Prayers by the Personified Vedas
273
example stated in the  Vedas  of the sparks of a blazing fire is very appropriate for understanding the condition of different types of living entities. But above all other living entities is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa or Puruṣottama, who is always liberated from all material conditions.
“The question may be raised as to why the living entities have fallen by chance into different conditions of life. To answer this question, we first have to understand that there cannot be any influence of chance for the living entities; chance is for nonliving entities. According to the Vedic literatures, living entities have knowledge, and thus they are called  caitanya , which means in knowledge. Their situation in different conditions of life, therefore, is not accidental. It is by their choice because they have knowledge. In the  Bhagavad-gītā  the Lord says, ‘Give up everything and just surrender unto Me.’ This process of realizing the Supreme Personality of Godhead is open for everyone, but still it is the choice of the particular living entity whether to accept or reject this proposal. In the last portion of the  Bhagavad-gītā , Lord Kṛṣṇa very plainly said to Arjuna, ‘My dear Arjuna, now I have spoken everything to You. Everything now depends on whether you choose to accept it.’ Similarly, the living entities who have come down to this material world have made their own choice to enjoy this material world. It is not that Kṛṣṇa sent them into this material world. The material world is created for the enjoyment of living entities who wanted to give up the eternal service of the Lord to become the supreme enjoyer themselves. According to Vaiṣṇava philosophy, when a living entity desires to gratify his senses and forgets the service of the Lord, he is given a place in the material world to act freely according to his desire, and therefore he creates a condition of life in which he either enjoys or suffers. We should know definitely that both the Lord and the living entities are eternally cognizant. There is no birth and death for either the Lord or the living entities. When creation takes place, it does not mean that the living entities are created. The Lord creates this material world to give the conditioned souls a chance to elevate themselves to the higher platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If the conditioned soul does not take advantage of this opportunity, then after the dissolution of this material world, he enters into the body of Nārāyaṇa and remains there in deep sleep until the time of another creation.
“In this connection the example of the rainy season is very appropriate. Seasonal rainfall may be taken as the agent for creation because after the rainfall the wet fields are favorable for growing different types of vegetation. Similarly, as soon as there is creation by the Lord’s glancing over the