I'm inquiring this to clear some confusion I have concerning the fate of Jay and Vijaya after their third birth as Sisupala and Dantavakra. Before their fall because of the curse of the four Kumaras, Lord Vishnu mitigated their sorrow by assuring them that they will be reunited with Him soon after the curse has run its course. (SB: 3.16.26) How did Jay and Vijaya reunited with Lord VIshnu? Were they restored to the original personal form or did they merge into the body of Lord Krishna because in the Srimad Bhagavatam: 7.1.14, Maharaja Yudhisthira saw Sisupala merge in the body of the Supreme Lord, Krishna after Sisupala was killed by the Lord? Could it be that it is the result of the offense committed at the lotus feet of Goddess Lakhsmi by stopping Her at the gate while Lord Vishnu was sleeping (SB:3.16.30)? Or is it all pre-ordanined by the Lord Himself for His pleasure? Maharaja Yudhisthira also inquired about this in particular because there is no way of any liberated souls falling down from Vaikuntha but Jay and Vijaya somehow did? My question, was it because of the Supreme will of Lord Vishnu or because of the offense committed to Goddess Lakhsmi or because of the curse of the four Kumaras? If it is either one of the cause or all of it, do Jay and Vijaya deserve to lose their identity by granting the merging of their soul into the body of the Lord? Please kindly clarify me on this?
Hare Krishna.
Replies
Hare Krsna
do Jay and Vijaya deserve to lose their identity by granting the merging of their soul into the body of the Lord?
There is no possibility of any individual jiva losing their identity by merging of soul into the body of the lord. The jiva is eternally individual. This is as per Lord Krishan himself in Bhagavad Gita.
na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ
na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ
sarve vayam ataḥ param
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. (BG 2.12)
Even when a living entity apparently enters the body of the lord, they attain sayujya mukti and they enter the brahmajyoti where they as individual jiva remain in transdence.
vairānubandha-tīvreṇa
dhyānenācyuta-sātmatām
nītau punar hareḥ pārśvaṁ
jagmatur viṣṇu-pārṣadau
These two associates of Lord Viṣṇu — Jaya and Vijaya — maintained a feeling of enmity for a very long time. Because of always thinking of Kṛṣṇa in this way, they regained the shelter of the Lord, having returned home, back to Godhead.
Purport : Whatever their position, certainly Jaya and Vijaya always thought of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore at the end of the mauṣala-līlā, these two associates of the Lord returned to Kṛṣṇa. There is no difference between Kṛṣṇa’s body and Nārāyaṇa’s body. Therefore although they visibly entered the body of Kṛṣṇa, they actually reentered Vaikuṇṭhaloka as the doorkeepers of Lord Viṣṇu. Through Lord Kṛṣṇa’s body, they returned to Vaikuṇṭha, although they seemed to have attained sāyujya-mukti in Kṛṣṇa’s body. ( SB 7.1.47)
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
What is definition of a soul ?
Lord Sri Krsna describes it as below in Bhagavad Gita
avināśi tu tad viddhi
yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
vināśam avyayasyāsya
na kaścit kartum arhati
That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul. (BG 2.17)
In other words, soul is the source of consciousness within a living body. Soul is spiritual by nature.
how is it different to the rest of body ?
nāsato vidyate bhāvo
nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ
ubhayor api dṛṣṭo ’ntas
tv anayos tattva-darśibhiḥ
Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both. (BG 2.16)
In other words material body is sure to come to an end whereas the spiritual soul is completely indestructible. Further Lord Sri Krsna says that soul is part of His energy
apareyam itas tv anyāṁ
prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām
jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho
yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat
Besides these(material nature), O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature. (BG 7.5)
In other words spiritual soul is part and parcel of the supreme spiritual personality Lord Sri Krsna.
Hare Krsna
The spiritual world has its own dimension. In fact, our material world is described as the reflection of a tree in a pond. Everything we experience here is but a reflection of the spiritual world, even though limited and perverted like a shadow. This analogy in the introduction to Bhagavad Gita is significant because it summarily points out the massive difference between the object and its reflection in the mirror. The reflection indeed has a dimension but it’s limited to the length and breadth or the animation of it as the object moves or changes. The object on the other hand has not only length and breadth; it is filled with variety of attributes that for a being that has lived their entire life in the world of reflection cannot possibly begin to comprehend the reality of the object beyond the mirror on its own.
