Archi Devi Dasi (Ekmekchjan Adelaida) - Aryans and We

Very provisionally, it can be described as follows: a living being who does not possess such a potency to serve the Lord as a confidential devotee cannot understand why He has brought closer this devotee. This feeling becomes the basis for dissatisfaction or roughly speaking the feeling of injustice. A living being thinks that God does not “see” how he/she is devoted to Him. If He saw, then he/she would have been chosen as a confidential person not another one. Actually, this explanation is very rough and provisional. In the spiritual world the consciousness cannot be so rude. This is just a transient feeling, very keen but it is already called “envy” and with this feeling in the heart a spiritual parcel cannot keep staying in the spiritual world where everything is enlightened with love and no negative things can take place. Once such negative thing appears, a personality is already not in the spiritual world, practically this change of existence does not take any time once envy appears.

Envy lies in the basis of the material existence. This feeling devours all good qualities of jiva. Everybody in the material world is envious. Those free from envy do not come to this world (the exception is only for Lord’s servants sent by Him to open the way back home to all willing it). "I’m better, I’m more worthy". With this spirit, jiva cannot stay in the spiritual world any more. From these personalities, the Lord immediately “hides”, hides His devotees and gives the former the possibility to make their own society. This possibility is this very material world. One who does not understand the nature of envy will never be able to become an Aryan. One who does not accept this truth about the material existence will never be able to develop this system of values common for the Aryans. Therefore, having created the material world and given us the possibility to realize our desires, the Lord in fact becomes our servant putting at our disposal His material energy with which we can do whatever we want.

But this freedom of action becomes a heavy burden on the shoulders of a small living being who immediately loses the culture of relationships with other living beings attributable to the spiritual world and understands how in fact the Lord’s “job” is difficult. Trying to imitate God but not capable of being just, a living being gets entangled in the knots of sinful activities and becomes an eternally conditioned (i.e. deserving to stay in the material prison) jiva (soul) doomed to sufferings for causing sufferings to other living beings. Figuratively, the Aryans see the material world as a prison designated for envious souls. One way or another, this concept is supported by all religious movements.

There is one more question to be answered. What determines unequal birth conditions of all living beings? How to explain that one is born rich, another is born poor, another is healthy and another is ill and so on? The answer on this question is given only by the reincarnation concept. By nature, jiva is eternal. Having descended to this material world, it stays here for a very long time, practically eternally. As the result of various activities it gains certain amount of reactions becoming the author of its own destiny. For instance, in this life we eat bodies of many animals and in next lives these animals will have the possibility to eat us. Thus, the rule “as you sow so you reap” is implemented, not within one life, but from life to life. The fact is that in practice we can often see that a person commits what is known as sins without any punishment. The secret that lies beneath is that the punished for committed evil are all those who are born in poverty, born to bad parents, without opportunity to get education, who are ugly, have congenital diseases, who are under malicious state prosecution, etc. But that brings up the question: why cannot we remember our past lives? The answer should be found in the Lord’s noble nature. The Lord is merciful and He is not interested in artificial processes of jiva’s return to Him. Jiva itself is so much entangled in its efforts to take the Lord’s position by trying to predominate and enjoy that it is practically doomed to living in the material world forever. And yet, despite the amount of sufferings jiva does not stop wanting power and enjoyment, therefore it still desires to be in this world. To satisfy this desire, the factor of the memory loss about past lives is simply a must.

As an example, we can imagine that in the past life one was a man and he was very attached to women. Attached so much that at the time of death he was thinking about them. According to the reincarnation law, in the next life he will be born in the body of a woman. And now imagine that in the woman’s body one remembers the past man’s life. Could it be possible with this memory be a sane woman? Therefore, the Lord arranged it so that a wise person who eyes are balmed with the Vedic knowledge can clearly see the reincarnation law, but an ignorant and attached to material existence person simply reaps the fruits of actions “enjoying” their good and bad consequences. The memory loss, thus, is necessary for us to peacefully enjoy these fruits. The presence of the memory would cast us in horror. Paralyzed by the memory, we would immediately strive back to God but at this point we would not have solved the paramount problem: the problem of envy. Then getting to the spiritual world and coming to ourselves, we would promptly repeat the same mistake and have to return to the material world again.

But God does not need our forced return and as long as we want to live without Him, He will create all conditions to fulfill this desire. That is why He helps us to forget our past lives for us to “peacefully” reap the fruits of our activities and “enjoy” all those things which we have deserved in our past lives. This path is as eternal as spiritual existence. The spiritual life is directed to eternal ascension and the material life to similarly eternal degradation. Once falling into this world, soul is so much entangled in causes and consequences of its activities, that there is no other hope of deliverance but the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His confident devotees. The hope which is like a helping hand given to a drowning man in the sea.

