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Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Flying on Hare Krishna Airlines in Russia
Kaliningrad--5 November 2010

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Did We Originate in the Spiritual World?

I have been reading your thoughts of the day and answers to questions since April 24, 2010. Your words keep me connected to Guru and Krishna on a regular basis. You have also provided some wonderful explanations to common and uncommon misconceptions of Krishna Consciousness. If only I had just a fraction of your spiritual enthusiasm, dedication and understanding, I would consider my life successful.

However, there is something that you say repeatedly in your emails that I find very difficult to understand. In fact it has been bugging me ever since I came to Krishna Consciousness. By the time I got a chance to ask my Guru Maharaja, he disappeared and I am afraid to ask this question to anyone. I asked this question once to a senior devotee who told me "You are worrying about unnecessary things. First become a pure devotee, then it will be revealed to you". So I am taking the liberty of asking you.

The problem I have is with the idea that we have forgotten Krishna. I find this very difficult to understand. My idea of Krishna is that He has to be such a person that once you know Him, it is not possible to forget Him. Therefore how is it possible that we were in the spiritual world and have now fallen into this material world? It is more reasonable to my mind that we never ever knew Krishna. Since time immemorial, we desired to enjoy for ourselves. This is the root cause of why we find ourselves in this material world. I know that many people have a difficult time accepting this, even among devotees. Also, there is a verse in the Bhagavad-gita (15.6):

yad gatva na nivartante, tad dhama paramam mama

Here Krishna seems to say that once a person is in the spiritual world, he can never fall down. So it looks like we were never in the spiritual world to start with.

With Respects and Obeisances

Humbly,

J Das

Answer: Since We Came From Krishna, We Must Have.

Since we originate in Krishna, we must necessarily come from the spiritual world, since He is situated in the spiritual world. But as long as we are conditioned by time and space it is difficult for us to conceive of our true identity, which exists beyond time and space. If we want to truly understand our identity, we must open our minds to try to grasp what lies beyond time and space.

In the scriptures the souls entangled in this material world are called "nitya-baddha", which means "eternally conditioned". According to ordinary logic, this means that these nitya-baddhas must have never been with Krishna or must have never been Krishna conscious at any time in the past.

But yet Lord Caitanya describes that all living beings are the eternal servants of Krishna. And Srila Prabhupada states in his purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 4.28.53, " The natural position of the living entity is to serve the Lord in a transcendental loving attitude. When the living entity wants to become Krishna Himself or imitate Krishna, he falls down into the material world."

And he also states in a letter to Dr. Bigelow, "Originally the soul comes from God. Just as a spark comes from fire, and when the spark falls down it appears to be extinguished, the spark of soul originally comes from the spiritual world to the material world."

So, how is it possible that both things could be true? How could we be originally in the spiritual world and at the same time have always been in this material world? It just does not make sense. But on some level it has to make sense because there are no contradictions in the Vedic teachings. So what is the level on which it does make sense?

The key to note here is that material world is the dimension of time, while the spiritual world is the dimension of timelessness. Since there is no time in the spiritual world, there is no measurable moment of time when we left it to enter this material world. And since we are here in the material world with no time that we entered, naturally we must always have been here. Therefore it is correct to say that we have always been here, because from the standpoint of material time this is correct. And at the same time it is correct to say that we were originally with Krishna and that due to our misuse of our independence we fell into the material existence.

In short, the fall into material existence occurred in timelessness, therefore there is no time that it happened.

Take a closer look at the Bhagavad-gita verse you quoted from chapter 15 text 6, which is translated as follows:

"That supreme abode of Mine is not illumined by the sun or moon, nor by fire or electricity. Those who reach it never return to this material world."

Kindly note that this verse applies to those who fell into the material world and returned to the spiritual world. It does apply to those who never yet been the material world. This means that, just like the saying, "Once burned, twice shy," while one may fall once into this material world, he will not fall a second time.

Regarding your point of how it is possible to forget Krishna, the Lord describes in Bhagavad-gita 15.15 that He is provider of forgetfulness. This is means that those who are envious of the Lord are blessed by Him with forgetfulness of Him so that their minds will not be disturbed by their object of envy.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari