We are originally in the eternal realm

[Bhaktajan II]

We are originally in the eternal realm
[beyond the material cosmos where the nature of everything
is always transforming … a. created; b. maintained; c. desolved],
where the nature of everything
is Sat-chitta-ananda [eternal-cognisant-blissfull].

We are all each our own individual/indivisable spirit-soul
[aka, jiva-atma, each jiva-atma is an tiny individual/indivisable spark
composed of sattva, chitta, and ananda. This satcitnanda is
known as Godhead’s internal-energy, and the entirety of the
Eternal Spiritual Kingdom of God is known as Godhead’s internal-energy].

We, spirit-souls, are free to do whatever we want. That is our freewill.
It’s the freewill that gets us in predicaments, such as we are:
Spirit souls are REALLY in the Material world.
We souls are REAL, and we are situated in a Material cosmos of
mutable, morphing transience; and form a phantasmagoria of endless
possibilities of shapes, forms and experiences –thus we are
“Spirit Souls in the material world” birth after birth.

Originally as a resident in the eternal realm of Godhead,
the meaning of life was interpersonal reciprocal exchanges with Godhead.
Hence the goal of spiritual life was to work at meeting,
greeting, sharing, planning, dancing, playing etc with Godhead
all prompted by one’s own automatic loving motivation.

But, once upon a moment’s thought, a particular individual soul [jiva-atma]
thought, “I wish I could see what it is like to be Godhead”…
At that moment, an individual soul closes their eyes …and exits the Spiritual Sky’s
environs and goes toward the environs of the Material world
[aka, Mahavishnu’s maha-tattva, aka, the environs of the external energy or
more commonly called, the material world] where the eternal spark of consciousness, the Jiv-atma, takes their first birth in the material world as a ‘Brahma’.

Brahma is the first born Jiv-atma in the material world and then is the first progenitor; and too the first engineer of the “Brahmanda” where Brahma finds himself, thus the jiv-atma’s desire to be Lord of all he surveys is at his command.

Scripture tells how Brahma was met by Krishna [Godhead] after Brahma's birth here and Krishna instructed Brahma about his situation and what he was his duties…so presently, Brahma is living out his life span as the originating Demigod of Passion [aka, raja-guna, the creative urge].

Brahma, after birth here in the material world, was enlightened at the start
of his life directly by Krishna [Godhead]. Brahma took birth, within a Brahmanda,
without mother or father by simply appearing upon a lotus flower that sprung
from Mahavishnu’s ocean found inside, at the bottom, of the Brahmanda.

A Brahmanda is a bubble shaped sphere that came out of Mahavishnu’s
exhale breathing, and lasts until Mahavishnu’s inhale breath. The time between
the inhale breath and a exhale breath is when Brahma’s life span occurs.

When Mahavishnu inhales, and withdraws his breath, all the material
energies are merged back to their primeval source into a so-called
nirvana-like state, where all is dissolved.

When Brahma’s life span ends, his soul will do one of two things:
Return to Eternal Spiritual Kingdom of God; or,
Take another birth in the Material world.

There was two kinds of building blocks that Brahma had to work with:
The inert elements [earth, water, fire, air, either] and
The jiva-atmas. Both these elements compose the Brahmanda’s interior atmosphere.

Brahmanda’s purpose is to provide a place for Brahma’s to be born and
be Brahma for a lifetime. If Brahma does not achieve Moksha he remains
in the Material world and after Mahavishnu breathes out again, that
previous Brahma will take a second birth in a high stratum of celestial
society ---when the next Brahma is born.

The material world is constructed of animate and inanimate elements, they
come from Mahavishnu and overseen by Brahma who populates and building
the cosmos within each Brahmanda. Each ruling Brahma may be left behind
[versus, attaining moksha] and take a next birth is the typical way:

One’s next birth is predicated upon the level of sophistication garnered in the previous lifetime.
Meanwhile, in Heaven, the jiv-atma seeks interpersonal reciprocal exchanges
with Godhead as an eternal pastime which are full of ever blossoming bliss.
Yes we seek Godhead out of self-preservation, out of self-centered
need to be in the presence of the person that fulfills all goals
---we want God’s personal face-to-face association because it is
the penultimate and it’s there for the taking. God is the Supreme

Personality for the pleasure of persons getting a chance to shake his hand!

Yes how ironic that the atheist is happy without god ---yet lists all sorts of
provisos that are none-the-less personal preferences…
I don’t think there is a God, and as long as I live I hope to live like a God; or,
I don’t think there is a God, and as long as I live I hope to erase all
vestiges of my own personality.

