Recently I had a very nice discussion with some devotees about the wonderful gift that Sri Krishna is willing to give each and every soul who falls in love with him.

It is a very high subject matter and honestly, I am far away from being qualified to write about it.
But I can share what I learnt from my Gurudeva and from other wonderful devotees.

Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita:

mam upetya punar janma 
duhkhalayam asasvatam 
napnuvanti mahatmanah 
samsiddhim paramam gatah

After attaining Me, the great souls never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

Once we attain the highest perfection, we attain the abode of Sri Krishna and He promises that we will never return here.
This is so because the most merciful Lord rewards us with a spiritual body which is eternal and with this spiritual body (siddha-deha), we can be eternally in love with the Divine Couple.

In the Srimat Bhagavatam we find the following verse:

As raganuga-devotees in the line of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we are eager to reach our destination: Goloka Vrindavana.

In  the  tenth  section  of  the  Priti-sandarbha,  Jiva  Gosvamin  writes, commenting on the verse from above:

vaikuṇṭhasya bhagavato jyotir-aṁśa-bhūtā vaikuṇṭha-loka-śobha-rūpā yā anantā mūrtayas tatra vartante tāsām ekayā saha muktasyaikasya mūrtir bhagavatā kriyata iti vaikuṇṭasya mūrtir iva mūrtir yeṣām ity uktam
– (Prīti Sandarbha (10)

“In the  spiritual world, the Supreme Lord has unlimited spiritual forms, all are expansions of himself illuminating that  world.  With  each  one  of  those  forms,  the  Lord  enjoys  pastimes  with  a  single individual liberated soul.”

These liberated souls therefore have spiritual bodies like that of the Lord.

In  the  Lord’s  abode,  there  are  an  unlimited  number  of  forms,  all  suitable  for  rendering service to him. Every one of those forms is non-different from him, being expanded from his effulgence; each one is eternal, full of consciousness and bliss. They are the crowning, central jewels of the spiritual world—its very life. These unlimited spiritual bodies are the perfected forms of the liberated souls which are awarded to an individual, according to his taste,  when  he  reaches  the  state  of  absolute  liberation.  This  state  is  called  attainment  of the  spiritual  body.  All  these  spiritual  bodies  are  eternal  for  they  exist  even  before  the liberated souls enter them and will continue to exist ever afterward. However, prior to the entry of the liberated soul they are in an from OUR PERSPECTIVE –  inactive state.
As  all  of  the  unlimited  souls  are  servants  of  the  Lord,  each  one  of  them  has  a  spiritual body  in  the  Lord’s  abode  just  suitable  for  rendering  service  to  the  Lord.  When  an individual becomes qualified for direct service to the Lord by the grace of the Goddess of Devotion, then the Supreme Lord awards him that spiritual body.
( from Manjari Svarupa Nirupana, Sri Srimat Kunja Bihari das)

Kṛṣṇa Das: “The root kṛ  in Sanskrit can actually have any meaning, it does not mean just “create”. It is akin to the English “do”. One can express every activity with it. Kriyate in the passage does not mean that the spiritual body is created. The text itself says that mūrtayas tatra vartante, they are there eternally, tāsām (out of them) ekayā saha (with one) muktasya(of the liberated) ekasya (of the one) mūrtir (body) bhagavatā (by the Lord) kriyate (assign), i.e. the Lord awards one of the bodies that eternally reside in Vaikuṇṭha (in an inactive state) to the liberated one. vaikuṇṭasya mūrtir iva mūrtir yeṣām, the body that one is given is similar (iva) to that of Lord Vaikuṇṭha. Jīva Goswāmī wants to explain that one achieves bhagavat-tulyatvam at the stage of utkrānta-mukti (gone forth or out, gone over or beyond , passed , surpassed, trespassing , exceeding – Monier Williams) by quoting the Bhāgavata verse (3.15.14 vasanti yatra puruṣāḥ) there (utkrānta-mukti-daśāyāṁ tu teṣāṁ bhagavat-tulyatvam evāha). There is nothing like that that the spiritual body is created at some time. It is eternal. It is aprākṛta. The fact itself should make it clear that it can’t be created. “

So we can clearly see that this form is “already” there and Krishna “assigns” such a form to the jiva who reached perefection.

We can find this even in the Vedanta Sutra (that the siddha-deha is GIVEN and not inherent).
A nice devotee named Gaurasundara Dasa did wonderful research about this:

The concept of “assigning” a spiritual form” to a liberated jiva-soul:

What we clearly have to understand here is that these statements are dealing with the highest spiritual energy and with our “final destination”.
We use actually must use words to “describe” a situation which is far beyond our ability to comprehend. But nevertheless, to understand it with our material minds, we must use words and metaphors.

