At His Lotus Feet

I offer myself eternally as a servant at the lotus feet of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, my eternal spiritual master and spiritual father. In 1971 he saved me from countless rotations in the cycle of birth and death by accepting me as his duly initiated disciple. Since that wonderful day, when I fully dedicated my eternal existence to him, I have been tasting the sweetest nectar engaging myself and others in his service and spreading the sublime Krishna consciousness science all over the world.

It was only Srila Prabhupada who gave us access to that science, because it was only he who presented to us the Bhagavad-gita exactly as Krishna spoke it to Arjuna. Although there are hundreds of other Gita editions, I have personally seen how the other translators twist the words of Krishna to suit their own concocted vision of reality. But Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita As It Is contains no such distortions. From him we receive the pure unadulterated teachings of Lord Sri Krishna with their full transcendental potency. Therefore I eternally bow in obeisances at his lotus feet thanking him for his unlimited loving kindness to accept such a wretched soul as myself as his disciple.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Can the Jiva Fall Twice?

My question refers to Bhagavad-gita, 8.16 and 8.21. Does it not in these two verses suggest that once the jiva attains the spiritual world it will not fall again? I can almost understand that the jiva can fall originally, but how can it fall from, "that place, which having attained it, one never returns."

Thank you for your patience.

Bruce

Answer: Once Burned, Twice Shy.

Here are the wonderful verses you quoted:

ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ
punar āvartino 'rjuna
mām upetya tu kaunteya
punar janma na vidyate

"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 Kuntī, never takes birth again."--Bhagavad-gita 8.16

avyakto 'kṣara ity uktas
tam āhuḥ paramāṁ gatim
yaṁ prāpya na nivartante
tad dhāma paramaṁ mama

"That which the Vedāntists 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. "
--Bhagavad-gita 8.21

So the rule is that whose who fell to the material world and then return back to Godhead do not fall a second time. "Once burned, twice shy." Although the living entity is certainly free to fall again, he will not do so after having experienced how miserable is this material world.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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