By Jayasri Radha Devi Dasi

The only purpose of the living entity is to realize one’s eternal relationship with their Maker (God) also known as Krishna, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, etc. (One who has many Eternal, Unlimited, Transcendental names). When we say Krishna we mean God. Krishna is not a Hindu God, He is the Supreme Lord of everyone.  He appeared in India on this Earth planet, but that does not make Him Indian or Hindu or of any sectarian religion.  All religions talk of Him, though they may not explain who He is, in full.  When the living entity is fully ready to accept who is God and their eternal relationship with Him, then then they will come to Krishna consciousness…in full consciousness of who God is and they will, then, offer their heart, mind, body, words and everything to Him. One’s actual purpose is to render loving devotional service to God. That is what we need to do.  Until one comes to fully accept this, they remain trapped in the clutches of the illusory energy called Maya.  Maya is also named Durga, which means ‘very difficult to get out of’.  She is the Superintendent of this world also known as Mother Nature, and she has kept us trapped in this cycle of Samsara – of birth and death, life after life – until we fully surrender to Krishna.  It is her thankless task to keep all souls in this prison house of illusion, due to us all being envious of the Supreme Lord.  We fell to this world long ago only on the thought of wanting to be the Lord.  There is no sin in the eternal Kingdom of God – it is only due to the thought of envy that we come here.  Yes, we wanted to be the big enjoyers and wanted to be Lord.  He tried to stop us like a loving father would do to a son who is about to enter a very difficult and painful situation.  But we insist. So here we are…after many many lifetimes of going up and down from higher heavenly planets all the way down to the lower hellish regions and through every species of life (8,400,000 to be exact). We become fully exhausted with material activities and call out to the Lord on how to become actually happy and how to end all suffering. He is so kind that He shows us the way through his bona fide representative, through his Holy scriptures.  The Bona fide Spiritual Master and pure representative of Krishna gives his commentary for the general mass of people.  It is up to the soul (that’s us) to accept and surrender to the Lord and His pure devotee and follow the process of pure liberation, which is called Krishna Bhakti. Once the soul is fully surrendered to Krishna, Maya – the illusion – gives up her hold on the living being and Krishna takes full care of the devoted soul. If the devoted practitioner follows the process recommended in the Sastra (Holy scripture) and fully gives up his position as the lord of all that he surveys and offers Himself in Pure devotional service, at the end of life, he will easily and fully surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna.  Then they will never have to come back to this material world, which is full of miseries. They are now free.. Hari bol!

Srila Prabhupada says in the introduction of Bhagavad Gita As It Is. “We have an intimate relationship with the Lord, and because we are all qualitatively one—the sanātana-dhāma, or sky, the sanātana Supreme Personality and the sanātana living entities—the whole purpose of Bhagavad-gītā is to revive our sanātana occupation, or sanātana-dharma, which is the eternal occupation of the living entity. We are temporarily engaged in different activities, but all of these activities can be purified when we give up all these temporary activities and take up the activities which are prescribed by the Supreme Lord. That is called our pure life.”

Bhagavad Gita As It Is Original 1972 by Srila Prabhupada Introduction.