If Brahma does not reach moksha before his death he joins the
ranks of the souls already present here in the breath of
Mahavishu’s maha-tattva [Godhead’s external energy]

If Brahma, or even any other longtime resident soul of the material
world reaches moksha that revives his original consciousness ---that
soul finds themselves back where they started in the eternal realm…

AND THUS ONLY A MOMENTS THOUGHT TRANSPIRED.

In the eternal realm there is only one Lord and everybody and
everything is part of the ensemble chorus that accompanies to star performer.

It is explained that there is “Five Rasas” that the spirit soul can
exchanges pastimes with the Lord:

Neutrality,
Servitude,
Fraternal,
Parental,
Marital.

So depending on one’s personal preference or sophisticated degree of
desire one will serve the Lord as they see fit.

Godhead is a Person.
Personhood is at it’s originating wellspring source in the personage of Godhead.
That is why Bhaktivedanta Swami transmits the term,
“Supreme Personality of Godhead”.

We spirit soul jiv-atmas are persons. God is a Person.
We are in separation from Godhead by time and space.
Yet even though the material cosmic universe and the living souls are
highly complicated and vast the inner core of our being as a jiv-atma
is the localised presence of Godhead’s expanded energy known as
Param-atma, which provides each individual/indivisable jiv-atma
free will to sojourn and experience in endless ways.

Remember the jiva-atma only has one possession they can claim
as their own ---and that is their own jiv-atma.

The jiv-atma is born naked and dies naked ---but due to being
in the material world, it is clinging on to desires to do acts…
acts that are prompted by desires and enacted by inert matter
to please our ego and senses for short spurts at a time.

When it comes to knowledge there is two stages/kinds:
Knowledge given as instruction and realised knowledge.
[Jnana and vijnana]

Many times we act just upon “Knowledge given”.
IE: “The airline pilot is experienced” I doubt you checked the
pilots credentials last time you flew. Am I 101% right in assuming this?
Other things are known by realised knowledge because we checked it out ourselves.
IE: “Sexual intercourse feels good”

So we are souls in the material world, and when we die and take
another birth we are driven by Knowledge given as instruction and
realised knowledge. And the lessons learnt prompt us forward

There are 8,400,000 species of life-forms and depending on how we
past the time we acculturate our preferences.

Some want to head corporations etc while others are happy to watch
grass grow ---mercifully, there’s plenty of room for all varieties of experience.

-written for Waterfall's thread at Hindu dharma forum
http://hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?15347-New-questions

 

[Bhaktajan II]

also:

For one who always remembers Me without deviation, I am easy to obtain, O son of Pritha, because of his constant engagement in devotional service.
And whoever, at the end of his life, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt.
Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, O son of Kunti, that state he will attain without fail.
…if one thinks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and quits his body, he will certainly reach the spiritual planets.

After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogis in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.

By human calculation, a thousand ages taken together form the duration of Brahma’s one day. And such also is the duration of his night.

PURPORT
The duration of the material universe is limited. It is manifested in cycles of kalpas. A kalpa is a day of Brahma, and one day of Brahma consists of a thousand cycles of four yugas, or ages: Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali. The cycle of Satya is characterized by virtue, wisdom and religion, there being practically no ignorance and vice, and the yuga lasts 1,728,000 years. In the Treta-yuga vice is introduced, and this yuga lasts 1,296,000 years.

In the Dvapara-yuga there is an even greater decline in virtue and religion, vice increasing, and this yuga lasts 864,000 years. And finally in Kali-yuga (the yuga we have now been experiencing over the past 5,000 years) there is an abundance of strife, ignorance, irreligion and vice, true virtue being practically nonexistent, and this yuga lasts 432,000 years.

In Kali-yuga vice increases to such a point that at the termination of the yuga the Supreme Lord Himself appears as the Kalki avatara, vanquishes the demons, saves His devotees, and commences another Satya-yuga. Then the process is set rolling again. These four yugas, rotating a thousand times, comprise one day of Brahma, and the same number comprise one night.

Brahma lives one hundred of such “years” and then dies. These “hundred years” by earth calculations total to 311 trillion and 40 billion earth years. By these calculations the life of Brahma seems fantastic and interminable, but from the viewpoint of eternity it is as brief as a lightning flash. In the Causal Ocean there are innumerable Brahmas rising and disappearing like bubbles in the Atlantic. Brahma and his creation are all part of the material universe, and therefore they are in constant flux.

In the material universe not even Brahma is free from the process of birth, old age, disease and death. Brahma, however, is directly engaged in the service of the Supreme Lord in the management of this universe—therefore he at once attains liberation.

Elevated sannyasis are promoted to Brahma’s particular planet, Brahmaloka, which is the highest planet in the material universe and which survives all the heavenly planets in the upper strata of the planetary system, but in due course Brahma and all the inhabitants of Brahmaloka are subject to death, according to the law of material nature.

