Category:Engagement of a Conditioned Soul
Theme Analysis
The fundamental symptom of material existence is the misdirection of the living entity's natural propensity to serve. Every soul must be engaged in some activity, but the conditioned soul, bewildered by the Lord's external energy, directs this engagement toward material sense gratification. Instead of serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the conditioned soul becomes a servant of the senses, frantically engaging in the hackneyed animalistic activities of eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. This continuous struggle to fulfill unlimited desires binds the soul like a rope, forcing it to transmigrate from one material body to another.
The distinction between a conditioned soul and a liberated soul lies entirely in their respective engagements. Although they may appear to live in the same world, their consciousness is completely different. The liberated soul is constantly engaged in the progressive path of spiritual realization and service to the Lord, an engagement that appears like a dream or an illusion to the materialistic conditioned soul. Conversely, the conditioned soul's frantic pursuit of material happiness is viewed as a useless, miserable dream by the liberated sage.
The ultimate goal of human life is to cure this material disease by changing our engagement. The Supreme Lord and the bona fide spiritual master constantly invite the conditioned souls to give up their futile struggle with the material energy. By reestablishing their forgotten relationship with Kṛṣṇa and voluntarily engaging their senses in His devotional service, the conditioned soul can immediately transcend the limits of material time and space. Once the living entity acts in this constitutional position, they are no longer conditioned, but achieve the status of a liberated soul.
- The Illusion of the Senses: Conditioned souls are driven by madness to engage their full energy in satisfying the material senses, unaware that this causes their repeated bondage.
- The Two Engagements: A conditioned soul is absorbed in material sense enjoyment, whereas a liberated soul is fully alert and engaged in self-realization and devotional service.
- The Bondage of Karma: Because the conditioned soul acts under the dictation of lust, anger, greed, and envy, they are forced to accept different types of material bodies.
- The Path of Deliverance: To escape the miseries of conditional life, one must completely surrender to Kṛṣṇa and engage all possessions and energy in His transcendental service.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Engagement of a Conditioned Soul - The Struggle for Sense Gratification.
Pages in category "Engagement of a Conditioned Soul"
The following 52 pages are in this category, out of 52 total.
A
- A conditioned soul and a liberated soul may apparently be on the same platform, but factually they are differently engaged, and their attention is always alert, either in sense enjoyment or in self-realization, respectively
- A conditioned soul is always engaged in some type of sense gratification, but when he understands by good association that it is only a repetition of the same thing, and he is awakened to his real Krsna consciousness. BG 1972 purports
- Any conditioned soul may also engage in the service of the Lord under the guidance of an expert spiritual master and thus gradually become freed from the entanglement of material existence
- Apparently Arjuna's intelligence became polluted because otherwise there would not have been a chance to deliver the teachings of Bhagavad-gita for the good of all polluted conditioned souls engaged in material bondage
C
- Caitanya Mahaprabhu went on to teach that for each and every moment he is engaged in some fruitive activity, the conditioned soul forgets his real identity
- Conditioned souls are resting in the condition called susupti which is exactly deep sleep without dream, or anesthetized state, therefore they do not remember being with Krsna when they wake up in the material world and become engaged in material affairs
- Conditioned souls are under the spell of material energy, or eternal time - past, present and future - but as soon as one engages in Krsna consciousness, he transcends limits of past and present and becomes situated in the eternal activities of the soul
E
- Every conditioned soul receives a different type of body according to his work, and when the engagement is finished the body is finished
- Everyone must be educated in Visnu worship and engaged in the devotional service of Hrsikesa, the owner of the senses. The conditioned souls are meant not to satisfy their material senses but to satisfy the senses of Hrsikesa
H
- He (King Bahulasva) knew perfectly well that conditioned souls engaged in worldly affairs cannot be one hundred percent pure whereas the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His pure devotees are always transcendental to worldly contamination
- He (the conditioned soul) thus completely forgets how to become free from the clutches of material encagement - because he is transmigrating from one body to another and engaging in sex
I
- If he (the conditioned soul) does not find the ultimate goal, he again goes down to material activities and engages himself in various philanthropic and altruistic works, which all fail to give him satisfaction
- In this material world, when the conditioned soul forgets his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead and does not care for Krsna consciousness, he simply engages in different types of mischievous and sinful activities
- It is the duty of every conditioned soul to engage his polluted consciousness, which is now attached to material enjoyment, in very serious devotional service with detachment. Thus his mind and consciousness will be under full control
N
- No one other than the Supreme Lord Himself, who has engaged the conditioned souls by His own illusory energy, can possess these (nyagrodha-parimandala) bodily features. These features certainly indicate an incarnation of Visnu and no one else
- Not only are scriptural disparities resolved, but a kind of transcendental bliss is awakened, and in this way one is fully satisfied. The transcendental loving service of the Lord constantly engages the conditioned soul in serving the Lord’s lotus feet
