Pranams
Yesterday i was walking through the centrum of my little hometown and while seeing all the people and cars and buildings i started to think about jivas and their position.
I have read it several times that jivas are in two cathegories, nitya baddha and nitya mukta, but I realized for the first time that there actually must be jivas that will stay in illusion FOREVER, if more jivas are never born, and the material world will never cease to exist. So there must be a lot those most unfortunate jivas too who will never be liberated because otherwise the material world would be without life at some point. This was a quite shocking thing to understand.
So this led me to think why some jivas get the special mercy of being able to rise above illusion? Is there any "reason" why Krishna initiates a realtionship with some jivas and not with others? And is it totally out of the particular jiva´s personal "credit" that she gets the initial spark of sukriti that finally leads her to Krishna?
His Divine Grace says it is up to the jiva.
quote from Prabhupada
Unknown Place
Unknown Date
Letter excerpt
Crow And Tal-Fruit Logic
We never had any occasion when we were separated from Krsna. Just like one man is dreaming and he forgets himself. In dream he creates himself in different forms: now I am the King discussing like that. This creation of himself is as seer and subject matter or seen, two things. But as soon as the dream is over, the "seen" disappears. But the seer remains. Now he is in his original position.
Our separation from Krsna is like that. We dream this body and so many relationships with other things. First the attachment comes to enjoy sense gratification. Even with Krsna desire for sense gratification is there. There is a dormant attitude for forgetting Krsna and creating an atmosphere for enjoying independently. Just like at the edge of the beach, sometimes the water covers, sometimes there is dry sand, coming and going. Our position is like that, sometimes covered, sometimes free, just like at the edge of the tide. As soon as we forget, immediately the illusion is there. Just like as soon as we sleep, dream is there.
And there is more to your point so please feel free to look it up.
Everything in existence grows. All jivas go through that growing progress, and thus all of the will at one point mature in krsna bhakti. And more jivas are always added to the creation, so the material world will exist forever.
When it's said that the jiva is not born, it means it is not born when the body is born. It may have a spiritual origin, a spiritual starting point, a spiritual birth. With a very, very long time before it becomes mature, mature enough to realize its relationship with its source, God.
But what really happens is a mystery. I read a few books on this subject (the origin of the jiva) and there are not many clear statements on the matter. I don't remember statements older than 500 years or so. I may be mistaken.
Ivar
Both the material nature and the living entity are eternal. That is to say that they existed before 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, Maha-Visnu, and when it was required, it was manifested by the energy of the 'mahat-tattwa'. Similarly the living entities are also within 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. (BG 13:20, purport)
The Jiva, tatastha sakti is not created, rather Maha-Visnu projects it into manifestation from its "sleeping" state. Creation/annihilation process is continious and constant --
Experts in the subtle workings of nature, O subduer of the enemy, have declared that there are continuous processes of creation and annihilation that all created beings, beginning with Brahma, constantly undergo. (SB 12.4.35)
When local Brahma's life span is finished there occurs the prakrtika or total material annihilation of our local Universe, so all the living entities are merged within the body of Maha-Visnu to get another chance later. Besides we are not looking for moksha; Univers was created out of joy and for lilas to be manifested, so some jivas might chouse to serve Lord in material creation. Some of them get bewildered by maya and forget their original intentions, so they need some time to remember who they are and they are doing here.
Thanks to everybody for their comments. Do you have any suggestions where i could get more info on the subject, like website addresses etc.?
there are not many clear statements on the matter.
This may be because this particular subject is not very easy to explain to conditioned souls while they are under the conception of material time. There is a section in Jaiva Dharma where this topic is brought up (I dont have the direct quote right now). But it says that different kinds of discriptions are initially given to help us get some theoretical understanding, but if we are to actually realize the history of the conditioned soul we have to develope or spiritual practice and thus enhance our cit characteristic or our dormant capacity for transcendental cognition. The abiity to describe it through a conversation will be inherently limited by vocabulary and the influence of material time. And I think this is why some discriptions of this subject will tend to give contradictory impressions.
The fact that there are always souls in the material world does not mean that some souls don’t become liberated. This is inconceivable with material logic. There are unlimited souls in the material world, they can all become liberated, and there will still be unlimited souls in the material world. For example, it is said that when Mahaprabhu came, everyone was liberated.
If the understanding you gave were the case, those souls who were meant to be liberated would go to the spiritual world and then a finite number of souls who could never become liberated would remain in the material world. This would have happened long ago, because there is no beginning to time. In other words, an infinite amount of time has already passed, so everyone who was going to be liberated would already be liberated.
These topics are inconceivable with material logic. Infinite minus infinite is still infinite. Everyone will become liberated and there will still be infinite souls in the material world.
It is not that as souls become liberated, new souls are "born." There is no spiritual birth in that sense. As the Upanisads say, that which exists has always existed and that which doesn't exist will never exist.
Thank you for your clarifying posts Vrndaranya and Nrsingha. I should check my tendency to speculate.
Thanks to everybody for their comments. Do you have any suggestions where i could get more info on the subject, like website addresses etc.?
The Bhaktivedanta Veda base.