Category:Becoming Contaminated
Theme Analysis
This analysis explores the dynamics of spiritual purity and the mechanism by which the soul is 'becoming contaminated'. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that the soul is fundamentally pure, composed of sac-cid-ānanda, but because it is the marginal potency (taṭastha-śakti), it possesses the free will to choose its orientation. When the living entity desires to imitate God and lord it over material nature, this pure consciousness becomes covered, just as clear air becomes "cloudy and dusty" during a storm. The analysis highlights the distinction between the jīva, who is susceptible to contamination, and the Supreme Lord, who remains ever-pure even within the material world. It also identifies practical sources of contamination, such as eating food prepared by materialists and associating with sinful persons.
- The Cloud Analogy: Consciousness is spiritually clear like the sky, but the desire to enjoy matter acts like a cloud that obscures its brilliance.
- The Marginal Position: The soul is not forced to be contaminated; it has the aptitude to become so due to its tiny, marginal nature.
- God is Never Contaminated: Unlike the conditioned soul, Kṛṣṇa controls the material energy and is never affected by the modes of nature.
- Practical Contamination: Subtle contamination enters through the tongue (eating food from materialists) and through social contact (bad association).
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Cloudy Consciousness – How the Soul is Becoming Contaminated.
Pages in category "Becoming Contaminated"
The following 20 pages are in this category, out of 20 total.
A
- A child may have some attachment, but by the system of replacing attachment, his attachment is overturned. Similarly, our consciousness has somehow or other become contaminated. Now it has to be purified. Then KC will automatically arise and awaken
- According to Vedic scripture, if someone dies in the family the whole family becomes contaminated for some time, according to its status
- As soon as the desire is transferred to lording it over material nature, it becomes contaminated by matter. Desire has to be purified
- As soon as you come to the material world, immediately you become contaminated by the modes of material nature
- As stated in Bhagavad-gita, the Lord descends on the earth by His own internal potency, and therefore there is no question of His becoming materially contaminated, changed or otherwise affected by the modes of material nature
T
- The cloud and air are different substances. Similarly consciousness is pure spiritual, but when the consciousness desires to enjoy matter, it becomes cloudy and dusty, or contaminated
- The following questions may be posed. As long as the liberated soul is in contact with the body, why don't the bodily activities affect him? Doesn't he actually become contaminated by the action and reaction of material activities
- The Mayavadis, or monists, think that they themselves are Krsna, and if one thinks that he himself has become Nanda Maharaja, then his parental love will become contaminated with the Mayavada philosophy
- The pure status of consciousness, or Krsna consciousness, exists in the beginning; just after creation, consciousness is not polluted. The more one becomes materially contaminated, however, the more consciousness becomes obscured
- The servants were so careful that a male could not even see what was going on there, & so they were surprised that she (Usa) had become contaminated. Since they could not trace out the reason for it, they submitted the whole situation before their master
- The soul is fundamentally pure but he has an aptitude to come to the impure state of material contamination. He is therefore called tatastha or marginal. He has got the liberty of staying within the pure state or becoming contaminated. That is his choice
- The Supreme Lord is always in His sac-cid-ananda (BS 5.1) form, but the living entity, although part and parcel of the Lord, becomes materially contaminated when he desires to come to the material world for material enjoyment
W
- When one eats food offered by a materialistic man, one's mind becomes contaminated, and when the mind is contaminated, one is unable to think of Krsna properly
- When we come into this material world, we become contaminated, we become affected by this, by the influence of this material nature. But Visnu, although He is looking after the management of creation of this brahmanda, He is not affected
- Why it seems that when the soul comes into contact with material nature it becomes contaminated?