The Bliss is Everything

20 November 2007. Today is a full day of traveling. We departed ISKCON's Sofia, Bulgaria temple this morning at 4:00 am. It's now 9:00am and we are here in Budapest. In a few minutes we will board a flight to Amsterdam, where we will catch a flight to Dubai and from there a flight to Doha, Qatar where I will lecturing on the supreme self-realization science for several days. We will finally arrive in Doha at 2:30 am tomorrow morning having spent a full day in airports and on airplanes. I try to utilize my travel time to the max by staying fully absorbed as much as possible in studying the Bhagavad-gita, chanting the Hare Krishna mantra on my japa beads, and keeping up with "Thought for the Day" and my e-mail correspondence. It's a lot of work, but I love every minute of it. We are getting so much positive feedback from the people we are reaching out to all over the world. It is immensely gratifying. The austerities are nothing. The bliss is everything.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Why Did God Create the Universe and the Human Beings

At times the following question comes to my mind, probably due to limited knowledge. Please enlighten me on this:

If in the beginning there was only Lord Krishna, why did He create the universe and the human beings? He advises everyone to follow the Gita by surrendering to Him, but at the same time He creates His inferior, illusory energy known as Maya that deludes everyone. Is this considered to be a testing phase for human beings? If yes, then what is the need of doing all these things if finally everything is going back to Him?

Please pardon me if I am asking silly questions.

Neel

Answer: For His Enjoyment

Your questions are very nice. They are not silly.

The first thing you should try to understand there was never a time when there was only Krishna and no one else. Krishna is eternally emanating the living beings from Himself in order to enjoy loving relationships with each and every one of them. But since love by its very nature must be voluntary, Krishna gives each living being the freedom to choose whether to love and serve Him as the Supreme Person or whether to try to imitate Him by foolishly considering himself to be the Supreme Person.

If the living being chooses to try to imitate the Lord, he cannot try to do so unless he is the under the illusion that he is the supreme. Therefore for a such a fool the Lord provides His Maya, His illusory energy, which enables the living being to actually think that he is the center of the universe.

It is wrong to think that everyone is deluded by Maya. The vast majority of the living beings remain eternally absorbed in the Lord's service in His eternal kingdom. It is only an infinitesimal fraction of the innumerable living beings in the spiritual world who opt out of an eternal life full of knowledge and bliss because of a foolish desire to be the center of existence.

Everyone has a choice of one of two destinies. One can choose to think that he is the center of enjoyment and thus try to be an enjoyer of this material world. Such an unfortunate soul will be caught up in the cycle of birth and death living one temporary existence full of ignorance and misery birth after birth until he finally wises up and comes back to the Lord's service.

Or one can choose to be an eternal servant of God in His transcendental kingdom and live an eternal life full of knowledge and bliss. Everybody gets to make this choice. This material world is the place for those who make the wrong choice. The living beings who choose not to serve the Lord will remain eternally in this material existence but they can rectify themselves whenever they want to.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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