Hard Struggle for Happiness 25

those mentioned in Bhagavad-gita, and we have to
adopt them in our practical lives for our own benefit.
The three miseries of material nature are not found
in the pastimes of the Supreme Lord. As mentioned
before, He is eternally joyful, and His transcendental
pastimes are not different from Him. Because He is
the Absolute Truth, His name, fame, form, qualities
and pastimes are all identical with Him. His pastimes,
therefore, cannot be equated with the sufferings of
humanity as the so-called svami contends. The
pastimes of the Supreme Lord are transcendental to
the actual miseries and sufferings of human beings.

The sufferings of humanity are caused by the
misuse of the discriminative power or the little
independenee which is given to individual souls.
The fraudulent svamis or mental speculators, in order
to remain consistent with the theory of monism,
must pass off the miseries of mankind as the pas-
times of God, but actually these miseries are only
the enforced punishments of Maya devi inflicted
upon the misguided conditioned souls.

As living entities, we are part and parcel of the
Supreme Lord. Indeed, we actually belong to His
superior energy. As such, we may join His transcen-
dental pastimes in our unconditioned state of life,
but as long as we are conditioned by the laws of
karma, in contact with the inferior energy, our
sufferings are our own creations, born of a gross
misuse of our little independence. The impersonalist
monists only misguide people by contending that
the threefold miseries are a part of the Lord’s pas-
