Good and Bad

By Brajeswari Prosad
As published in The Harmonist (Sree Sajjanatoshani)
Edited by Paramahamsa Paribrajakacharyya Sri Srimad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Maharaj

JANUARY 15, 1935

Nothing in the world is good in itself, nothing which cannot but become good when used towards the service of Godhead.

On the plane of perfect reality the natural function of the unalloyed soul is to serve Godhead.

The 'real' spiritual plane is also the 'natural' plane of the unalloyed soul. The truly 'natural' is that which cannot but be independently of all conditions, therefore, also it is the truly 'real'. The truly 'real' alone is that which always is what it is; therefore, it is alone the truly 'natural'.

Those souls, however, who came to beguile themselves into electing to be served on their own separate account instead of serving Godhead, were put into the shadowy and perverted region of Maya after being encaged in the linga sharira (astral body)and sthula sharira (physical body).

Looked at from the point of view of their eternal natural position their new state, viz., the conditioned state, is a real misery, being a kind of an extinguisher of their real entity.

But even during the period that they choose to entertain the unnatural desire to be served there is also nothing but the Mercy of Godhead in His Gift of the astral and physical bodies to them through the agency of His Deluding Energy.

The desire to be served being unnatural to the unalloyed soul it cannot have fulfilment on the plane of his natural position,

Those souls, therefore, who were smitten with that wrong desire had to be shifted to another plane congenial to their new aptitude and yet not really congenial because against their natural function. That is the plane of the mundane world.

The desire to be served being unnatural it can have an apparent fulfilment only in a shadowy way on the plane of the linga and sthula shariras.

The 'unnatural' for the soul is the 'shadowy', and vice versa. That which cannot be true by nature cannot but be false. The 'unnatural' is the shadow of the natural, and, therefore, it is. Therefore, the fulfilment of the desire to be served as experienced in this world is delusive.

In the sense that the astral and the physical bodies are the mediums through which the soul is enabled to experience the delusive fulfilment of his desire to be served, the astral and the physical bodies vouchsafed to him are in the nature of his equipments.

The conditioned stage of the soul being not at all a wholesome stage it was but an act of Causeless Mercy to help him in realizing the fact of its unwholesomeness and in getting back to his original position, which is being done by Godhead's Deluding Energy lashing the forms representing his wrong choice round and round in the miserable wheel of Karma after imprisoning him in the said astral and physical bodies.

Correspondingly to his unnatural desire to be served the soul is placed in such surroundings as where he cannot, as in any position whatsoever, be really served, but is yet apparently served. The Deluding Energy of Godhead created this mundane world for fulfilling Godhead's own purpose. But the conditioned soul looks upon his surroundings as intended to contribute to the satisfaction of his wrong enjoying mood. The conditioned state of the soul is being perpetuated by his being constantly engaged in the act of pressing every fact 'for' indulging his wrong activity. For such purpose every 'fact' of the mundane world is bad. But if those very 'facts' are pressed by the conditioned soul in the line of the real purpose of Godhead towards himself they become the only available means of his deliverance.