Goal of life

Purport SB 2, chapter 4 text 25:

 As soon as Brahma was born of the abdominal lotus petals of Vishnu, he was impregnated with Vedic knowledge, and therefore he is known as veda-garbha, or a Ved?ntist from the embryo. Without Vedic knowledge, or perfect, infallible knowledge, no one can create anything. All scientific knowledge and perfect knowledge are Vedic. One can get all types of information from the Vedas, and as such, Brahm? was impregnated with all-perfect knowledge so that it was possible for him to create. Thus Brahm? knew the perfect description of creation, as it was exactly apprised to him by the Supreme Lord Hari. Brahm?, on being questioned by Narada, told Narada exactly what he had heard directly from the Lord. N?rada again told exactly the same thing to Vy?sa, and Vy?sa also told Sukadeva exactly what he heard from Narada. And Sukadeva was going to repeat the same statements as he had heard them from Vyasa. That is the way of Vedic understanding. The language of the Vedas can be revealed only by the above-mentioned disciplic succession, and not otherwise.

There is no use in theories. Knowledge must be factual. There are many things that are complicated, and one cannot understand them unless they are explained by one who knows. The Vedic knowledge is also very difficult to know and must be learned by the above-mentioned system; otherwise it is not at all understood.

Sukadeva Gosvami, therefore, prayed for the mercy of the Lord so that he might be able to repeat the very same message that was spoken directly by the Lord to Brahma, or what was directly spoken by Brahma to Narada. Therefore the statements of creation explained by Sukadeva Gosvami are not at all, as the mundaners suggest, theoretical, but are perfectly correct. One who hears these messages and tries to assimilate them gets perfect information of the material creation.

That is how we can please a wise person; we all have some preaching experience. We become very happy if you can forward someone nice teachings from the Bhagavad gita or the scriptures and that person actually practice it, take the instruction to their heart.

Last sentence in the purport of Srimad Bhagavatam 2.4.25 Srila Prabhupada says:

The best friend and benefactor of all people is one who awakens humanity to its original Krishna consciousness. 

Canto 7: such a best friend is Prahlada maharaja who explains to the sons of the other demon kings: what the real problem of us is; and that is the repeated cycle of birth and death. We might not share the same opinion as Prahlada. We might think ‘well, actually, my real problem is that I don’t have enough money. If I have enough money I could do this or that, or I could become this person or that much learned, isn’t it? Some of us might think, ooh, this birth and death is not a real problem. My real problem is that people don’t see how elevated I am, or how learned I am. Once they understand that I am so knowledgeable, my problem is over. My friends are fools, they don’t see how much I know and how senior I actually are. So these are some problems for devotees and problems of people who are not yet practicing devotional service/life. But Prahlada maharaja who got the real knowledge from Narada, knows our real problem.

This cycle of birth and death: what actually happens?

We take birth, we learn to adapt to the situation in the world with this physical body: food, passing stool and urine, we learn how to walk, how to talk, etc. How to make someone know that your body needs feeding, that you are plagued by disease. As we grow older, we appreciate the care and loving relationships which feed our need for happiness. We want to have more so we make friends, in school because there is much more for you to learn when you want to survive in this body and understand the society of the bodies. 

This is all to avoid distress; because if we don’t do as the society prescribes we experience all kinds of distress. After spending at least 10, 15 years in schools and surviving many unhappy moments, we create a desire to have more....more money, more so-called happiness, more security, more enjoyment. On this quest we work hard and earn money. Long days (9-5) spending your life to fulfill the desires of others. We get families, offsprings, we take care of them. Most of the times we have many worries, anxieties and some of the times we derive some happiness from our children or husband or wife or other relatives and friends. We have to work harder to maintain these level of enjoyment, our anxieties increase, our need for protection increases, the moments we get disappointed multiply and then….we get terrorized by diseases, discomforts; the body shows defects as it grows older and does not support the desires for sense gratification. We run to the doctor, to the specialist, we get this medicine and that medicine. We fight against terrible diseases caused by very tiny organisms and what happens then…we die!

After death, the soul is assigned a new vehicle, a new body, and to do what: we learn again how to survive with that physical body in the environment we take birth in, we learn how to do the basic things like walking, talking, expressing ourselves. We go to schools, we work, we have a family, we work harder, with more anxieties, etc, we defy all kinds of miseries created by other beings, by our mind and by nature and as we grow old, we still don’t get it that this is not giving us the happiness. Just like Prahlada said: the real problem in life is the repeated cycle of birth and death. We all keep on taking birth just to die! Even a donkey knows not to hit himself thrice at the same stone (saying in dutch). How come we haven’t understood it after so many millions of lives?

So, this is the knowledge that the four Kumaras, Narada and all learned sages give us: stop being worse than a donkey and go back home, back to Godhead, back to your original spiritual position. In order to please these sages, we can take the knowledge they are giving us to our heart. Not only to our brains, not only to derive some false prestige or other sense enjoyment, but to actually become more elevated than the donkey.

Hare Krishna.