Hare Krsna,
As I am going through Lesson 3, I cannot stop marveling at what a magnificent scientist and creator our Supreme Lord Krsna is. The intricacies of the mechanics behind the creation of the material nature is beyond any human or superhuman ability. Who in the mortal realm could even conceive that creation would begin from the unmanifested eternal combination of the three modes (pradhana), this unmanifested state would later transform into prakrti, the prakrti would be composed of 25 elements, this prakrti would be agitated by time leading to the birth of mahat-tattva and so on? All these combine together to bewilder the conditioned souls. The jiva has his free choice either to serve his own senses and accept a material body or to engage in Krsna consciousness and get a spiritual body. The Lord is so merciful that he has created this unfathomable material nature for the conditioned souls to fulfill their material desires. Material scientists are proud of creating a tiny thing and cannot even maintain it for long. Anything created in this material world is prone to be destroyed by the influence of time. They create weather-proof buildings, and one small earthquake is enough to destroy them. Scientists in Japan have been trying to build earthquake proof buildings. But who can ever win over material nature? We live in such a fickle world and foolishly desire to prolong our earthly existence and possessions. Lord Krsna says in BG 11.32, “Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people.” Time is destruction, and all manifestations are to be vanquished by the desire of the Supreme Lord. That is the law of nature. Therefore, why wouldn’t any sane person give up the idea of lording over material nature and just surrender to Krsna?
I was watching a few rescue videos on the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria. How small children are trapped in the rubble and rescue workers are trying to bring them out alive! How people have lost their entire families in this calamity! How some children will never see their parents again, and vice versa! It is so painful to watch them. I have been thinking how brutal material nature is. It does not even pardon small innocent children. Athiests will find an excuse to blame God for this. Others may see the play of karma in this. And compassionate souls like Srila Prabhupada would cry to deliver humankind from the clutches of material nature.
We conditioned souls think that we are the controllers of things in our life. But the bare truth is that we cannot even respond to material nature. We just react to whatever material nature throws at us. We ignorantly think we are the doers, but the real doer is material nature working under the hidden sanction of the Supreme Lord. “The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature.” (BG 3.27)
We are like dice and material nature is throwing us the way she wants. We think we are in control of the play. But what control does the dice have? It is just a tool in the hands of the dice-thrower (material nature). She is pulling us and diverting us the way she wants. She covers our knowledge and gives us a small drop of happiness to keep us entangled. Due to this covering of knowledge we forget our eternal goal and desire to derive more happiness from this happiness-less desert of the material world. Therefore real intelligence is to see all these ruthless works of prakrti and endeavor to get out of her clutches. If at all we want to be a dice, why not be a dice in the pastime and play of the Supreme Lord? He is our best friend, best benefactor, and best well-wisher. He will never cheat us.
We should therefore try to get out of the material clutches and take up spiritual life. That will make us happy. That is the only source of happiness. If we want happiness, then we have to give up the association of prakṛti. Because as long as we will be in the material world, we will have to associate with the modes of material nature. Therefore, we just have to pray to Krsna the way Lord Caitanya did to save us from this material world:
“O son of Mahārāja Nanda [Kṛṣṇa], I am Your eternal servitor, yet somehow or other I have fallen into the ocean of birth and death. Please pick me up from this ocean of death and place me as one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.” (Siksastaka 5)
“The spirit soul is actually sac-cid-ānanda — eternal, full of bliss and full of knowledge. Under the clutches of māyā, however, he suffers from continued birth, death, disease, and old age. One has to be serious to cure this condition of material existence and transfer himself to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, for thus his long suffering may be mitigated without difficulty. In summary, the suffering of the conditioned soul is due to his attachment to material nature. This attachment should thus be transferred from matter to Kṛṣṇa.” (SB 3.26.7 Purport)
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Krsna Katha 