(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, Sydney, Australia, 11th May 2012)
(Transcribed by Smita Krishna Devi Dasi)
Everything is connected to the Supreme Personality of Godhead – sound, touch, form, taste and smell – the five sense objects, so we can relate to them. We have senses by which we can perceive and we have senses by which we can also act upon, such as the tongue, ears, eyes, nose and so on. The skin are those senses of touch and there is another list given – hands, legs, genitals and mouth which are the working senses.
Then we get involved with the material energy and that is when these five varieties come in. We are just trying to test the various sound, smell and touch. So like that, in the material world we are spending our time, which is natural because the soul on the spiritual platform and is also enjoying these different tastes and these different experiences. The spiritual body also has its senses. However, the spiritual experiences are the opposite of material experiences. It is said that material experiences are frustrating because the desire is greater than the result, and that is the nature in the material world.
The desire always exceeds. Although sometimes we think:
‘Oh no, it’s happening, but for how long?’
After a while one finds that it’s not happening. As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura describes that:
‘When one meets a new person and thinks that this person is like an ocean of qualities and after some time one circumbulates the boundaries of those qualities and realises that it’s no greater then a pond and after that one never vows to look again at that person.’
This is sort of summing up falling in and out of love in the material world. So material experiences sometimes appear to be exactly fulfilling our dreams but actually they don’t. The reason why they seem to be fulfilling our dreams is because our desires are so strong. How can we live in this world in the knowledge that it is all frustration? It’s impossible! Our hopes are too strong! So we desire:
‘Yes it’s working, confirmed, yes it’s great.’
It’s not all great to be real – it’s nice to say so but it is a great pain also. That is the nature of the material world. Sometimes it’s not terribly bad. Sometimes it is just outright worn, not great, not fantastic, not miserable just somewhere in between grey. So there are so many shades that are in this material world. So where will we find our true satisfaction? It is only on the spiritual platform. We can theoretically hear that again and again and little by little we think we make sense. They say that the material world is not satisfying because it’s like only a shadow reflection of the original spiritual world. Well, that makes sense. It says therefore in the material world that shadow can never fully satisfy. Just as shadow lacks the entire colour, it also lacks all the smells and the taste that the original shadow has. It may be a beautiful shadow but it is limited. So in this way, the true satisfaction is found in the spiritual world!
