Here's another part...
Rev. Hart: Okay, I can accept that. It's logical enough. But it doesn't explain why we would come here. Are we not perfectly happy in relation to the Lord in His spiritual kingdom? What's the Vedic viewpoint on this?
Satyaraja Dasa: We are part and parcel of God. We are like small samplings of the Supreme. Whatever quality He has in full, we have also, but in smaller quantity. For example, He has all strength, beauty, wealth, fame, knowledge, and renunciation. Being part of Him, we share these qualities, too, but in minute proportion.
Now, one of His qualities is that He is supremely independent, that's what makes Him God. Similarly, we, as His parts and parcels, have minute independence. After all, if He did not give us independence then how could we choose to love Him? It would be a forced affair, and that can't really be considered love. So He gives us a choice and, naturally, some misuse that choice, and they decide to leave the Lord. But the Vedic literature affirms that a small number of jiva-souls actually leave God's company. It's described that one quadrant of all of existence is here for the rebellious souls. The vast majority remain in their constitutional position as eternal servants of the Lord. Unlimited living beings serve Him eternally, and an insignificant few tend to fall into the material world.
Rev. Hart: But my question...
Satyaraja Dasa: I'm getting to that. But I needed to give this much background information. Now your question is this: of the few who do fall, why would even one want to leave the perfect spiritual world? This is your question, correct?
Rev. Hart: Yes.
Satyaraja Dasa: As I've explained, we are part and parcel of Krishna, and we share His qualities, but in minute portion. Okay. Now one of His qualities is that He is Supreme Enjoyer. So we must also have the enjoying propensity in minute proportion. Enjoyment presupposes personality and taste - it is this taste that is at the heart of answer to your question. Some people like rich, sumptuous halavah, and others puffed rice. Both desire to enjoy, but one likes a luxuriant thing and the other enjoys more humble fare.
That’s called taste. Variegated tastes have their origin in spiritual world. Therefore it can have its perverted reflection here. Good taste and not-so-good taste. Perfect enjoyment or pleasure exists in the spiritual world while lower or imperfect enjoyment and pleasure is in the material world. Now, when we first manifest lower taste in God's kingdom, it still necessarily takes the form of devotional service - we do not easily give up such service. That kingdom is the realm of service and love - and nothing more. We do not become envious in the spiritual world, as it is often told. No. No material quality-such as envy-can rear its head in the spiritual world. What happens, rather, is that we desire to serve Krishna in a lower way, a way that is not necessary in the kingdom of God.
For instance, we may desire to serve as a creator. Since the spiritual world calls for neither creation nor destruction, it is eternal, the service of a creator is called for elsewhere. In the material world. Therefore we take birth as an elevated demigod, like Brahma, and we serve as a creator. Notice that we are still serving. But in the form of Brahma, now that we are in the material world, our difficulty begins, and we inevitably fall to the lower species. In this way, we gather conditioning and various inferior, material qualities. These qualities haunt us and torture us birth after birth. Eventually we come to our senses, and we naturally evolve, meet a pure devotee, when we are finally ready, and advance back to Godhead.
But let's backtrack for a moment. It should be pointed out, also, that there are certain elements inherent in the lesser realm of enjoyment that may go along with our taste.
For instance, in the material world we can be the center instead of Krishna. So when we have this inferior taste, which we can say is borne of envy and lust (but this is overly simplistic)-we must satisfy this taste in an inferior realm. Therefore the material world is created, so we can enact this perverted pastime of indulging our lower taste and engaging in a lesser service.
But we only enact it temporarily, and gradually Krishna shows us the true inferior nature of our taste. We thus develop a higher taste in due course, and we voluntarily return to Him. It's something like having a taste for cigarettes. And then when we get sick by giving way to this taste, we come to our senses and give up our bad habit gradually developing a higher taste when the poisons are out of our bloodstream. Then we wonder how we could have smoked at all...
Rev. Hart: Okay, I can accept that. It's logical enough. But it doesn't explain why we would come here. Are we not perfectly happy in relation to the Lord in His spiritual kingdom? What's the Vedic viewpoint on this?
Satyaraja Dasa: We are part and parcel of God. We are like small samplings of the Supreme. Whatever quality He has in full, we have also, but in smaller quantity. For example, He has all strength, beauty, wealth, fame, knowledge, and renunciation. Being part of Him, we share these qualities, too, but in minute proportion.
Now, one of His qualities is that He is supremely independent, that's what makes Him God. Similarly, we, as His parts and parcels, have minute independence. After all, if He did not give us independence then how could we choose to love Him? It would be a forced affair, and that can't really be considered love. So He gives us a choice and, naturally, some misuse that choice, and they decide to leave the Lord. But the Vedic literature affirms that a small number of jiva-souls actually leave God's company. It's described that one quadrant of all of existence is here for the rebellious souls. The vast majority remain in their constitutional position as eternal servants of the Lord. Unlimited living beings serve Him eternally, and an insignificant few tend to fall into the material world.
Rev. Hart: But my question...
Satyaraja Dasa: I'm getting to that. But I needed to give this much background information. Now your question is this: of the few who do fall, why would even one want to leave the perfect spiritual world? This is your question, correct?
Rev. Hart: Yes.
Satyaraja Dasa: As I've explained, we are part and parcel of Krishna, and we share His qualities, but in minute portion. Okay. Now one of His qualities is that He is Supreme Enjoyer. So we must also have the enjoying propensity in minute proportion. Enjoyment presupposes personality and taste - it is this taste that is at the heart of answer to your question. Some people like rich, sumptuous halavah, and others puffed rice. Both desire to enjoy, but one likes a luxuriant thing and the other enjoys more humble fare.
That’s called taste. Variegated tastes have their origin in spiritual world. Therefore it can have its perverted reflection here. Good taste and not-so-good taste. Perfect enjoyment or pleasure exists in the spiritual world while lower or imperfect enjoyment and pleasure is in the material world. Now, when we first manifest lower taste in God's kingdom, it still necessarily takes the form of devotional service - we do not easily give up such service. That kingdom is the realm of service and love - and nothing more. We do not become envious in the spiritual world, as it is often told. No. No material quality-such as envy-can rear its head in the spiritual world. What happens, rather, is that we desire to serve Krishna in a lower way, a way that is not necessary in the kingdom of God.
For instance, we may desire to serve as a creator. Since the spiritual world calls for neither creation nor destruction, it is eternal, the service of a creator is called for elsewhere. In the material world. Therefore we take birth as an elevated demigod, like Brahma, and we serve as a creator. Notice that we are still serving. But in the form of Brahma, now that we are in the material world, our difficulty begins, and we inevitably fall to the lower species. In this way, we gather conditioning and various inferior, material qualities. These qualities haunt us and torture us birth after birth. Eventually we come to our senses, and we naturally evolve, meet a pure devotee, when we are finally ready, and advance back to Godhead.
But let's backtrack for a moment. It should be pointed out, also, that there are certain elements inherent in the lesser realm of enjoyment that may go along with our taste.
For instance, in the material world we can be the center instead of Krishna. So when we have this inferior taste, which we can say is borne of envy and lust (but this is overly simplistic)-we must satisfy this taste in an inferior realm. Therefore the material world is created, so we can enact this perverted pastime of indulging our lower taste and engaging in a lesser service.
But we only enact it temporarily, and gradually Krishna shows us the true inferior nature of our taste. We thus develop a higher taste in due course, and we voluntarily return to Him. It's something like having a taste for cigarettes. And then when we get sick by giving way to this taste, we come to our senses and give up our bad habit gradually developing a higher taste when the poisons are out of our bloodstream. Then we wonder how we could have smoked at all...