The ideas
Vaishnava philosophy
Seven ideas, in the order the Bhagavad-gītā presents them. Each one rests on the one before: it starts with who you are and ends with why you are here.
1. You are not your body
This is the starting point, and the first thing Krishna teaches Arjuna. The body changes constantly: your childhood body no longer exists, and yet you are still you. The one who remains while everything changes is the soul, the ātmā.
The soul is never born and never dies. It did not come into being and will not cease to be. It is eternal and does not die when the body dies.
Bhagavad-gītā 2.20 (free rendering)
The soul is conscious by nature. Consciousness is not produced by the brain: it is the sign that the soul is present, just as light and heat are the sign that there is fire.
2. Reincarnation
If the soul does not die, when it leaves one body it takes another. The Gītā compares it to changing clothes: someone who takes off a worn-out garment puts on a new one. This passage from body to body, life after life, is called saṁsāra.
The next body is not a lottery. It depends on what you have desired and done, and especially on what you are thinking of at death. That is why the tradition insists so much on what we fill our minds with each day.
3. Karma
Karma means “action”. The law of karma says that every action produces a reaction that comes back to the one who did it, in this life or another. It is neither punishment nor reward: it is cause and effect.
Nor is it fatalism. The past explains the cards you hold; how you play them is up to you. And there is one kind of action that creates no reaction: action done as an offering to God, without claiming the result. Such action does not bind; it frees.
4. The three modes of nature
The material world acts on us through three forces, the guṇas. They colour what we eat, what we think and how we work, and they mix like primary colours.
| Mode | Shows up as | Leads to |
|---|---|---|
| Goodness (sattva) | Clarity, calm, cleanliness | Knowledge and contentment |
| Passion (rajas) | Desire, ambition, endless activity | Attachment and exhaustion |
| Ignorance (tamas) | Laziness, confusion, carelessness | Inertia and suffering |
Spiritual practice begins by cultivating goodness, but it does not stop there: devotion is above all three.
5. Māyā, forgetfulness
If we are eternal souls, why don’t we remember it? Because we are under māyā, “that which is not”. Māyā does not mean the world is false. It means we misread it: we take the body for the self, the passing for the permanent, and look outside for a happiness that lies only in our relationship with God.
6. Who God is
The tradition explains that the Absolute Truth is one, but it is perceived on three levels, depending on where you look from:
- Brahman: the spiritual light that pervades everything, without form. It is what the seeker of knowledge reaches.
- Paramātmā: God present in the heart of every being, as witness and guide. It is what the meditating yogi reaches.
- Bhagavān: God in person, with a name, a form and a character. It is what the devotee reaches.
It is like seeing a mountain from afar, then up close, and finally walking on it: the mountain is the same, but only at the end do you really know it. For Vaishnavas, Bhagavān is Krishna.
One with God and different from Him
Is the soul God? Śrī Caitanya answered with a precise formula: the soul is at once one and different. One in quality, because it is spiritual, eternal and conscious like Him. Different in quantity: a drop of the sea is the same water as the ocean, but it is not the ocean. That is why the relationship between them never disappears.
7. Why we are here
The goal is not to stop existing or to merge into a light. It is to recover the loving relationship with God, which the tradition calls prema. The soul is by nature a servant of Krishna, and is only fully happy when it lives out that nature.
The way there is bhakti-yoga. And for this age, marked by hurry and discord, the scriptures recommend one method above all others: chanting the names of God.
Frequently asked questions
Does karma mean that everything that happens to me is my fault?
It means nothing happens without a cause, not that you should blame yourself. The teaching looks forward: what you do today is in your hands, and devotion can change the course completely.
Can you be reborn as an animal?
According to the scriptures, yes. The soul passes through many forms of life, and the human one is especially valuable, because it is the one that lets you ask questions and seek God.
How is this different from Buddhism?
They share ideas such as karma and rebirth, but differ on the essentials: Buddhism does not speak of an eternal soul or a personal God, and its goal is the end of suffering. For Vaishnavism both exist, and the goal is a relationship.