Thoughts on the notion of eternal, beginningless conditioning of the jiva (soul) Posted in: Perfection in Seeming Imperfection, Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God

In this connection the reference sanskrit words are nitya-baddha (eternally conditioned) and anadi (beginningless).

Firstly, our experience of life here makes it difficult to think outside the box of cause and effect – where everything has a beginning and end in time. However that is precisely the eternal arena that the words nitya-baddha and anadi are dealing with. This difficulty is perhaps the reason that even sanskrit scholars and/or dharma-tradition religionists who accept the situation in the material world for the conditioned soul is anadi, beginningless, sometimes prescribe remedies as if suffering here is actually caused by poor attitude toward God of historic origin. In other words cause and effect. Thus doing they indirectly subscribe to something similar to the abrahamic idea of the fallen soul.

Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā 5.1 states

īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ
sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
anādir ādir govindaḥ
sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam

Kṛṣṇa who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes.

Here God is described as sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam ‘the cause of all causes’. But this type of cause is not the material world idea of cause where something happens at an historic moment in time. Unless this difference is assimilated it creates a problem when one then characterises the world primarily as a place of suffering for the beginninglessly/eternally conditioned soul  … because one then naturally starts questioning why and when did God create us to suffer in this world? And how does that sit with God being all-loving? We so easily forget to remember that create and when are simply not applicable in the eternal realm.

So it may be difficult to get away from ideas of why and when did God create us to suffer in this world, but interestingly the problem evaporates if one stops characterising the world as a place of suffering. Perhaps there is a clue here? OK, there is suffering here, at least from our present point of view, that cannot be denied. But what can be denied is that that suffering must be the essence of what is going on here. At least in my opinion.

I therefore try to find ways of thinking about the situation here in a more positive light … for example, I look for ways that negative situations might actually facilitate/enable something beautiful and glorious. Why? Because ‘beautiful and glorious’ sits pretty comfortably with my core premise and conviction of what God is like. And my belief that everything that comes from God must be likewise. For example, I feel the challenges of life in the material world purposefully, by-design, set the stage for a positive experiencing/appreciating of God, or aspects of God, or God’s energies in myriad ways, and perhaps somehow contribute to God’s own ever expanding self-knowing. Directly and indirectly – simultaneously. I could live with this understanding because my notions of what God is like remain intact. Of course this is all speculation so I might be wrong. But maybe I’m on to something.

Anyway.

To elaborate, one analogy might be the joyful (positive) experience of awakening requires a previous ‘inferior’ state of sleeping. While that sleeping state is also an experience in-of-itself, it is not the all in all. In fact it perfectly facilitates the sleeper waking experience. When you factor in the acintyabhedābheda idea that everything is simultaneously one and different from God, us included, you get some interesting outside-the-box glorious possibilities of what might be going on in this world. A situation so often dismissed by preachers as exclusively a world of suffering.

And thus one can begin to reassess the nitya-baddha (eternally conditioned) and anadi (beginningless) situation here in a different light. Hopefully a more positive light.

Not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Lord 🙂