Going back is realizing and rejuvenating the relationship with the all beautiful-Krishna to its full extent. Its the full ripening of the attitude to serve Krishna and Krishna alone and no one else then how can it be sense gratification.
In the spiritual world, people are not very attracted to sex life, due to their exalted devotional attitude. Practically speaking, there is no sex life in the spiritual world.
S.B. 5:17:12.
In these eight varṣas, or tracts of land, human beings live ten thousand years according to earthly calculations. All the inhabitants are almost like demigods. They have the bodily strength of ten thousand elephants. Indeed, their bodies are as sturdy as thunderbolts. The youthful duration of their lives is very pleasing, and both men and women enjoy sexual union with great pleasure for a long time. After years of sensual pleasure—when a balance of one year of life remains—the wife conceives a child. Thus the standard of pleasure for the residents of these heavenly regions is exactly like that of the human beings who lived during Tretā-yuga.
There are four yugas: Satya-yuga, Tretā-yuga, Dvāpara-yuga and Kali-yuga. During the first yuga, Satya-yuga, people were very pious. Everyone practiced the mystic yoga system for spiritual understanding and realization of God. Because everyone was always absorbed in samādhi, no one was interested in material sense enjoyment. During Tretā-yuga, people enjoyed sense pleasure without tribulations. Material miseries began in Dvāpara-yuga, but they were not very stringent. Stringent material miseries really began from the advent of Kali-yuga.
Another point in this verse is that in all eight of these heavenly varṣas, although men and women enjoy sex pleasure, there is no pregnancy. Pregnancy takes place only in lower-grade life. For example, animals like dogs and hogs become pregnant twice a year, and each time they beget at least half a dozen offspring. Even lower species of life such as snakes give birth to hundreds of young at one time. This verse informs us that in grades of life higher than ours, pregnancy occurs once in a lifetime. People still have sex life, but there is no pregnancy. In the spiritual world, people are not very attracted to sex life, due to their exalted devotional attitude. Practically speaking, there is no sex life in the spiritual world, but even if sometimes it does occur, there is no pregnancy at all. On the planet earth, however, human beings do become pregnant, although the tendency is to avoid having children. In this sinful age of Kali, people have even taken to the process of killing the child in the womb. This is the most degraded practice; it can only perpetuate the miserable material conditions of those who perform it.
In Bhagavad-gita (5.22) Krishna says this about enjoyment of the senses:
ye hi samsparsha-ja bhoga duhkha-yonaya eva te
“The pleasures that arise from contact between the senses and their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.”
Now we live in a culture of sense gratification that turns all of us into automatons. Only a counter-culture of self-realization can deliver us, a culture to bring about “a revolution,” as Prabhupada puts it, “in the impious life of a misdirected civilization.”
His divine grace, A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has given explanations on the topic of going back to Godhead in several books including the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Chaitanya Caritamrita and the magazine "Back to Godhead".
The quotes below should help to clear any doubts on sense gratification in the spiritual world.
From the Srimad Bhagavatam, Second Canto:
"And also the liberated souls are not devoid of senses; otherwise there cannot be any reciprocation of unhampered spiritual happiness exchanged between them in spontaneous unbroken joy. All the senses, both of the Lord and of the devotees, are without material contamination. They are so because they are beyond the material cause and effects, as clearly mentioned herein (sad-asatah param). The illusory, material energy cannot work there, being ashamed before the Lord and His transcendental devotees. In the material world the sense activities are not without grief, but here it is clearly said that the senses of the Lord and the devotees are without any grief. There is a distinct difference between the material and spiritual senses. And one should understand it without
denying the spiritual senses because of a material conception.
The senses in the material world are surcharged with material ignorance. In every way, the authorities have recommended purification of the senses from the material conception. In the material world the senses are manipulated for individual and personal satisfaction, whereas in the spiritual world the senses are properly used for the purpose for which they were originally meant, namely the satisfaction of the Supreme Lord.
Such sensual activities are natural, and therefore sense gratification there is uninterrupted and unbroken by material contamination because the senses are spiritually purified. And such satisfaction of the senses is equally shared by the transcendental reciprocators. Since the activities are unlimited and constantly increasing, there is no scope for material attempts or artificial arrangements. Such happiness of transcendental quality is called brahma-saukhyam, which will he clearly described in the Fifth Canto."
in spiritual world, there is no sense gratifactory process as it exists in the material world
first of all..
this is what we mean by “sense gratification”: enjoying the pleasures that arise when the eyes, nose, or tongue, the hands, skin, or genitals, come together with their particular objects.