O
S
- Sanandana said, "The personified Vedas sing, 'Since all engagements are based on knowledge supplied by You (Visnu), the conditioned souls can execute pious activities only when You mercifully inspire them to do so'"
- Sanandana said, "The personified Vedas sing, 'The conditioned souls are struggling very hard to escape from material bondage, and according to their different conditions of life they have been given different types of engagement'"
- Some of these conditioned souls are engaged in the false enjoyment of material senses and others in simply negating their real life in the spiritual world
- Srila Sukadeva Gosvami has therefore advised Maharaja Pariksit in the beginning of the Second Canto that every conditioned soul should engage himself in hearing and chanting the transcendental pastimes of the Lord
- Srimad-Bhagavatam says, "Generally, the conditioned soul is mad because he is always engaged in activities which are the causes of bondage and suffering"
T
- The activities of the conditioned souls under the influence of material nature are explained here (in SB 3.31.15). Every conditioned soul is engaged in different types of work under the influence of material nature
- The allegorical story narrated by Narada Muni to King Barhisman is especially meant to engage conditioned souls in devotional service
- The Bhagavad-gita is a book directed to the conditioned souls, who are engaged in the material world with the purpose of lording it over nature and who do not know of the real, spiritual life. BG 1972 purports
- The conditioned soul engages in the happiness and distress of the particular body given him by the arrangement of the external energy of the Supreme Lord. But the supreme living being, or the Paramatma, is different from the conditioned soul
- The conditioned soul is always engaged in laying out plans for happiness within the material world, even up to the end of the universal limit
- The conditioned soul is bewildered by the external, material energy, which fully engages him in sense gratification in various ways. Due to engagement in material activities, one’s original Krsna consciousness is covered
- The conditioned soul is encircled by such products (unwanted engagements), as well as products of sex desire, and bhakti-yoga leads to gradual evaporation of the sex desire, which is summarized in three headings, namely profit, adoration and distinction
- The conditioned soul is engaged in different activities by His direction, and in order to get free from the threefold miseries of this conditional life, we have to surrender unto Him only
- The conditioned soul, due to madness only, engages his full energy and intelligence in sense gratification, and to achieve this end of life he willfully commits all sorts of misdeeds
- The conditioned souls are engaged in a struggle for existence. Deliverance from this struggle constitutes the highest benefit, but unless one gets a mantra from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, deliverance is impossible
- The conditioned souls or the individual living entities are servants of the senses. They are conducted by the direction or dictation of the senses, and therefore material civilization is a kind of engagement in sense gratification only
- The conditioned souls use the duration of life between birth and death only to engage in the same hackneyed activities - eating, sleeping, mating and defending. In the lower animal species, we find the same activities
- The conditioned souls, who are engaged in trying to lord it over the material world, are also enchanted by the Lord's mystic powers
- The conditioned souls, who are entrapped by the material energy, hardly know all these principles of life. Most of them are like animals engaged in eating, sleeping, fearing and mating
- The engagement of a conditioned soul appears to be a dream for the liberated soul
- The liberated soul and the conditioned soul have different engagements. The liberated soul is always engaged in the progressive path of spiritual attainment, which is something like a dream for the conditioned soul
- The Lord desires, as He has directly said in the Bhagavad-gita, that all conditioned souls, rotting in the kingdom of material energy, come back to Him by giving up all engagements in the material world. This is the most confidential part of knowledge
- The monkey's business is to jump from one tree to another and enjoy sex with his wives. The conditioned soul is doing the same thing, transmigrating from one body to another and engaging in sex
- The purport is that all conditioned souls who are engaged very frantically in activities for sense gratification, without knowing that this process will never help them to get out of material contamination, are awarded only with repeated births & deaths
- The real mission of life for the conditioned soul is to reestablish the forgotten relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead and engage in devotional service so that he may revive Krsna consciousness after giving up the body
- These are the material diseases of the conditioned soul. He completely forgets his real engagement - to become Krsna conscious - and is always serious about planning to maintain his family, although he changes families one after another
- They (conditioned souls) are mostly engaged in sense enjoyment under the pretension of religiosity, knowledge or salvation. They are still more blind in the present age of quarrel, or Kali-yuga
- Thinking himself a product of the material energy, the conditioned soul engages in the service of the material energy in so many ways. He becomes the servant of lust, anger, greed and envy. In this way one totally becomes a servant of the illusory energy
W
- When conditioned, the soul is impelled by the material energy to engage in sense gratification, whereas one enlightened by the spiritual energy engages himself in the service of the Supreme Lord in his eternal relationship
- When Sri Narada Muni discoursed on bhagavata-dharma, devotional service, he indicated how a conditioned soul can be liberated by engaging in the loving transcendental service of the Lord
- When the conditioned soul attains his real spiritual energy and fully surrenders unto the Lord’s lotus feet, he tries to engage in the Lord’s service. This is the real constitutional position of the living entity