All Wrapped Up in Matter

All Wrapped Up in Matter

Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.1.51
Detroit, August 4, 1975

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Nitai: "The subtle body endowed with the five knowledge-acquiring senses, the five working senses, the five objects of sense gratification, and the mind, altogether sixteen parts, which is the effect of the three modes of material nature and is composed of very strong, insurmountable desires, causes the living entity to transmigrate from one body to another within the kingdom of human life, animal life, or higher demigod life. When he gets the body of a demigod he is certainly very jubilant. When he gets the body of a human being he is always in lamentation. When he gets the body of an animal he is always afraid. In this way, in all conditions he is miserable. This miserable condition is called samsrti, or transmigration in material life."

Prabhupada:

tad etat sodasa-kalam
lingam sakti-trayam mahat
dhatte 'nusamsrtim pumsi
harsa-soka-bhayartidam
 [SB 6.1.51]

This is called sankhya-yoga, to understand the analytical process of this body. In the Bhagavad-gita you have learned that,

dehino 'smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptir
dhiras tatra na muhyati
 [Bg. 2.13]

So with this combination of sixteen elements, within that there is the soul. He is enwrapped in so many wrappers, mana, buddhi, ahankara and... Altogether twenty-four wrappers, and within that wrappers there is the living soul. The modern science, they cannot understand this. They are searching after the active principle or living force within this body, but they have no information. But here, in the Srimad Bhagavatam, you get the full analysis. Tad etat sodasa-kalam. The analysis is that the living entity is enwrapped first all with sixteen wrappers, sodasa-kalam. What are those? Now, ten senses: five working senses and five knowledge-gathering senses. We are experience... We are perceiving by using our five knowledge-gathering senses, just like eyes, ear, caksu, karna, smell, nose. Caksu, karna, nasika, jihva, tongue, touch, hand... In this way we get knowledge experience. Sometimes we stress on the knowledge experienced by the eyes: "I want to see." But that is not the only source of knowledge. There are many blind men who cannot see, but he has got full knowledge. There are other sources of knowledge. Just like a mango. You see the mango, but you cannot experience the full knowledge unless you use the tongue. Then you can say whether it is good mango or bad mango, not by seeing.

So these are our knowledge-gathering senses, and there are working senses, just like hand, leg, the stomach, the rectum, the genital. These are working senses. In this way, ten senses and five sense objects. We have got eyes, so there must be object of seeing. Panca-tanmatra, rupa, rasa. With eyes we can see the form. With tongue we can taste. Rupa, rasa, sabda. With the ear we can hear the sound. In this way, five sense objects of three, five, means fifteen, and the mind. The mind is the center of directing the senses. Indriyani parany ahuh indriyebhyah param manah. The senses are there, sense objects are there, but without mind it cannot work. Therefore the mind is the sixteenth item. And everything is being used by whom? By the soul. Therefore seventeenth. And in this gross body there are five elements and three subtle elements. Bhumir apo 'nalo vayuh kham mano buddhir eva ca [Bg. 7.4]. In this way there are twenty-four elements which is covering the twenty-fifth, living entity, and he is packed up in this way.

Then tad etat sodasa-kalam lingam. Lingam means the form. Lingam sakti-trayam mahat. Just like we have got this microphone, so the machine is made of these elements. That is analyzed. Then how it is working? Sakti-traya. The sattva-guna, rajo-guna, tamo-guna, mahat-tattva, the material elements... In this way the living entity is under the full control of material nature. And everything is coming out swiftly by our desire. These desires are also being generated from the soul, but by the infection of three qualities: sattva-guna, rajo-guna, tamo-guna. So just try to understand how the nature's law is working very finely and immediately. Parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport]. And above all these things, the nature's working, there is Krsna. Mayadhyaksena prakrtih suyate sa-caracaram [Bg. 9.10]. The prakrti, nature... Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah [Bg. 3.27]. Everything is being done. Just like the big airship is floating in the sky, but the pilot is pushing the button, similarly, the whole cosmic manifestation is working, but the button-pusher is Krsna. Parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate. His knowledge is so perfect, and He has made this machine so perfect. A man can make so nice perfect machine, so what to speak about God? So mayadhyaksena prakrtih suyate sa-caracaram [Bg. 9.10].

