The Devotee As Yogī

The astahga-yogi can meditate for hours and days at length. He can create a planet. He can die at will and can move astrally anywhere in the material universe. But he cannot approach the tip of the toe of the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord. The neophyte bhakta is more purely realized because the astahgi is still tainted. He is still wanting to be God. Lust, anger and greed. If I open slaughterhouses or I want to be a pseudo yogi, what is the difference? I still am trying to exercise my powers over others in a perverted godlike fashion. For this I must only build up sinful reactions which will follow my soul through all the ensuing bodies I take until they are cleansed away. How can I cleanse reactions? By working in Krsna consciousness.

In Chapter Three, Lord Krsna tell us, "All men are forced to act helplessly, according to the impulses born of the modes of material nature; therefore, no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment." And Prabhupada's purport reads: "This is not a question of embodied life; it is the nature of the soul itself to be always active. The proof is that without the presence of the spirit soul there is no movement of the material body. The body is only a dead vehicle to be worked by the spirit soul, and therefore it is to be understood that the soul is always active and cannot stop even for a moment. As such, the spirit soul has to be engaged in the good work of Krsna consciousness; otherwise it will be engaged in the occupations dictated by the illusory energy." This last sentence is very important. We understand that our nature is spirit soul full of bliss, eternity and knowledge, and that the soul is always active and eternally part and parcel of the Supreme Soul. And now we see that as such, the spirit soul has to be engaged in the good work of Krsna consciousness; otherwise it will be engaged in the occupations dictated by the illusory energy."

Illusory energy-this is called maya. In Chapter Seven the Blessed Lord tells Arjuna, "Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego-altogether these eight comprise My separated material energies." False ego is due to identification with the body with the mind.

In the following verse He says, "Besides this inferior nature, O Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine which contains all living entities who are struggling with material nature and which sustains the universe." So earth, air, water, fire, mind, ether, intelligence and false ego are the inferior potency of the Lord. The superior potency of the Lord is the spiritual potency, the souls. Here we can clearly see that our bodies and minds are composed of the inferior energies, namely earth, air, water, fire, mind, intelligence, ether and false ego. And what is supplying these dead things with life is the living entity situated within, the individual soul or jiva.

In the material conception of life, we are identifying ourselves with these inferior forms which are not actually even alive. This is known as maya, or lust. The way to escape from this predicament is to realize that the soul within is eternal and that its real relationship is with Krsna and to know that due to our eternal relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the soul always remains transcendental to the eight manifestations of material energy. Yet if we confuse the soul's energy with false ego, then we think that we are a temporary manifestation, this body (actually dead), and then lustful situations develop. Then we want to enjoy independently of Krsna, but constitutionally, we cannot. Therefore, we must engage in devotional service to the Supreme Lord in full Krsna consciousness in order to transcend this mundane affair.

Krsna says in Chapter Two: "While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. From anger, delusion arises and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls again into the material pool."

Therefore we must always live transcendental to this material ocean of birth and death, lust, old age and disease. It is clearly understood that the living entity is eternal spirit soul, part and parcel of God. We also have established that this soul is foreign to the material body in which it is lodged. Although a fish is taken out of water and made to live on land and given all the things he would need to be happy on land, he cannot live free of pain. Similarly we are spirit soul but are conditioned in the material universe by a temporary body. The object, then, is to return to spiritual life. This can be done best through the bhakti-yoga process.

The common yogi cannot be ultimately successful, and his liberation is only temporary. Because he is not fully realized in love of Godhead, he can merge in the brahma-jyoti, that is, the effulgence of Lord Krsna, but he cannot remain there for more than some few millennia. Then he must return to some planet like the earth where he will take an advanced birth in a brahmana family so that he can become a bhakta or a devotee. Only the devotee can be ultimately liberated and attain to the spiritual kingdom of which Krsna says in Chapter Eight: "That supreme status is called unmanifested and infallible and is the highest destination. Going there, no one ever returns from that, My supreme abode."