But let us first understand what kind of miracle is happening here.
The  jiva-soul, bound in material time since forever, has the chance to break free from this cycle of birth and death. The conditioning is since time immemorial (anadi), but by the mercy of the Lord, it can come to an end. How?
Let us see:

Krishna “possesses” 3 kinds of energies or “saktis”.

1. His “INNER” energy (cit-sakti) made of

• sandhini-sakti (existence)
• samvit-sakti (knowledge)
• hladini-sakti (bliss)

1. His “MARGINAL” energy (tatashta-sakti)
2. His “EXTERNAL” energy (bahiranga-sakti)

All these 3 energies are eternal and separate from each other.

Now, the living entity belongs to the “MARGINAL” energy and is inbetween the “INNER” and “EXTERNAL” energy.
Since the living entity, the spiritual soul, is a “drop of consciousness” (cit-con), it can be conscious of the material nature and identify with it or it can be conscious of the spiritual nature and identify with it.

cit-kana – jiva, krishna – cinmaya bhaskara
nitya krishne dekhi – krishne karena adara
– Prema-vivarta 6.1

The jiva (the spiritual soul) is an infinitesimal particle of spiritual consciousness, like an atomic particle of light emanating from the sun. Sri Krishna is the complete spiritual consciousness, the transcendental sun. When the jivas focus their attention on Krishna, they go to Him.

The jiva is either under dominion of the bahiranga-sakti or of the antaranga-sakti.
But the jiva is “in his own category” as an energy.
Nowhere in shastra we can find that the tatastha-sakti is part from or originates from the Lord´s inner energy or svarupa (antaranga)-sakti.

My good friend Advaita das blogged about this on his blog and he wrote about how Sriman Mahaprabhu taught Sripad Sanatana Goswami about the nature of the jiva:

LINK

(quote)

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhya-lila 20.108-109:

jivera ‘svarupa’ haya-krsnera ‘nitya-dasa’
krsnera ‘tatastha-sakti’ ‘bhedabheda-prakasa’
suryamsa-kirana, yaiche agni-jvala-caya
svabhavika krsnera tina-prakara ‘sakti’ haya

“It is the living entity’s constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Krsna, because he is the marginal energy of Krsna – a manifestation simultaneously one with and different from the Lord, like a molecular particle of sunshine or spark of fire. Krsna has three varieties of energy.”

viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā proktā
kṣetra-jùākhyā tathā parā
avidyā-karma-saṁjùānyā
tṛtīyā śaktir iṣyate
 – CC Ādi 7.119

“ ‘The potency of Lord Viṣṇu is summarized in three categories — namely, the spiritual potency, the living entities and ignorance. The spiritual potency is full of knowledge; the living entities, although belonging to the spiritual potency, are subject to bewilderment; and the third energy, which is full of ignorance, is always visible in fruitive activities.’

It is nowhere staed that the jiva-sakti is a partial manifestation of svarupa-sakti. Wherever there is a discussion of the Lord´s saktis, jiva-sakti and svarupa-sakti are mentioned as eternally separate. One also never becomes the other.

(unquote)

The jiva is here in this world since beginningless time (anadi) and when we start the path of bhakti, we can transform our consciouness into Krishna consciousness.

Bhakti is a combination of the hladini-sakti (BLISS) and the samvit-sakti (KNOWLEDGE). It originates in Krishna´s inner energy, the svarupa-sakti.
Ultimately it finds its origin in Srimati Radhika.

So when the jiva comes into contact with bhakti, it automatically COMES into contact with Krishna´s svarupa-sakti.
Bhakti is NOT already dormant in the heart. Sri Gurudeva plants the seed of bhakti into our heart. Bhakti can only come from someone who has already bhakti in his/her heart.

When we reach the goal of bhakti, Krishna rewards us with one of His unlimited forms.
The jiva is like a rod of iron and bhakti is like a fire. If we hold the iron rod long enough into the fire, the rod will imbue all the qualities of the fire.
Similarly, when we dive deep into the ocean of bhakti, the svarupa-sakti of the Lord will “transport us to our siddha-deha” when we reached our final goal in bhakti, PREMA.

Now, as we have seen earlier, my Paramgurudeva explains in his “Manjari Svarupa Nirupana” this “transportation” of the jiva to its siddha-deha with an example:

This  state  is  called  attainment  of the  spiritual  body.  All  these  spiritual  bodies  are  eternal  for  they  exist  even  before  the liberated souls enter them and will continue to exist ever afterward. However, prior to the entry of the liberated soul they are in an inactive state.

This is truly mind-blowing. We are FORCED to ask:

1) How can there be spiritual bodies for us BEFORE we enter?
2) How can they be there AND be INACTIVE?
3) Now we are here, they are there…what are they doing in the meantime?

