krishna/articles/2012/008

This body, everyone's body, is also a small universe. Whatever the arrangement is there in this body, the similar arrangement is there in the whole universe. The principle is the same. The same arrangement is within the seed of a banyan tree. We have got practical experience that a small seed of banyan tree, very small, but the potency within the seed is there, a big tree.

So these universes are also coming like a small seed. Therefore innumerable universes: yasyaika-nisvasita-kalam athavalambya [Bs. 5.48]. From the breathing of Maha-Visnu, the small particles are coming, and they are developing into big manifestation of universal form. Similarly, our desire is also very small. We are very small, one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. Still, we have got desires and everything. And according to the desire, as soon as there is creation, everything fructifies, everything comes out. It is called suptotthita-nyaya. Suptotthita-nyaya means just like one man is sleeping, and in the morning, when he is awakened... In the sleeping stage he forgot himself. He is wandering in dream, some other part of the world. He forgot this body and the bodily circumstances, everything. But as soon as he is awakened, he remembers everything. That darkness of ignorance, covering, is immediately gone, and he remembers that "I will have to do this. I will have to do that. I will have to go to my office or my business place." But when sleeping, he forgot everything. Similarly, in the dormant stage after annihilation, we living entities, we forget everything. Just like at night we are forgetting everything of this bodily activities, and again, during daytime, we are forgetting everything of the night dream. This is going on. Similarly, at the time of annihilation, prakrtim yanti mamikam. Kalpa-ksaye. When this millennium will be ended, at the end of Brahma's life, at that time the living entities will stay in the body of the Maha-Visnu. (aside:) What is that sound? And again, when we are let loose from the deha, and there is creation, our old remembrances all come in, and we begin our life. This is the process of going... Bhutva bhutva praliyate [Bg. 8.19]. Sva-tejasa apibat tivram atma-prasvapanam tamah.

So the darkness is there, and the light is also there. Simply we have to be awakened. Therefore Vedas, they instruct us that "Don't sleep! Get up!" Uttisthata prapya varan nibodhata jagrata. Similarly, Bhaktivinoda Thakura also sings, kota nidra jao maya-pisacira kole. Jiv jago, jiv jago, gauracanda bole. Gauracanda means Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He says, "O the living entities, you get up! Be awakened!" We may say, "Now we are awakened." This is not awakened. This is also slumber in darkness of ignorance. Real awakening is when we come to our spiritual consciousness. That is real awakened. Ya nisa sarva-bhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami. This is not, this awakening stage, this is not real awakening. Real awakening comes when we understand, aham brahmasmi. At the present moment we are not awakened, still sleeping, because we are thinking, every one of us, "I am this body," "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Hindu," "I am Muslim." In this way we are conscious of the designation. So we have to get out of the designation, and when we shall understand our real identity, not this bodily identity but spiritual soul identity, that is called brahma-bhutah. Otherwise we are jiva-bhutah. So long we are identifying with this body, we are still sleeping. Kota nidra jao maya-pisacira kole. Just like a child sleeps on the lap of the mother, similarly, we are sleeping on the lap of mother material nature. This is our position.

Ref: Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.26.20 -- Bombay, December 29, 1974.