Hare Krsna,
Conditioned living entities are called marginal energy of the Lord. The Supreme Lord is the energetic and we are the energies of the Lord. The Lord has two other energies – internal (antaranga-sakti) and external (bahiranga-sakti). We are called marginal or tatashta sakti of the Lord because we are situated at the junction between spiritual energy and material energy. In other words, between spiritual realm and material real. Because the individual soul is apt to fall down sometimes under the clutches of māyā, it is called taṭastha-śakti. It is like the seashore or sea beach. There is a boundary between water and land. We have a choice whether we want to be with Krsna’s spiritual energy or His material energy. When we are covered by māyā, that is our jīva-bhūta stage, and when there is no more covering, that is brahma-bhūta stage. When we are Kṛṣṇa conscious, then we are brahma-bhūta (SB 4.30.20), and when we are not Kṛṣṇa conscious, we are materially conscious, that is māyā”. ((Lecture on BG 7.4-5 — Bombay, March 30, 1971). Similarly, we have the free-will and the ability to choose between binding actions and transcendental actions. In order to make this choice correctly, we must be equipped with the right knowledge about the distinction between the two.
Lord Kapila, in this chapter, very elaborately instructs us about the difference between binding actions and transcendental actions.
SB 3.32.16: “Persons who are too addicted to this material world execute their prescribed duties very nicely and with great faith. They daily perform all such prescribed duties with attachment to the fruitive result.” This is binding action.
SB 3.32.22: “My dear mother, I therefore advise that you take shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for His lotus feet are worth worshiping. Accept this with all devotion and love, for thus you can be situated in transcendental devotional service.” This is transcendental action.
Any action performed for the pleasure of Krsna is purely transcendental. Any action performed not for the pleasure of Krsna but for our own satisfaction – in the form of religiosity, economic development, sense gratification and impersonal liberation – is binding. If we think that we will be able to become liberated from material entanglement by worshipping the demigods, we are wrong. Demigods cannot liberate us because they themselves are not liberated unlike the Supreme Lord Krsna. Brahma and Siva may be incarnations of the Supreme Lord in charge of the three different material modes of nature, but none of them is independent of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore, Lord Kapiladeva warns us not to fall into this trap. Neither the demigods can liberate us from the cycle of birth and death nor are their abodes (heavenly planets) free from birth, death, old age and disease. What is even more shocking is that Brahma himself comes back to the material world when re-creation of the material world happens.
Therefore Lord Kapiladeva, through his mother, instructs us that we should exclusively engage in devotional service to the Supreme Lord because only He can deliver us from the repeated cycle of birth and death. “All living entities other than the impersonalists and monists can directly take to devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness and become liberated by developing transcendental loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such devotional service develops in the degrees of thinking of the Supreme Lord as master, as friend, as son and, at last, as lover. These distinctions in transcendental variegatedness must always be present.” (SB 3.32.15 P)
As I mentioned in the previous forum post, we worshipped the demigods in our family because we didn’t know any better. Because of forgetfulness of Krsna for a very long time, we didn’t know that He is the Supreme Lord and the only worshipable object. It means that we worshipped the demigods and engaged in material actions due to ignorance. But once the light of Krsna consciousness dawned on us, by the mercy of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, we gradually gave up the worship of demigods and performance of fruitive actions and engaged instead in serving Krsna. From that perspective, it is obvious that unlimited living entities on this planet are engaged in binding actions and worship various demigods (or their own concocted gods) due to ignorance. They need to be informed that “in the material world there is nothing good; everything is bad due to its being contaminated by material nature. The materialists conclusions of good and bad, moral and immoral, etc., are simply mental concoction or sentiment. Actually there is nothing good in the material world. In the spiritual field everything is absolutely good. There is no inebriety in the spiritual varieties.” (SB 3.32.24 P)
Therefore, spreading the message of Krsna consciousness is so urgent in this world that the conditioned living entities must be saved from the dark well of ignorance. If each one of us took responsibility to save at least one person from material bondage and situate him in Krsna consciousness, we would have done a great service to Srila Prabhupada who appeared to deliver the fallen souls.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Krsna Katha 