BUT we have to understand ONE THING: These questions originate in a material conditioned mind. We are forced to THINK and FEEL and EXPERIENCE in a time-space-continuum.
BUT we are talking here about the SPIRITUAL WORLD…the innermost portion of Sri Krishna´s “creation”…the topmost realm of Divine Love…Goloka Vrindavana…
Our questions are BOUND to fail.
One very advanced sadhu told me: “You will understand these things, when you understand them.”

He told me that first of all, the realm and the “doings/arrangements” of Sri Krishna are acintya, inconceivable. His inner potency, Yoga-Maya, can make impossible things possible.
We can ONLY UNDERSTAND these “matters” when our consciousness is fully purified (suddha-sattva).
When our hearts are filled with the Lord´s inner potency (svarupa-sakti => BHAKTI), we can comprehend and realize these things.
How can we even try to understand the siddha-deha? It is a body made of “BHAVA” (spiritual emotions). Even the clothes we wear are symptoms of our bhava…
Right now, we cannot even imagine a body made of fire…what to speak of Lord Brahma´s body which is made of intelligence…

But this does not mean that we can foget it all…we can anyway never understand it. The meditation on the siddha-deha is useless…it is only my head-cinema producing a movie with me in a manjari-form.
No. This is not what the mahajanas teach us. All depends on our practice, on our consciousness and on our stage in bhakti.

Srila Narottam das Thakur sings:

sadhane ye dhana cai, siddha dehe taha pai,
pakkapakka matra se vicara
apakke sadhana riti, pakile se prema-bhakti,
bhakati lakshana tattva sara (56)

“The treasure I desire as a practitioner I will get when I attain my spiritual body; it’s just a question of being ripe or unripe. The ripe stage is the stage of pure loving devotion and the unripe stage is the stage of practice. That is the essential truth about devotional principles.”

So, we keep on practicing.

To think that “we as perfected jiva-souls” ENTER the spiritual world is also not a correct thinking pattern. It is not like we leave here and go there…and BAMM we appear in Goloka Vrindavana…
The spiritual world is eternal. There exists only ETERNAL PRESENCE.
It is not that 10 minutes ago, this liberated jiva was here in this world and then it entered the spiritual world.
The spiritual world is not a “geographical place” (neither is our tatastha-sakti by the way). It is not bound on time and space. It is a world of pure spiritual consciousness of existence.
Many people look up or wave to the sky when they talk about the spiritual world. But actually, it is RIGHT here…we are just not aware of it.
Already here our mind is defeated…

And to think that these spiritual forms are already there and man, what are they doing in the “meantime”…the mind bites its own tail…
THERE IS NO MEANTIME. There, in Goloka Vrindavana, is only NOW.
All is happening now. Ooooops…

When our citta (consciousness) is filled to the brim with the inner potency (svarupa-sakti) through the practice of raganuga-bhakti in the anugatya of Sri Gurudeva and the Vaishnavas, we can start to “GRASP” these transcensdental “secrets”.
The more we are “spiritualizing” our consciousness in the direction of pure bhakti, the more we will realize.

Right now we need metaphors like the forms “being inactive”. We “activate” them by our spiritual bhava. The true alchemy takes place when we fully identify with our Krishna-given form and when we do our seva to the Divine Couple in our siddha-deha.
Glimpses of our siddha-deha can be experienced at the stage of asakti.

I asked this same question to my Guru, Srila Ananta das Babaji.
He told me that the form is already there. The guru contacts in deep meditation  Krishna´s form as the all-knowing guru and the Lord tells Sri Guru what form would be compatible with the feelings of the sadhaka. Then Sri Gurudeva reveals that form to the sadhaka and instructs him in bhajana. He told me that actually our seva-consciousness “activates” that form.
He told me that the form is like a nice cloth which Krishna is giving to the liberated soul. A cloth “made of topmost spiritual bhava”…
By practicing raganuga-bhakti in manjari-bhava-sadhana, the form we will be assigned to will actually come from Srimati Radhika.

Dr O.B.L Kapoor writes beautifully in ‘The Philosophy and Religion of Sri Caitanya’ p. 196-7:

