good. They never fall down".
Professor – "So we're among the ten percent?"
Srila Prabhupada – "Yes" Talk in Los Angeles on June 23, 1975 between Prabhupada and a professor
With free will, one can love Krishna or can choose to ignore Krishna and do their own thing in the mahat-tattva creation of Maha-Vishnu. Free will therefore gives us the ability to forever increase our love for Krishna but can also give us the ability to go it alone without Krishna. If it was not this way, then how can there be genuine love?
One may rightly ask, "If I am originally a pure nitya-siddha servant of God, then why did I come to the material world (mahat-tattva) in the first place? If there is no ignorance in the spiritual world, then why did I leave that wonderful place and come here, where I am suffering repeated births and deaths?
These are a good question, and one that Srila Prabhupada has elaborately explained. Every marginal living being in the spiritual world as their full potential nitya-siddha body, has free will and the ability to choose therefore there is no material cause to ones fall down from Vaikuntha.
Because we are minute parts (originally independent bodily forms) of the Supreme, we have minute quantities of His qualities (78%). One of Krishna's qualities is independent free will. He does whatever He likes, whenever He likes, and it is always perfect. He is never bound by the reactions of His decisions, because He is transcendental to the material nature.
On the other hand, because we do not possess the same quantity of free will as Krishna, we can sometimes do what we like and sometimes not. Further, whenever we act, we have to suffer or enjoy the reactions of that decision.
Every living being in the spiritual world loves Krishna or God obviously. This is the nature of the spiritual world. However, that love is not forced. For example, if I were to hold a gun to your head and say," Love me," you would naturally say, "Oh, yes, I love (serve) you." But that would have no meaning. You cannot force anyone to love another person, for love comes from within naturally when the proper conditions arise.
Therefore, Krishna does not force the marginal living entities to love Him, for that would not be real love and it would not be satisfying to the Supreme Lord, who knows everything that is going on in the hearts of the marginal living entities.
Krishna is satisfied only by pure, natural and spontaneous love, without any traces of self-motivated desire, therefore true love (active service) is completely selfless. Consequently Krishna endows each and every marginal living entity with free will.
With this free will, one can love Krishna or can choose to ignore Krishna and do their own thing in the mahat-tattva creation of Maha-Vishnu. Free will therefore gives us the ability to forever increase our love for Krishna but can also give us the ability to go it alone without Krishna. If it was not this way, then how can there be genuine love?
The choice is entirely up to the marginal living entity. Those marginal living beings (nitya-siddhas) that love Krishna are situated in their full potential in the spiritual world in the complete ‘awareness' of who they perpetually are, whereas those marginal living beings who choose to ignore Krishna and therefore NO LONGER continue to be ‘aware' of their nitya-siddha body in Goloka are situated in the material world as their nitya-baddha secondary state which is but an echo of their true nitya-siddha identity.
Those who choose not to continue serving Krishna, or who have become envious of the Lord's position as the Supreme Enjoyer, cannot remain in the spiritual ‘awareness' of their nitya-siddha body in Goloka.
If it so happens that a marginal living entity becomes envious of the Lord instigated by free will and choice that ALL marginal living entities have in both Goloka and Vaikuntha, then the marginal living entity immediately falls from the spiritual world, not as their nitya-siddha body, but rather as their nitya-baddha sub-conscious secondary mundane ‘awareness' for no resentment of the Lord exists in the spiritual world. Remember, the choice to love Krishna or not is in each of us eternally.
Envy and greed comes as the opposite of love's ultimate goal to serve Krishna and His pure devotees, for it is created from hatred. Hatred and love are very closely related, and each of us has experience of how we can become immediately envious of others, even if our intelligence has not yet accepted that emotion. Therefore, when the marginal living entity feels enviousness for the Lord instigated by choice and free will, he immediately turns into a competitor of the Lord and desires to enjoy as the Lord enjoys.
Such desires cannot exist in the Vaikuntha or Goloka-Vrndavana, because everyone there is considering themselves as enjoyed by the Lord and are therefore totally selfless; they never want to become the enjoyers themselves because there desire is to increase their service to Krishna.
