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1) What are the nature and characteristics of soul?
2) How did soul appear in the material world?
3) Where is its true home?
4) How can one return there?
To be fair, it should be noted that no other religious or philosophical concept in the world than the Aryans’ has got a more complete system of answers on the given questions. It is likely the reason why it has got a close attention of great minds of all times ever.
Now, according to the Aryan concept, if a living being is a spiritual parcel which is striving within us to eternity (as it is eternal), happiness (as it is blissed) and knowledge (as the knowledge is its integral part), consequently there should be the world where it possessed all these. Otherwise, where do all its strivings come from? And why did the nature endowed us with qualities which are absolutely unused in this world? A living being cannot strive for anything which is not known by it. Everything we are striving for is the proof that we are aware of it.
On the other hand, if a living being is of spiritual nature, why did it happen to be here? The answer on this question is in those intentions which a living being is trying to realize here. As have been already said, by its characteristics a spiritual parcel is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge. At first sight, this statement sounds contradictory. If soul is eternal, why did it come to this temporary world where it has to obey the inviolable law of birth and death? Here one is suggested to carefully examine what soul strives to realize in the material world. This striving explains the reason of our appearance in this world which has become for us more important than eternity.
If we are attentive, we can notice that in the material world all living beings have the thirst for domination and enjoyment. To enjoy means for us to use all encountered objects (both animate and inanimate) for our pleasure. In fact, there is no one single moment when we stop striving for enjoyment. The term “dominate” means that we are able to obligate everybody (both animate and inanimate) to fulfill our will. In this situation, our attitude is rather interesting. Each of us thinks that his/her mentality is so perfect that by obeying it everyone can be happy (Freud called it “the sense of worth”).
If we are attentive, we can notice that if we do not make any efforts (based on upbringing and rules of conduct), we spontaneously “radiate” these very two moods. If we try to realize here our desire to bend other living beings to our will and use them for our pleasure, it means that we did not have such an opportunity in the spiritual world. At first glance, this statement sounds contradictory. This brings up the question, if we did not have any opportunity either to enjoy or dominate, then where does our striving come from? As a living being can strive only to the things which were seen or known.
At the beginning we have told that consciousness of living beings expresses the constant desire to be happy; then we noted that in the material world we try to realize this desire by means of power and pleasure. This fact points out that we did not have such an opportunity in the spiritual world. This, in turn, means that the bliss of living beings in the spiritual world did not depend on both abilities to dominate and enjoy. But then where do we take this striving for power and pleasure?
We were to know the One Who was able to enjoy and dominate in order to start striving for these by ourselves. Hence, we can make a conclusion, that in the spiritual world there is some living being who dominates and enjoys the possibility to associate with all other living beings who do not dominate but serve Him and feel the bliss from it. This personality is usually called the Supreme Personality of Godhead or God. According to the Aryan philosophy all living beings are inherent parcels of this Supreme Personality. They have the same qualitative nature as He does, but differ from Him quantitatively. This quantitative difference does not allow living beings to take upon controlling functions without creating disharmony. But the qualitative unity maintains this tendency in all living beings to take controlling functions. When this demand from living beings arises, God, so to say, has got two choices:
1) suppress this desire and bring into line with His will (violence).
2) give the opportunity to realize this desire (generosity based on the absence of envy).
One of the qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the complete freedom from envy. By virtue of this pure and sublime nature, the Supreme Personality of Godhead gives all living beings free choice. Those living beings who misuse this freedom and prefer the material existence come to this world. The point is that the Aryans consider the material world as the place where living beings realize their desire to live without God. Where does this desire appear from?
According to the Vedic scriptures, the Lord in the spiritual world is surrounded by numerous devotees who have special feelings for Him. Many of them are called personal associates. They have got particular close relationships with the Lord. This intimacy depends on the extent of love they have developed for the Lord. The Lord treats all living beings equally and fairly. This means that He always exactly sees the “amount” of living being’s love for Him and always fairly responds everybody according to this criteria. It would not be possible that a novice devotee should receive the special attitude of the Lord and an elevated devotee – the neutral one. This is the true criteria of justice.
Living beings are very small and the Supreme Lord is infinitely great. Therefore, a tiny spiritual parcel is not always able to understand or correctly assess the Lord’s behavior and the motives of His deeds. This limited perception becomes the reason why some spiritual parcels fall into a state of disagreement with the Lord, “rebel’ and feel hostility toward Him. Thinking that the Lord is unjust, these jivas (living beings, spiritual parcels) feel the need to appear in such a place where He is not there and try to confirm their own ideas of justice. Such justice as a rule consists of the fact that a personality desires to see him/herself in the center of all events (the feeling of own sense of worth). This way, some part of eternal inhabitants of the spiritual world shifts their God-centered consciousness to self-centered. As said, the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s nature is completely free from envy. This means that when someone does not want to associate with Him or connect his/her happiness to Him, it does not make Him angry. He does not punish such personalities or taking advantage of His power force them to conform to His absolute power, but He gives them an opportunity to make their own society and realize their ideas of justice. For the Supreme Personality of Godhead it is not worthy to have a humble behavior and a psychologically browbeaten condition at the point of the sword of His power. He values only and only free ostents of love.