“By constant meditation or smarana he [the sadhak] makes the whole of Vraja-lila live before him. He enters into that lila in his imagination and by serving Krsna, according to the particular bhAva or mode of bhakti adopted by him, lives in the ecstasy of that vicarious enjoyment. The imaginary transcendental body (antascintita siddha deha), however, is not wholly imaginary. It is a mental reflection of the transcendental body, which Bhagavan, out of His infinite kindness, imparts to the devotee. That the transcendental body is a gift of Bhagavan is corroborated by Bhag.Pur. 3.9.11, ‘yadyad dhiya, [in order to confer Your Grace on the devotees, You manifest Yourself in that very form they meditate upon You.]’ Sri Visvanath Cakravarti, in his commentary, interprets the text to mean that Bhagavan imparts to the devotee a transcendental body exactly like the one which he imagines himself to possess and which is essential for the particular mode of bhakti practised by him, because He is bound to do so on account of His always being subservient to the devotees.
(…)
When the devotee is sufficiently advanced in devotion, he becomes free of the 5 kosa’s and realizes the spiritual body. The spiritual body is made of shuddha-sattva, the luminous, expressive and unfettered substance of the spiritual order. The imaginary spiritual body (antascintita siddha deha), which the devotee contemplates in raganuga-bhakti, is an imperfect replica of the siddha-deha he attains on fruition of his devotion.
Narottama Thakur says in Prema-bhakti-candrika 54-55, sadhane bhaviba jaha, that what the devotee desires and meditates upon in the stage of sadhana, he actually attains on the completion of sadhana. The imaginary or contemplated transcendental body therefore, is just the proper transcendental body in the making (pakvApakva mAtra ze bicAra)”

We can also think of another, granted, material example. When we study to become a teacher, the diploma already are there in the university. We have to qualify for it and then the teacher signs the diploma. It is not that the diploma doesn´t exist. Neither is it already in the heart of the student. The student CHOOSES his “profession”.

Or another one:
A father buys a car for the son. He keeps the car in the garage and when the son is qualified, he receives the car.

This are of course material examples but they helped me very much.

How Krishna now “assigns” one of such siddha-dehas is then slowly revealed. But to fully understand the mystic potency of the Lord is impossible.
His mercy alone is our hope and in His kind words we trust.
Yoga Maya will arrange what we cannot understand right now.

Srila Vishvanatha Cakravartipad tells us in his Raga-Vartma-Chandrika:

“One may ask: “Why don’t you say: ‘When the sadhaka attains the stage of prema and leaves his body, he will take a gopika-body in the spiritual world (aprakata prakasa) without first taking birth from the womb of a gopika, after which he manifests sneha, etc. there in that body through the association of the eternally perfect gopis?” The answer here is: “No, that will not happen, because without taking birth from the womb of a gopi one can not get a proper acquaintance according to the human-like pastimes there, like: “Whose daughter is this sakhi? Whose wife is she? Whose daughter-in-law is she?” “Allright then”, one may say, “then why not take birth in the aprakata prakasa?” Then the answer is: “No, that can also not be! Sadhakas (practising devotees) or materially conditioned souls can not enter into the transcendental manifestation named Sri Vrindavana, only perfected souls can enter it. Even through one’s own sadhana the feelings of sneha and so on are not easily attained there. Therefore Yogamaya takes those devotees, whose prema has awoken, to Krishna’s materially manifest pastimes in Vrindavana when Krishna descends there, for the sake of perfecting their feelings like sneha etc. before they attain Sri Krishna’s bodily association. Because practising devotees, fruitive workers and perfected devotees can all be seen to enter into the materially manifest Sri Vrindavana, it is experienced as both sadhaka bhumi (the land for practitioners) and siddha bhumi (the land for the perfect).

    “Then where will those most eager sadhakas stay all this time?” The answer is: “After the sadhaka-body perishes, that loving devotee, who has eagerly desired direct devotional service for a long time, will at once, by the Lord’s grace, receive the gift of the desired service and the audience of the Lord and His eternal associates, even though he has not yet attained the manifestations of prema like sneha and so, just as the Lord once bestowed His Personal audience to Narada Muni in his previous birth (see Srimad Bhagavata Canto One, Chapter Six). He will give the sadhaka a transcendental gopika-body. Yogamaya will make that body take birth from a gopika-body in the manifest pastimes, when Sri Krishna descends to earth with His eternal associates. There will be not even the slightest delay in that, because the prakata lila goes on without interruption. The liberated devotee will take birth in that material universe where Krishna plays His manifest Vrindavana-lila at the time. Sri Krishna and His associates always appear when the loving practising devotee leaves His body. Therefore, O greatly eager anuragi devotees! Do not fear! Be at ease! All is auspicious for You !” 

It is a most astonishing and a most wonderful thing that by the mercy of Sri Krishna we can have an eternal loving relationship with Him. Amazing grace!

The potency to “activate” such a siddha-deha and to become fully “transformed” by the svarupa-sakti is already in the heart of the jiva-soul.
Receiving the bhakti-lata-bija from Sri Gurudeva starts this most amazing journey of the soul.

My Gurudeva said that Srimati Radhika goes on “abhisara” every night (abhi-sara => closer to Her Beloved). He wrote that we too are on an “abhisara”. We are on the way to a most wonderful and EVERLSTING “future”…
On the way to a place where all questions will be answered by just BEING “THERE”.

Jay Sri Gurudeva.
Jay Sri Radhe.
Dandavats.
Special thanks to Advaita das.