Awakening From The Bondage Of Bodies

When the subtle body enters a gross body, he enters the abode of darkness. When we fall down a tunnel we can no longer see the light of day. So this gross body and the world perceived by it are considered to be darkness and ignorance by those who have Vedic knowledge, that is to say by those who remember their previous illuminated existence. The taking on of a gross body is also likened to falling asleep and dreaming. When one falls asleep he leaves his actual environment and travels to a land of make-believe which is full of insubstantialities. But when he awakes he is once again in his original environment. If his dream is pleasant he may yearn to dream again, but if it is horrible he may be glad to awake. In either case, the dreaming condition is temporary, and in no case would one want to permanently remain in that situation. Liberation is simply realizing that one is asleep and waking up.

One who wakes up enters the spiritual sky where there is no need for artificial illumination by sun or moon. There all the planets are self-luminous. The inhabitants are established in bliss and knowledge, and life is eternal.

Those who are caught in the dream of the gross body are suffering so many material miseries. Actually they don't want to grow old. They don't want to die. But all this is being forced upon them. They are not aware of their position outside of the dream. They institute universities in which they discuss phenomena within the dream, but in no way are they interested in a curriculum devoted to waking up.

Students study their dream subjects so hard and get very upset when they fail, but they are in no way concerned about a much more important subject which the university doesn't even offer. And so there are dream universities and dream instructors and dream courses and dream students and not a speck of reality on campus. There are science faculties in chemistry, biology, physics, botany, geology, astronomy, zoology and so on, but no department is teaching the science of God. Theology departments may be teaching the science of religion, but they are not teaching anyone how to leave his gross material body and pierce the tenfold coverings of the material universe and enter the self-luminous sky.

If one judges man from the point of view of the gross material body, he is not superior to the animals. In fact most animals are stronger, faster, more self-reliant and more capable of surviving in nature. Man's body may appear more aesthetic, but from the practical point of view it is not as useful as the gorilla's. However, man is superior, and he dominates because he has a more highly developed mind and intelligence that distinguish him from animal life. And it is by his mind and intelligence that he can understand what he is and inquire into the meaning of his existence. It is not that he is superior because he can use these faculties to exploit material nature for the glorification of his gross body. Any animal more or less can do that. He is superior because he can understand the transcendental science by which he can transfer himself out of the gross body into the spiritual sky.

The most systematic presentation of this transcendental science is given concisely in Bhagavad-gita, which is a preliminary study for self-realization. What is self-realization? Self-realization is realizing oneself apart from the body in one's constitutional nonmaterial position. One realizes this position by becoming conscious of the totality of existence and entering into a relationship with it. In the Bhagavad-gita this totality is called Krsna. In the Gita, Krsna is the ultimate person who contains everything and a lot more besides. "I am being and nonbeing and that which is beyond both," Krsna asserts.

In the Bhagavad-gita, Krsna sets forth a curriculum for the encaged soul. Three principal courses are offered: the course of action, the course of meditation and the course of devotion, respectively called karma-yoga, jnana-yoga and bhakti-yoga. These three sciences deal with the constitutional position of the self, and by studying them the student can learn how he is entangled in the material body, how he can become detached from the material body and where he can go after leaving it. These questions are asked by Arjuna, who is thinking in bodily terms, and answered by his professor Sri Krsna. In the very beginning of the course Sri Krsna teaches Arjuna that he is not that body. He informs him that the soul passes into another body at death just as it passes from boyhood to youth to old age while in the body. The man who knows his constitutional position apart from the body is not bewildered by such changes. Krsna then asserts the immutable eternality of the soul apart from the body, then exhorts Arjuna to perform action in a spirit of detachment and devotion. As the course progresses, Sri Krsna elaborates on the relationship between the individual finite soul and the Supersoul and sets forth various methods by which the finite can realize the Infinite. These methods of attainment involve action which is unattached, renunciation of material consciousness, cultivation of the knowledge of the soul and the Supersoul, meditation on the Supersoul through the control of bodily organs, realization of the opulence of the Absolute and of the nature of the Absolute, the function of the three modes of material nature, goodness, passion and ignorance, the qualities of men and their faiths, the perfection of renunciation and the transcendental process of devotional service. At the end of this discourse Arjuna is enlightened as to his position and course of action and decides to surrender to the will of that absolute person who instructed him.