20240728 Śrī Caitanya Śikṣāmṛta 1.4. Living Entities—Conditioned and Liberated living entities

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: (Wishing Deva Gaurāṅga dāsa happy appearance day, who has been serving him since 1993 for 21 years now). He has also read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. I was thinking that although I am sick, these dedicated devotees are taking care of me.

Did anyone speak at the Śrīla Prabhupāda Connect program this morning? Today I had dialysis. I will try to speak at the Śrīla Prabhupāda Connect, if it is there tomorrow. Also, the Nāma-haṭṭa in Assam is having a three day sammelan for three days in Māyāpur. So one day I will go there.

Śrī Caitanya-Śikṣāmṛta

The Nectar of the teachings of Śrī Caitanya

Today’s chapter is: First Stream – Fourth Shower

Living Entities—Conditioned and Liberated living entities

Svāṁśa and vibhinnāṁśa - Personal expansions and separate expansions

TEXT: The perverted state of the living entity in bondage —

The conditioned soul is seen in various forms. That is only due to the results of their own karma.

Note: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.22.37:

manaḥ karma-mayaṁ ṇṝṇām
indriyaiḥ pañcabhir yutam
lokāl lokaṁ prayāty anya
ātmā tad anuvartate

The material mind of men is shaped by the reactions of fruitive work. Along with the five senses, it travels from one material body to another. The spirit soul, although different from this mind, follows it.

The living entity is not formed by taking any of quality or nature of māyā. If the living entity is accepted as made up of māyika nature, then Māyāvāda comes and takes position. The living entity is composed of pure spiritual substance and spiritual nature. Due to the marginal nature, the living entity is liable to be bound by māyika nature. Even that happens when one’s own occupational duty of servitude of Kṛṣṇa is forgotten.

All the existence, forms and transformation of pure living entity are spiritual. However, all these are so tiny due to the living entity’s minute consciousness, that when the living entity is bound by māyā, then first its pure form is covered by the mental subtle body and coming to the field of action again, the gross body also covers that subtle body and makes it suitable for material action.*

Jayapatākā Swami: So, the spirit soul covered by subtle bodies, gross bodies depending on what its desires were. It goes from one body to the next. Lord Caitanya, when He comes He wants to deliver all the conditioned souls. So if the conditioned souls somehow or other come into contact with Lord Caitanya’s movement, then they can develop natural love for Kṛṣṇa.

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Note: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.26.1:

mal-lakṣaṇam imaṁ kāyaṁ
labdhvā mad-dharma āsthitaḥ
ānandaṁ paramātmānam
ātma-sthaṁ samupaiti mām

TEXT: Having achieved this human form of life, which affords one the opportunity to realize Me, and being situated in My devotional service, one can achieve Me, the reservoir of all pleasure and the Supreme Soul of all existence, residing within the heart of every living being.

But this gross and subtle form is the transformation of pure form. So, they are similar. These gross elements of māyā—earth, water, fire, air and sky—form the gross body of the conditioned souls. These three subtle elements—mind, intelligence and false ego constitute the subtle body.*

Jayapatākā Swami: So human beings can understand the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. In the fourth chapter of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Lord Kṛṣṇa says if the conditioned soul realizes My janma, karma are all transcendental, they can go back to the spiritual world, back to Godhead. So it is not so difficult, but people are not taking any effort to understand Kṛṣṇa. So, they stay bound up in the material world.

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Note: Bhagavad-gītā 7.4 –5

bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ
khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca
ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me
bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā

apareyam itas tv anyāṁ
prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām
jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho
yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat

“Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego – all together these eight constitute My separated material energies. Besides these, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature.”

When these two coverings are removed, the living entity is liberated from māyā. Then, the soul’s own spiritual body is manifested. The liberated personalities act through the senses of their own personal soul’s body. The gross world’s food, sexual intercourse, excrement, physical injury, suffering, suffering due to separation etc., do not exist in the spiritual body. The living entity mistakenly accepts the activities performed with the gross body by identifying the gross body as oneself by the nature of vivarta (illusion of accepting one thing for another), and thus feels happiness and sorrow.*

Jayapatākā Swami: So because we identify with the body, any suffering of the body we have to go through. And once we identify with Kṛṣṇa, and have our spiritual body, no longer the sufferings of the material body are experienced by the spiritual body. Of course, we want to enjoy the sense gratifications of the material body. Then we have to also suffer the miseries. So, by the mercy of Lord Caitanya, we are trying to see the transcendental nature of the spiritual world, and how the spiritual body realizes the transcendental bliss of the spiritual world.

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Note: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.22.51, 53–56:

prakṛter evam ātmānam
avivicyābudhaḥ pumān
tattvena sparśa-sammūḍhaḥ
saṁsāraṁ pratipadyate

nṛtyato gāyataḥ paśyan
yathaivānukaroti tān
evaṁ buddhi-guṇān paśyann
anīho ’py anukāryate

yathāmbhasā pracalatā
taravo ’pi calā iva
cakṣuṣā bhrāmyamāṇena
dṛśyate bhramatīva bhūḥ

yathā manoratha-dhiyo
viṣayānubhavo mṛṣā
svapna-dṛṣṭāś ca dāśārha
tathā saṁsāra ātmanaḥ

arthe hy avidyamāne ’pi
saṁsṛtir na nivartate
dhyāyato viṣayān asya
svapne ’narthāgamo yathā

“An unintelligent man, failing to distinguish himself from material nature, thinks nature to be real. Just as one may imitate persons whom one sees dancing and singing, similarly the soul, although never the doer of material activities, becomes captivated by material intelligence and is thus forced to imitate its qualities. The soul’s material life, his experience of sense gratification, is actually false, O descendant of Daśārha, just like trees’ appearance of quivering when the trees are reflected in agitated water, or like the earth’s appearance of spinning due to one’s spinning his eyes around, or like the world of a fantasy or dream. For one who is meditating on sense gratification, material life, although lacking factual existence, does not go away, just as the unpleasant experiences of a dream do not.

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Jayapatākā Swami: So how the material illusion works on the conditioned soul is mentioned here. And if we are desiring to engage in devotional service, then that will fill our mind up. And if we are thinking of material sense gratification, then that becomes our goal. Śrīla Prabhupāda told the London devotees in 1973, that the gṛhasthas should try to have ācāryas as children. Because Śrīla Prabhupāda said we need many ācāryas. He said, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, he had Śrīla Prabhupāda’s guru as his son. And Śrīla Prabhupāda said he was an ācārya. So we need devotees to have ācāryas and he also told the gṛhasthas that they should be paramahaṁsas. We should always think of Kṛṣṇa. So, this material world is not the goal of our life. The goal is to serve Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa!

There is one more mystery about the liberated personality. Even though liberated, a body suitable for devotional service to the Lord is not obtained, as long as there is false ego of material knowledge or the voidist intelligence (nirvāṇa-buddhi) of negating matter.*

Jayapatākā Swami: So, if one has a false ego, he cannot get a spiritual body? That is not fair! So, false ego means he is still identifying with the body. And that is creating an obstacle.

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