Page 67 - THE FOURTH DIMENSION

This precludes their ability to attain real peace, happiness, love and immortality due to a vast misunderstanding
of the purpose of life and how to attain it.

The mystery of material creation

Unless human beings understand the purpose of existence in the material world, they will waste their precious
life and time on useless pursuits. Such a waste of potential will result in repeated birth and death and an endless
struggle for existence. The struggle for existence is artificially self-imposed by ignorance, which results from
foolishly deciding to ignore the divine instructions of Krishna’s Bhagavad-gita. The Gita is a marvelous treatise
detailing how to attain complete freedom from the oppressive material nature and return to the eternal and
transcendental nature of Krishna’s spiritual abode, Vaikuntha and Goloka Vrindabana. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada gives a comprehensive description of the mystery of material creation:
By the knowledge given in this chapter (Bg Ch. 13), one can understand the body (the field of activities) and the
knowers of the body (both the individual soul and the Supersoul). The body is the field of activity and is composed
of material nature. The individual soul that is embodied and enjoying the activities of the body is the puruṣa, or
the living entity. He is one knower, and the other is the Supersoul. Of course, it is to be understood that both the
Supersoul and the individual entity are different manifestations of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The
living entity is in the category of His energy, and the Supersoul is in the category of His personal expansion.
Both material nature and the living entity are eternal. That is to say that they existed before the creation. The
material manifestation is from the energy of the Supreme Lord, and so also are the living entities, but the living
entities are of the superior energy. Both the living entities and material nature existed before this cosmos was
manifested. Material nature was absorbed in the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Mahā-viṣṇu, and when it
was required, it was manifested by the agency of the mahat-tattva. Similarly, the living entities are also in Him,
and because they are conditioned, they are averse to serving the Supreme Lord. Thus they are not allowed to
enter into the spiritual sky. But with the coming forth of material nature these living entities are again given a
chance to act in the material world and prepare themselves to enter into the spiritual world. That is the mystery
of this material creation. Actually the living entity is originally the spiritual part and parcel of the Supreme Lord,
but due to his rebellious nature, he is conditioned within material nature. It really does not matter how these
living entities or superior entities of the Supreme Lord have come in contact with material nature. The Supreme
Personality of Godhead knows, however, how and why this actually took place. In the scriptures the Lord says
that those attracted by this material nature are undergoing a hard struggle for existence. But we should know it
with certainty from the descriptions of these few verses that all transformations and influences of material
nature by the three modes are also productions of material nature. All transformations and variety in respect to
living entities are due to the body. As far as spirit is concerned, living entities are all the same. (Bg 13.20 –
purport)

Struggle for existence

The soul is eternal as it was never born and can never die. In material life, all living entities including human
beings experience the hard struggle for existence. Why should the eternal soul which cannot be destroyed
struggle for existence? By understanding the answer to this question the door to enlightenment will open.

In material life we experience a struggle to overcome the impediments encountered in material nature such as
hunger, thirst, old age, disease, poverty, loneliness, death, etc. Bewildered by the illusory power of material
nature, people work very hard to control it. They consider their so-called heroic efforts to dominate nature and
other people to be happiness and their primary purpose in life. This is the fundamental misconception referred
to as maya – the illusion that keeps people bound up in the cycle of birth and death (samsara). Mindless of
Krishna’s inconceivable powers and authority, such illusioned persons look to logic, reason and material science
65