Basically the advice of Rg-veda, the first Veda that descends from the upper world to this world, is: «The primary requirement for you all is to conceive that there is a world above, and ‘above’ means in the line of consciousness. Your highest identity is that of consciousness, and you must adopt that conscious world above you as your shelter. You will live and move there. This is the radical change. Here, you are in the atmosphere of exploitation, but that is the land of service. There, you have to think in terms of service. That is on your head. That region is superior to the stuff you are made of. So do you want that connection? Or do you prefer to reign in hell than to serve in heaven? What do you like? Consider, and then come forward. You can have a prospect of attaining everything up to Krishna, the Absolute. Otherwise you will have to revolve here in this world of 8,400,000 species.»
jalaja navalaksani sthavara laksa-vimsatih
krmayo rudra-sankhyakah paksinam dasa-laksakam
trimsal-laksani pasavah chatur laksani manusah
«There are 900,000 aquatic, 2,000,000 immobile, 1,100,000 worm-cum-insect, 1,000,000 bird, 3,000,000 animal, and 400,000 human species.»
These are the 8,400,000 classifications of species throughout which you will have to wander, in the world of action and reaction. You need to select your path. Do you want to be a member of the land of immortality? Do you want janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi (birth, death, old age, and infirmity), or immortality? If you want immortality, you will have to pay for the ticket. You will have to take the visa. You will have to prepare for such a categorical beginning.
Diviva caksur atatam … marisyeti pasu-buddhim imam jahi: «So do away with your animal consciousness that you are flesh and blood. No! You are not limited to flesh and blood, but you are a conscious unit, and you won’t die. You are not a member of this dying world, where everything is sure to die on account of its misidentification. This is forced upon you — you must die, you must become infirm, you must be born, you must suffer from disease — but all these are misidentification of your self with your body. This is animal consciousness: consciousness that you are an animal. But you are not so. You are a conscious unit, you are spirit, you are soul.»
Not only is the soul immortal, not only does God exist, not only is He the Absolute Dispenser of good and bad, but we, ourselves, are units of the conscious world. So pasu-buddhim imam jahi: separate yourself eternally from that mania, from that misconception and false identification with this material aspect which is the result of your degraded life.
Be reinstated in your glorious position as soul. And how is this possible? You are tatastha (marginal) by constitution, so you cannot stand on your own two feet. You must have some shelter, either mundane within your mundane identification, or above that, you must have some shelter above your head. O tatastha-jiva, you must have shelter in the svarup-sakti’s land, the final land.
According to the result of our karma we shall be placed in a particular environment, and we must start our spiritual life from wherever we are placed; we must begin our work of conquering all those samskaras (mundane tendencies) that comprise the mental encasement we are living in.
Tat te ’nukampam susamiksamanah: we should not only live in our present position without complaint, we should consider it as really necessary for our upliftment. In this way, we have to accept whatever adversities that come to us as the grace of the Lord. We must cope using this positive angle of vision of goodness: «This is my real necessity. There is no error in the calculation of the Lord. This test has been extended to me for my benefit. To stand, to face and cross this opposition is my chance to have my progress in life. This test has been given by Krishna to facilitate my progressive life.»
In the Bhagavatam we are advised to face all adverse circumstances in such an optimistic way. Then very easily and swiftly we shall cross these walls of misunderstanding, this maya, and we will be liberated, and more — we will have participation in Krishna consciousness, the life of dedication.
tat te ’nukampam susamiksamano
bhunjana evatmakrtam vipakam
«Whatever undesirable I find here is the result of my previous karma, and by the good will of the Supreme, that previous karma is going to be finished. I will be relieved. I will be made fit for higher service to Him, so this has come.»
That is the advice in Srimad Bhagavatam. Don’t quarrel with the environment. Try to be adjusted with it; correct your own ego. Everything is all right.
Your ego is demanding some sort of comfort from the environment. That is the cause of this hitch. There is no hitch in the outside, no ailment; but within, your ego creates the problem. That false ego should be dissolved, and the liquid nectar will flow and place you within the highest plane, the plane where there is no complaint. The smooth movement, affectionate movement of the most fundamental plane: your soul will find itself standing and walking in that plane. And the false friends — the circumstances we think to be friends but which are really all false — those false friends will be withdrawn.
That is nirguna, the causeless flow of welfare, which is most fundamental in the Absolute Plane. That is bhakti proper. Bhakti means seva, service — service divine. That is a causeless wave. The deepest wave, the wave of the deepest plane. That is causeless and that is irresistible. That means no beginning, no end. Eternal flow. And only my soul can take a stand in that plane and move in harmony with that plane.
Katha ganam natyam gamanam. In Sri Brahma-samhita it is mentioned, «All the talks there are as sweet as song; all the walking there, movement, is as sweet as dancing.» In this way, everything is sweet. That is the plane of harmonious movement — Vrndavan. We have to go back to that home.
We have come out with the spirit of colonisation in a foreign land, with the bad object of exploitation. For the purpose of exploitation we have come to colonise in this material world, and as a reaction we suffer. The whole cover must be eliminated, and our person within, the finest ego, must emerge. Within this gross mischievous ego there is the finer ego, soul; and that is the child of that soil.