The spirit and the spiritual world have its own dimension. Spiritual dimension is in fact the actual, original dimension, from which material world is given shape and form. It is also called the ‘higher dimension’ because the experiential feature of the spiritual world is much more than what we have it here. In that sense, you can infer to it as “more real than real”. If it does not have a dimension the 'separateness' of individual soul is impossible and the separateness and distinct-ness of the spiritual world and the material world is also impossible. Therefore, when the scriptures attached a dimensional aspect to the soul it does not by any means contradict its spiritual-ness but rather give us insights into the true nature of the spirit or the soul and the original world it inhabits.
The reason we cannot measure or quantify soul by building something to measure something that small is because another feature of the spirit is it is beyond matter. Not only is the spirit tiny like an atom but it also transcends matter. Just like the forceps cannot hold the water, spirit or the soul cannot be appreciated by matter or contained by matter. Bad analogy but I hope you catch the drift. Spirit can only be appreciated or quantified by another spirit. But if the spirit cannot be contain by matter why it is here right now in my body and everybody making all of us alive? The answer to that is already there in the question. Spirit as we commonly refer to is the ‘jivas’ not the ‘Supreme Jiva’, the Supreme Lord Krishna. The similarity and the difference between the two are already there in the scriptures but for the discussion’s sake let me rephrase it. ‘Jiva atma’ even though spiritual and untouched by matter can be overwhelmed by the seductive allurement of the matter. By “overwhelmed” it does not mean the spirit is now “touched” or “captured” in the literal sense by matter but rather mesmerized by the illusive nature of matter like moths to a lamp. It’s like somebody going to a theater and watching a thrilling movie or movies and getting addicted to it. The characters in the films cannot by any means touch the person but he gets “touched” nonetheless by its mystifying projection experiencing, joy, sorrow, pleasure, fear, excitement and even boredom. ‘Jiva atma’ gets overwhelmed by matter simply because it is small in both quantity and quality compared to ‘Paramatma’. Jiva atma is, in a sense, not big and tall enough to see the big picture from the top like the Supreme Spirit do. Since we cannot see and experience enough we have this tendency to look for a shortcut to that experience but it’s wishful thinking.
Now, coming back to dimensional nature of the spirit, how the infinite ‘Paramatma’ got inside the heart of the minute ‘Jiva’? Since the Supreme Lord is complete in all mystic perfection He can by all means get inside the smallest of the smallest. The Jiva on the other hand, limited by its quantity and quality, even in mystic perfection, cannot, unless especially favored and enabled by the Supreme Lord Himself.
Another thing we need to understand concerning spiritual practices is that when we practice spiritual discipline like ‘renunciation’, we are not really limiting or withdrawing ourselves from experiences but, in fact, adding more and more to our experiences since it inches the spirit towards the higher reality with higher dimensions, where it has much more experiential freedom. Even though from our perspective it looks like withdrawal, in reality, it is infinite times more involvement than our involvement. It is not really ‘withdrawal’.
It is also said that jiva has free will while in the material world but it’s described as ‘limited’. This is also significant. While the jiva is charting his way through matter, it cannot experience free will in its true sense. By true sense it means the ‘free will’ as we know it should be much more than we have it here. The actual freedoms of free will is therefore experience in the spiritual dimension because only there can the spirit match its higher dimensional features with its spiritual surrounding because there it becomes perfectly compatible.
