Vedic Perspective
Editorial Commentary
5-14-87

  The more and more people become godless, they increase their sinful
activities.  They increase their sinful activities because they don't have
any understanding about God.
  What is the meaning of sin?  Sin means to create an offense against God.
God is the father of everyone.  But when we forget who God is, then we
forget how to act properly.  This world that we live in is called the
material universe which means a place where all the living beings can be
free to forget God and act in any unrestricted manner to become "happy"
without God.  But because it is not at all possible to become happy without
God, we only experience four types of suffering.  Those sufferings are
described as follows:  birth, death, old age and disease.  These sufferings
are unavoidable despite the best efforts of man's scientific endeavors.
  When God comes down to Earth in the form of Lord Krishna, Lord
Ramachandra, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or when he sends His representatives
like Lord Jesus Christ, the saints and the sadhus, He does so so that they
can teach all the people how to know God and become sinless.
  Is there any description of what sin is?  Generally people do not know
what sin is nor do they know what God is.  So the duty of people is not to
avoid religion, but to know and understand what is God and what is sinful
life.
  Just like in Russia.  They avoid any frank and open discussions about
religion and religious life.  Therefore a government like that cannot help
but keep the people in the darkness of life.  As a consequence, the people,
being innocent, cannot help but engage in sinful life.  As explained by our
spiritual master, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a
person may be innocent, but that innocence is not going to keep him from
being reborn again and again in this miserable material world life after
life.  One should not remain innocent, but one must try for spiritual
knowledge.  Spiritual knowledge means that one must know that my
relationship with God means to follow the directions of God and come out of
my ignorance about God.
  The proof that this world is only a place for suffering is that there is
always a fierce competition for supremacy.  Everyone, no matter how
insignificant he may be, is thinking that he is supreme, that he is God.
Therefore, there is always fighting:  fighting between brother and brother,
businessman and businessman, nation and nation.  There is no peace.  But
anyone who wants peace can have it if they make their determination to go
back home, back to Godhead and give up attachment for this world.
  So that sinful life means that now everyone has got a good brain to know
who is God. That brain is not to be used to continue to make ourselves
comfortable in this world but to know how to get out of this world
successfully.  Our Krishna consciousness movement is trying to establish
Lord Shri Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.  God is not
impersonal or formless as the mayavadis suggest.  God is a person.  But He
is not like you or me but He is the original person and we are all His
children.
  Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita that you use your God given brain and
just try to know who He is.  Now that you have the body of a human being,
you can understand what is God.  In this material creation, there are
8,400,000 different species of life according to the information given in
the Vedas.  The spiritual soul is transmigrating from one body to another in
these different forms of bodies; sometimes taking birth in the body of a
demigod and sometimes being born in the body of a dog.  Only when one gets
the body of a human being, one can have sufficient intelligence to
understand God.
  Now that we have got the brain of human being, we should not misuse this
great facility and imitate the animals.  The animals and humans are similar.
The animals only find pleasure in eating, sleeping, sex-life and defending.
So if the human beings only find pleasure in this eating, sleeping and sex-
life, then what is the difference between him and the animal?  He must use
his intelligence and learn to understand that he is eternal spirit soul.  If
he misuses this life and continues to ignore the order of Lord Krishna, then
he is sinful and he prepares his reincarnation back into the a material body
which means suffering.  Lord Krishna orders everyone to surrender unto Him
without fear and He will protect one from their sinful life.  But without
learning the art of how to surrender to God, one cannot help but to continue
to engage in sinful life.

--Vaishnava dasa