Did you read the introduction of the Bhagavad-Gita? This question may sound silly, but many of us never read it, or if we did, we just skipped through it. However, the introduction of the Gita is extremely important, because there Prabhupada gives the conclusions that allow us to understand the whole text. Devotees asking about the origin of the soul, for example, come from skipping the introduction of the Gita. If we understand it, all these existential questions become clear.

These are just a few points that are explained there. I’m just taking points that Prabhupada explains and elaborating a bit on them. If it doesn’t sound familiar to you, it means you may consider going back and reading again the introduction, this time with more attention:

The Bhagavad-Gita deals with five basic truths: The Supreme Lord, the jivas, material nature, time, and activities (karma). The jivas are eternally connected with the Supreme Lord, but when they somehow come in contact with material nature, their natural propensity to serve Krsna is converted into material activity, performed under the influence of the three modes. These material activities generate reactions that keep the soul entangled in the material world. All material activities happen under the purview of material time, and both time and material nature are eternal, being energies of the Supreme Lord. However, the interaction between them, which leads to the creation of the material world is temporary.

All material activities happen inside this material manifestation, which exists under the limits of material time. Although material nature (as an energy) is eternal, the universe goes through innumerable cycles of creation and destruction. The soul is not part of the material manifestation, but we are here for so long that is not possible to trace it back. In this way, Krsna, the souls, material nature, and time are eternal, but the material manifestation is not, and thus karma, or the actions and reactions of the living entities, is also not eternal. Since karma is not eternal, it can be changed and eventually destroyed, and when this happens we can return to our original spiritual position. The only true process to achieve that is devotional service to the Lord. Other processes of self-realization, such as jñāna and yoga are effective only to the extent that they are mixed with bhakti.

Who is the Lord?

a) He is the chief amongst all living entities.
b) He is eternal, without beginning. This also implies he doesn’t change and has no end.
c) He is transcendental to this material world and to the three modes.
d) He is present everywhere as Paramatma and can be seen everywhere by the pure devotee.
e) He is self-effulgent, and this transcendental light (the Brahmajoti) maintains all creation.
f) Different from the souls, who somehow become covered by the material energy, the Lord participates in the material creation just as a pastime, without being affected by it.

What about the material nature?

Material nature manifests thus into many temporary manifestations that attract the conditioned souls. The souls thus accept many layers of material coverings to try to enjoy these creations, starting with the false ego, mind, and intelligence, going all the way to the material body and senses. Due to these coverings, the soul forgets his real nature and identifies with the body, accepting the body and the environment around it as his ksetra, or field of activities.

Originally, the soul is free to go anywhere in the creation, but becoming attached to a particular body and certain objects of the senses, the soul becomes restricted to a certain space, where he lives under very strict conditions, just like in a prison. That’s what we call conditioned life. However, under the influence of illusion, the soul considers himself happy and has no desire to leave this position. When Indra was cursed to become a hog on our planet, he was initially very afraid, but when he finally came, he became so attached to his hog’s life that he didn’t want to go back to his position as the king of the heavens. Such is the power of illusion.

What about the soul?

The soul is transcendental, just like the Lord is, but because the soul is very small, it can fall under the control of material energy, while the Lord never falls into illusion. Even though it may be dificult to understand how the transcendental soul falls into illusion, and how the spiritual soul can become related to matter, it is still a fact that we are here.

In reality, the soul has no relationship with the body and performs no material activities, but under the influence of illusion, we erroneously accept the activities of the body as our own, and due to this illusion we become affected by conditioned life, sharing the pains and pleasures of the body. One example that can be offered is that there are many cars parked all over the city. If one sees a truck crashing into some random car, he will not think much about it, but if he sees the same truck crashing into his own car, the reaction will be very different. The situation is the same, but because he is attached to this particular car, he feels pain and anxiety when it is damaged, although the damage to the car doesn’t directly affect him as a human being. Similarly, the soul has nothing to do with the body or the objects related to the body, but due to attachment to it, the soul becomes affected.

The nature of material attachment is such that it always ends in pain and frustration because everything in the material creation is temporary. Being the soul eternal, we always hanker for a permanent situation, where we don’t have to part from whatever we have. However, this is impossible in the material world. We thus become attached to different people and objects and lament when they wither and are taken away. The final loss is the body itself. One may lose a son, a spouse, or a limb, but death means losing all of this simultaneously.

In this way, as long as we are not ready to return to our original position of service to Krsna, we live engrossed in anxiety and lamentation, accepting one temporary situation after the other in the material ocean.

We receive bodies according to the superior judgment of the material nature based on our past activities. In this sense, we are different from Krsna. He is completely free, while we are forced to take one body after the other according to the results of our previous actions. We are thus the cause of our own happiness and distress and we indirectly choose in which condition we will live by our actions and desires.

We come to this material world due to our free will and at every step, we can choose between continuing our existence here, moving up or down, or starting our way back. Although the soul is part of the spiritual potency of Krsna, it is called the marginal potency due to the presence of free will. This free will is an intrinsic characteristic of the soul, the very thing that makes us different from inanimate matter. Free will implies that we are free to make the wrong choices and decisions that even Krsna respects. However, when we desire to return to our original, eternal position, Krsna helps us in every way.

What about the material manifestation?

In the Bhagavad-Gita (2.16), Krsna defines the spiritual potency as sat (existent) and the material world as asat (nonexistent), nāsato vidyate bhāvo, nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ. This is a quite delicate point of our philosophy. In one sense, the material world exists, because it is a manifestation of the energy of the Supreme Lord. Just like the Lord is not false, His energies are not false, and whatever is produced from the interaction of these different energies is also not false. However, at the same time, the material world is temporary, and in this sense, it is called “asat”, because it is impermanent. The material world is thus different in nature from the spiritual reality.

The material manifestation is the result of the interaction of two potencies of the Supreme Lord: the external potency and the time potency, or kala. To this, are added the conditioned souls, who want to enjoy it, and the Lord Himself, present inside each universe as Garbhodakasayi Vishnu and everywhere as Paramatma.

Both the external potency and the time potency are spiritual and eternal, but the material manifestation that comes from their combination is temporary. The fact that they are eternal, also implies that both energies don’t change as a result of the material creation, since change would contradict their description as eternal. Only temporary things can undergo change because once changes happen, one change leads to the other, which eventually leads to destruction.

In short, the material creation exists eternally in a subtle form as the energy of the Lord, but it sometimes becomes manifested and sometimes unmanifested. The energies are thus eternal, but the interactions between them that give birth to the material manifestation are not. One example that can be given is that when we go to a cinema, we see many images projected onto a screen. The screen is permanent, and the projector is permanent, but the images we see are impermanent and constantly changing. The movie in itself is impermanent and eventually comes to an end, just to be repeated in the next session. In this example, both the screen and the projector don’t change, although temporary images are projected onto the screen.

Another example that can be given is that the external potency is like a piece of gold, and time is like a hammer that is used to shape it into different forms. Although the form of the gold changes, the metal itself remains the same, and in the end is returned to the original form, just to be again shaped into different forms later.