Krishna says something about those pleasures startlingly counter-intuitive: the enjoyments thus obtained (te) are the birthplaces or origins (yonaya) of suffering (duhkha).
so,
sense gratification means to please our "Senses" i.e material sense gratification and it does not last long..
whereas in spiritual world whatever we do, is for Krishna so that enjoyment is everlasting.
Everyone in this material world is engaged in sense gratification. This is material world. And spiritual world means there is no question of sense gratification. Simply they want to satisfy Krsna. Just like Vrndavana. Vrndavana means there mother Yasoda, Nanda Maharaja, Radharani, the gopis, the cowherds boys, Sridama, Sudama, the land, the water, the trees, the birds–everyone is trying to satisfy Krsna. That is Vrndavana.
Thus consciously engaged in devotional service in the association of devotees, a person gains distaste for sense gratification, both in this world and in the next, by constantly thinking about the activities of the Lord. This process of Krishna consciousness is the easiest process of mystic power; when one is actually situated on that path of devotional service, he is able to control the mind.”
From Krishna book.. Chapter 48 ->
"To worship Krsna or have association with Him is not a very easy job. Specifically, there is a warning for devotees who are attracted to Krsna through conjugal love; it is not good for them to desire to have sense gratification by direct association with Krsna. Actually, the activities of sense gratification are material. In the spiritual world there are symptoms like kissing and embracing, but there is no sense-gratificatory process as it exists in the material world. This warning is specifically for those known as sahajiya, who take it for granted that Krsna is an ordinary human being. They desire to enjoy sex life with Him in a perverted way. In a spiritual relationship, sense gratification is most insignificant. Anyone who desires a relationship of perverted sense gratification with Krsna must be considered to be less intelligent. His mentality requires to be reformed."
So viraga, bhaktya puman jata-viraga aindriyad. Here our material disease is that we want to satisfy our sense. This is material life. The whole material civilization is going on, we have repeatedly said… Advancement of civilization means advancement of sense gratification. That’s all. So bhakti means just the opposite. So, so long we are, I mean to say, very much interested in sense gratification, there is no question of bhakti. That is not possible. So we have to reduce the tendency for sense gratification by increasing our devotional activities. That is the process. Therefore it is said, bhaktya puman jata-viraga. Viraga, from where? Viragameans distasteful. Virakti. The other word is virakti: “No, no, I don’t like.” That is called viraga.
Raga means attachment, and vi means vigata. Vigata-raga. And from viraga–vairagya. Jnana-vairagya. This is wanted. Human life is meant for jnana and vairagya. Two things required. We are continuing this material existence on account of raga, attachment, attachment for sense gratification. That is the cause of material bondage. Material bondage means, we have explained several times, to accept one body, then create another body. We have got now this human form of body, and according to our, I mean to say, affection or infection to different qualities of the nature, we are creating another body. So in this way we are entangled. So unless we become viraga, viraga aindriyat, sense gratification… These different changes of body are being possible on account of sense gratification. Nature or God or Krsna will give me full facility. Just like in the Western countries especially, they are now trying to become naked, nudies. So nature will give them to stand naked like a tree, or tree, for many years. “You are so fond of become nudie. All right, you stand up here for ten thousand years without any dress.” Natur
Nature will give you. Those who have no discrimination for eating–”Anything, damn rascal, let me. Give me. I will eat it”–”All right, then you can take the body of a pig and eat up to stool.”
So nature will give you. Karanam guna-sango ‘sya.
purusah prakrti-stho hi bhunkte prakrti-jan gunan karanam guna-sango ‘sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu
Why we are getting different bodies? Because we have got different tendency for sense gratification. Indriya, aindriyat. This is the disease, material disease. Everyone has got tendency for sense gratification, but not all of them of the same type. They have got different types. So our material bondage means these different types of sense gratification. Therefore we have to stop this. We have to be detestful from this sense gratification. Then our spiritual life will begin. That is possible by bhakti.