Being parcels of the Supreme Personality, living beings possess His qualities. The Aryan literature is the only one on the planet which contains comprehensive details about the Supreme Personality of Godhead: descriptions of His appearance, character, environment, behavior. This takes place because only they really communicated with Him! This is the uniqueness of this literature! The Vedic scriptures state that the Lord demonstrates 64 qualities:
1. His features are beautiful,
2. all auspicious marks can be found on His body,
3. His features are pleasing the eye,
4. He is effulgent,
5. He is strong,
6. ever youthful,
7. wonderful linguist,
8. truthful,
9. talks pleasingly,
10. fluent,
11. highly learned,
12. highly intelligent,
13. genius,
14. artistic,
15. extremely clever,
16. expert,
17. grateful,
18. firmly determined,
19. an expert judge of time and circumstances,
20. sees and speaks on the authority of Vedas, or scriptures,
21. pure,
22. self-controlled,
23. steadfast,
24. forbearing,
25. forgiving,
26. grave,
27. self-satisfied,
28. possessing equilibrium,
29. magnanimous,
30. religious,
31. heroic,
32. compassionate,
33. respectful,
34. gentle,
35. liberal,
36. shy,
37. the protector of surrendered souls,
38. happy,
39. the well-wisher of devotees,
40. controlled by love,
41. all-auspicious,
42. most powerful,
43. all-famous,
44. popular,
45. partial to devotees,
46. very attractive to all women,
47. all-worshipable,
48. all-opulent,
49. all-honorable,
50. the Supreme controller,
51. changeless,
52. all-cognizant,
53. ever fresh,
54. sat-chid-ananda (possessing an eternal blissful body),
55. possessing all mystic perfections,
56. He has inconceivable potency,
57. uncountable universes generate from His body,
58. He is the original source of all incarnations,
59. He is the giver of salvation to the enemies whom He kills,
60. He is the attractor of liberated souls,
61. He is the performer of wonderful varieties of pastimes,
62. He is surrounded by devotees endowed with wonderful love of Him,
63. He can attract all living entities all over the universes by playing on His flute,
64. He has a wonderful excellence of beauty which cannot be rivaled anywhere in the creation.
Among these, 54 qualities also belong to jivas (His inherent parcels, namely all the living beings). Depending on the extent of their love of God, these qualities are manifested in jivas fully or partially. Those who fully manifest these qualities, never come to this material world because they are protected by the “amount” of their love for God.
Those jivas whose attachment (trust) is not so strong often become unsatisfied as a result of misunderstanding the motives for His actions. In fact, no one can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead – a limited spiritual parcel cannot perfectly understand the intrinsic motives for actions of the infinite Lord. The difference is that the close associates never mistrust God.
In general, it is the topic of very confidential talks which would be reasonable to discuss only with advanced believers. Here we will present the main concepts of the Aryan philosophy simply to have the opportunity to correctly understand their life style. Being qualitatively equal to the Lord, but quantitively infinitely small, some living beings feel envy of Lord’s confidential devotees. This is a specific feeling which appears when the Lord brings some of the devotees near to Him.
Very provisionally, it can be described as follows: a living being who does not possess such a potency to serve the Lord as a confidential devotee cannot understand why He has brought closer this devotee. This feeling becomes the basis for dissatisfaction or roughly speaking the feeling of injustice. A living being thinks that God does not “see” how he/she is devoted to Him. If He saw, then he/she would have been chosen as a confidential person not another one. Actually, this explanation is very rough and provisional. In the spiritual world the consciousness cannot be so rude. This is just a transient feeling, very keen but it is already called “envy” and with this feeling in the heart a spiritual parcel cannot keep staying in the spiritual world where everything is enlightened with love and no negative things can take place. Once such negative thing appears, a personality is already not in the spiritual world, practically this change of existence does not take any time once envy appears.