The bottomline is ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ has a dimension which is greater and superior to the material dimension. Matter is destructible because it is incomplete in its dimension. Spirit is indestructible because it is complete in its dimension. The eternality of soul is achieved because of its completeness and the difference between the incompleteness of matter and completeness of spirit is infinitely vast. This is the key difference. Thus, matter can be defined as anything which lacks the capacity to function on its own and requires an external intervention not because it has a ‘dimension’ or otherwise but because it requires to be acted upon by the spirit since matter in itself is incomplete, massively. The clue to the mechanism on how the spirit interacts with matter is also provided in the scriptures for us to realize. As matter goes finer and finer from the coarsest Earth or solids to water, fire and so on, it becomes just fine enough for the jiva spirit to assume the role it wants and to manipulate matter as it desires. The first thing it touches [note that it is not the other way around where the matter touches the spirit but rather the spirit touches the matter] is false ego. The thing about spiritual subject is that when we hear or read the word ‘spirit’ or ‘spiritual’ it conjures up something ‘magical’ or ‘mystical’, words which imply ‘not matter’ and therefore ‘not science’ and ‘not rational’ and therefore ‘must not have dimension’, when in fact it is more rational than rational and more science than science. Like I mentioned, when it comes to spiritual matter the key understanding we should always keep in mind is that it is “more real than real”. That is the basis.
By dimension I meant spirit has more than just length and breadth. It is not material dimension but spiritual dimension. My understanding of spirit is already laid out above in my reply to you. Reflection is an analogy. If you don't know what an analogy is go look it up. Analogy is a figurative comparison not to be taken in a literal sense. Tree and its tree reflection is not a perfect analogy but it let anybody with enough intelligence to appreciate and understand the relationship between the material world and the spiritual world. As far as the light is concern the spiritual world is self illuminated but we are not concern with the physics side of the laws of reflection and all of its accompanying factors such the reflected image and object that is reflected on the mirror or the source of light or whether the image is "another you" or not. But it's mentioned in the one of the Srila Prabhupada books (I can't remember where) that spiritual bodies of every living entities exists eternally in the spiritual world where they remained in slumber while their consciousness and their soul is transferred here. In that sense, you can take the literal understanding that there is "another you" out there in the spiritual world, asleep, where you need only realized your true self here by your own free will to get back up there. Also, it's mentioned that everything that is now manifested in our world (material) is only but a dream of Maha Vishnu. Even though we cannot comprehend beyond length, breadth, thickness and time, we can at least infer through such statement that "we are but a dream of the Lord" that there is more dimensions to our reality than what we can immediately experience or detect.
Soul is immeasurable because it is beyond matter and spirit and soul are one and the same. They are synonyms that I used to convey the general all pervasive environment with spiriti and the individual aspect of it with soul.
Soul is always beyond matter. It is not "able to transcend matter" but always is and was transcendental. Closest analogy would be trying to do all of our daily activities, works of different kinds in wide variety of professions, in fact, trying to do everything in our life with a screwdriver. Screwdriver has only a couple of specific purpose for which it was designed and nothing beyond that. We drive with our hands not with a screwdriver. In that sense the steering wheel transcends the screwdriver. Similarly spirit is always transcendental to matter and cannot be studied by matter. Please the read the part where I analogized the soul with a person visiting a theater.
The word "Nirguna" does not mean soul has no shape or size. It just means it has spiritual shape and size. It's all there in the Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam and various others Vedic literatures. We can know it exist through spiritual practices. I already mentioned that spirit or soul (same thing) can be realized and know to exist only by the means of another spirit not matter. How? Through spiritual discilplines. No it is not an abstract concept. I suggest you revisit the book and maybe try the spiritual disciplines yourself to see if it is all true. The proof of pudding is in the eating, right?
Hare Krsna
In order to claim that something exists, it must be made of something, correct?
False. Ideas exist. What are they made of ? Memories exist what are they made of ? Happiness and sadness exist what are they made of ? Please don't say chemicals. Because that would be funny if not sad.
Soul exists because Sri Krsna says it exists. Now how a person comes to believe it or disbelieve it is upto the individual.
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
Reality and evidence is not different, you need evidence to demonstrate reality
The inferential logic is flawed. Reality is independent of evidence. Scriptures state/mention reality.
The sun rises from east because you have evidence to demonstrate that
Sun rises in east is independent reality. Whether anyone has evidence or not, it does not affect sun rising. It is an independent phenomena. It will always happen. It is wrong to think that since there is some evidence that is causing the sun to rise. Evidence would be if someone takes compass early in the morning to check the direction of rising sun. The compass is part of evidence. But the reality is rising sun itself. In this case evidence is real, it is based on reality, but it isn't part of reality(sun rising) and hence different from reality. Evidence is needed for the seeker. Reality is independent in itself whether there is seeker or not.