Therefore here it is said, bhaktya puman jata-viraga. Bhakti is so powerful that if you engage yourself in the bhakti-marga or bhakti-yoga… Here it is said, rjubhir yoga-margaih. Rjubhihmeans very easy to perform. How? Now, drsta-srutan mad-racananucintaya. Drsta. You can see Krsna. Krsna is kind enough. Although Krsna is beyond our vision–we cannot see with these eyes Krsna–but Krsna has agreed to be seen by you or by us. How? He has assumed this arca-vigraha. Krsna, this vigraha–don’t think it is stone. Even it is stone you think, but Krsna can become visible before you like a stone, because you cannot see beyond stone. That is Krsna’s mercy. Because your eyes or senses are so imperfect that you cannot see Krsna present everywhere in His original spiritual… We have got difference between spiritual and material. We have got because we are imperfect. But Krsna has no such distinction. Because He is Absolute, He can become spiritual, He can become material, as He likes. That does not make any difference of Krsna. Then how Krsna is almighty, all-powerful? He can change matter into spirit, spirit into matter. That is Krsna. So don’t think that, as the atheist class men, they think, that “They are worshiping an idol.” Even it is an idol, still Krsna. That is absolute. That is absolute nature of Krsna. Even you think it is stone, it is metal, it is wood, still, He is Krsna.
All sensual pleasures, Krishna asserts, are the causes of suffering.
But here there is no disagreement: “Those pleasures that arise from the contact of the senses with their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.”
Krishna reveals that the world actually works in precisely the opposite of the way we suppose. From our very birth we began to enjoy sense pleasure. Finding delight in every such experience, we naturally assume that the path of happiness—obviously—lies in multiplying, perpetuating, and intensifying those pleasures as far as possible.
Yet the world misleads us. And so, our worldly experience as a whole is described as a kind of maya, or illusion.
infact when we try to do anything with Krishna as the centre then we can feel the difference in the material world only,
how satisfying it feels..so you can imagine how would it feel in Spirtual world where everyone serves only Krishna..
So as you engage your indriyas, senses, in the service of Krsna, so it is very easy, that first of all you engage your tongue. Chant Hare Krsna and eat bhagavat-prasada! You will become perfect. Nothing, no other things required. That we are doing. We are distributing prasada and engaging people, “Chant Hare Krsna.”
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Hare Krsna mataji.
S.B. 5:17:12.
In these eight varṣas, or tracts of land, human beings live ten thousand years according to earthly calculations. All the inhabitants are almost like demigods. They have the bodily strength of ten thousand elephants. Indeed, their bodies are as sturdy as thunderbolts. The youthful duration of their lives is very pleasing, and both men and women enjoy sexual union with great pleasure for a long time. After years of sensual pleasure—when a balance of one year of life remains—the wife conceives a child. Thus the standard of pleasure for the residents of these heavenly regions is exactly like that of the human beings who lived during Tretā-yuga.
There are four yugas: Satya-yuga, Tretā-yuga, Dvāpara-yuga and Kali-yuga. During the first yuga, Satya-yuga, people were very pious. Everyone practiced the mystic yoga system for spiritual understanding and realization of God. Because everyone was always absorbed in samādhi, no one was interested in material sense enjoyment. During Tretā-yuga, people enjoyed sense pleasure without tribulations. Material miseries began in Dvāpara-yuga, but they were not very stringent. Stringent material miseries really began from the advent of Kali-yuga.
Another point in this verse is that in all eight of these heavenly varṣas, although men and women enjoy sex pleasure, there is no pregnancy. Pregnancy takes place only in lower-grade life. For example, animals like dogs and hogs become pregnant twice a year, and each time they beget at least half a dozen offspring. Even lower species of life such as snakes give birth to hundreds of young at one time. This verse informs us that in grades of life higher than ours, pregnancy occurs once in a lifetime. People still have sex life, but there is no pregnancy. In the spiritual world, people are not very attracted to sex life, due to their exalted devotional attitude. Practically speaking, there is no sex life in the spiritual world, but even if sometimes it does occur, there is no pregnancy at all. On the planet earth, however, human beings do become pregnant, although the tendency is to avoid having children. In this sinful age of Kali, people have even taken to the process of killing the child in the womb. This is the most degraded practice; it can only perpetuate the miserable material conditions of those who perform it.
In Bhagavad-gita (5.22) Krishna says this about enjoyment of the senses:
ye hi samsparsha-ja bhoga
duhkha-yonaya eva te
“The pleasures that arise from contact between the senses and their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.”
