we are not independent

So God, the Supersoul is simply observing the activities of the individual soul. And He has given freedom to the individual soul, because the individual soul has come in this material world to enjoy independent of the Supersoul. That is the material disease. He has to remain under the protection... He is already under the protection of the Supersoul, but he is thinking that he is independent. That is called maya. He is not independent. As soon as there is cause of death, he is no more independent. He cannot say that "I have got so many business to do, perform. Give me some time." "No, immediately get out." So he is under control, fully controlled; still he is thinking that he is independent and he can do whatever he like. In this way his life is being spoiled, and he is becoming entangled by the activities.    (More...)

Everything is there. So why should we waste our time? Why we should be entangled in this bodily concept of life and become subjected to the transmigration of the soul from one body to another? We should be disgusted, this repetition of birth and death. Janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi-duḥkha-dosanudarsanam [Bg 13.9]. One should be intelligent enough to understand, "Why I should be subjected to birth and death?" Nobody wants to die. Ke ami kene amaya jare tapa-traya [Cc Madhya 20.102]. Nobody wants the threefold miserable condition of this material life, but it is forced upon us, and we are thinking "independent." That is foolishness. We are not independent. Prakrteḥ kriyamanani gunaiḥ karmani sarvasaḥ [Bg 3.27].    (More...)

Therefore in the Bhagavad-gita it is said, yanti deva-vrata devan [Bg 9.25]. You have to qualify yourself to enter into such planets. They are called heavenly planets. You cannot enter by force. Therefore we are conditioned. We are not free. We are conditioned. We should always remember that we are conditioned by the material nature. We cannot... We are not free. We are not independent. That we are forgetting. At the present moment the trained-up civilization is that everyone is thinking that he is independent, he can do whatever he likes, he can manufacture his own process of religious principles. These, I mean to say, maddened ideas are there. No. Religious principle you cannot manufacture. Just like law. You cannot say that "I will manufacture my own law." No. That is not possible. Law means state's law, and you have to abide by that. That is law. You cannot avoid it. You cannot say that "I won't accept the state laws. I will make my own laws." That is not possible. Dharmam tu saksad bhagavat-pranitam [SB 6.3.19]. Dharma means the laws and the regulation given by God. That is dharma. Therefore Krsna said, sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja [Bg 18.66]. This is real dharma. And Bhagavata says, dharmaḥ projjhita-kaitavaḥ atra: "In the Srimad-Bhagavatam all cheating types of religious principle is rejected."    (More...)