The two forms of forgetting.
Maya, the material nature, causes us to forget our relationship with Krishna, God, the Supreme Person. In reality, maya means “what is not, or the illusion”, which has no existence.
It is therefore wrong to believe that the living being, the incarnate soul, has no connection with the Supreme Lord. He may not believe in the existence of God, or think that nothing connects them, but these are illusions, or maya. In the grip of this false conception of life, the human being languishes with endless fears and anxieties. In other words, any conception of life without God comes under maya.
It is our material body which comes from material nature, itself the external energy of God, which causes forgetfulness. Thus, through the material body in which it is embodied, the soul forgets who it is, as well as all its previous lives.
The first form of forgetting occurs at the moment of death. The soul being enclosed in its ethereal body is carried by the assistants of Lord Krishna into the womb of a new mother, who will thus give her a new material body. It is the body of matter, which plunges the embodied spiritual being into forgetting everything; of God, of his previous life, of his real identity, of real existence, of everything. This forgetting is accentuated by the external energy, the material energy of the Lord in his form of material nature, which influences the being embodied by his attributes and modes of influence that are; virtue, passion and ignorance. In reality, death is synonymous with forgetting.
The second form of forgetting. Whoever loses all notion of his body ceases to be chained to material existence. As long as we remain aware of our bodily existence, we lead a conditioned existence under the influence of the attributes of material nature. But as soon as we forget about physical existence, then conditioned material life comes to an end. But this forgetting becomes possible when we use our senses in the service of absolute love of the Lord. In the conditioned state, the incarnate being uses his senses by identifying himself with a given family, a community or a nation. But as soon as he forgets all these circumstantial material designations and realizes his eternal nature as a servant of the Supreme Lord, then he can truly forget all of material existence. This forgetting occurs when one serves the Lord.
The holy being no longer acts with his body for the satisfaction of the senses within the framework of a family, a community, a nation or of mankind, he works only for Krishna, God, the Supreme Person.
This is the perfect consciousness of God. The holy being is always bathed in spiritual bliss, so that he does not experience any material suffering. This state of spiritual bliss constitutes eternal happiness.