If desire drops, do we die?

[Guest guest]

If we drop worldly desires and desire only krishna, does that mean our body will also die immediately (like even if you're only 20)because there's no purpose left in the world for the body to fulfill? If so, why are renunciates still alive?

[theist]

Just the opposite. The Krsna conscious person has found real purpose. From that platform his desires can expand without limit.

 

Take Prabhupada for example. Do you think he was desireless? I don't think his disciples could count the limit of his desires for expanding Krsna consciousness.

 

The thing is the devotee does not cling on to the body as his source of happiness. If Krsna takes him that's all right. If Krsna leaves him here to serve that's OK also.

 

There is that verse that actions pertaining to the development of the material body are karma. The devotee only performs actions for the pleasure of Krsna. There is no need to renounce the body. What we need to renounce is our illusion of ownership over the body.

[theist]

TRANSLATION Bg 6.1

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: One who is unattached to the fruits of his work and who works as he is obligated is in the renounced order of life, and he is the true mystic, not he who lights no fire and performs no duty.

 

PURPORT

In this chapter the Lord explains that the process of the eightfold yoga system is a means to control the mind and the senses. However, this is very difficult for people in general to perform, especially in the Age of Kali. Although the eightfold yoga system is recommended in this chapter, the Lord emphasizes that the process of karma-yoga, or acting in Krishna consciousness, is better. Everyone acts in this world to maintain his family and their paraphernalia, but no one is working without some self-interest, some personal gratification, be it concentrated or extended. The criterion of perfection is to act in Krishna consciousness, and not with a view to enjoying the fruits of work. To act in Krishna consciousness is the duty of every living entity because all are constitutionally parts and parcels of the Supreme. The parts of the body work for the satisfaction of the whole body. The limbs of the body do not act for self-satisfaction but for the satisfaction of the complete whole. Similarly, the living entity who acts for satisfaction of the supreme whole and not for personal satisfaction is the perfect sannyasi, the perfect yogi.

The sannyasis sometimes artificially think that they have become liberated from all material duties, and therefore they cease to perform agnihotra yajnas (fire sacrifices), but actually they are self-interested because their goal is to become one with the impersonal Brahman. Such a desire is greater than any material desire, but it is not without self-interest. Similarly, the mystic yogi who practices the yoga system with half-open eyes, ceasing all material activities, desires some satisfaction for his personal self. But a person acting in Krishna consciousness works for the satisfaction of the whole, without self-interest. A Krishna conscious person has no desire for self-satisfaction. His criterion of success is the satisfaction of Krishna, and thus he is the perfect sannyasi, or perfect yogi. Lord Caitanya, the highest perfectional symbol of renunciation, prays in this way:

 

na dhanam na janam na sundarim

kavitam va jagad-isa kamaye

mama janmani janmanisvare

bhavatad bhaktir ahaituki tvayi

[Cc. Antya 20.29, Sikshashtaka 4]

 

"O Almighty Lord, I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor to enjoy beautiful women. Nor do I want any number of followers. What I want only is the causeless mercy of Your devotional service in my life, birth after birth." [As-

[Yesu_Bhaktan]

 

If we drop worldly desires and desire only krishna, does that mean our body will also die immediately (like even if you're only 20)because there's no purpose left in the world for the body to fulfill? If so, why are renunciates still alive?

 

 

SB 3.28.37: Because he has achieved his real identity, the perfectly realized soul has no conception of how the material body is moving or acting, just as an intoxicated person cannot understand whether or not he has clothing on his body.

 

SB 3.28.38: The body of such a liberated yogi, along with the senses, is taken charge of by the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and it functions until its destined activities are finished. The liberated devotee, being awake to his constitutional position and thus situated in samadhi, the highest perfectional stage of yoga, does not accept the by-products of the material body as his own. Thus he considers his bodily activities to be like the activities of a body in a dream.

 

[Guest guest]

Srila Prabhupada does not teach us to drop ego, because ego entails taking breath of air or eating, etc. If we have no ego, we cannot exist, and this is the essence of the spiritual suicide awaiting those who strive for destroying ego, the mayavadis (meaning those who regard ego as false).

 

Srila Prabhupada teaches his students to separate real ego from false ego. Real ego accepts the physical form and uses such form in the service to mahattattwa, the absolute truth, Krsna. Real ego is forgotton by attachment to the partial manifestation of the material world, forgetfulness of ones real position. The false ego attained by such forgetfulness can be gradually rectified by the proicess of bhakti yoga, which awalens the self to the true identity (swarupa). But BVhakti has no process of denying ego, which cannot be done. Even those who pretend to deny still have identity, and are awarded complete forgetfulness bny denying real ego.

 

I probably lost yall, but the answer is no. And yes. We quit breathing, and the body dies, and then the self is absorbed in mystic liquid of the brahmajyoti for 8,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, give or take a few, but desire again crops up when Lord Brahma begins another day.

 

hare krsna, ys, mahak