This world has never been a nice place

THIS WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN A NICE PLACE
By Ishan das

Everywhere the same paradigm, how to make this material world nice for ourselves and for others. Sense gratification and extended sense gratification, a nice world for ourselves and for our loved ones, for our race, for our gender, etc., etc. But this world has never been a nice place. It is martya loka, the place of birth and death.

All of these people seem to be fine people, good people, hard working people, honest people, etc. But the truth is that all of us are rebels. Rebells against the understanding that our eternal well-being can only be obtained when we accept that our constitutional position is loving servant of Krishna. Therefore we are placed here. We are placed here for receiving therapy. And that therapy is that we have to suffer, we need to suffer. And that suffering is a kind of therapy to bring us to our senses, to discourage our rebellious spirit. This is necessary in order to take us back home. We can only go back home if we decide, individually, that we made a mistake, and we want to go home.

So this therapy is necessary. People who do not know that we are all enrolled is this therapy program are thinking, “We are being exploited, we are being treated unfairly, we are being discriminated against because of our skin color, we need to have a better government, we are having bad luck, we just need to find a medicine for this disease……so many ideas…..and they are thinking how to make this world into a nice situation. But it will never be a nice situation. It is not created to be a nice situation. It is a therapy program, for breaking our false sense of independence.

And the real help, the real welfare work, is to explain this to the people, so that they can actually be benefitted. But this is the material world. It is a kind of insane asylum. They will not be able to hear, to understand, until they are ready to understand. But souls like Śrīla Prabhupāda, they come and try to give this kind of service to the people.

And he has said, “If the people who have the power knew what I would like to implement on this planet…….they would kill me.” They do these things. All the people who have tried to do something good for the people, materially or spiritually, they are being killed. They have to flee to save their lives. Or they allow it. “O.K., kill me.” Jesus, Haridas Thakur……..Even Krishna they tried to kill. So many hated Krishna when He was here. As soon as we become a significant threat to the status quo, they will begin to think, “How can we get rid of this trouble-maker?”

THE END

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MARTYA-LOKA, THE PLACE OF DEATH
From Srimad Bhagavatam & Bhagavad-gita

Born Just To Die – Destination Death

MARTYA-LOKA, THE PLACE OF DEATH

te taṁ bhuktvā svarga-lokaṁ viśālaṁ
kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti
evaṁ trayī-dharmam anuprapannā
gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante
(BG 9.21)

The whole earth which we are living in called as martya-loka, death place. This is not a place to enjoy. Although our vedas have given the exact definition about this world, yet ignorant human beings are trying to enjoy their life span as much as possible. One may try to enjoy his/her life but at the end the enjoyment will only bring misery. In Bhagavad Gita it’s mentioned as duhkhalayam asasvatam, the world is temporary world, which is full of miseries. What is the point of enjoying our lives in this world, when you are living in the death world? Instead of make use of this life by becoming a devotee of Lord Kesava and fully surrendering to him. We are doing the opposite. Such clear states only available in our vedas. Please take refuge of our dharma and avoid taking birth and death again.

As mentioned in Bhagavad-gītā (BG 9.21), kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti: after exhausting the results of their so-called pious activities, they again return to the earth, which is called martya-loka, the place of death. Although such persons may be elevated to the heavenly planets by their pious activities and although they may enjoy life there for many thousands of years, they nonetheless must return to this planet when the results of their pious activities are exhausted.

One who is promoted to those higher planetary systems enjoys a longer duration of life and better facilities for sense enjoyment, yet one is not allowed to stay there forever. One is again sent back to this earthly planet upon finishing the resultant fruits of pious activities. He who has not attained perfection of knowledge, as indicated in the Vedānta-sūtra (janmādy asya yataḥ), or, in other words, he who fails to understand Kṛṣṇa, the cause of all causes, becomes baffled in achieving the ultimate goal of life and is thus subjected to the routine of being promoted to the higher planets and then again coming down, as if situated on a ferris wheel which sometimes goes up and sometimes comes down. The purport is that instead of being elevated to the spiritual world where there is no longer any possibility of coming down, one simply revolves in the cycle of birth and death on higher and lower planetary systems. One should better take to the spiritual world to enjoy eternal life full of bliss and knowledge and never return to this miserable material existence.

This process is known as brahmāṇḍa bhramaṇa, wandering up and down throughout the universes. Those who are intelligent—in other words, those who have not lost their intelligence—do not involve themselves in this process of wandering up and down. They take to the devotional service of the Lord so that they can ultimately penetrate the covering of this universe and enter the spiritual kingdom. Then they are situated on one of the planets known as Vaikuṇṭhaloka or, still higher. Kṛṣṇaloka (Goloka Vṛndāvana). A devotee is never caught in the process of being promoted to the heavenly planets and again coming down. (SB 5.17.11)

“From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again.” (Bg. 8.16)