Question: You have well explained the phenomenon of jiva’s fall into the material world. Some points comes to mind. How come this very desire originates in the jivas if they are part and parcels of the supreme LORD? Do they have the choice of choosing between doing Krishna’s service or coming to the material world even at that stage when they do not have a material body itself?
Who decides to send them to different different material worlds and on what basis since they do not have any past karmas at this stage?
Are these jivas ‘sent’ to the material world as a “punishment ” of their desires of enjoying?
Is the material world always bad? How come there are pure souls who attain highest levels of devotion as Srila Prabhupada?
Answer by Romapada Swami: As you correctly mentioned in your question, the living entities are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord. The living entity or the jiva has the same quality as the Lord but in minute quantity.
Krsna who is supremely infinitely independent has free will and therefore the jiva also has free will but in minute quantity. This free will is an inherent spiritual quality of the individual soul, and the real essence of its exercise is the choice not between matter and spirit but between serving Krsna or not serving Krsna. If one chooses not to serve Krsna, then one is placed under the control of the material energy in the material world.
See SB 1.7.5
Misuse of the free will is motivated by envy of the Supreme Lord, by the desire to usurp the Lord’s position as supreme enjoyer and imitate His pastimes.
See BG 7.27
Srila Prabhupada even goes so far as to give a confidential glimpse of the exchanges that go on between Krsna and a soul who is intent upon misusing its free will. Krsna tries to convince the soul not to misuse its free will, but if the soul insists, then it goes to the material world by the arrangement of the Lord. The Lord consents, “Yes, you may go.” But the Lord accompanies the living entity as Supersoul, and is always eager to have the soul come back to Him.
Visvanath Cakravati Thakur writes:
“The cause of the creation of the world is mercy to the jivas.
He then cites SB:
The Supreme Lord manifested the material intelligence, senses, mind and vital air of the living entities so that they could indulge their desires for sense gratification, take repeated births to engage in fruitive activities, become elevated in future lives and ultimately attain the Lord.
SB 10.87.2
Krsna creates the material world to facilitate those souls who choose to enjoy independently. Since the material sense objects and our spiritual senses do not otherwise interact, material nature awards us material bodies equipped with material senses so we can try to lord it over nature and enjoy. At the same time, nature conditions us to forget our original identity and characteristics. This condition is called maya, illusion. Because of this illusion, we try our utmost to squeeze out pleasure and happiness from this temporary material world. For those who want to forget Him, the Supreme Lord grants them forgetfulness; in fact this is one of the essential features of material creation. By the Lord’s compassion upon the conditioned souls, that He creates this material world and gives various forms and identities to the conditioned souls, simply so that they can try to enjoy an illusory sense of happiness independent of Him, just as they desired.
In the material world we are controlled material nature in the form of the three modes. Here we must undergo repeated birth, old age, disease, and death, as well as other concomitant physical and mental miseries. Simultaneously, through the agency of sadhu-sanga, the material world also awards the opportunity for the sincere souls to reform/rectify themselves and use the human form of life to serve the Supreme Lord and ultimately go back home to the spiritual world. Also for the souls who prefer to stay away from the Lord, the material world serves as a playground, where they can play out as if they are enjoying but in reality they are suffering.
Krishna mentions the nature of this material world in BG 9.33
The living entity or the jiva’s first position attained after its fall from the spiritual world is that of Brahma (Purport to SB 9.24.58); elsewhere it is sometimes indicated this may be in the post of highly elevated devas. Gradually, however, souls may become degraded to the status of an ant or a worm in stool due to further misuse of his freewill.
Here is the essential point: because people forget the aim of life, and at such a time the Supreme Lord Himself comes. The Supreme Lord descends out of compassion because He is more anxious to have us return home, back to Godhead, than we are to go. Because we are in ignorance, we do not know anything about the kingdom of God. We know nothing about how to get there or how to become happy. We have forgotten all this. Therefore Krsna comes at intervals or sends His representative, the pure devotees Sometimes He comes personally, and sometimes He sends His incarnation.