So the basic principle... We are under these laws of material nature only for our desire. That is the basic principle. So the Krsna consciousness movement means we have to change the desire. Anyabhilasita-sunyam [Brs. 1.1.11]. Sunyam means zero. As soon as we make all other desires... Other means there are two things: Krsna and maya. So this material world means maya. Maya means which is not fact. It is an illusion. Just like we dream at night. It is no fact, but it works. Similarly, this material world is called maya, means it is not factually in existence, but it is working, hallucination. So if we want to be really... Because we are within this entanglement, twenty-four elements, as we have analyzed, within this, the result is that, being influenced by this maya or mahat-tattva, who is working with the three modes of material nature, and I am desiring, my basic principle of my material existence is my desire, and as soon as I desire, by the order of Krsna, immediately the instruments and facilities are given to me. In this way, dhatte anusamsrtim pumsi. As I desire, immediately the instrument... This body is instrument. Isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese arjuna tisthati [Bg. 18.61]. (child making noise) (aside:) Stop this child. Isvarah sarva-bhutanam hrd-dese 'rjuna tisthati. Krsna is situated everyone's heart, and as I am desiring, He has given us full freedom, not full freedom, but freedom. Krsna is so kind that just like father, mother, gives the child little freedom and it moves here and there, but always looking after -- may not catch up any fire, for may not fall down in the water, or some animal may not attack -- so similarly, we are desiring and Krsna is giving us facilities. But if we want to stop this repetition of birth and death and change of different atmosphere, as it is said, harsa-soka-bhaya arti. This material existence means sometimes we are very jubilant: "Oh, I have got this. Now I have got in America, I have got so many cars." Now harsa, jubilant. Then soka. And you take birth in some other place, lamentation, scarcity: "This is not. This is not." And bhaya. So there are 8,400,000 species of forms of life, and by this process we are entering into different types of atmosphere and subjected to sometimes harsa, jubilation, sometimes lamentation, sometimes fear. Even in this life we are undergoing such changes.

So if one is actually intelligent, then he should consider that "I don't want this lamentation. Why it is forced upon me?" It is forced upon me -- on my desire, on my desire. It is not forced by any external thing. It is my desire. I wanted this position, and I got it by the grace of Krsna, but when I got it, then again... Because the nature is like that, material nature... Duhkhalayam asasvatam [Bg. 8.15]. You can place yourself in any position -- the whole thing is duhkhalayam; it is miserable. We are simply changing, that "If I am posted in this position, then I will be happy. If I am posted in this position, then I will..." And we are changing different positions. Harsa-soka-bhayapaha. But if we want to stop this, if we want to come to our original position... Original position means we are part and parcel of God. So qualitatively the same position... It may be small, but the position is sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah [Bs. 5.1], eternal life of bliss and knowledge. If we want to come to that, then the process is that we should not any more desire or manufacture some ideas for becoming happy in this material world. This is intelligence.

Therefore Rupa Gosvami says, anyabhilasita-sunyam [Brs. 1.1.11]. You have to make zero all material desires. Anyabhilasita-sunyam means zero. So zero, that is Buddhist philosophy to make zero, sunyavadi, to make everything void. No. That cannot be. I cannot make my desires zero. That is not possible because I am living being. I may select what kind of desires I will have. That is intelligence. But desirelessness is not possible. Therefore the next item is that anyabhilasita-sunyam [Cc. Madhya 19.167]. You make your material desires zero, void. "Then? What shall I do next? Shall I become void and finish?" No. Then your real life begins. What is that? Anabhilasita-sunyam jnana-karmady-anavrtam, anukulyena krsnanusilanam. Anukulyena krsnanusilanam. We have desires, many types of desires, jnana and karma. Karma platform is foolishness. Just like everywhere they are very busy, karmi, but they do not know what is the aim of life. That is called karma, acting something and suffering again. This is called karma. And jnana means one who understands that, by analysis, that "These wrappers, material wrappers, these fifteen, five, five, five -- five sense organs, five object of sense enjoyment -- in this way twenty-four wrappers, so how I am to get out of these wrappings?" That is intelligence. That is jnani. But a jnani does not know that "I get out from this entanglement. Then where I stay?" That they do not know. So that information is given by Krsna, that "Give up this, and take up Me," negative and positive, both. Sarva-dharman parityajya: [Bg. 18.66] "Give up this nonsense desires." Then? What to do? Now, mam ekam saranam vraja: "Come to Me, under Me." This is required. Anukulyena krsnanu. Mam ekam saranam vraja. That is not varietyless, that "I surrender unto You; then business finished." No. Saranam vraja means anukulyena krsnanusilanam: [Cc. Madhya 19.167] what Krsna says, you do that. Just like Arjuna. Arjuna was not willing to fight, but when he listened Bhagavad-gita from Krsna, then he agreed to fight.

