Soul
A Yaksha, an agent of the god of death, once posted many challenging questions before Maharaj Yudhishthir, the upholder of highest dharma.
He asked,”What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?”
Maharaj replied,”Everyday people see everyone dying, but the most amazing thing is that they think it’ll not happen to me.”
The vedic text, Bhagvad Gita, teaches us in the very beginning about the existence of the soul:
dehino ‘smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati [BG 2.13]
“As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.”
We ourselves are not this body but the soul within it, just like a car, it doesn’t move by itself, it’s the driver within the body that drives it.
We also get to know that as souls we are part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as stated:
mamaivāmśo jīva-loke
jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi
prakṛti-sthāni karṣati [BG 15.7]
“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind”
The Supreme Lord is the reservoir or storehouse of all pleasure. We are all hankering after pleasure. Ānanda-mayo ‘bhyāsāt (Vedānta-sūtra 1.1.12). The living entities, like the Lord, are full of consciousness, and they are after happiness. The Lord is perpetually happy, and if the living entities associate with the Lord, cooperate with Him and take part in His association, then they also become happy.
ātmendriya-prīti-vāñchā — tāre bali ‘kāma’
kṛṣṇendriya-prīti-icchā dhare ‘prema’ nāma [CC Ādi 4.165]
“The desire to gratify one’s own senses is kāma [lust], but the desire to please the senses of Lord Kṛṣṇa is prema [love].”
Each one of us is really looking for that love or prema as described above.
And when we become the recipient of such love, then what happens is:
anandambudhi-vardhanam prati-padam purnamrtasvadanam
“Krishna expands the blissful ocean of transcendental life. It gives a cooling effect to everyone and enables one to taste full nectar at every step.”
An extract of text from His Holiness Radhanath Maharaj’s lecture on this point:
The soul being naturally servant of Krishna is longing for unlimited ecstatic joy of re-uniting with Krishna. Krishna is All-beautiful. Then Krishna reveals to us in reciprocation to our desire and sincerity, what pleasure there is in Krishna; the beautiful form of His three-fold bending swarup. It is so intoxicating. Srila Rupa Goswami warns us, if you are attached to your home, if you are attached to the material aspects of your family, wealth and society or anything of this world then I warn you – do not go to the banks of Yamuna – kesi ghat, where Govindaji, Krishna is standing in His beautiful 3-fold bending form. Once you see that beauty of Krishna then you are aware that the things of this world that are charming your heart are insignificant. Jamunacarya, the spiritual master of Ramanujacharya and many other great souls, prayed in this way. He was remembering back to the days when he was young and he was a king, and he had so much pleasure and facility for enjoyment. He said, now I am tasting the sweetness and pleasure of service to Krishna … when I think of all the enjoyments of this world – and even the king of all enjoyments – sex pleasure , he says, my lips curl in distaste and I spit at that thought. There is no pleasure and no charm. When we realize that we are not this body, what is so great about material pleasure? It has nothing to do with the soul and nothing to do with the reality.
Let us all hope that one day we will be able to relish the chanting of the holy names and utterly surrender to the divine couple, Sri Sri Madan Gopal and Sriji
