Text 49] Scheduled Incarnations with Specific Functions 413
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
hy 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 lo the desires of the living being, the material body develops.
So from the spirit soul the material body comes into existence, gencrated
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 lo exist. And by the direction of
the Lord, because He is the ultimate benefactor, the living entity is al once
awarded the necessary spiritual body befitting his association with the
Lord in the manner of sdriipya (equal bodily feature), sdlokya (equal
facility to live in the same planet with the Lord), sdrsfi (equal possession
of opulence like the Lord), and sémipya (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-gitd.

In this connection detailed information is available in the Bhagavat-
sandarbha of Srila Jiva Gosvami Prabhupada. Once achieving the spiritual