This desire to become the competitor of the Lord, as the enjoyer is a sub-conscious mistaken desire and is not spiritual and therefore is ‘instantly' transferred to the mahat-tattva creation of Maha-Vishnu.
As all desires in the spiritual world come from the spiritual platform, all marginal living entities there are completely spiritual and fixed as nitya-siddha however, as soon as they ‘sub-consciously' put themselves before Krishna, they are immediately expelled from Goloka and from also the ‘awareness' of their nitya-siddha body and are instead immersed in the lower ‘awareness' of their non-Krishna conscious sub-conscious state that is referred to as the nitya-baddha projected secondary self.
Every desire in the spiritual world is immediately satisfied, because that is the nature of the spiritual world. But since the desire to be the Lord oneself is not possible to satisfy in the spiritual world, as Krishna is the enjoyer and there cannot be any competitor there, one comes to the material world as their nitya-baddha sub-conscious bodiless state and given vessels by Maha-Vishnu in order to attempt to fulfil that desire.
The material world or mahat-tattva is an amazing place, because here the Lord has created the grand DREAM that we can become God and enjoy the creation independently of Him. Krishna has created this dream illusion out of love for us because He allows us to forever increase our love for Him or forget Him if we choose. All nitya-siddha pure souls are allowed free will and choice otherwise there is no question of ‘giving love (service)' however 90% never ever chooses to forget Krishna and enter His material creation.
Nevertheless, it must be understood that it is not in our power to create such a facility like the mahat-tattva separate creation from Krishna's eternal abode that takes up 25% of the Spiritual creation or Brahmajyoti, which is in effect the ‘dream' of Maha-Vishnu. His temporary creation of past, present and future caters ‘sub-consciously' for 10% of all marginal living entities in Goloka/Vaikuntha, while 75% of the Spiritual Sky or Brahmajyoti is where the ‘eternal presents' of Goloka and Vaikuntha perpetual exist in uninterrupted Krishna Consciousness. (If one chooses)
We are eternally under the jurisdiction of Krishna directly in Vaikuntha or indirectly in the mahat-tattva creation of Maha-Vishnu. All our facilities come from God.
The mahat-tattva is likened to a jail created by state for the sake of the criminals who are not fit to remain in Goloka (due to their own choose and desire). Only Krishna can create such a facility like the mahat-tattva (material creation) via His Maha-Vishnu expansion. He does so just to allow us souls the opportunity to think ourselves God and try to enjoy the material energy separate from Him.
The obvious problem when one denies God and chooses to do their own thing is that the so-called enjoyment in the mahat-tattva is illusory and perishable and cannot remain for long. Everything here is temporary and ends up full of misery and frustration. One works so hard to create a family fortune only to experience hardship, disease, old age and death.
Why has Krishna created a world that is temporary and full of duality and misery like the mahat-tattva?
The answer is simple, because He gives us the free will to choose to forever increase our love to Krishna in Vaikuntha, or use that free will and choose to attempt to enjoy separate from Him in the mahat-tattva material creation of Maha-Vishnu.
Krishna supplies us with the mahat-tattva creation from His expansion Maha-Vishnu.
He wants us to be happy and if we somehow believe going to the material world will make us happy, then He will facilitate our mistaken desires so we can learn for ourselves that this perishable creation only causes suffering.
Krishna wants us to come to our senses and realize we have made a mistake in coming to the material world and to thus return to our original home, the spiritual world of Goloka-Vrndavana.
The material energy pushes the conditioned nitya-baddha souls with frustrations due to its temporary nature so that they will someday again turn toward the Lord, who is within their hearts as the Supersoul, and thus again surrender unto Him and His pure representative and begin to wake up from the material dream.
The Lord says that anyone who thus surrenders unto Him will quickly return to Him. The Lord also assists the marginal living entities by sending His pure devotees to speak the knowledge of the spiritual world to them to again re-awaken them to their genuine eternal nitya-siddha position that is perpetually in Goloka even while their limited ‘awareness as nitya-baddha' is in the mahat-tattva (material creation).
Jai Srila Prabhupada,
your fallen yet inspired servant,
Gauragopala dasa