Evidence is what allows us to confirm reality
While this may be true, the onus of confirmation and gathering evidence is upon the seeker. The scriptures simply state reality. It is your choice how you gather evidence and believe or disbelieve it. More importantly what is evidence is very subjective. What serves as evidence for one person is not evidence for another. For example There are so many cases which are overturned in higher courts of justice.
Prabhupada himself said the soul has a size Does this means it's a contradiction ?
No, this is what has been repeated over and again.Atma has size. Atma is spiritual. Where is the contradiction. ?
According to the Vedas, the measurement size of the soul within the body is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of a hair. This is very small; in fact, it is atomic.
This is the answer to the question previously asked, why did Krsna/vedas mention size of soul. To indicate how small it is. But mentioning of the size does not make it material. If soul were material - scriptures would have mentioned that it is material. But they DO NOT. Scriptures say it is spiritual sat-cid-ananda. Nobody is forcing you to believe it. You want to believe that atma is material go on. It is your personal choice. But that is not what scriptures say. That is not what reality is. And nobody is required to prove it to you. Whoever wants evidence will need to search it by themselves. There are so many videos on youtube about reincarnation. May those will help you. But again this we are not saying it is 100% evidence. You could explore and find out.
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
Yes reality is mentioned in scriptures. But mentioning of reality and evidence are very different. If I mention - Sun rises in east. That is mentioning of reality. Evidence is something entirely different.
Why the need to mention the size in the scriptures?
It makes no senses to ask why scriptures mention something. Krsna mentions size of soul because it is His will. He is free mention whatever He wishes. But if someone infers that because size of soul is mentioned then it must have dimensions and hence material then it is factually incorrect. Because Krsna clearly says soul is eternal and part and parcel of Himself. There is no contradiction to say that soul is spiritual and it has size.
What would be contradiction is if someone says soul has size and hence material. because Krsna clearly says soul is spiritual eternal.
Nobody asked what the meaning of consciousness is. What is the source of consciousness ? How is a body different just seconds before it is dead and seconds after it is dead ? Why can't a dead body brought back to life ? These rhetoric questions as food for thought, please do not attempt to answer here.
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
Point number 3 is the one that stands out the most
This is only an irrelevant opinion.
be immaterial (bodiless, formless, nonmaterial) in which case it seems like it's a word describing an abstract concept.
No it is real, your inference is incorrect. Soul is real. It is not an abstract concept. Soul is the source of consciousness. Are you conscuois ? Then the source of the consciousness is soul. It is real because consciousness is real.
it is part of our mind
Incorrect. Soul is not part of mind. Soul is part and parcel of Krsna. Soul is energy of Krsna
be IMPOSSIBLE to be measured
It doesnt matter if it is possible to measure or not. Size of soul has been mentioned by Krsna and that is sufficient.
You say, the evidence is there #5
Nobody other than you has used the word evidence in this entire discussion. You are assuming that someone has said that there is evidence in sciptures and and you are saying ther eis no evidence. Nobody has stated that in the first place. This shows how confused a person can be. Nobody is required to provide any evidence of soul here. We are here to understand what Krsna says, does and how to become Krsna consciousness.
Now that we've determined that point #3 clearly contradicts 1, 2 & 5
Nopes, we have only determined how incorrect someone's understanding can be.
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
I think you're associating soul to be the same as a thought
Ridiculous ! Nobodyis associating soul to be the same as thought. Even the thought of this is full of ignorance. Soul is spiritual. Thought is not. For the nth time please try to grasp this - spiritual means it has to be eternal. Thoughts are not. Soul is eternal. Soul is spiritual.
Hare Krsna
In order to claim that something exists, it must be made of something, correct? - This refers to matter, thoughts are NOT matter
Then why are you asking what soul is made up of ? Has not not been mentioned soul is spiritial and not material.
Existence of a soul is solely based on belief
No. Existence of soul is based on factual reality. The same factual reality is mentioned in vedic scriptures like Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam etc. Bhagavad Gita says Soul is spiritual and it is one ten tousandth of a tip of hair. This is fact. The question is do you choose to believe it or not ?
There is no unresolved contradiction in Bhagavad Gita or Srimad Bhagavatam.
Hare Krsna
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