Therefore, to sum it up:

1)There is the spiritual world which is the dwelling of spiritual parcels and God. There everyone is eternal, blissful and knowledgeable. Eternity is the consequence of the uniformity with the Lord’s nature, the bliss is the association with Him by means of devotional service and the knowledge is His mercy.

2) Spiritual beings have always got a free choice. Envying the absolute position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or a more superior position of another jiva, some living beings express the desire to separate from Him in order to satisfy their desires, do justice instead of God. But because living beings are inherent parcels of God, such separation is not possible in fact. Being free from anger and envy, the Lord creates for such persons the material world where they get the opportunity to act according to their desires. In fact, the Aryans look at the material world as the evidence of the humble and generous nature of the Lord. The Lord creates this material world, places us here to fulfill our desires rejecting God and … “hides” from us in order not to stir our hatred.

3) Losing the visual presence of the Lord, a living being enthusiastically tries to realize its desires to enjoy and dominate. It does it by imitating relationships of the spiritual world. According to the Aryan philosophy, everything existing in the material world is only the perverted reflection of the spiritual world when we try to recreate spiritual relationships simply placing in the center ourselves not God. All beings who happen to be in the material world try to imitate God’s actions. The concept of God means the idea of uniqueness which is inherent only to the Absolute and One Truth. As long as there are too many beings willing to be God, there emerges the necessity of the sequence. Actually, time is the factor which puts on the queue all those willing to be God (the leader), so there appears the need of death (temporary), i.e. the sequence. Today the leader is me, tomorrow this opportunity will be given to you.

4) The material world is the prison of the spiritual world where envious and rebellious souls are placed. All laws applicable in the material world are intended to return us to our spiritual consciousness. Though the “punishment” enforced by God is very peculiar. He “punishes” us by granting all our desires. Our desires diverge from their spiritual harmony and thus are not able to bring us happiness we had in the spiritual world. Just to prove this truth, the Lord grants all our desires – desires fulfillment of which means violence against others with resulting sufferings. The original neutral material substance is called pradhana. Living beings come in contact with pradhana by their desires and as the result of this the material diversity appears. The material world is only the reflection of desires of all living beings existing in it.

5) Depending on the rudeness of consciousness, living beings in the material world are bound by three ropes (the gunas): ignorance, passion and goodness. These bonds are created by cause-effect relationships of actions of living beings, i.e. they form the time – the principle of the sequence.

6) Together with creation of the material world, the Lord takes care of our returning home, to the spiritual world. For this purpose, He gives inhabitants of material worlds the Vedas which contain the knowledge how to live happily in the material world and return back home to Godhead. Ones who follow instructions of the Vedas are called the Aryans (those going to God).

These are the general provisions of the Aryan theory. As said, the Vedas see that the most important psychological problem is the envy of the position of God and of other living beings in the spiritual world. This world where we all live is meant to solve this problem. This is the Aryan’s answer on the question: “Where does life come from and what is its meaning?”

A living being comes to this world to realize its desire to make decisions and independently enjoy in God’s capacity. In reality, it cannot be independent as it is the eternal inseparable parcel of God and is eternally dependent on Him. After leaving the spiritual world, this dependence is shown as the dependence on the material nature. The energy supplying living beings with all necessary things is called yoga-maya. When a living being does not want to associate with God, this energy covers consciousness of a living being with ignorance and creates the apparent independence imitating the semblant separation from God. The energy having this function is called maha-maya. It shows things that are not real but that we want to see, that is our independence from God. This is the transformation of the same energy, yoga-maya. While yoga-maya is the energy acting to give pleasure by revealing us more and more the sublime and attractive nature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, maha-maya deceives, i.e. moves away from God and educates by means of sufferings.

Further we will see how the Aryans describe the laws applicable in the material world. The principle function of the material world is to correct the wrong desire of a living being to function as God (to control, dominate and enjoy). Any time when we try to realize the principle of our independence, the material world acts so as to prove how we are dependent as we are insignificantly small. Most insignificantly a living being feels under the influence of time (death). For an eternal spiritual parcel, there is no other more humiliating situation than to accept the necessity of destruction (death). Thousands and millions of people dreamt and tried to overcome the influence of time (death), but in due time death knocked at their doors regardless of their desires and plans.