So our first business is that if we want to stop this repetition of birth and death -- and sometimes we are very happy, sometimes we are very unhappy, sometimes we are in fearfulness, sometimes in so many other calamities -- then our first business is that we shall stop all these material desires. Anyabhilasita-sunyam [Brs. 1.1.11]. To stop means... The desire cannot be stopped. Because we are living entities, life, we are not dead stone, that desires will be stopped. No. Desires are to be purified. Sarvopadhi-vinirmuktam tat-paratvena nirmalam [Cc. Madhya 19.170]. Desires to purified... Everyone is working under some impure consciousness, just like nationalism: "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Englishman," "I am German." This desire is polluted, because I am spirit soul, part and parcel of Krsna. What is the benefit, my identifying with America or India or...? This is called purification of the desire. Everyone is working under national, and they are fighting with one another because the desire is impure.

So the problem, the whole problem of the material world, can be solved only when we purify our desires. Anyabhilasita-sunyam jnana-karmady-anavrtam, anukulyena krsna [Cc. Madhya 19.167]. Anukula, what Krsna says. Krsna is not dead. Therefore anukulyena. What Krsna says, we have to do that. Krsna says to Arjuna to fight. So we have to meet the situation as Krsna desired by. Sometimes He may say, "You sit down." So we have to carry out only. The Krsna is not dead. He can give us varieties of order, and our position is that we shall simply carry out the order. That is life. Otherwise we are under the clutches of maya, or material nature. Prakteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah. We are thinking that "I am the lord of everything." That is not the fact. The fact is that we have to work under somebody. That is our real position. Jivera 'svarupa' haya nitya krsna dasa [Cc. Madhya 20.108-109]. We are workers. We are not enjoyer. But unfortunately we are trying to take the position of enjoyer. That is maya. That is maya. And if we agree to work under the direction of Krsna, then our original life is revived. That is wanted. The Krsna consciousness movement means that we are trying to educate people to change the consciousness. We have got so many desires under different consciousness. So one desire, that "I am eternal servant of Krsna," this is called mukti, as soon as Krsna says, sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja [Bg. 18.66]. This is mukti. If we give up all other desires and agree to accept Krsna's desires, that mam ekam saranam vraja, "You surrender unto Me," that is mukti; that is liberation. Otherwise, under the influence of these twenty-four elements and the material nature and the three gunas, infection, dhatte anusamsrtim pumsi harsa-soka-bhayartidam, you go on changing any body. The subject matter is very difficult, but we have to learn it from sastra what is our position. Otherwise, to realize these things, it is not very easy. But if we accept the direction of the sastra, that this is our position We cannot know what is my disease, but if I go to a doctor, physician, he can feel the pulse and he can recommend, "This is your disease. You do like this."

So if we want to avoid the tiresome, troublesome, miserable condition of this material world, then we have to accept the direction given in the sastras. But we are so dull, we cannot even understand what is the miserable condition of our life. [break] ...dead stone life or animal life. The animal cannot understand. But there is possibility. Sometimes when the miserable condition is very acute, we feel: "How to get out of it?" That is intelligence. But if we take the direction of the sastras-sadhu guru sastra vakya; guru mukha padma vakya, cittete kariya aikya, ara na kariya mane asa **, then there is possibility of getting out of these clutches, entanglement, and become free again and go back to home, back to Godhead.

Thank you very much. (end)

 

>>> Ref. VedaBase => Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.1.51 -- Detroit, August 4, 1975

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