Gurvastakam Prayers at Prabhupada's Samadhi

The sweetest nectar in Vrindavan is to rise early and attend the first arati of the day at 4:10am at Srila Prabhupada's samadhi. This is the most spiritually potent place in the entire universes because this is where Srila Prabhupada's body has been put to rest. Here the devotees gather together every morning and the sing the beautiful Gurvastakam prayers composed by Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur. Gurvastakam means "Eight Prayers Glorifying the Spiritual Master." These sublime verses are sung to the tune of the mellifluous morning melody that Srila Prabhupada taught us. Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur has given the boon that anyone who regularly sings this sublime song during the early time before sunrise will attain the direct service of Lord Sri Krishna in Goloka Vrindavan after leaving his present material body. So who would not want to cash in on this boon?

Ecstatic Mangal Arati at Prabhupada's Samadhi
23 March 2012-Sri Vrindavan Dhama, India

Ecstatic Mangal Arati at Prabhupada's Samadhi Sri Vrindavan Dham

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: Is there a Soul in Every Cell of our Body?

How are the mind, intelligence, false ego and free will of living entity (the jiva) interrelated, and how are they functioning to continue the material conception of life?

Does the Lord impregnate the material nature with the living entities, the jivas, or are the jivas always present in the material energy in an unmanifested form?

Are the decisions we make by the intelligence, which is also the material energy of the Lord, or are they the misuse of our free will? Kindly explain both from a material and a spiritual point of view.

What is sankhya?

Is there only one soul present in the body or does each and every cell of the body also have a separate soul?

Your eternal servant

Sanjeev

Answer: Every Cell Has a Soul

When the living entity misuses his free will, his real sense of identity is covered by the false ego (the conception that he is the center of the universe), his intelligence is polluted, and thus his mind, which acts under the direction of the intelligence, becomes misguided.

All of the jivas (the living entities) originate in the spiritual sky as the Lord's eternal devotees. If they misuse their free will and revolt against the authority of the Lord, they must enter the material world to be reformed of their rebellious mentality. For this purpose the Lord impregnates the material nature with these fallen jivas. It is not that they originate from the material nature.

Our intelligence can be either spiritual or material depending on whether we properly use or we misuse our free will. There is only one truth. It's not that there is a spiritual truth and a material truth. Truth is one, and this one truth explains perfectly both the material energy and the spiritual energy

Sankhya is the analytical study of the material energy. This study can be pursued materially through gross sense perception and hypothesis as the scientists are trying to do. Or it can done in a spiritual way according to scriptural analysis by hearing from the great Vedic authorities. The material approach never leads to perfect knowledge, but the spiritual approach immediately brings one to the platform of perfect knowledge.

There is an individual spirit-soul in each and every cell of the body. But there is one soul who predominates over the body just as a king predominates over all the citizens of the state.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

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