Text 49] Scheduled Incarnations with Specific Functions
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instead of speculating or meditating, can directly execute the routine devotional service of the Lord and thus easily obtain the desired goal.
The devotees, however, are naturally inclined to become associates of the Lord without being merged in the spiritual existence, as conceived by the impersonalist. The devotees, therefore, following their constitutional instincts, achieve the desired goal of becoming servitors, friends, fathers, mothers or conjugal lovers of the Lord. The devotional service of the Lord involves nine transcendental processes of hearing and chanting, etc., and by performing such easy and natural devotional services the devotees achieve the highest perfectional results, far, far superior to merging into the existence of the Brahman. The devotees are, therefore, never advised to indulge in speculating upon the nature of the Supreme, or artificially meditating on the void.
One should not, however, misunderstand that after the annihilation of this present body there is no body by which one can associate with the Lord face to face. The living entity is unborn. It is not that he is manifest with the creation of the material body. On the other hand, it is true that the material body develops only by the desire of the living entity. The evolution of the material body is due to such desires of the living being. According to the desires of the living being, the material body develops. So from the spirit soul the material body comes into existence, generated from the living force. As the living being is eternal, so he exists just like the air within the body. Air is within and without the body. Therefore when the external covering, the material body, is vanquished, the living spark, like the air within the body, continues to exist. And by the direction of the Lord, because He is the ultimate benefactor, the living entity is at once awarded the necessary spiritual body befitting his association with the Lord in the manner of  sārūpya  (equal bodily feature),  sālokya  (equal facility to live in the same planet with the Lord),  sārṣṭi  (equal possession of opulence like the Lord), and  sāmūpya  (equal association with the Lord).
The Lord is so kind that even if a devotee of the Lord cannot fulfill the complete course of devotional service unalloyed and uncontaminated by material association, he is given another chance in the next life by being awarded a birth in the family of a devotee or rich man so that without being engaged in the struggle for material existence, the devotee can finish the remaining purification of his existence and thus immediately, after relinquishing the present body, go back home, back to Godhead. This is confirmed in the  Bhagavad-gītā .
In this connection detailed information is available in the  Bhagavat-sandarbha  of Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī Prabhupāda. Once achieving the spiritual