Now we live in a culture of sense gratification that turns all of us into automatons. Only a counter-culture of self-realization can deliver us, a culture to bring about “a revolution,” as Prabhupada puts it, “in the impious life of a misdirected civilization.”
Hare Krsna,
His divine grace, A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has given explanations on the topic of going back to Godhead in several books including the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Chaitanya Caritamrita and the magazine "Back to Godhead".
The quotes below should help to clear any doubts on sense gratification in the spiritual world.
From the Srimad Bhagavatam, Second Canto:
"And also the liberated souls are not devoid of senses; otherwise there cannot be any reciprocation of unhampered spiritual happiness exchanged between them in spontaneous unbroken joy. All the senses, both of the
Lord and of the devotees, are without material contamination. They are so because they are beyond the material cause and effects, as clearly mentioned herein (sad-asatah param). The illusory, material energy cannot work there, being ashamed before the Lord and His transcendental devotees. In the material world the sense activities are not without
grief, but here it is clearly said that the senses of the Lord and the devotees are without any grief. There is a distinct difference between the material and spiritual senses. And one should understand it without
denying the spiritual senses because of a material conception.
The senses in the material world are surcharged with material ignorance. In every way, the authorities have recommended purification of the senses from the material conception. In the material world the senses
are manipulated for individual and personal satisfaction, whereas in the spiritual world the senses are properly used for the purpose for which they were originally meant, namely the satisfaction of the Supreme Lord.
Such sensual activities are natural, and therefore sense gratification there is uninterrupted and unbroken by material contamination because the senses are spiritually purified. And such satisfaction of the senses is equally shared by the transcendental reciprocators. Since the activities are unlimited and constantly increasing, there is no scope for material attempts or artificial arrangements. Such happiness of transcendental quality is called brahma-saukhyam, which will he clearly described in the Fifth Canto."
Hari Bol,
Hare Krishna..
in spiritual world, there is no sense gratifactory process as it exists in the material world
first of all..
this is what we mean by “sense gratification”: enjoying the pleasures that arise when the eyes, nose, or tongue, the hands, skin, or genitals, come together with their particular objects.
Krishna says something about those pleasures startlingly counter-intuitive: the enjoyments thus obtained (te) are the birthplaces or origins (yonaya) of suffering (duhkha).
so,
sense gratification means to please our "Senses" i.e material sense gratification and it does not last long..
whereas in spiritual world whatever we do, is for Krishna so that enjoyment is everlasting.
Everyone in this material world is engaged in sense gratification. This is material world. And spiritual world means there is no question of sense gratification. Simply they want to satisfy Krsna. Just like Vrndavana. Vrndavana means there mother Yasoda, Nanda Maharaja, Radharani, the gopis, the cowherds boys, Sridama, Sudama, the land, the water, the trees, the birds–everyone is trying to satisfy Krsna. That is Vrndavana.
Thus consciously engaged in devotional service in the association of devotees, a person gains distaste for sense gratification, both in this world and in the next, by constantly thinking about the activities of the Lord. This process of Krishna consciousness is the easiest process of mystic power; when one is actually situated on that path of devotional service, he is able to control the mind.”
From Krishna book.. Chapter 48 ->
"To worship Krsna or have association with Him is not a very easy job. Specifically, there is a warning for devotees who are attracted to Krsna through conjugal love; it is not good for them to desire to have sense gratification by direct association with Krsna. Actually, the activities of sense gratification are material. In the spiritual world there are symptoms like kissing and embracing, but there is no sense-gratificatory process as it exists in the material world. This warning is specifically for those known as sahajiya, who take it for granted that Krsna is an ordinary human being. They desire to enjoy sex life with Him in a perverted way. In a spiritual relationship, sense gratification is most insignificant. Anyone who desires a relationship of perverted sense gratification with Krsna must be considered to be less intelligent. His mentality requires to be reformed."
bhaktya puman jata-viraga aindriyad
drsta-srutan mad-racananucintaya
cittasya yatto grahane yoga-yukto
yatisyate rjubhir yoga-margaih
So viraga, bhaktya puman jata-viraga aindriyad. Here our material disease is that we want to satisfy our sense. This is material life. The whole material civilization is going on, we have repeatedly said… Advancement of civilization means advancement of sense gratification. That’s all. So bhakti means just the opposite. So, so long we are, I mean to say, very much interested in sense gratification, there is no question of bhakti. That is not possible. So we have to reduce the tendency for sense gratification by increasing our devotional activities. That is the process. Therefore it is said, bhaktya puman jata-viraga. Viraga, from where? Viragameans distasteful. Virakti. The other word is virakti: “No, no, I don’t like.” That is called viraga.
