Bhagavatam-daily 193 – 11.10.35 – Desire drags us from the real world to the reel world

On Krishna is the liberated life. Thank you. So after hearing about how the modes create more subject the soul to illusion, now Uddhava asks a pertinent question, in fact he is asking two questions which are related.
Guneshu vartama nopi, that even the liberated souls are situated in the material world. Deha, Jeshu, Anapavrta. So now they are also having a body, they are also having, they are also having, they are also born in this world, they also have a body.
So how do they stay Anapavrta, how do they stay uncovered, how do they stay unbound? Gunaena baddhite dehi, how is it possible for the dehi to stay unbound while being in this world? And if we say oh because it’s possible because the living entity is transcendental then the question comes up, baddhite vaakatham vibho, if it was transcendental then how did it become bound? Oh my lord, I asked you this question. The questions a person asks also reveal the level of the questioner. We understand not only the content of the question but we also, by looking at the content of the question we understand the consciousness of the questioner and here Uddhava is asking a deep question when he is saying that actually I am under illusion, that he asks two questions, how can the soul be liberated if the soul is bound? How can, while being in a material existence, just like bound? So, now in this world, even if there is a pure devotee, that pure devotee also has a body and there are souls who are said to be jivanmukta, who are completely liberated from material existence.
So those who are bound like this in material existence, how can those souls discern that someone else is liberated? When, externally speaking, those souls will also eat, those who are liberated, their body will also deteriorate. Now, so the question is, how is transcendence to be understood? If transcendence is to be understood as being present even within the bondage that characterizes the material nature, then how does this transcendence maintain? And if transcendence is such that it is never affected by material nature, then the question comes up, how does the soul become bound? So, in the answer, Krishna will explain how actually it is the consciousness that is critical. The soul, by its own nature, is transcendental.
At the same time, the soul’s consciousness can expand or contract, can rise towards the world of spirits or can sink into the world of matter. Well, David Devotion, in his commentary Govinda Vashya, talks about the jnana-rupa and the jnana-swarupa. He talks about how the soul’s original nature will never change.
So, at one level, the scriptures say that the soul is unchangeable, but at the same time, we also see that the soul’s consciousness evolves. The soul’s consciousness in a tree is far different from the soul’s consciousness in a human body. So, we can see actually that there are differences.
So, to what are those differences attributed? They are attributed actually to the Supreme Lord, to the Supreme Lord’s illusory energy which cannot affect the soul proper. Anāvitvān nirgunatvāt paramātmāyam avyayam śarīrasthopikaunteya na karoti nityate Krishna talks about this in 13th chapter, where he says, the soul is anāvitvān, the soul is beyond time, nirgunatvāt, is beyond the modes. Paramātmā, the soul is param, avyayam, is beyond time, again it is said.
And the śarīrasthopikaunteya is situated in śarīra, in the body, na karoti nalipyate. Those situated in the body, the soul is, the soul doesn’t do anything, the soul is not bound by anything, na karoti nalipyate. So, the question comes up over here, if the soul is transcendental, then how exactly does the soul become bound? The bondage is in consciousness.
Consciousness is the defining characteristic, the essential energy of the soul. And that consciousness is affected by where the soul is situated. So, there is citta and there is citta, sac-citananda, where citta refers to the consciousness of the soul, your pure original consciousness, where citta refers to the embodied consciousness of the soul.
And this embodied consciousness is conditioned consciousness. This is a person, can observe the world around him, the real world, but that same person enters into a movie theatre and gets absorbed, obsessed, infatuated by watching what is happening in the movie. Then from the real world, the soul has moved to the, that person has, person’s attention has moved to the real world.
And in the real world, depending on what is happening, if the hero is, say, fighting and winning, person will be happy. If the hero is losing and is being beaten up, then the person will become distressed. So, all that person has nothing to do with the movie intrinsically.
The person has his own life and the movie is just some story being enacted and depicted through the technology that displays it on the screen. So, there is no intrinsic connection between the two. But as long as the person has the desire to enjoy that movie, bhunkte purushya prakriti So, in 13.22, Krishna says that actually bhunkte, because of the desire to enjoy, the soul is entangled in matter.
Similarly, it is because, just as the person desires to watch the movie and that’s how it’s caught in the real world. Although this person has the capacity to be aware of the real world around, but if the movie is very engrossing and the person is very obsessed, then that person completely forgets the real world and gets obsessed in the real world. Similarly, the soul becomes obsessed with the illusory material world because of the desire to enjoy.
And though the soul is transcendental, when the consciousness is contaminated and permeated by the desire to enjoy, then the soul becomes bound. So, the liberated souls are not bound because they do not have the desire to enjoy matter. So, at the material level, the body will undergo material loss.
But because their consciousness is not contaminated by material desire, so they will not be bound. On the other hand, if the soul develops material desire, then although the soul is transcendental, that soul gets affected by illusion. So, the connection between the real world or rather the path by which the spectator or the viewer is transported from the real world to the real world is the desire to enjoy.
And similarly, the path by which the soul moves from the arena of liberated spiritual existence to the arena of entangled material existence is the desire to enjoy. And because the pure devotees do not have this desire to enjoy, so although they are in the material world, they are not bound.