Sometimes going up, sometimes coming down - this is the material process. Today I am the richest man, and tomorrow I may be a poverty-stricken man in the street. This is going on

Expressions researched:
"sometimes going up, sometimes coming down" |"this is the material process. Today I am the richest man, and tomorrow I may be a poverty-stricken man in the street. This is going on"

Lectures

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Lord Kṛṣṇa is speaking about His own devotees. So far He has spoken about the elevationist, material elevationist. Evaṁ trayī-dharmam anuprapannā gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante (BG 9.21). Repeating, repeating the same process: sometimes going up, sometimes coming down—this is the material process. Today I am the richest man, and tomorrow I may be a poverty-stricken man in the street. This is going on.

661209 - Lecture BG 09.22-23 - New York

ananyāś cintayanto māṁ

ye janāḥ paryupāsate

teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ

yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham

(BG 9.22)

Now Lord Kṛṣṇa is speaking about His own devotees. So far He has spoken about the elevationist, material elevationist. Evaṁ trayī-dharmam anuprapannā gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante (BG 9.21).

Repeating, repeating the same process: sometimes going up, sometimes coming down—this is the material process. Today I am the richest man, and tomorrow I may be a poverty-stricken man in the street. This is going on. As we find in this earth, so also by our pious activities we can be promoted in better planets. Then kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti (BG 9.21). And when the resultant action of pious activities is finished, then again we are driven to this earth or down than this earth. So this is going on.

Lord Caitanya said that ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva (CC Madhya 19.151): that "This way, this cycle of different species of life, they are going on. So traveling in this way, somebody who is very fortunate, by association of devotees, he gets the seed of devotional service." Ei rūpe brahmāṇḍa bhramite kona bhāgyavān jīva. To achieve the seed of devotional service is a fortunate achievement. It is not very easy, because it ceases the cycle of different transmigration of the soul. By ignorance we take this spot life as permanent settlement, and we think that "We shall live here permanently and make arrangement to live here permanently, and make assets for my children, for my nation." But we do not know that the cycle of transmigration is not fixed up.

I do not know what, what next life is mine. I do not know where is the . . . who is coming as my son, who is coming, who is going out of the scene as my son. These laws we do not know. But we are chewing the chewed. Evaṁ gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante (BG 9.21). Under the spell of this illusory energy, we are captivated by this temporary sense gratification and we have forgotten our real life.

So those who are in the sense of his real constitution . . . of their real constitutional position, as Bhagavad-gītā started from the very beginning . . . this very conception, that "I am this body," beginning from, beginning of the Bhagavad-gītā this is discredited, that "You are not this body." So you have . . . you have to mold your life in your identification of spiritual existence.