Question: Srila Prabhupada has been explaining many times that Satyaloka is the topmost planet in the material universe. And material world is a place of miseries such as birth, disease, old age and death. But in SB 2.2.27, it said that “In the planet of Satyaloka, there is neither bereavement, nor old age nor death. There is no pain of any kind, and therefore no anxieties…” Can you please clarify this contradiction?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
By all practical considerations, life in Satyaloka is free from all problems infirmity and anxieties and with a lifetime so inconceivably long by human perception so much that one could say virtually eternal. Still, it is temporary! The preceding verse to the one you have quoted, Text 26, mentions the duration of life in Satyaloka, hinting that at the end of that period one has to again transmigrate.
There is no painful death in Satyaloka, as we know death in this planet. But at the end of Brahma’s lifetime the entire universe including Satyaloka are consumed by cosmic fire, and at that time the inhabitants have to move on. The next verse (Text 28) describes three different types of souls who come to Brahmaloka and their respective destinations. In any of those cases, it is not an everlasting situation. This very state of temporality, uncertainty and change are not constitutional to the soul and in that sense a source of misery, except that is for a pure devotee. Thus there is no contradiction.
