211. Blueprint of Life.

The creation is said to be HIS leela or divine play and there is nothing to be taken seriously here. This play follows some rules. Krishna explains these rules and says, "A part of My eternal self manifests as a living soul in the world of beings and attracts six senses and the mind which are a part of Prakriti (15.7). Presiding over the mind and the senses of hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell, he (the embodied soul) experiences the objects of the sensory world" (15.9). Krishna earlier talked about prakriti (nature) and purush (spirit) as beginningless. Gunas (qualities) and vikar (evolution or change) are born of prakriti (13.20). Prakriti is responsible for cause and effect; Purush is responsible for experiencing the polarities of sukh (pleasure) and dukh (pain) (13.21). Together, these verses present a blueprint for life.   Firstly, a part of HIM is inside each living being which we call the soul and in that sense we are never separate from HIM. It is just that we forget who we really are while experiencing the sensory world. Secondly, there is no answer to why the soul attracts senses and gets into the business of pleasure and pain. That's why it is just a leela and that's life.   Our broad understanding is that senses are very powerful and we need to learn to control them. Krishna gives a paradigm shift when he says that these senses were attracted by the soul in the first place. Once they meet their sense objects, they are bound to create polarities of pleasure and pain (2.14). These senses will have their way and become one's masters once they get attached to the soul. The game is to end this attachment and become the master of senses to use them like any other instrument.