Answer
You are eternal; every living entity is eternal. Krishna states that there was never a time when you did not exist, nor I, nor all the people on the battlefield. This means we have always existed — there is no starting point. Therefore, our philosophy describes the conditioned state as anādi — beginningless. It cannot be traced historically or mathematically, because we are trying to trace it within material time, while the soul’s existence is beyond material time.
The time we experience here is relative — measured through bodies, change, and material events. But the soul itself is not situated within material space and time. If the soul were material, we could detect it with instruments. Even if described as one ten-thousandth the tip of a hair, that is not a material measurement; it refers to a transcendental reality. The soul is not physically sitting inside the body. Rather, the body is experienced through consciousness. The presence of the soul is known by symptoms — awareness, identity, and experience — which are not properties of matter.
Even now, you are not actually in the material world in the physical sense; you are experiencing it through consciousness. It is like watching a movie. You sit outside the screen, but your consciousness becomes absorbed, and you say, “I am in the movie.” In reality, you remain outside; the movie exists within your field of awareness. Similarly, the living entity is transcendental but experientially absorbed in material consciousness. We are transcendentally situated, yet fallen in awareness.
Therefore, when asked what we were before the lording tendency arose, the answer is that we were always servants of Krishna. It is not that we become servants at some point; service is our constitutional nature. We are part and parcel of Krishna, just as a small unit of consciousness relates to the Supreme Consciousness. The connection is eternal and cannot be broken.
The lording tendency arises through association with material nature. Krishna expands both spiritual and material energies. When consciousness turns toward material energy, it enters the drama of enjoyment and control. A false identity appears — the false ego — through which the living entity imagines, “I am the lord.” But the soul never actually becomes the lord; it only identifies with a temporary character, like identifying with a role in a movie.
This begins with two factors: association with material nature and forgetfulness of Krishna. When attention turns away from Krishna and toward material experience, consciousness becomes absorbed. Just as you cannot enjoy a movie without looking at the screen, material involvement begins when consciousness focuses on material energy. This turning away is possible because the living entity has minute independence.
Love requires freedom. If there were no choice, there would be no meaning to loving service. Therefore, the living entity has the potential either to serve Krishna or to attempt independent enjoyment. Krishna remains the whole; the jīva remains the tiny part. That relationship never changes. The living entity is eternally an aṁśa (part), and Krishna is the whole. What the living entity does with that independence determines whether consciousness remains Krishna-centered or becomes materially absorbed.
Thus, scripture explains two key points: the conditioned state is beginningless (anādi), and the living entity is constitutionally an eternal servant of Krishna. The fall is not a change in essence, but a change in consciousness — turning away from Krishna and identifying with material energy.
