Actually, there is no pleasure in the material world; everything is painful. Everyone is trying to be happy by sensual activity, but the result is unhappiness and frustration. This is called maya, illusion.

Lord Buddha understood the nature of material pleasure. In his youth he was a prince, enjoying great opulence and sensual pleasures, but he renounced it all. Sitting down in meditation, he stopped all sensual activities, which subject one to the pains and pleasures of this material world. He gave up his kingdom just to teach that sensual activities do not help us attain salvation. Salvation means to get out of the clutches of the pleasure and pain of this world.

Buddhism is concerned largely with the predicament of the body. Due to the interactions of the three modes of material nature, which are acting on our material bodies, we experience various pains and pleasures. Buddhism teaches that one can be relieved of these pains and pleasures as soon as one dismantles the combination of the material elements in the shape of the physical body. Nirvana, the goal of Buddhism, is the state attained when a person has finished with the material combinations. After all, pains and pleasures are due to possessing this material body. However, Buddhist philosophy does not provide information about the soul, the possessor of the body. Thus Buddhism is imperfect.

Buddhist philosophy is incomplete, but that does not mean Lord Buddha did not know the complete truth. A teacher may have received his Masters degree, yet he still teaches the ABCs to his students. It is not that his knowledge is limited to the ABCs. Similarly, any especially empowered incarnation (saktyavesa avatara) will preach God consciousness according to time, place, and circumstances. The teacher holds his Masters degree, but the students may not be qualified to receive the high instructions that the teacher is competent to teach.

Therefore there are different schools of religion, like Buddhism and Sankaracaryas Mayavada philosophy. Both the Buddhists and the Mayavadis encourage their followers to try to get free of pain and pleasure, which are due to sensual activities. No genuine philosopher urges his followers to pursue sensual activities. Buddha finishes with matter: to achieve nirvana one must first dismantle the material combination of the body. In other words, the body is a combination of five material elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether, and this combination is the cause of all pain and pleasure; so when the combination is at last dismantled, there will be no more pain and pleasure.

Sankaracaryas philosophy is to get out of this combination of material elements and become situated in our original, spiritual position. Thus the Mayavadis motto is brahma satyam jagan mithya: Brahman, the Absolute, is true, and this material creation is false. Sankaracarya rejected Buddhas philosophy, which gives no information concerning the spirit soul. Buddhas philosophy deals only with matter and the dissolution of matter; thus the goal of Buddhism is to merge into the voidness.

Both Buddhism and Mayavada philosophy reveal only partial truth. Sankaracaryas Mayavada philosophy accepts Brahman, spirit, but does not describe spirit in its fullness. Mayavada philosophy teaches that as soon as we become cognizant of our existence as Brahman (aham brahmasmi), then all our activities come to a stop. But this is not a fact. The living entity is always active. It may seem that in meditation one can stop all sensual activity, but still one is meditating, and that is also action.

While meditating on Brahman, the Mayavadi thinks, I have become God. In one sense, of course, it is correct to think, I am one with God, for as spirit souls we are all one with God in quality. But no one can ever become quantitatively one with God. In the Bhagavad-gita (15.7) Krsna declares that the living entities are part and parcel of Me. Krsna is completely spiritual (sac-cid-ananda), so each particle of spirit must also be sac-cid-ananda, just as a gold earring is qualitatively one with the gold in a gold mine. Still, the gold earring is not the gold mine.

So the Mayavadis mistake is to think that the part can become equal to the whole. They presume that because they are part and parcel of God, they are God. Therefore the Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.2.32) describes the impersonalists as avisuddha-buddhayah: Their intelligence is impure; they are still in ignorance. Mayavadis believe that by accumulating knowledge they become one with God, and thus they address one another as Narayana. That is their great mistake. We cannot become Lord Narayana. Narayana is vibhu, which means very big or infinite, whereas we are anu, infinitesimal. Our spiritual magnitude measures one ten-thousandth of the tip of a hair. Therefore how can any sane man claim that he has become God?

Sankaracarya gave a hint about Brahman, teaching everyone to think, aham brahmasmi, I am the spirit self, not the material body. The Vedas agree. One who is situated in mukti, or liberation, understands perfectly, I am not this body; I am pure spirit soul. But that is not the end of self-realization. Next one has to ask, If I am an eternal spirit soul, what is my eternal spiritual activity? That eternal activity is devotional service to Krsna.

In the Bhagavad-gita (18.54) Lord Krsna describes how Brahman realization leads to devotional service:

Often big svamis talk about attaining Brahman realization but do not remove themselves from worldly pleasures and pains. They involve themselves in humanitarian activities, thinking, My fellow countrymen are suffering; let me open a hospital or They are uneducated; let me open a school. If someone is really on the platform of brahma-bhutah, why would he accept any particular place as his country? Actually, as spirit souls we do not belong to any country. We get a body, and as soon as the body is finished, the connection with a particular country is also finished. The symptom of lamentation reveals that the so-called liberated person has not been cured of his attachment to worldly pleasure and pain. That means he has not become joyful, because one who is joyful does not lament. So many learned sannyasis have fallen down to material activities because they have not in fact realized Brahman. It is not so easy. As already explained, the influence of the modes of nature is very strong. The living entity entangled in different types of fruitive activity is like a silkworm trapped in a cocoon. Getting free is very difficult unless one is helped by the Supreme Personality of Godhead.