Our Forgotten Relationship with Krishna

Although we are part and parcel of Krishna, but still we suffer because we have forgotten our relationship with Krishna.

Supreme Lord Krishna has three energies – internal, marginal & external.  The Lord’s abode like Goloka Vrindavan or Vaikuntha planets and the ever-liberated devotees living there are part of his internal energy.  

This material world is his external energy. And we the living entities are his marginal energy.  Krishna has given us, the finite souls, the free will to choose to live with him in his spiritual kingdom or to live away from him in this material world.

When we decide to live separately from him in this world, we get overpowered by his material energy.  Although, the living entities and the material energy both are potencies of the Lord, but the Lord has gifted the material nature the power to overpower those jivas who do not want to be with him.

But the material nature cannot overpower the Lord because he is the Supreme. The Lord is the potent and both, the living entities and the material energy, are his potencies.

Jivas are like God but not God

Since we, the living entities are part and parcel of the Lord, so we have qualities like the Lord but quantitatively we are infinitesimal to the Lord. What Lord can do, we too can do but in small proportion. For example, the Supreme Lord Krishna can create oceans, we can also dig wells or create small reservoirs to store water.  The Lord creates huge planets which seamlessly float in the space, we create small planes which fly in the sky.

Lord gives us this material body which has the capability to give birth to another material body. The human intelligence too creates a robot, but the robot cannot give birth to another robot, neither it is conscious like us.

If we look around, we find each of the living beings have unique idsentity – their faces are different, they sound differently, they think and act differently. But robots are all the same – they look the same, they work as they are programmed. Living beings have feelings but not the machines.

As his potency, we can do things like him but in a small way.  Lord can be compared to an ocean, and we are like a drop of the ocean. He is like the sun; we are like the rays of the sun.  As we are minuscule, so we easily get influenced by the material energy which is also called his illusory energy. Illusory because this world makes us believe that we can be happy here forever without the Lord.

Curing our enjoying mentality

Now to live in this material world, we are given material bodies.  Confined within the material body, we, the spirit souls, gradually start misidentifying ourselves with this material body and with this material world. Pains and pleasures to the material body start affecting us. We forget that this material body is just an outer covering and we are aloof to it.

As we carry desires to enjoy, we are given different bodies.  Sometimes we get a human body and sometimes an animal body.  Just as in our present body we have father, mother, brother and sister similarly in our previous lives we had such relationships.

Srimad Bhagavatam tells the story of King Citraketu and his wife Kṛtadyuti who were in great distress as they lost their young son. Sage Narada by his spiritual potency made the departed soul re-enter the dead body of the boy. When the sage told him that the king and the queen are his father and mother, then the boy was confused. He asked, “In which body they were my father and mother because I had many such bodies. I was sometime born in a human species, sometimes in animal species, sometimes in heavenly abode and sometimes in lower planetary system.”

So, as a soul, we are on a never-ending journey in this world. But wherever we go miseries and death accompanies us.  We came to this world thinking we can enjoy here without Krishna and even more than Krishna. But the opposite happens here.  One of the reasons why the Lord allows us to come here is to make us understand that we can never be happy without him. The Lord mercifully wants to cure us from the enjoying mentality.  

Suffering due to misidentification with this material body

Whatever punishment or sufferings we are subjected to is to remind us that this place is not fit for us. Just like in a prison the prisoner cannot expect to live peacefully and happily, similarly in this prison of material existence peace and bliss is a phantasmagoria.

But as a soul, we are pleasure seekers but imprisoned in a material body we remain unhappy.  As a soul we always remain pure.  Just like the reflection of the moon on a river appear to quiver as the water in the river flows but in reality, the moon is still in the sky.

Similarly, the souls remain permanently pure and free from all contamination but in this material world it looks like it gets affected by material qualities like illusion, lamentation, distress and so on.

The suffering is only due to misidentification with this material body and material world. We must give up this misidentification. We should also be convinced that this material body and material world is not a safe place for us.  

Even Krishna wants to educate us about this. Although we choose to turn away from him, but he never leaves us. This is why he appears in this world time to time to remind us about our original home which is full of joy.

He gifts us scriptures to uproot our ignorance. The holy books help us understand who we are, why we are suffering and how we can free ourselves from all sufferings. 

Krishna underlines the importance of transcendental knowledge to Uddhava in Srimad Bhagavatam 11.11.4, “O most intelligent Uddhava, the living entity, called jīva, is part and parcel of Me, but due to ignorance he has been suffering in material bondage since time immemorial. By knowledge, however, he can be liberated.”

Reviving our forgotten relationship with Krishna

The most important knowledge is to know that we belong to Krishna, and our suffering is only because we are choosing to live separately from Krishna.  And being away from him for such a long time, we have forgotten our relationship with Krishna.

Once this understanding that we belong to Krishna percolates in our heart, our miseries will start dissipating.  

Jīva kṛṣṇa-dāsa, e viśvāsa, karle ta’ āra duḥkha nāi: “Please therefore accept yourself as the servant of Kṛṣṇa. Then you will be freed from all miseries.” Srimad Bhagavatam 4.26.8 Purport

For our own good we should revive our forgotten relationship with Krishna. Right now, we are helplessly overpowered by Krishna’s material energy. But Krishna, who is the master of the material energy, can easily free us from the material bondage.  

Not just that, he can even take us back to his kingdom where he enjoys with his intimate devotees.   

But the all-capable Krishna will not do so unless we want him to do so because he never interferes with our free will.  The choice is always with us – to be with him or not to be with him.