Envy lies in the basis of the material existence. This feeling devours all good qualities of jiva. Everybody in the material world is envious. Those free from envy do not come to this world (the exception is only for Lord’s servants sent by Him to open the way back home to all willing it). "I’m better, I’m more worthy". With this spirit, jiva cannot stay in the spiritual world any more. From these personalities, the Lord immediately “hides”, hides His devotees and gives the former the possibility to make their own society. This possibility is this very material world. One who does not understand the nature of envy will never be able to become an Aryan. One who does not accept this truth about the material existence will never be able to develop this system of values common for the Aryans. Therefore, having created the material world and given us the possibility to realize our desires, the Lord in fact becomes our servant putting at our disposal His material energy with which we can do whatever we want.
But this freedom of action becomes a heavy burden on the shoulders of a small living being who immediately loses the culture of relationships with other living beings attributable to the spiritual world and understands how in fact the Lord’s “job” is difficult. Trying to imitate God but not capable of being just, a living being gets entangled in the knots of sinful activities and becomes an eternally conditioned (i.e. deserving to stay in the material prison) jiva (soul) doomed to sufferings for causing sufferings to other living beings. Figuratively, the Aryans see the material world as a prison designated for envious souls. One way or another, this concept is supported by all religious movements.
There is one more question to be answered. What determines unequal birth conditions of all living beings? How to explain that one is born rich, another is born poor, another is healthy and another is ill and so on? The answer on this question is given only by the reincarnation concept. By nature, jiva is eternal. Having descended to this material world, it stays here for a very long time, practically eternally. As the result of various activities it gains certain amount of reactions becoming the author of its own destiny. For instance, in this life we eat bodies of many animals and in next lives these animals will have the possibility to eat us. Thus, the rule “as you sow so you reap” is implemented, not within one life, but from life to life. The fact is that in practice we can often see that a person commits what is known as sins without any punishment. The secret that lies beneath is that the punished for committed evil are all those who are born in poverty, born to bad parents, without opportunity to get education, who are ugly, have congenital diseases, who are under malicious state prosecution, etc. But that brings up the question: why cannot we remember our past lives? The answer should be found in the Lord’s noble nature. The Lord is merciful and He is not interested in artificial processes of jiva’s return to Him. Jiva itself is so much entangled in its efforts to take the Lord’s position by trying to predominate and enjoy that it is practically doomed to living in the material world forever. And yet, despite the amount of sufferings jiva does not stop wanting power and enjoyment, therefore it still desires to be in this world. To satisfy this desire, the factor of the memory loss about past lives is simply a must.
As an example, we can imagine that in the past life one was a man and he was very attached to women. Attached so much that at the time of death he was thinking about them. According to the reincarnation law, in the next life he will be born in the body of a woman. And now imagine that in the woman’s body one remembers the past man’s life. Could it be possible with this memory be a sane woman? Therefore, the Lord arranged it so that a wise person who eyes are balmed with the Vedic knowledge can clearly see the reincarnation law, but an ignorant and attached to material existence person simply reaps the fruits of actions “enjoying” their good and bad consequences. The memory loss, thus, is necessary for us to peacefully enjoy these fruits. The presence of the memory would cast us in horror. Paralyzed by the memory, we would immediately strive back to God but at this point we would not have solved the paramount problem: the problem of envy. Then getting to the spiritual world and coming to ourselves, we would promptly repeat the same mistake and have to return to the material world again.
But God does not need our forced return and as long as we want to live without Him, He will create all conditions to fulfill this desire. That is why He helps us to forget our past lives for us to “peacefully” reap the fruits of our activities and “enjoy” all those things which we have deserved in our past lives. This path is as eternal as spiritual existence. The spiritual life is directed to eternal ascension and the material life to similarly eternal degradation. Once falling into this world, soul is so much entangled in causes and consequences of its activities, that there is no other hope of deliverance but the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His confident devotees. The hope which is like a helping hand given to a drowning man in the sea.
Therefore, to sum it up:
1)There is the spiritual world which is the dwelling of spiritual parcels and God. There everyone is eternal, blissful and knowledgeable. Eternity is the consequence of the uniformity with the Lord’s nature, the bliss is the association with Him by means of devotional service and the knowledge is His mercy.
2) Spiritual beings have always got a free choice. Envying the absolute position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or a more superior position of another jiva, some living beings express the desire to separate from Him in order to satisfy their desires, do justice instead of God. But because living beings are inherent parcels of God, such separation is not possible in fact. Being free from anger and envy, the Lord creates for such persons the material world where they get the opportunity to act according to their desires. In fact, the Aryans look at the material world as the evidence of the humble and generous nature of the Lord. The Lord creates this material world, places us here to fulfill our desires rejecting God and … “hides” from us in order not to stir our hatred.