At the beginning of Brahma’s day, all living entities become manifest from the unmanifest state, and thereafter, when the night falls, they are merged into the unmanifest again.

Again and again, when Brahma’s day arrives, all living entities come into being, and with the arrival of Brahma’s night they are helplessly annihilated.

PURPORT
The less intelligent, who try to remain within this material world, may be elevated to higher planets and then again must come down to this planet earth. During the daytime of Brahma they can exhibit their activities on higher and lower planets within this material world, but at the coming of Brahma’s night they are all annihilated. In the day they receive various bodies for material activities, and at night they no longer have bodies but remain compact in the body of Vishnu. Then again they are manifest at the arrival of Brahma’s day.
Bhutva bhutva praliyate
during the day they become manifest, and at night they are annihilated again.

Ultimately, when Brahma’s life is finished, they are all annihilated and remain unmanifest for millions and millions of years. And when Brahma is born again in another millennium they are again manifest. In this way they are captivated by the spell of the material world.

But those intelligent persons who take to Bhakti-yoga use the human life fully in the devotional service of the Lord, chanting Hare Krishna Maha-mantra. Thus they transfer themselves, even in this life, to the spiritual planets and become eternally blissful there, not being subject to such rebirths.

Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is.

PURPORT
Krishna’s superior, spiritual energy is transcendental and eternal. It is beyond all the changes of material nature, which is manifest and annihilated during the days and nights of Brahma. Krishna’s superior energy is completely opposite in quality to material nature. Superior and inferior nature are explained in the Seventh Chapter of this Bhagavad-gita

That which the Vedantists describe as unmanifest and infallible, that which is known as the supreme destination, that place from which, having attained it, one never returns—that is My supreme abode.

PURPORT
The supreme abode of the Personality of Godhead, Krishna, is described in the Brahma-samhita as cintamani-dhama, a place where all desires are fulfilled. The supreme abode of Lord Krishna, known as Goloka Vrindavana, is full of palaces made of touchstone. There are also trees, called “desire trees,” that supply any type of eatable upon demand, and there are cows, known as surabhi cows, which supply a limitless supply of milk.

In this abode, the Lord is served by hundreds of thousands of goddesses of fortune (Lakshmis), and He is called Govinda, the primal Lord and the cause of all causes. The Lord is accustomed to blow His flute (venum kvanantam). His transcendental form is the most attractive in all the worlds—His eyes are like lotus petals, and the color of His body is like the color of clouds.

He is so attractive that His beauty excels that of thousands of Cupids. He wears saffron cloth, a garland around His neck and a peacock feather in His hair. In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna gives only a small hint of His personal abode, Goloka Vrindavana, which is the supermost planet in the spiritual kingdom.

A vivid description is given in the Brahma-samhita. Vedic literatures (Katha Upanishad 1.3.11) state that there is nothing superior to the abode of the Supreme Godhead, and that that abode is the ultimate destination (purushan na param kinchit sa kashtha parama gatih). When one attains to it, he never returns to the material world. Krishna’s supreme abode and Krishna Himself are nondifferent, being of the same quality.

On this earth, Vrindavana, ninety miles southeast of Delhi, is a replica of that supreme Goloka Vrindavana located in the spiritual sky. When Krishna descended on this earth, He sported on that particular tract of land known as Vrindavana, comprising about eighty-four square miles in the district of Mathura, India.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is greater than all, is attainable by unalloyed devotion. Although He is present in His abode, He is all-pervading, and everything is situated within Him.

PURPORT
It is here clearly stated that the supreme destination, from which there is no return, is the abode of Krishna, the Supreme Person. The Brahma-samhita describes this supreme abode as ananda-cinmaya-rasa, a place where everything is full of spiritual bliss. All the variegatedness manifest there is of the quality of spiritual bliss—nothing there is material.

That variegatedness is expanded as the spiritual expansion of the Supreme Godhead Himself, for the manifestation there is totally of the spiritual energy, as explained in Chapter Seven. As far as this material world is concerned, although the Lord is always in His supreme abode, He is nonetheless all-pervading by His material energy. So by His spiritual and material energies He is present everywhere—both in the material and in the spiritual universes.

Yasyantah-sthani means that everything is sustained within Him, within either His spiritual or material energy. The Lord is all-pervading by these two energies.

To enter Krishna’s supreme abode or the innumerable Vaikuntha planets is possible only by bhakti, devotional service, as clearly indicated here by the word bhaktya. No other process can help one attain that supreme abode.

The Vedas (Gopala-tapani Upanishad 3.2) also describe the supreme abode and the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Eko vashi sarva-gah krishnah.

In that abode there is only one Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose name is Krishna. He is the supreme merciful Deity, and although situated there as one He has expanded Himself into millions and millions of plenary expansions. The Vedas compare the Lord to a tree standing still yet bearing many varieties of fruits, flowers and changing leaves.

