How exactly were we created?

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exactly where we created so actually creation may not be the best word because the soul is eternal creation especially means that something did not exist and it came into existence like a building was created it didn’t exist before that, the soul is eternal, eternal means not just no end but also no beginning so in that sense the soul is never created, so although we use the word creator and creatures sometimes, we use that primarily for the embodied existence so when the soul gets a body then it’s called a creature now in our tradition Brahmaji is considered to be the creator although he is the secondary creator Krishna Vishnu is the primary creator now the soul gets bodies at the time of the start of the universal creation based on whatever its karma was prior to that so let me come to that now there is creation there is manifestation there is unmanifestation, then there is manifestation again so at this manifestation where does the soul get a particular body? that depends on what was the karma in the previous time when the universe was manifested and now if we ask this question further what happened originally so traditionally our acharyas have talked about the soul’s existence in the material world being anadi in 13.20 in the Bhagavad Gita it is stated that so prakriti and purusha, both of them are anadi anadi means beginningless and both of them say that this refers to the soul not just the soul being eternal and material nature being eternal but also the soul’s placement in material nature is also eternal it is anadi now in our tradition bhaktivinoda thakura was the first person who talked about the fall of the soul and he talked about it primarily in terms of the soul falling from brahmajyoti as far as we have found bhaktivinoda thakura also repeated that part soul falling from brahmajyoti prabhupada was probably the first person who talked about the soul falling from krishnaloka so now there are many gaudiya vaishnavas who find this not a very they say that it is difficult to find a scriptural basis for this the other four vaishnavas also feel that this idea of the soul falling from the spiritual world is something which is not given in scripture now if we look at prabhupada’s position on this his broad position was that it is inconceivable now what is inconceivable is that how the soul fell from the spiritual world or just the origin of the soul itself so generally in ISKCON it is talked about that the soul fell from the spiritual world, that’s what we normally hear but if you look at prabhupada’s statements carefully prabhupada in general in his conversations and lectures seems to have talked about the soul falling from the spiritual world but with respect to in his written works he doesn’t talk about the soul falling from the spiritual world that many times and he has made the other statements also in the third fourth canto where the past time of the chittushkumaras cursing the jaya and vijaya, third canto fourth canto third or fourth canto it is there so there in that section prabhupada very clearly states that therefore the conclusion is that the soul never falls from the spiritual world it is a very categorical statement made by prabhupada in the third canto and then the argument is given that jaya and vijaya were not actually in the spiritual world and they were on the border of the spiritual world further some acharyas say that their fall cannot be compared to our fall because they were specifically cursed by someone so basically prabhupada himself did not take one position on this issue alone although there is one position which is frequently attributed to him that the soul fell from the spiritual world but he has also taken the other statements and prabhupada himself when he was asked about this question more he did not get into the technicalities how it happened and prabhupada himself has not given any direct structural basis for this position so my understanding is that there are some questions which just require us to have intellectual humility see intellectual humility means the willingness to acknowledge that I don’t know and that I can’t know so this is just a question because it happens it’s something which is outside the conception of time so how exactly it has happened we don’t know there is one of the scholarly disciples who has given an explanation that actually because there are some statements in scripture which say the soul never falls from the spiritual world and there are also statements which say that the soul’s bondage in the material world is anadhi so the reconciliation he has given is if we consider time flow it’s like a pyramid say we know that a few moments of Brahma’s life are like many generations over here so if we take that pyramid itself and extend it to the spiritual world then one moment in the spiritual world can be like thousands of lifetimes in this world so he said that from the spiritual world’s perspective the soul may be gone for one moment and during that time the soul goes through many lifetimes over here so because from the spiritual world’s perspective it’s only one moment so we could say that the soul never falls from the spiritual world but from this material world’s existence perspective because it is so many lifetimes we can say that it’s anadhi so there are ways in which the scriptural statements can be reconciled but broadly speaking there is no need to get into this issue too much this is I often say this question is often our devotees’ favourite way of giving themselves an intellectual headache because there is just no one answer to the question and there are some devotees who say that the soul fell from the spiritual world and they try to give different reasons if they are satisfied with the reason that’s fine if we feel satisfied with the reason that’s also good or there are other devotees who say no the soul cannot fall from the spiritual world there is no really strong scriptural basis for this and that’s not really spoken in the tradition and that’s also not the only thing that Srila Prabhupada spoke so in general when Srila Prabhupada himself has spoken I have taken multiple positions on a particular issue it’s best not to make that a major issue so whichever explanation we feel satisfied by we can just accept that and move on the important thing is that more important than being in the spiritual world or always being in the material world is that being in spiritual consciousness or being in material consciousness and we can ourselves see the difference when we are in material consciousness we are agitated we get we just feel disturbed and when we are in spiritual consciousness so we feel satisfied we are more productive we are more happy so basically we can see the difference between spiritual consciousness and material consciousness and that’s why we need to move towards do that thing which moves us towards spiritual consciousness and if anything disturbs us in our moving towards spiritual consciousness then we should see that as pratikul to bhakti and keep that aside so if this question or any particular answer to this question we find satisfactory and that helps us to move towards spiritual consciousness good if we find that it’s too complicated I don’t find it convincing so just put it aside and move on ok