3) Losing the visual presence of the Lord, a living being enthusiastically tries to realize its desires to enjoy and dominate. It does it by imitating relationships of the spiritual world. According to the Aryan philosophy, everything existing in the material world is only the perverted reflection of the spiritual world when we try to recreate spiritual relationships simply placing in the center ourselves not God. All beings who happen to be in the material world try to imitate God’s actions. The concept of God means the idea of uniqueness which is inherent only to the Absolute and One Truth. As long as there are too many beings willing to be God, there emerges the necessity of the sequence. Actually, time is the factor which puts on the queue all those willing to be God (the leader), so there appears the need of death (temporary), i.e. the sequence. Today the leader is me, tomorrow this opportunity will be given to you.
4) The material world is the prison of the spiritual world where envious and rebellious souls are placed. All laws applicable in the material world are intended to return us to our spiritual consciousness. Though the “punishment” enforced by God is very peculiar. He “punishes” us by granting all our desires. Our desires diverge from their spiritual harmony and thus are not able to bring us happiness we had in the spiritual world. Just to prove this truth, the Lord grants all our desires – desires fulfillment of which means violence against others with resulting sufferings. The original neutral material substance is called pradhana. Living beings come in contact with pradhana by their desires and as the result of this the material diversity appears. The material world is only the reflection of desires of all living beings existing in it.
5) Depending on the rudeness of consciousness, living beings in the material world are bound by three ropes (the gunas): ignorance, passion and goodness. These bonds are created by cause-effect relationships of actions of living beings, i.e. they form the time – the principle of the sequence.
6) Together with creation of the material world, the Lord takes care of our returning home, to the spiritual world. For this purpose, He gives inhabitants of material worlds the Vedas which contain the knowledge how to live happily in the material world and return back home to Godhead. Ones who follow instructions of the Vedas are called the Aryans (those going to God).
These are the general provisions of the Aryan theory. As said, the Vedas see that the most important psychological problem is the envy of the position of God and of other living beings in the spiritual world. This world where we all live is meant to solve this problem. This is the Aryan’s answer on the question: “Where does life come from and what is its meaning?”
A living being comes to this world to realize its desire to make decisions and independently enjoy in God’s capacity. In reality, it cannot be independent as it is the eternal inseparable parcel of God and is eternally dependent on Him. After leaving the spiritual world, this dependence is shown as the dependence on the material nature. The energy supplying living beings with all necessary things is called yoga-maya. When a living being does not want to associate with God, this energy covers consciousness of a living being with ignorance and creates the apparent independence imitating the semblant separation from God. The energy having this function is called maha-maya. It shows things that are not real but that we want to see, that is our independence from God. This is the transformation of the same energy, yoga-maya. While yoga-maya is the energy acting to give pleasure by revealing us more and more the sublime and attractive nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, maha-maya deceives, i.e. moves away from God and educates by means of sufferings.
Further we will see how the Aryans describe the laws applicable in the material world. The principle function of the material world is to correct the wrong desire of a living being to function as God (to control, dominate and enjoy). Any time when we try to realize the principle of our independence, the material world acts so as to prove how we are dependent as we are insignificantly small. Most insignificantly a living being feels under the influence of time (death). For an eternal spiritual parcel, there is no other more humiliating situation than to accept the necessity of destruction (death). Thousands and millions of people dreamt and tried to overcome the influence of time (death), but in due time death knocked at their doors regardless of their desires and plans.
The material world is described as the liaison world of the three gunas of nature (bonds of attachment and hatred). The nature obeys cause-effect laws. The spiritual world obeys the parallel law, there is no time factor there. In other words, there is always the present time there, where any event exists eternally. This is so because the spiritual consciousness never treats any one so that a reaction would be needed. For the unprepared reader this subject is very serious and difficult to understand. The material world obeys the law of sequence (the queue) as here contradictory desires should be realized. Such desires could not be fulfilled simultaneously. We all want to be God, but God is only one, therefore there is the need for the queue: today I have the chance to be God (the controller), tomorrow someone else will have it. Therefore, there is no present time here. Only the past and the future exist in the material world. The old has gone like the water running through fingers.
In the spiritual world, living beings show attachment to other beings and God. There such attachment is the source of bliss as it is addressed to perfect personalities. While in the material world, a living being remembers that the attachment was the source of the infinite bliss and tries to feel the bliss here by attachment to different personalities. But in the material world consciousness of all living beings is contaminated. This contamination makes them imperfect, but an imperfect personality from its inception is not able to give happiness. Soul cannot get rid of its ability to develop attachments. In fact, soul can never get rid of its nature of eternity, enjoyment and knowledge. In the spiritual world, all living beings associate with each other and the Lord. This association brings happiness. We subconsciously “remember” this happiness and remember that we got it via association. In the material world, this attachment trait puts us on the spot. The Bhagavad-Gita describes this process as follows (chapter 2, verses 62, 63):