The Original Sin

The basic illusion that covers the soul in the material world is that he thinks he's the enjoyer. Factually Krishna is the only enjoyer. The original sin is that we are envious of God's position as the only enjoyer. An objection often heard is, but how can I be envious of someone whom I don't believe exists?

The envy consists of, that we try to take Krishna's position as the enjoyer and controller. In reality everything exists in the spiritual realm  for Krishna's pleasure. Everything on the spiritual plane revolves around Krishna's enjoyment. But Krishna is so kind that He has made this material world, wherein the fallen souls can try and imitate Him as enjoyers and controllers.

Some souls have fallen, because, at one point in eternity, the idea arose in them - how come Krishna is the center of everything here? Why is He the only enjoyer? As soon as that idea manifests in the soul, he falls down to the material world.

The original position of the soul is to be enjoyed by Krishna. But in his deluded, fallen condition, the soul instead tries to enjoy a material body. So that is the original sin - to want to take Krishna's position as the enjoyer and controller. It's like a disease.

Sense-enjoyment or bodily enjoyment is like a narcotic for the soul. And in this connecttion I'd like to welcome you to AS - Anonymous Sense-enjoyers.

Sense-gratification is the adiction of the soul. We often talk about drug addictions. An addiction to heroin, for instance, is almost impossible to conquer. So just like a person is addicted to heroin, so the soul is addicted to sense-gratification.

In AA people get help overcoming their addiction to alcohol. At the first meeting you attend, you are supposed to state your name and recognize that you are an alcoholic. You go, hello, my name is Michael and I am an alcoholic. Hello Michael, the assembly answers.

Similarly, in AS you go, Hare Krishna, my name is Jiva, and I am a sense-enjoyer. Hare Krishna Jiva, the assembled devotees greet you. The addiction the soul has to sense-enjoyment is exactly as severe and as difficult to overcome, as a person's addiction to heroin.

In AA they teach you, that the only way to overcome your addiction alcohol, is to petition a higher power for help. You have to recognize a higher power outside yourself, and get help from that. And this metod works. It is a statistical fact.

In AS we are so fortunate, that by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada we know Who that higher power is, and we know how to contact Him. So by petitioning Krishna by constantly chanting his name loudly in song og quietly in meditation, He will help us overcone our addiction to sense-gratification. And it is a scientific fact that can be investigated and verified by anyone who may so desire.

If we refuse to accept that we are sense-enjoyment-addicts, in fact, if in stead we make it the goal of life, the result will be the disease of repeated birth and death. Some people will object, but life is not a disease. I have a good time in the material world. I don't suffer.

But the point is that all bodily enjoyment invariably ends in suffering sooner or later for the simple reason that the inevitable destination of the body is disease, old age, and death. This would be a depressing realization were it not for the fact that there is a solution - to return back to one's identity as Krishna's soul, meant to be enjoyed by Him. It can seem like a contradiction, but the truth is that if we wish to experience the highest form of happiness, we have to give up the futile attempt to become happy in the material world by bodily gratification and surrender fully to Krishna's enjoyment.

By assisting Krishna in His enjoyment the soul will experience a higher satisfaction than the happiness it can get from matter. And it is only in the human life-form that the option is there for the soul to return back to its original position of eternality, knowledge, and bliss. Eating, sleeping, mating, and defendig, the soul can do in any life-form. Only in the human form of life can it realize its original, eternal position and purpose.

Krishna says:

After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogis in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection. (Bg. 8.15)