Answer
This influence continues through every form of life until one becomes a devotee. It is not that within the 8.4 million species these tendencies are absent or reduced—they are simply expressed differently. Lust, anger, greed, envy—all these exist in various forms. In human life they appear one way, in animal life another way, and even among more refined or sāttvic beings they take subtler forms. These enemies exist at all levels of conditioned existence, even up to Brahmā.
And this journey is not a one-way progression upward. One may rise to higher levels, but again fall down. The cycle continues. Within all these cycles, the living entity is actually tasting a kind of rasa. For example, when you become angry, you may feel a sense of power—“I shouted at him,” “I had the courage to express myself.” That itself becomes a kind of taste, a distorted enjoyment.
In this way, in all species of life, the soul is repeatedly “drinking” these poisonous rasas—experiencing perverted reflections of real spiritual emotions through contaminated consciousness. The spirit soul is pure, but due to conditioning, it seeks enjoyment even in these negative expressions.
So our goal is not merely to suppress or eliminate these negatives. Simply stopping them is not enough. The reason these negative rasas exist is because the positive is missing. There is no higher taste.
There is no rasa of surrender to Krishna, no rasa of loving service, no rasa of reciprocation with the Lord, no deep appreciation of His kindness and mercy. When these higher spiritual rasas awaken through bhakti, they naturally replace the lower, poisonous ones.
So the real solution is not just rejection, but replacement—to cultivate bhakti-rasa, where the soul finds its true fulfillment in loving exchange with Krishna.