Raga means attachment, and vi means vigata. Vigata-raga. And from viraga–vairagya. Jnana-vairagya. This is wanted. Human life is meant for jnana and vairagya. Two things required. We are continuing this material existence on account of raga, attachment, attachment for sense gratification. That is the cause of material bondage. Material bondage means, we have explained several times, to accept one body, then create another body. We have got now this human form of body, and according to our, I mean to say, affection or infection to different qualities of the nature, we are creating another body. So in this way we are entangled. So unless we become viraga, viraga aindriyat, sense gratification… These different changes of body are being possible on account of sense gratification. Nature or God or Krsna will give me full facility. Just like in the Western countries especially, they are now trying to become naked, nudies. So nature will give them to stand naked like a tree, or tree, for many years. “You are so fond of become nudie. All right, you stand up here for ten thousand years without any dress.” Natur
*continued..
Nature will give you. Those who have no discrimination for eating–”Anything, damn rascal, let me. Give me. I will eat it”–”All right, then you can take the body of a pig and eat up to stool.”
So nature will give you. Karanam guna-sango ‘sya.
purusah prakrti-stho hi
bhunkte prakrti-jan gunan
karanam guna-sango ‘sya
sad-asad-yoni-janmasu
Why we are getting different bodies? Because we have got different tendency for sense gratification. Indriya, aindriyat. This is the disease, material disease. Everyone has got tendency for sense gratification, but not all of them of the same type. They have got different types. So our material bondage means these different types of sense gratification. Therefore we have to stop this. We have to be detestful from this sense gratification. Then our spiritual life will begin. That is possible by bhakti.
Therefore here it is said, bhaktya puman jata-viraga. Bhakti is so powerful that if you engage yourself in the bhakti-marga or bhakti-yoga… Here it is said, rjubhir yoga-margaih. Rjubhihmeans very easy to perform. How? Now, drsta-srutan mad-racananucintaya. Drsta. You can see Krsna. Krsna is kind enough. Although Krsna is beyond our vision–we cannot see with these eyes Krsna–but Krsna has agreed to be seen by you or by us. How? He has assumed this arca-vigraha. Krsna, this vigraha–don’t think it is stone. Even it is stone you think, but Krsna can become visible before you like a stone, because you cannot see beyond stone. That is Krsna’s mercy. Because your eyes or senses are so imperfect that you cannot see Krsna present everywhere in His original spiritual… We have got difference between spiritual and material. We have got because we are imperfect. But Krsna has no such distinction. Because He is Absolute, He can become spiritual, He can become material, as He likes. That does not make any difference of Krsna. Then how Krsna is almighty, all-powerful? He can change matter into spirit, spirit into matter. That is Krsna. So don’t think that, as the atheist class men, they think, that “They are worshiping an idol.” Even it is an idol, still Krsna. That is absolute. That is absolute nature of Krsna. Even you think it is stone, it is metal, it is wood, still, He is Krsna.
All sensual pleasures, Krishna asserts, are the causes of suffering.
But here there is no disagreement: “Those pleasures that arise from the contact of the senses with their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.”
Krishna reveals that the world actually works in precisely the opposite of the way we suppose. From our very birth we began to enjoy sense pleasure. Finding delight in every such experience, we naturally assume that the path of happiness—obviously—lies in multiplying, perpetuating, and intensifying those pleasures as far as possible.
Yet the world misleads us. And so, our worldly experience as a whole is described as a kind of maya, or illusion.
infact when we try to do anything with Krishna as the centre then we can feel the difference in the material world only,
how satisfying it feels..so you can imagine how would it feel in Spirtual world where everyone serves only Krishna..
So as you engage your indriyas, senses, in the service of Krsna, so it is very easy, that first of all you engage your tongue. Chant Hare Krsna and eat bhagavat-prasada! You will become perfect. Nothing, no other things required. That we are doing. We are distributing prasada and engaging people, “Chant Hare Krsna.”