The plenary expansions of the Lord who preside over the Vaikuntha planets are four-armed, and they are known by a variety of names—Purushottama, Trivikrama, Keçava, Madhava, Aniruddha, Hrishikesha, Sankarshana, Pradyumna, Shridhara, Vasudeva, Damodara, Janardana, Narayana, Vamana, Padmanabha, etc.

The Brahma-samhita (5.37) also confirms that although the Lord is always in the supreme abode, Goloka Vrindavana, He is all-pervading, so that everything is going on nicely (goloka eva nivasaty akhilatma-bhutah).

As stated in the Vedas (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 6.8),
parasya shaktir vividhaiva shruyate,
svabhaviki gyana-bala-kriya ca
His energies are so expansive that they systematically conduct everything in the cosmic manifestation without a flaw, although the Supreme Lord is far, far away.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Bhagavad-gita 8.28:
A person who accepts the path of devotional service
is not bereft of the results derived from studying the
Vedas, performing austere sacrifices, giving charity
or pursuing philosophical and fruitive activities.
Simply by performing devotional service, he attains
all these, and at the end he reaches the supreme eternal abode.

Commentary:
This verse is the summation of the Seventh and Eighth
chapters, which particularly deal with Krishna consciousness
and devotional service. One has to study the Vedas under
the guidance of the spiritual master and undergo many
austerities and penances while living under his care.

A brahmacari has to live in the home of the spiritual master
just like a servant, and he must beg alms from door to door
and bring them to the spiritual master. He takes food only
under the master’s order, and if the master neglects to call
the student for food that day, the student fasts. These are some
of the Vedic principles for observing brahmacarya.

After the student studies the Vedas under the master for a
period from five to twenty years, he may become a man of
perfect character. Study of the Vedas is not meant for the
recreation of armchair speculators, but for the formation of
character. After this training, the brahmacari is allowed to
enter into household life and marry. When he is a householder,
he has to perform many sacrifices so that he may achieve
further enlightenment. He must also give charity according
to the country, time and candidate, discriminating among
charity in goodness, in passion and in ignorance, as described
in Bhagavad-gita. Then after retiring from household life,
upon accepting the order of vanaprastha, he undergoes
severe penances—living in forests, dressing with tree bark,
not shaving, etc. By carrying out the orders of brahmacarya,
householder life, vanaprastha and finally sannyasa,
one becomes elevated to the perfectional stage of life.
Some are then elevated to the heavenly kingdoms, and
when they become even more advanced they are liberated
in the spiritual sky, either in the impersonal brahmajyoti
or in the Vaikuntha planets or Krishna-loka. This is the path
outlined by Vedic literatures.

The beauty of being conscious of Krishna, however, is
that by one stroke, by engaging in devotional service,
one can surpass all the rituals of the different orders of life.
The words idam viditva, in this verse, indicate that one should
understand the instructions given by Sri Krishna in this chapter
and the Seventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gita. One should try to
understand these chapters not by scholarship or mental
speculation but by hearing them in association with devotees.

Chapters Seven through Twelve are the essence of Bhagavad-gita.
The first six and the last six chapters are like coverings for the
middle six chapters, which are especially protected by the Lord.
If one is fortunate enough to understand Bhagavad-gita—especially
these middle six chapters—in the association of devotees,
then his life at once becomes glorified beyond all penances,
sacrifices, charities, speculations, etc., for one can achieve
all the results of these activities simply by Krishna consciousness.

One who has a little faith in Bhagavad-gita should learn Bhagavad-gita
from a devotee, because in the beginning of the Fourth Chapter it is stated
clearly that Bhagavad-gita can be understood only by devotees;
no one else can perfectly understand the purpose of Bhagavad-gita.
One should therefore learn Bhagavad-gita from a devotee of Krishna,
not from mental speculators. This is a sign of faith.
When one searches for a devotee and finally gets a devotee’s association
one actually begins to study and understand Bhagavad-gita.
By advancement in the association of the devotee one is placed in
devotional service, and this service dispels all one’s misgivings
about Krishna, or God, and Krishna’s activities, form, pastimes,
name and other features. After these misgivings have been perfectly
cleared away, one becomes fixed in one’s study. Then one relishes
the study of Bhagavad-gita and attains the state of feeling always
Krishna conscious. In the advanced stage, one falls completely in
love with Krishna. This highest perfectional stage of life enables
the devotee to be transferred to Krishna’s abode in the spiritual sky,
Goloka Vrindavan, where the devotee becomes eternally happy.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Purports to the Eighth Chapter of the
Bhagavad-gita in the matter of Attaining the Supreme.

 

[Arif Ghamiq]

Man - that's alot of stuff Bhak